First Civic Issues Post: Stereotypes

My Civic Issues blog this semester will explore the broad theme of stereotypes and if/how they (sometimes subconsciously) effect our attitude and how we treat others–not only the wider implications, but even it’s impact in day to day life.  Some driving question I have include one such as: How can even the smallest preconceived notions alter bigger aspects of our society?  How would the dynamics of social groups differ without stereotypes? How can these stereotypes be beneficial? How can they be harmful?  Would the dynamics of the US’ relationship between other countries differ with out stereotypes?  How does it effect our outlook on social groups, racial groups, and religions? Some policies/attitudes that are related to my topic include ones such as: airport security (consciously or subconsciously) targeting Muslims because of terrorist stereotypes. Little things like arguments breaking out between religious and nonreligious because of generalize belief stereotypes (example: the notion that all Christians have homophobia/hate homosexuals) .  I want to take real-life examples of racism as well as general stereotyping and discuss how it can be harmful, how it comes about, and how it can be prevented.  In the day to day aspect, I want to look at little situations people may have stereotypes and not even recognize that they do.  Possibly examine things like cliques and how stereotypes create such things and also stereotypes can create boxes in our mind about how certain things/people should be if they are associate with something else: our mind categorizes aspects of our lives in order to make judgement before we have gathered all the information, this can prevent harmony in our social life and even in the bigger world, but does it create more problems than it does prevent them?

4 thoughts on “First Civic Issues Post: Stereotypes

  1. The more I ponder, the more I like the idea of incorporating interviews into my blog posts. I was just thinking of taking articles from various news stations/newspapers. Oh, and I do believe I may write one blog post about the whole Trayvon Martin case that happened. I know for a fact there are different opinions on that all revolving around racism. Thanks for the feedback!!

  2. Yes, I’ve actually considered interviews. Taking from outside opinions will work well. My plan was to have posts about different sub-topics and then see where it goes from there. If a certain sub-topic becoming increasingly intriguing and/or sparks more questions I may end up posting more posts about that specific thing, if not selecting one post will most-likely work best for the persuasive essay.

  3. I like your topic, Erin, but in thinking down the road, I’m not yet sure how your civic issues posts will eventually turn into a persuasive essay. It’ll probably involve building a lot off of one specific post, rather than pulling all the posts together. A project like examining the relationship between certain types of religion and attitudes toward homosexuality might end up working well. I agree with Jess in terms of drawing from interviews and observation, in addition to other research you might find.

  4. I really like your idea (especially the two examples that you have)! Do you think you will do interviews with people who feel they have been stereotyped? That may be a cool idea for a few passion blogs! Where are you going to draw your research from? I’m glad that you are including a way to prevent stereotyping, and I am eager to see what you come up with! Good luck!

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