Pete's Definitions (Reification, Legitimacy, & Plausibility)

Reification

• “apprehension of human phenomena as if they were things” Berger & Luckmann(1967) in Bailey & Gayle(2003)
• Forgetting the human origins of phenomena [from glossary in Bailey & Gayle(2003)]
• “Reification is the act of making an abstraction concrete. If participation is playing the game, reification is the rules and tools and records of the game. Wenger says ‘the process of giving form to our experience by producing objects that congeal this experience into ‘thingness’’(p.58).” Tagg(2003)

Legitimacy & Plausibility
• Legitimacy is to give public credibility and currency to ideas, people, objects, icons. Often legitimacy refers to that which is established within status quo arrangements of society. [from glossary in Bailey & Gayle(2003)]
• “plausibility structures become most evident and precarious in cases of acculturation” Bailey & Gayle(2003)

Valerie's Definintions (Hegemony & Socializing Agent)

Hegemony – “…refers to a situation in which a provisional alliance of certain social groups can exert ‘total social authority’ over other subordinate groups, not simply by coercion or by the direct imposition of ruling ideas, but by ‘winning and shaping consent so that the power of the dominate classes appears both legitimate and natural’”.

Hebdige, D. (1979). Subculture: The meaning of style (15-16). London: Routledge

Socializing Agent – an entity or person that shapes issues or positions to influence society such as the government or media for example through movies, documentaries, news, editorials, and advertisements.

Bailey, G., & Gayle, N. A. (2003). Ideology: Structuring identities in contemporary life. Peterborough, Ontario: Broadview Press.

Dave's Definitions (Civil Society & Public/Private Sectors)

Civil society is comprised of the social units and networks (family, church, volunteer associations, labor unions, etc.) that function to address problems and demands held by individuals and groups vis-à-vis the state. The state, for Marx, works to manage the multidimensional relationships between those who run the means of production and the masses. Marx’s critique is that historically the state has managed these relationships via capitalist systems that ultimately serve the owners of the means of production over and against the working classes. Following Marx’s logic, the difference between the public sector and private sector is little and often shifting. In theory the public sector is charged with ensuring the maintenance of the means that promote the common good (access to public education, drinking water, public health care, social safety nets, and public policy that promotes such goods). The private sector, in contrast, is the sphere in which individuals’ particular interests and the means of production (for profit enterprises) are managed without direct intervention from the public sector. Given the state’s influence on (and buttressing of) the private sector through the public sector (e.g, selling an interpretation of history that promotes capitalism), one cannot very cleanly differentiate between the public and private sector. Civil society can serve as an advocate for groups of individuals and / or as a counterbalance of sorts to the state; civil society provides individuals leverage to influence the state.

The Dot Exercise

This was forwarded to me by Buffy.

Dot Exercise
(45 Minutes)
Hang the seven statements on the walls and instruct students that silently you would like them to place the dots that they are given up on the pad. On one side of the page is agree, the other side of the page is disagree – however, you aren’t going to use the dots to reflect what you believe – but rather what other people have taught you.
Yellow Dot – What you learned in school K – 12th Grade
Red Dot – What you learned from the media and televsion
Green dot – What you learned from your family or guardians
Blue Dot – What you learned from community organizations, after school programs, religious organizations etc.
Emphasize before the place the dots that they are simply noticing who taught them things, and not judging – this is a form of tracking, which we will speak about throughout the program.

Move through the exercise, one color at a time – ask students to give example of why they placed their dot where. All the same time, noticing – not judging.
When you have gone though all of the colors – ask if there are any recognizable patterns.

Statements:
· Poor people are lazy
· Everyone is equal
· In the US if you try hard, you will succeed
· Some races are more intelligent than others
· In some ways men are just more competent than women
· The only healthy relationship is a heterosexual relationship
· The best person for a job is probably not the person with the disability

Processing:
Do you notice any patterns?
Can anyone give me an example?
How does this change the way you view what you were taught?
How does this relate to orientation?
How can you mediate the former experiences of your orientee’s?
One thing you have taken away from this exercise?

Ideological Spectrum

Learning Curve: Middle Eastern College Students in the U.S.

YouTube Clip
Middle Eastern students talk about their experience studying in the U.S.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_SJ-Kx_xSk

Assessing Your Embedded Preferences

Project Implicit through Harvard University

This group researches conscious and unconscious preferences. I thought it would be an interesting activity to do, considering our planned discussion of Ideology in next weeks class. They ask for your email address to "register" but it appears to me that it will not lead to any kind of advertisements being sent to you.

https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/research/