A Jeanne Site
California State University, Dominguez Hills
University of Wisconsin, Parkside
Latest update: January 13, 2000
Faculty on the Site.
- Panel: Practice Meets Practice through Theory
- Creating an Academic Infrastructure for Lifetime Learning
- Defining Crime in the New Millennium: Downsizing
- Institutional Racism: Judgment Without Recourse
- Accountability, Privilege, and Critical Race Theory
- Social Construction of a Peacemaking Identity
- Child Labor, Competitive Markets, and Where Shall We Find an Interstate Commerce Clause?
- Intersectionality and Identity: Continuing Complexities
Jeanne Curran
California State University, Dominguez Hills
Department of Sociology
1000 E. Victoria
Carson, California 90747
Phone: 310-243-3831
E-mail: jcurran@csudh.eduand Susan R. Takata
Department of Sociology
and Department of Criminal Justice
University of Wisconsin, Parkside
E-mail: takata@uwp.eduAbstract:
Members of this panel are working throughout the late Fall of 1999 and early Spring of 2000 to create a university-community partnership to bring research and practice together. From California State University, Dominguez Hills, Prof. Curran brings the perspective of a forum and virtual community-base provided over the Internet (http://www.csudh.edu/dearhabermas). Prof. Takata brings the perspective of a four-year sister university joining to produce both the forum and the virtual community. Prof. O.W. Wilson, also of Dominguez Hills, brings both a political science perspective and extensive connections with the local community. Stanley Salas, Samuel Mark, Elizabeth Greenwood, Jaime Shepherd, and Mark Yesia, and Armond McDaniels, Sr. bring the community perspective. All are united through the production of the Website and their exploration of ways in which to bring the many facets of practice together in an academic setting that provides theoretical support. It is our hope that this panel will be able to provide others with the nucleus for adapting the mechanisms of discourse on their own campuses.
Papers Submitted for Regular Sessions
Creating an Academic Infrastructure for Lifetime Learning
by Marlene Boykin
California State University, Dominguez Hills
Sociology Department
1000 E. Victoria
Carson, CA 90747
Phone: 310-243-3831and Shana Hindman, University of Wisconsin, Parkside
and Jolanta Smith, University of Wisconsin, Parkside
and Sharon Raphael
California State University, Dominguez Hills
Sociology Department
1000 E. Victoria
Carson, CA 90747
Phone: 310-243-3431Abstract:
Lifetime learning is a goal expressed by many as we contemplate the shift in age frequencies in the population. This paper describes a virtual cmmunity at a local university that has explored means of developing both a network of older adults, both students and non-students, in lifetime learning. We have looked at the patterns of ageism through the approach of critical race theory, judging that awareness of needs and validity claims of the older adults needed to be addressed by providing them with both voice and forum. We discuss our success both with face to face interactions on our campus, with online interactions, and with efforts to deconstruct existing stereotypes.
Defining Crime in the New Millennium: Downsizing
by Clifford Parks
California State University, Dominguez Hills
Sociology Department
1000 E. Victoria
Carson, CA 90747
Phone: 310-243-3831Sonya Flower, University of Wisconsin, Parkside
and Travis Fraser, University of Wisconsin, Parkside
Abstract:
Downsizing has become a normative part of life at the turn of the millennium. But, no matter. The economy is doing well. Or is it? Does it matter that jobs are being lost as corporate production moves abroad, the better to let supply and demand dictate through free markets? Jobs are being lost. The income distribution gap is ever widening. This paper investigates what this means to public discourse, legitimacy, and our understanding of justice over the next few decades.
Rawls suggests that we adopt our goals and values not just for ourselves, but also for the good of the society to which we belong. Soros suggests that as individuals seeking our own good in the market we follow selfish individual goals, but as recognized members of a community or society we can and must follow the good of society. But recognition as members of that community is often based on privilege, and identities may very well be socially constructed. All this leads us to hold some ideal of societal good, but to often deviate from that good for our own individual good. Deviance is but one step from that stage at which the society defines such behavior as a crime. Though it's hard to do, given the state, or non-state of international law. Though cruise ships hopelessly pollute our oceans we are unable to charge them with crime. Many would, and the discussion of corporate crime grows, almost as when we once spoke of corporate liability for the unforeseen harm of doing business. (asbestos, tobacco) This paper addresses the issue of societal justice and responsibility in terms of the recognized need to compete in the free market and to adapt to global conditions. Where does a Habermasian consideration of the tension between the individual and the community take us?
Institutional Racism: Judgment Without Recourse
by Stanley Salas
California State University, Dominguez Hills
Sociology Department
1000 E. Victoria
Carson, CA 90747
Phone: 310-243-3831Darren Roger, University of Wisconsin, Parkside
and Ernesto Vaca, University of Wisconsin, Parkside
Abstract:
An understanding of institutional racism has been with us for some time. But that does not prevent its being hard to recognize. It sounds so just when we are told that the rules are for everyone. But privilege is another concept long familiar to us, and we know that the unstated assumptions behind the rules reflect privilege. This paper addresses one perspective of judgment when both privilege and institutional racism play a significant part.
In the world of criminal justice officers of the state have a very special privilege. Not only are they on the side of "right," they also have the titular or sovereign power (Covaleskie) to enforce their privileged perception of "right." If we consider the Habermasian concept of legitimacy, of the right of each citizen to have her validity claims heard in good faith, then we recognize the difficulty of the titled authority in balancing the privileged perception with that of the accused wrongdoers. This is not just an alternative validity claim; it is a directly opposing claim. And yet the crucial nature of the judgment makes it even more imperative that privilege be balanced by good faith listening legitimacy. This paper discusses the dilemma in terms of theory which can aid in both policy and practice.
Accountability, Privilege, and Critical Race Theory
by Mark Yesia
California State University, Dominguez Hills
Sociology Department
1000 E. Victoria
Carson, CA 90747
Phone: 310-243-3831Chris Albee, University of Wisconsin, Parkside
and Todd Stepanek, University of Wisconsin, Parkside
University of Wisconsin, Parkside
Abstract:
Martha Minow (Making All the Difference: Inclusion and Exclusion in American Law has emphasized the importance of stating those assumptions which have been left unstated and resulted in special privileges with the injustice they bring. Peggy McIntosh ("White Privilege, Color, and Crime: A Personal Account") has demonstrated the importance of personal narrative to bringing such privilege to a level of awareness. This paper addresses a third aspect of privilege and its dilemmas: that of knowing when where, and how to take an active stance in confronting such privilege. Accountability, or one's personal responsibility for oppression and discrimination, even when one is not the perpetrator, need not be in a one-to-one correspondence with actual events. Recent accountability efforts have proven too linear, too direct, too immediate, and lacking in forgiveness, trust, and good faith. We suggest that accountability would be more effective, and privilege confronted more effectively, if we recognized that accountability is not as easily measured as the positivist world once believed, and that we must trust in our community and allow sometimes for generations before effects are realized.
Once privilege is recognized, and an attempt made not to accept the privileging of advantaged subjectivity, we need to forgive ourselves our own privilege and allow our own good faith to choose the best and most important moments for confrontation. The problem of "selling out," of settling comfortably into "privileged" status, is always with us. In this paper we contrast this dilemma to the emphasis in critical race theory of speaking out and making our voices heard.
Social Construction of a Peacemaking Identity
by Michael Planck
California State University, Dominguez Hills
Sociology Department
1000 E. Victoria
Carson, CA 90747
Phone: 310-243-3831and Brian Coffman
University of Wisconsin, Parkside
Abstract:
An approach to peacemaking involves the construction of identities not threatened by forgiveness and by the good faith of active listening to the Other. In recent months, as we contemplate the enormity of war, "genetic cleansing," and the inevitable aftermaths, we recognize more poignantly than ever that our globe is too small to permit vengeance and self-interest to overcome the peacemaking that must begin. This paper describes the way in which one virtual community went about establishing dialog, offering substantive information on the issues of forgiveness and good faith, in an attempt to begin public discourse that might make peacemaking possible.
We started with Habermas' description of hope in public discourse in pursuit of legitimacy and a system of law that might permit our living together. But we have considered also the "Saturated Self" and the impact that context has on our identities and on our discourse, and the more internalized problem of bad faith as we approach the discourse table. We have attempted to glean from these many differently oriented theorists a basic data set of knowledge to guide small community groups that care enough to try peace.
Child Labor, Competitive Markets,
by Dolly Honor Klett
and Where Shall We Find an Interstate Commerce Clause?
California State University, Dominguez Hills
Sociology Department
1000 E. Victoria
Carson, CA 90747
Phone: 310-243-3831Abstract:
Child labor was of major concern as the U.S. grew into industrialization. Children who had once worked hard, but relatively safely in the fields were now subjected to the dangers of machinery in the factories. As each state tried to enact child safety laws and prohibit child labor, other states clamored for their market share, forcing them back to allowing child labor. Finally, the federal government stepped in with the Interstate Commerce Clause, making it illegal to ship goods across state lines if the goods were made by child labor. Now, as we shift to global markets, and as there is no international legal group with the power to enforce the prohibition of child labor, what issues will we once again face in this matter. This paper reviews historical parallels.
Intersectionality and Identity: Continuing Complexities
by Thynesia >Harris
California State University, Dominguez Hills
Sociology Department
1000 E. Victoria
Carson, CA 90747
Phone: 310-243-3831and Shirron Hill
University of Wisconsin, Parkside
Abstract:
Intersectionality holds already within its context the sense that there is some overall general cooperative association to which we all belong. Hence the "inter" of intersectionality suggesting a bridge between the sections. But if we look at the analogies raised by authors like Kimberle Crenshaw we realize that black and female do not connote the same intersectionality as do white and male. In this paper we have chosen to explore the extent to which validity is granted on the basis of identities both objective and subjective, as socially constructed by a context that is affected by a variety of tensions. Habermas speaks of the tension between the individual and the cooperative human association to which that individual belongs. Dworkin speaks of the tension in choosing which rules and laws apply to the context. Gordon speaks of the tension between ignorant and authentic good faith.
All of these tensions are considered within the context of narrative and its role in granting validity to the voice of gender and of race, of identity and the extent to which it can be usefully regarded as socially constructed, of the need to confront such issues directly and unequivocally in the coming decades.