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Full-Text Articles in Sociology
Doing Good, Being Good, And The Social Construction Of Compassion, Amy Blackstone
Doing Good, Being Good, And The Social Construction Of Compassion, Amy Blackstone
Sociology School Faculty Scholarship
Activists and volunteers in the United States face the dilemma of having to negotiate the ideals of American individualism with their own acts of compassion. In this article, I consider how activists and volunteers socially construct compassion. Data from ethnographic research in the breast cancer and antirape movements are analyzed. The processes through which compassion is constructed are revealed in participants’ actions and in their identities. It is through their actions (or “doing good”) and their perceptions and presentations of themselves (“being good”) that participants construct compassion as a gendered phenomenon. Together, the processes of doing good and being good …
Racial Prejudice And Support By Whites For Police Use Of Force : A Research Note, Steven E. Barkan, Steven F. Cohn
Racial Prejudice And Support By Whites For Police Use Of Force : A Research Note, Steven E. Barkan, Steven F. Cohn
Sociology School Faculty Scholarship
The use of force by police in a democratic society continues to be controversial. Despite the theoretical and practical importance of police use of force, little is known about the sources of public attitudes toward it. Recent research suggests that whites' approval of police use of force may derive partly from racial prejudice against African Americans. In this paper we test this possibility with data from the 1990 General Social Survey and find that negative stereotypes of African Americans contribute to whites' support for police use of excessive force. We also address the theoretical and pragmatic significance of our findings.