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Sympathetic Symbols, Social Movements, And School Desegregation, Marisela Martinez-Cola

Sociology, Social Work and Anthropology Faculty Publications

An important theoretical contribution to the study of social movements involving legal mobilization is framing theory. Framing encourages an analysis of the parties involved and the tools used to make meaning of their cause. A scholarly gap emerges, however, when considering the race, gender, and class of the litigants and the social challenges they face. In this article, the author blends framing theory with controlling‐images theory to provide a conceptual tool of ‘the sympathetic symbol’ to analyse the effects of race, gender, and class. Next, the author introduces the legal and social histories of two school desegregation cases involving Chinese‐American …