Areas of Bias and Interlocking Systems of Oppression

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Overview

In this section, you will learn about the social construction of social groups and social categories. These groups and categories include, but are not limited to, race, gender, and sexuality. How has your life been impacted by how you have been racialized? How has your gender or gender presentation influenced your daily experiences? How have stereotypes and biases impacted both how you experience and how you interact with the world around you? Social groups and social categories play significant roles in our lives, whether we realize it or not. For some people, these categories rarely enter into their everyday consciousness; for others, these categories are salient and present in their minds virtually all the time. As you will learn, the difference typically lies in whether the social space we occupy is dominant or marginalized within a specific context.

Through readings and exercises in this Module, you will consider how the construction of social groups and categories is contextually bound and, therefore, specific to certain times, cultures, and locations. You will consider various socially constructed categories that impact your own lived experiences and the lived experiences of others. You will also consider how the social construction of these categories influences how we experience bias within ourselves and from others. Finally, you will learn about how those socially constructed categories intersect with one another to impact our experiences of privilege and oppression.

The understandings that you will gain through the completion of this Module will better equip you to analyze and understand how issues of social positioning and power influence you and the world around you. Upon completion of the Module, you will be able to understand how social positioning and power are at play in a variety of contexts throughout your personal, academic, and professional life. Gaining this perspective will allow you to draw from your new, more complex analysis of the world to be an active, engaged, informed citizen.

A picture shows shadows of people gathered and their reflections shown on the water.

Source: Photo by Mario Purisic on Unsplash.

Suggested Readings
Ore, T. (2013). The social construction of difference and inequality: Race, class, gender, and sexuality (
6th ed.
). McGraw-Hill Education.
Sensoy, O., & DiAngelo, R. (2017). Is everyone really equal?: An introduction to key concepts in social justice education. Teachers College Press.
Crenshaw, K. W. (2017). On intersectionality: Essential writings. The New Press.
Olou, I. (2018). So you want to talk about race. Seal Press.
Bonilla-Silva, E. (2006). Racism without racists: Color-blind racism and the persistence of racial inequality in the United States. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.