Question

What impact does prejudice, racism, ethnocentrism, stereotyping, etc.have on intercultural relations and communication.

Watch parts one and two of the video A Class Divided located in Online Course Resources and linked below..

Based on this video:

1. What are the causes of prejudice, and what are the consequences of prejudice on people and their relationships?

2. How is this teacher successful in creating prejudice?

3. What is the role of verbal and non-verbal communication in creating and sustaining prejudice?

4. How is communication both verbal and non-verbal shaped by those victimized by prejudice?

5. What does this teach you about prejudice?

Watch parts one and two of the video below.

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/clas

Answer 1

1. The term prejudice means "prejudgment." A person is prejudiced when he has formed an attitude toward a particular social group of people before having enough information on which to form a knowledgeable opinion. A negative prejudice is when the attitude is hostile toward members of a group. A positive prejudice is when the attitude is unduly favorable toward a group. Groups that are the targets of prejudice may be distinguished by any one of several characteristics such as religion, ethnicity, language, social class, gender, physical abilities, age, or sexual orientation. Frequently they are distinguished by specific inherited physical characteristics such as skin color.

CAUSES

As there are many causes of prejudice, there can be many forms of prejudicial expression, the most common of which is discrimination. Discrimination is the unfair treatment of people simply because they are different from the dominant group in society. An example would be a person, group, or company favoring one person over another on some arbitrary basis, such as gender or social class (groups of people sharing similar wealth and social standing), rather than on individual merit. Prejudice and discrimination cause inequality, another phenomenon common to all societies, especially when minorities, such as people of color, including Hispanic and black Americans, may be readily identified. Racism, sexism, and anti-Semitism (hostility toward Jews as a religious or ethnic group) are all forms of prejudice and discrimination.

The first prejudices in human history perhaps resulted from a fear of strangers or feelings of superiority over others. As societies became more complex, due to an increase in population and in the ways to group people, such as through social classes and multiple ethnic groups, prejudices also became more complex. Because prejudice frequently involves multiple factors both at the individual and group levels, determining the cause of prejudice in any single person is difficult. Most people do not willingly reveal their prejudices or the reasons for them, if they are even aware of their prejudices at all. Some people may have become prejudiced through some traumatic event they experienced in their lives. Others are simply conforming to the society in which they live, expressing the same prejudices as parents, popular political leaders, or employers. Regardless of the cause of a person's prejudice, stereotypes, oversimplified opinions of others, are usually involved.

Scapegoating is a prejudicial thought process that has been used by people throughout history. It can cause prejudice in situations where hardships lead people to strike out. In these cases the authority figures who might be responsible for their plight are distant and inaccessible. Therefore, harsh disciplinary measures can cause the targets of the discipline to display an aggressive reaction toward others. They find scapegoats for their plight. Scapegoating means someone is blamed for something they have no control over. The scapegoat is innocent. Nonetheless, the people subject to the harsh discipline lash out at others who are more accessible, identifiable, and perhaps safer to confront than a parent or governmental authority. This usually involves looking for easy targets who are outnumbered, such as ethnic minorities or gays, or who may be physically weaker, such as women. Through their prejudices they socially devalue their target groups. Scapegoating can ultimately lead to violence and death.
Sociological causes of prejudice can take many forms They range from the natural process of a child learning the norms of a society into which she is born to economic and religious causes or fear of threats, imagined or real.

CONSEQUENCES

Like the wide variety of prejudices that exist in societies around the world, the consequences of the prejudices and the behavior influenced by them are similarly varied. Prejudice affects the everyday lives of millions of people across the globe. Prejudice held by individuals unnaturally forces on others who are targets of their prejudice a false social status that strongly influences who they are, what they think, and even the actions they take. Prejudice shapes what the targets of prejudice think about the world and life in general, about the people around them, and how they feel about themselves. Importantly, prejudice greatly influences what people expect from the future and how they feel about their chances for self-improvement, referred to as their life chances. All of these considerations define their very identity as individuals.

People acting out their prejudices cause domestic violence, crime, death, and the loss of billions of dollars in lost productivity, property loss, and expense to society, such as cost of court trials and social services provided to victims including psychological counseling, in dealing with dysfunctional (abnormal behavior) elements of society. Other prejudicial behavior, such as male teachers favoring calling on male students in a classroom, may be more subtle (less obvious). But its effect can be just as broad-sweeping as the more violent consequences of prejudice. Opportunities in life are lost and personal relationships damaged when people act upon their prejudice. When not acknowledged and confronted, prejudice negatively impacts the lives not only of the victims, but of those holding the prejudice.

One of the most basic needs in life is maintaining physical health. However, due to prejudice, the condition of people around the world is largely influenced by their perceived race, ethnicity, gender, social class, and sexual orientation. Those trapped in low-income areas with prejudicial barriers to jobs and education opportunities are significantly more likely to suffer health problems. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, in 2006 the overall life expectancy of Americans, French, and British was seventy-eight years. However, life expectancy differed among the various races and ethnic groups within these Western nations. For example, in the United States most racial minorities had shorter expected life spans than whites. African Americans' life expectancy was five years shorter than whites.

Those in lower economic classes suffered greater chronic diseases, such as heart disease, lung cancer, and diabetes, all of which contributed to the lower life expectancy, according to Charles E. Hurst in the 2004 book Social Inequality: Forms, Causes, and Consequences. Health problems from the work environment of lower-paying jobs included greater exposure to such hazards as lead poisoning, greater occurrence of injury, and increased chances of eventually developing arthritis from the physical labor. The death rate from injury among low-income males was over three times higher than persons in higher social classes. Not only were the occurrences of disease greater, but the prospects of death from the disease were greater. For example, black females in low-economic situations had the shortest survival period and highest death rate from breast cancer as compared to the white females in the population.

A major consequence of prejudice is violence. The scale of violence can vary greatly, ranging from occurrences of domestic violence to mass murder (genocide). Domestic violence is when a family member, partner, or ex-partner physically or psychologically harms or harasses another family member. Aside from physical contact and child abuse, domestic violence can include intimidation and threats of violence. This intimidation can take the form of stalking (harassing someone by relentlessly pursuing her). Domestic violence is often driven by frustrations of lack of economic opportunity due to prejudice and discrimination, and the resulting feelings of powerlessness. It is frequently further fueled by drug and alcohol abuse, which is also often a result of domestic result. Unemployment, health problems, isolation from society in general, and lower education are all factors of domestic violence. The pressures and frustrations resulting from discrimination mount up for those trapped in low social class conditions.

Domestic violence leads to costs for private assistance organizations and governmental social services for both the victim and abuser in addition to costs of police and court time. Studies in the late twentieth century indicate that only about one-third of cases of actual domestic violence are actually reported in the United States and Britain. In other countries where public awareness of domestic violence is much lower, the rate of reporting is probably even lower. According to Charles E. Hurst in Social Inequality: Forms, Causes, and Consequences, in 2000, it was estimated that domestic abuse affected 10 percent of the population in the United States, or approximately thirty-two million Americans including children.

Like most consequences of prejudice and discrimination, domestic violence has long-range implications. Children often grow up with behavior patterns learned from their home life. Those who witnessed domestic violence and abuse or were victims of abuse could grow into adults having very similar behavior patterns.

Prejudice and discrimination leads to organized social protests—and sometimes, confrontations—by the targeted groups. Prime examples of this involved the events surrounding the civil rights and women's rights movements of the 1960s and 1970s. Property damage, loss of life, policing expenses, and lost job productivity were extensive costs of the protests as they lasted years and involved tens of thousands of people across many communities and cities. Labor strikes, store boycotts (protests by refusing to do business with someone), sit-ins (when protestors refuse to leave a business or public building until their demands are met), and other tactics of social disorder disrupted business productivity.