Example of article review on race and ethnic relations

In Harris, Hackett and Firestone’s article ” Double Jeopardy: Race/Ethnicity and Sexual Harassment in the U. S. Military” (2011), research is performed on a sample of respondents from a survey conducted by the Department of Defense, whose purpose was to figure out how often sexual harassment occurs within the military based on race and ethnicity. This was done to determine whether or not minorities have a greater likelihood of experiencing sexual harassment in the military.

According to the results, black women do not experience a higher degree of sexual harassment based on their race, but Hispanics and those of other races encounter varying degrees of increased harassment. The frequency in reporting is also intriguing, with black women being much less likely than white women to report sexual harassment. The double-jeopardy hypothesis posited by the authors states that there is much more harassment than expected placed upon minority women due to their race as much as their gender.

Two unanswered questions arise from this article

* What factors lead to racial differences in sexual harassment?
* What consequences can sexual harassment of minorities have on the impact of military officers specifically?

In Engberg and Hurtado’s ” Developing Pluralistic Skills and Dispositions in College: Examining Racial/Ethnic Group Differences” (2011), the differences in ethnic groups relating to their ability to become multitaskers and diversely skilled people is examined. Workplace competencies are the primary skill measured here, and how these skills are learned in college. Given the pluralistic society in which Americans live, the study aims to determine student’s ability to interact with other cultures, including becoming bilingual and more confident and assertive in their general interactions with others. The effect of these classes on interschool interactions between races was measured and examined, as well as the levels of intergroup learning and anxiety within the student body. The success of several different types of diversity courses were studied to see which races benefited the most from them, both in knowledge and in their social interactions.

According to their results, Latino students were the only ones who encountered significant effects when examining diversity courses and their effect on their education, meaning they learned the most from active learning about other cultures. White students were most strongly connected with diversity co-curriculum activities, meaning they learned the most when they were assigned to interact with students of many different races in normal classes. The overall goals of these diversity and co-curricular courses was to create stronger social identities, and lessen group differences across the board.

Unanswered questions in this article include:

* Why did Black and Asian students receive more direct an influence from these classes than the other groups?
* Why is there such a strong correlation between campus visibility of certain genders and the level of interactions between races?

In Waren’s ” Using Monopoly to Introduce Concepts of Race and Ethnic Relations,” he showcases a potential method of introducing concepts of ethnic and racial relations to students through the game Monopoly. The use of a game is thought to spark the sociological imagination, and so Waren opts for this very popular game as a straightforward analogue for race relations. Within it, name-based discrimination is used to provide penalties for certain people based on their name; for example, ” Lydia” could not collect $200 after they passed ‘Go.’ When the rules are changed after some time to allow Lydia to collect $200, the other players are still significantly richer. The rest of the players are indignant at her continued complaints, because there is still a large income disparity due to factors outside her control.

The overall goal of this modification to the game is to show students the effect of racial discrimination from the other side of the coin. Since Lydia is now getting the same amount of money, others feel she should just be thankful she’s getting something now. However, the rest of the students (representative of whites or the group in power) already have a significant head start. This clash of attitudes is meant to simulate racial tensions in income disparity and opportunity that are often found between whites and blacks or Hispanics.

Two unanswered questions in the article:

* How would other aspects of racial discrimination be illustrated through the game (e. g. residential segregation)?
* Would the concepts being delivered through the games be more potent if students representative of the actual races played their respective parts in terms of power and privilege?

Works Cited

Engberg, Mark, and Sylvia Hurtado. ” Developing Pluralistic Skills and Dispositions in College: Examining Racial/Ethnic Group Differences.” Journal of Higher Education 82. 4 (2011): 416-443. Print.
Harris, Richard, Justin Hackett, and Juanita Firestone. ” Double Jeopardy: Race/Ethnicity and Sexual Harassment in the US Military.” Journal of Public Administration and Governance 1. 1 (2011): 138-156. Print.
Waren, Warren. ” Using Monopoly to Introduce Concepts of Race and Ethnic Relations.” Journal of Effective Teaching 11. 1 (2011): 28-35. Print.