The meaning of difference : American constructions of race, sex and gender, social class, sexual orientation, and disability : a text/reader

Constructing categories of difference

Framework essay

What is race? what is ethnicity?

"Race" and the construction of human identity / Audrey Smedley

Who is black? : one nation's definition / F. James Davis

The evolution of identity : the Washington Post : personal account : a loaded vacation / Niah Grimes

Real Indians : identity and the survival of native America / Eva Marie Garroutte

Asian American panethnicity : contemporary national and transnational possibilities / Yen Le Espiritu

Personal account : I thought my race was invisible / Sherri H. Pereira

Whiteness as an "unmarked" cultural category / Ruth Frankenberg

America's changing color lines : immigration, race/ethnicity, and multiracial identification / Jennifer Lee and Frank D. Bean

Personal account : the price of nonconformity / Julia Morgenstern

From friendly foreigner to enemy race / John Tehranian

Personal account : master status : pride and danger / Sumaya Al-Hajebi

What is sex? : what is gender?

The gendered society / Michael S. Kimmel

Personal account : basketball / Andrea M. Busch

Where's the rulebook for sex verification? / Alice Dreger

All together now : intersex infants and IGM / Riki Wilchins

What is social class?

What's class got to do with it? / Michael Zweig

More or less equal? / The Economist

The silver spoon : inheritance and the staggered start / Stephen J. McNamee and Robert K. Miller Jr

Personal account : I am a Pakistani woman / Hoorie I. Siddique

What is sexual orientation?

The biology of the homosexual / Roger N. Lancaster

A new paradigm for understanding women's sexuality and sexual orientation / Letitia Anne Peplau and Linda D. Garnets

The heterosexual questionnaire / Martin Rochlin

What is disability?

Disability definitions : the politics of meaning / Michael Oliver

Personal account : invisibly disabled / Heather L. Shaw

A world of their own / Liza Mundy

Ethnicity, ethics, and the deaf-world / Harlan Lane

Section II: Experiencing difference

Framework essay

Race and ethnicity

Formulating identity in a globalized world / Carola Surez-Orozco

Latinos and the U.S. race structure / Clara E. Rodriguez

Muslim American youth / Selcuk R. Sirin and Michelle Fine

Personal account : hair / Sarah Faragalla

Everybody's ethnic enigma / Jelita McLeod

Personal account : my strategies / Eric Jackson

Sex and gender

It's all in the family : intersections of gender, race, and nation / Patricia Hill Collins

Proving manhood / Timothy Beneke

Personal account : just something you did as a man / Francisco Hernandez

Gendered sexuality in young adulthood / Laura Hamilton and Elizabeth A. Armstrong

Sexual orientation

Beyond the closet : the transformation of gay and lesbian life / Steven Seidman

Personal account : living invisibly / Tara S. Ellison

Dude, you're a fag / C.J. Pascoe

Sexual orientation and sex in women's lives : conceptual and methodological issues / Esther D. Rothblum

Social class

Class and the transition to adulthood / Annette Lareau and Elliot B. Weininger

Personal account : that moment of visibility / Rose B. Pascarell

Cause of death : inequality / Alejandro Reuss

Why are droves of unqualified, unprepared kids getting into our top colleges? : because their dads are alumni / John Larew

Disability

Public transit / John Hockenberry

"Can you see the rainbow?" the roots of denial / Sally French

Not blind enough : living in the borderland called legal blindness / Beth Omansky

Personal account : a time I didn't feel normal / Heather Callender

The meaning of difference

Framework essay

Ideology : natural-law language and stereo types oppression / Marilyn Frye

Blink in black and white / Malcolm Gladwell

Personal account : just like my mama said / Anthony McNeill

See baby discriminate / Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman

Between barack and a hard place / Tim Wise

The model minority : Asian American "success" as a race relations failure / Frank Wu

Personal account : let me work for it! / Isabelle Nguyen

The gender revolution uneven and stalled / Paula England

Law, public policy, and economy

Fourteen key supreme court cases and the civil war amendments

Segregation : the rising costs for America / James H. Carr and Nandinee K. Kutty

Personal account : learning my own privilege / Mireille M. Cecil

Land rich, dirt poor : challenges to asset building in native America / Meizhu Lui, Barbara J. Robles, Betsy Leondar-Wright, Rose M. Brewer, and Rebecca Adamson

Multiple origins, uncertain destinies : Hispanics and the American future / Marta Tienda and Faith Mitchell, editors

Personal account : what's in a name? / Ruth C. Feldsberg

Crossing the color line : a historical assessment and personal narrative of loving V. Virginia / Robert A. Pratt

Popular culture

Framing class : media representations of wealth and poverty in America / Diana Kendall

Loot or find : fact or frame? / Cheryl I. Harris and Devon W. Carbado

Personal account : he hit her / Tim Norton

The protean n-word / Randall Kennedy

Disability and representation / Rosemarie Garland-Thomson

Female chauvinist pigs / Ariel Levy

Gender stereotyping in the English language / Laurel Richardson

Bridging differences

Framework essay

Lilly's big day / Gail Collins

The other movement that Rosa Parks inspired : by sitting down, she made room for the disabled / Charles Wilson

Influencing public policy / Jeanine C. Cogan