Race, Religion, Social Class, And Ethnicity

Growing up in Park Ridge, Illinois was significantly different from where I was born in Morristown, New Jersey. One of the most startling differences was apparent in the make-up of the student body. In Morristown, I attended an elementary school with a diverse student body; many of my schoolmates were African American and I remember even at a young age, students regardless of race interacting all-together without any sense of stigma attached to it. In that sense, while attending elementary school, since it was the norm to have friends of different races, I did not think very much of my race.

One’s identity has the ability to play a central role in one’s schooling experience and in return, affect the way they perceive the world around them. Growing up in an Asian household located in a predominately Asian American neighborhood located in the San Gabriel Valley, I always identified myself strongly to my race and took pride in being a first generation Asian American child. Race has definitely affected my schooling experience in many different ways, both positively and negatively. In addition, there were a variety of other aspects such as stereotypical gender roles and socioeconomic class status which factored into the way I learned in the U.S. education system. In this paper, I will examine how race, class, and gender played a big role throughout my schooling experience.

There are some groups that none of us has any choice in whether we belong to them or not. Factors such as gender, ethnicity, family and even social status are at birth, groups that we belong to, yet cannot choose, and many of these endure throughout life. Although family, religious beliefs and even social status can be altered in later life, all of these groups are ones that are integral to an individual’s identity and in fact add it in life. However, as a child their influence is perhaps even more important as in these formative years one’s gender, culture, family and even religion actively create individual identity.

In his essay, “Racial Identities”, Kwame Anthony Appiah addresses the topic of racial identification. He describes how and why it’s hard not to identify someone based on their race. Today in the United States, racial identification is quite relevant. People judge and stereotype others based on race. Classifying people based on their looks isn’t bad, it’s the negative attitudes and labels that come with it. Racial identification is hard for most people to avoid, is detrimental due to the bad attitudes people have, negatively affects people’s lifestyles, and divide people.

In the book “To Kill A Mockingbird”, Mayella Ewell is the conflict of the story. To challenge herself to see if she is powerful based on class, gender, and race. Mayella is powerful due to her race; however, she would not be powerful due to her class and gender. One might think she is powerful over all; however, she does not have power in the eyes of some readers. Proceeding on to see if Mayella has power in race.

My pre-adolescent years were spent in a community thick with diversity. My friendships were as diverse as the environment in which I lived. It never struck me that racial and ethnic ideals separated people in society. However, upon moving to a predominately white upper-class community I began to question such racial and ethnic ideas. From my adolescent years through today I began noticing that certain people are viewed differently for reasons relating to race and ethnicity. As a result, the most recent community I grew up in has kept me sheltered from aspects of society. As a product of a community where majorities existed, I found myself unexposed to the full understanding of race and ethnicity. Prior to the class I had never fully dealt with issues of race or ethnicity, as a result I wondered why they would be of any importance in my life.

Along with that, racial identity is another big contributor to the degradation of African American’s youth mental health, as a weak racial identity results in poorly mishandled ways of coping with racism and stress. African American students as early as middle school engage in introspection of their racial identity, where they begin to discover who they are and the negative stereotypes surrounding their identity (Cheryl Holcomb-McCoy, 2007, p.256). The results of a study of 297 African American adolescents by McCreary, Slavin, and Berry found that a strong pride in racial identity was important in handling stress in a positive manner and decreasing poor mental health (Cheryl Holcomb-McCoy, 2007, p.256). Students were less likely to internalize negative racial stereotypes that devalue their worth and build resistance towards it. If not, students were more susceptible to succumbing to stereotype threat, racial bias, and a negative self-fulfilling prophecy that could alter their well-being and threaten their mental health. Chronic exposure to this can severely damage African Americans adolescents’ mental health, which is evident by their mental withdrawal in school and loss of interest or motivation to achieve academic success.

Racial dissonance is the view on life minorities have on social settings, education, and peers that they most commonly associate, but prefer the life of majority values or people. Academics, self-esteem and overall preference are affected and manifest themselves in ways sometimes psychological or behavioral. African American students and Caucasian students were the participants used in this study to determine how what they learned and absorbed can ultimately affect the way their model their lives and view themselves.

I would like to discuss the issue of race and ethnicity in sports. We will also explore the bigger questions. How much does race and ethnicity matter in the sports world? Are certain races dominant in certain sports? Is there a difference in how we treat players based on race and ethnicity? Does it matter? I would like to answer some of these questions and gain a better understanding of how much of a part they play.

1. Describe the difference between race and ethnicity. What roles do race and social class continue to play in the United States?

The purpose of this paper is to assess two research based articles from a psychology journal from two different time periods. The assessment was to compare the way gender, ethnicity, and class was represented in each of the articles and how they differ from each time period. The articles were chosen from the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. The first article was from 1976 titled, “Impact of fear of success and sex-role attitudes on women’s competitive achievement” (Peplau, 1976). The second article of interest was titled, “Psychological well-being and job stress predict marital support interactions: A naturalistic observational study of dual earner couples in their homes” (Wang & Repetti, 2014).

Race, ethnicity, religion, class, sexual orientation, ability, and gender have all impacted my life in ways beyond my total comprehension. However, I can begin to identify some of the notable interactions and effects and discuss the ways in which they might present themselves in my teaching practices. I am a White, European American, Christian, and heterosexual female without a medically ascribed disability. I can say that ultimately (and unfortunately) my cultural and physical identity is considered normative within the United States and has placed me on a path of privilege and power. Throughout my life, though, I have been fortunate to encounter other cultural groups in very meaningful ways. My international, religious, and family experiences have shaped my worldview most notably.

Fifth, psychological issues often intersect with racism issues. People generally do not like those who are different from them. It does not matter whether these differences consist in nationality, skin colors, sexual orientation or something else. Of course, it can be explained based on psychology. For example, the history teaches us that for centuries only those who belong to your community were the only ones to help, while others used to be a threat. Furthermore, racism matter is in “deep evolutionary roots” and people have a “universal tendency to form coalitions and favor our own side” (Culotta, 2012). Moreover, Culotta (2012) confirmed that “in experiments people easily form coalitions based on meaningless traits such as preferring one painter over another.” Examples can be different; nevertheless, uniting into groups is essential for people. In this case, providing an explanation to public that race as people dividing concept does not exist can contribute to uniting. Generally, race concept can be reviewed only on two bases (Darder & Torres, 2009). One basis is a biological fact that all the people belong to one race (Fuentes, 2012). The other basis is that race exists as a historical and social concept (Darder & Torres, 2009). This information seems obvious, when we think about it. Racism is a serious problem in diverse schools because the curriculum is based on dominant culture perspectives. Thus, to decrease this hidden curriculum aspect we should concentrate on

The relationships of gender, age, and ethnicity can all impact how a person will react and cope with the death of a loved one. Gender is impactful in the way that women are expected to much more emotional and dramatic in their response to death, where men expected to remain stoic and unaffected by a death as to not show weakness to those they are to protect. In children and adolescents its important to acknowledge age but also assess developmental level. Adults need to remain honest with children and be mindful of their actions because that’s how they will learn to grieve positive or negative. Ethnicity and culture

In questioning second grade and fourth grade students in New York City, the researchers suggest that middle childhood is the period for ethnic identity development. Researchers selected racially diverse students which consisted of Black, Chinese, Dominican, Russian and White students. They were asked a series of questions on what it means to be their ethnicity and correlating factors that can play a role due to their ethnicity.