Local Matters Response

 Social identities play a huge part in our daily life. I suggest that it could be traced back to our ancestors who had tribal life. To gain acceptance they need to conform to the group in order to survive. The urge to become more “like others” and the human habit to categorize people into certain category are interesting remaining habits of that kind of life in the wilderness. People need to conform. And they need to find their own place. If one constantly intrudes other’s interests or they look different from others, even though that is one’s personality, one could be punished and determined as an outcast.  As in the article, even though the girl behaves “well” in some people’s opinions because of her activeness in class, as time goes on her “boldness” becomes a bad thing because everyone else does not do that and everyone else does not give “clever contrarian statements”.

There are two words here, clever and contrarian. People could allow you to be clever, for some period of time, but not always, especially when your cleverness leads to pointing out contrary things against their popular opinion or personal interests. Cleverness, if well contained or combined with modesty, could be accepted by the population. If not, it would be hard for that person to survive in the group. I believe that is just one thing about humanity.

Moreover, categorizing black males as resistant has caused people to question the identity of the boy who behaved well. This shows how people are so into the categorization notion that they unwarily just want things to be “the same”. It could suggest why some students, if considered bad by the teachers, would become even “worse”. Whereas, if students were expected to behave, and the teachers think that they do have the goodwill to behave in class, some of the students would actually do that. It tells us how the influences of personal thoughts could lead to change in people. The pressure to conform is constant, especially for high school students, among peers.

As in the article, social categories are transformed from imagination to incarnation. The reinforcement of self-identity plays a crucial part of the children’s life. Last but not the least, this should not be just a gender problem. I think even though it emphasizes that it was boys and girls that they are separating, the majority of the class was African American. IF the class is consisted of Caucasians, I don’t think the results are still the same. Even though people say it’s just gender, it certainly has race implications. It is also addressed in the article. 

评论

  1. Mati 2021年7月29日 17:15

    Yes, very good points - And, the last bit, that race certainly played a much more significant role in the dynamic than the researcher seemed to imply -- This would be true in Canada too of course, but this research was done in the United States where overtly categorizing people by race is even more extreme than in Canada -- issues of race must not be ignored. Many years ago, when I was visiting the United States, a friend of a friend asked me if, in my school in Canada, there are "a lot of African Americans and Latin Americans" .... but, I could tell from the context of the conversation that she was really trying to ask if there are problems with gang violence in my school - I was completely shocked, and horrified, that instead of asking about a behaviour she asked about racial groups -- I told her what I was thinking, and then she was completely embarrassed and ashamed of herself (that was the correct response on her part). She had a self-image of someone who is "not racist" .... but, her deeply engrained assumptions about student behaviour were 100% framed around race - It was subconscious on her part -- she apologized, and felt horrible about it, but it was actually a good opening for us to change the conversation to being about the way assumptions about people based on race can actually box those people in to those behaviours, and that this is endemic within the United States. It's also a vitally important issue in Canada, and it's important the Canadians acknowledge that, and work to change - Thank you for your writing! You got me thinking!

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