Racism isn't rocket science—it's more complicated

by Ivan Natividad, University of California - Berkeley

Members of the campus community help to install UC Berkeley’s American Cultures exhibit displayed in Doe Library. Credit: Victoria Robinson

As opponents of critical race theory continue to gather at school boards across the country protesting its use in classrooms, it has become evident that the study of racism in America continues to be seen, by some, as trivial.

But UC Berkeley ethnic studies lecturer Victoria Robinson said that understanding the history of America's structurally racist roots can be just as nuanced as research done in a science lab. And more importantly, it should be celebrated as education that can help bridge communities in a country currently divided along politically racialized lines.

"This history and curriculum has never been more important. It's something really worth fighting for," said Robinson, who has taught courses about the impact of race in America's carceral system for over 25 years. "It reminds us of the hard work and the possibilities that can happen when we collectively organize together and imagine together: that incredible things are possible."

Since 2006, Robinson has led Berkeley's American Cultures Center, which supports the American Cultures (AC) program requirement, first instituted in 1991 to introduce students to courses rooted in examining the diversity of American experiences throughout history.

The program, which offers courses in more than 50 departments and disciplines, will celebrate its 30th anniversary today (Nov. 16) at Berkeley's Doe Library. The event will include the unveiling of a new library exhibit, "Tumbling the Ivory Tower," a display that chronicles the history of the American Cultures requirement and its impact on Berkeley and beyond.

Berkeley News spoke with Robinson recently about why it's important for communities to embrace education centered around structural racism, and how discussions around race can truly forge the way for a just future based on "collective care and joy."

Berkeley News: When Berkeley's American Cultures requirement was first proposed in the 1980s, it got similar critiques in the public discourse that critical race theory (CRT) is currently receiving. How does American Cultures fit into this current discussion?

Victoria Robinson: What we call critical race theory, a decades-long set of works, is a legal philosophy that comes out of research and expertise of folks like civil rights activist and lawyer Derrick Bell and law school professor Kimberlé W. Crenshaw.

It's a legal framework for understanding the structural racism driven through American policies, institutions and culture.

The American Cultures requirement has never shied away from tackling the more complicated nuances of how race and racism impact our daily lives. Therefore, we have had similar pushback.

But the current controversy of teaching about race in education is so prevalent now because certain people in privileged majority spaces are feeling the wearing of our social and political seams, and the unraveling of historic mythologies centered in white supremacy.

They're reacting to the impact of race on history, and it being taught in their children's classrooms. The unwillingness to accept the teaching of these curriculums is an attack on the truth.

Why can some of us not face the great difficulties of American history?

I actually think this is a misnomer for the fact that children have always been taught about race in their communities. It's often how people in communities of color have survived.

Can you expand on that? How have communities of color taught students about race in the past?

Parents have had to teach their Black children what they should or shouldn't do when pulled over by a police officer or how to act or speak in predominately white spaces, and what to expect from people in places of higher education, or other institutions with white supremacist foundations.

They have had no choice but to understand and analyze how race impacts their lived experiences.

That education is necessary for communities of color because of the racist structures that are rooted in America's history. A history that needs to be taught without filters.

How can teaching this history to those in the privileged majorities benefit them?

It's not about individual benefit: This work is about the necessity of truth-telling and cultivating critical thinking skills.

Understanding the histories of those communities affected the most by these racist structures can teach all of us about how we might survive this current moment we are in, a moment that has pitted us against each other along racial, political and class lines.

And more than that, a lot of this history is about the politics of imagination around solidarity and coalition-making. So, why not talk about that?

The freedom movements of the 1960s and 1970s, where communities came together and asked each other what it means to see our individual liberation through a collective liberation—that is a history worth teaching.

What do you say to people who think that American Cultures courses and critical race theory focus too much on racial issues and make people racist?

We have observed many acts that we can absolutely name as racist that occur in our society. But the foundation of what builds that behavior is where the curriculum really wants to be.

What caused a group of people, who were predominately white, to attack the Capitol on Jan. 6? Why is there a call for more law enforcement amidst the increase of violence targeted at Asian and Asian American communities, versus a call to defund the police just 18 months earlier after the murder of George Floyd?

We're not making racists out of the curriculum, we're providing students with the tools to understand how race is intertwined within our history and current events. I would actually ask the question, "Do we have enough time for this work, for this discussion?", not whether we are having too many discussions.

But the study of race/racism is not seen as a form of research in certain academic circles.

Right, and I'll always remember a moment that Berkeley sociology professor Troy Duster described to me that relates to this.

He was on a panel that the American Cultures Center was hosting with a couple of his colleagues from the STEM departments. They were talking about how the study of race was structured research in STEM versus the social sciences and humanities.

One of his colleagues turned to him and said, "I don't get it. Race isn't rocket science." And Troy turned to this person and said, "You're right. It's so much more complicated."

That, in a nutshell, is how I feel about that criticism.

As an educator, how have you seen the impact these courses have had on students?

One instance I will always remember was something one of my former students, a white man from Illinois, said to me a few years back after taking my Introduction to Abolition class.

He was a political science major and hadn't learned about the Attica Prison massacre of 1971 and the different histories that have contributed to the disproportionate racial demographics of America's prisons.

"You know, I'm kind of angry with you," he said.

"Why?" I asked.

"Because I can never switch this off now," he responded. "I'm so mad that I wasn't taught this before. Why didn't I know?"

He had this massive anger that he felt the history of what he called his nation, his country, was not a history that he'd actually been given a choice to fully understand.

I think it's important to let people make up their minds on their own. When you choose not to share certain histories, you don't give them that opportunity to have those complicated conversations that many of us need to have with ourselves and our communities.

But what about the critique that these types of curricula are more a reflection of what liberal academics find significant in history?

We become irrelevant, if we are a set of elite people at some of the top universities who think we know what others need. It has to be the other way around.

The American Cultures requirement was born out of the activism of Oakland's longshore workers and their fight against South African apartheid. This curriculum is based on the reality of our communities, and not some ivory academic tower.

But I don't think anybody owns these histories. We're part of a genealogy of hundreds of years and multiple generations of struggle against injustice. And we have to think through how to educate each other about that historical struggle in order to bring collective joy to one another—to flourish, together.

What is the best way to bring this analysis of race in America to everyone? Does it belong in high schools?

It belongs everywhere—our dinner tables, our community centers, our screening rooms, our potlucks, and yes, our high schools and college classrooms. And who says it's not already there?

In the classroom, what we study and how we study, puts us in a position to activate and realize the possibilities of a just future. A lot of what we're seeing right now in the backlash against CRT, ethnic studies and teaching about race in general—is fear.

It's a fear from those in power, that if we had the opportunity, across divergent points of origin and racial backgrounds, to talk together and come up with ideas together—we'd be damned dangerous, together.

How will the American Cultures exhibit and anniversary celebration help people understand the importance of teaching about race and racism in the classroom?

It matters that Berkeley has a particularly powerful story in that narrative, because people do look to the strengths that we have as a big public university. And I think this exhibit and the celebration is going to give people the opportunity to look at that historical arc that Berkeley fits into.

I'm really hoping that people are put into a moment of seeing themselves in those histories and wondering where they were, what they were thinking, and how they were reacting during those moments.

It's really important to put these complicated narratives and historical truisms together to again remind us of the hard work and the possibilities that can happen when we collectively organize together, and imagine together.

That incredible things are possible.

Moving past conflation of race and genetics

Provided by University of California - Berkeley 

Community resources are imperative for young sexual minority men with stressful police exposures

by Courtney Teryek, Rutgers University

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

More gay, bisexual, and transgender Black men, also known as sexual minority Black men, are victims of policing stop-and-frisk policies than their Hispanic and white counterparts, according to a new Rutgers study.

Published in PLOS ONE, the study examined how young sexual minority men in New York City who have multiple minority statuses experience inequity in policing according to new research led by Perry N. Halkitis, dean of the Rutgers School of Public Health, and director of the Center for Health, Identity, Behavior & Prevention Studies.

"Our data has indicated stop-and-frisk confrontations are disproportionately higher for young sexual minority Black men," says study co-author Kristen D. Krause, instructor at the Rutgers School of Public Health and deputy director of the Center for Health, Identity, Behavior & Prevention Studies. "These trends remain consistent even when including drug use data in our analysis and with a recent decline in total occurrences."

Although racial and ethnic disparities in policing in the United States are well documented, police interactions with sexual minority men—who face extreme social and economic vulnerabilities which impacts their physical and mental health—are largely under-researched.

Investigative stops, known as stop-and-frisk, have received increased scrutiny as community policing practices have been examined. Stop-and-frisk encounters are classified as a cause of stress and disempowerment, and selecting populations repeatedly, can cause chronic stress and anxiety.

The researchers looked at data from a cohort of New York City participants reporting their stop-and-frisk experiences, comparing it to individual socio-demographic, psychosocial, and behavioral factors. This information was compared to the New York City young male stop-and-frisk rate and the neighborhood-level stop-and-frisk activity to determine stop-and-frisk levels.

The researchers found noticeable disparities in stop-and-frisk interactions amongst young sexual minority men, with Black participants experiencing the utmost encounters compared to their Hispanic and white counterparts.

The findings suggest that community-centric solutions promoting health and well-being targeted for young sexual minority men are needed as an alternative to stressful and stigmatizing police exposure.

"It is not only vitally important to highlight the statistical data, but we must ensure our work supports the overall health of these young men," adds Halkitis. "This includes focusing on mental health and psychosocial programs, and advocacy efforts from a variety of professionals, like physicians and educators, to minimize these stressors that lead to adverse health outcomes."

Study co-authors include faculty from the Rutgers School of Public Health, and other collaborating institutions.

People at high risk for HIV know about prevention pill, but use remains low

More information: Maria R. Khan et al, Racial and ethnic disparities in "stop-and-frisk" experience among young sexual minority men in New York City, PLOS ONE (2021). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0256201

Journal information: PLoS ONE 

Provided by Rutgers University 

Study: Gay men earn undergraduate and graduate degrees at the highest rate in the US

by Colleen Sharkey, University of Notre Dame

Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain

Recent news about the significant shift of women outpacing men in attending college—now a 60/40 ratio—overlooks one of the highest-achieving groups of all: gay men. In addition, lesbian women's level of education is not accounted for in the new figures. A new study from a University of Notre Dame researcher reveals how, without including sexuality, broad statements about gender and education are incomplete and misleading.

"Across analyses, I reveal two demographic facts," said Joel Mittleman, assistant professor of sociology at Notre Dame, whose study is forthcoming from the American Sociological Review. "First, women's rising academic advantages are largely confined to straight women. Although lesbian women historically outpaced straight women, in contemporary cohorts, lesbian and bisexual women face significant academic disadvantages. Second, boys' well-documented underperformance obscures one group with remarkably high levels of school success: gay boys."

For many years, LGBTQ Americans have been mostly invisible in the data used by social scientists to study population-level patterns of educational achievement and attainment. Under the Obama administration, however, officials added a sexual orientation question to three of the federal government's largest household surveys: the National Health Interview Survey, the National Survey on Drug Use and Health and the National Crime Victimization Survey. At the same time, the U.S. Department of Education added its first-ever sexual orientation question to the High School Longitudinal Study of 2009. Using all of these new data, Mittleman analyzed how sexuality shapes academic performance in unprecedented detail.

Mittleman found that gay men's academic success doesn't just subtly outshine straight men's. Roughly 52 percent of gay men in the U.S. have a bachelor's degree, while the overall national number for all adults in the U.S. is 36 percent. Six percent of gay men in the U.S. have an advanced degree (J.D., M.D. or Ph.D.), which is about 50 percent higher than that of straight men. This holds true for gay men in the four largest racial/ethnic groups (white, Black, Hispanic and Asian).

"If America's gay men were considered on their own, they would have, by far, the highest college completion rate in the world: easily surpassing the current leader, Luxembourg, at 46.6 percent," Mittleman wrote.

With such clear academic advantages and disadvantages now underscored by his study, Mittleman also sought to understand why certain groups excel over others. His research aligns with what professors Mark Hatzenbuehler and John Pachankis (of Harvard and Yale, respectively) called the "Best Little Boy in the World" hypothesis. Drawing from Andrew Tobias' memoir, "The Best Little Boy in the World," this hypothesis proposes that gay men respond to societal homophobia by overcompensating in achievement-related domains.

Reflecting on this possibility, Mittleman suggests that "academic performance offers an accessible domain of competitive self-mastery. Whereas the rules of masculinity may feel obscure or unattainable, the rules of school can feel discrete and manageable. Whereas the approval of a parent may be uncertain, the praise of a teacher can be regularly earned with the right amount of effort. And when other avenues for 'being a man' are cut off, pursuing the kinds of prestigious careers made possible through meticulously high achievement offers a way to shore up one's standing as a man."

Unlike gay boys, contemporary lesbian girls face a number of academic disadvantages. For example, Mittleman's data indicate that, compared to straight girls, lesbians are twice as likely to report ever dropping out of high school. These stark disadvantages, he suggests, could reflect discriminatory treatment from teachers.

Mittleman's research underscores the importance of fully recognizing LGBTQ Americans in population surveys, and he notes that further study of LGBTQ students is necessary "because gender and sexuality are deeply interconnected and sexuality shapes the meaning and consequence of gender throughout our lives."Researchers find disparities in suicide risk among lesbian, gay, and bisexual adults

More information: Joel Mittleman, Intersecting the Academic Gender Gap: The Education of Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual America, (2021). DOI: 10.31235/osf.io/26a8d

Journal information: American Sociological Review 

Provided by University of Notre Dame 

Teaching map literacy is important part of having an informed public

by Mike Enright, University of Connecticut

A town-by-town map of COVID-19 rates in Connecticut. Credit: University of Connecticut

When the average person consumes information through sources like television, radio, a website, or a newspaper, they might do it with a critical eye. What is the viewpoint of the news outlet? Has it been trustworthy in the past? Is there another source for this information to get a second opinion?

A map is different. People tend to look at maps as absolute information that should be taken as fact without analysis. But that's a mistake, according to a pair of UConn professors from the Neag School of Education in a recent article published in Social Studies Research and Practice.

"We have to remember that maps are created by humans who have a purpose to make the maps," says Thomas Levine, an associate professor whose work includes preparing social studies teachers on the elementary level. "They have to tell a selective story and can't put everything on a map. It would be overwhelming. Maps are not a mirror of exact reality. The creators selectively choose what to put in and what to leave out. They choose borders, symbols, and even what colors to use. Color can impact what stands out in a map or what we notice in it."

The COVID-19 pandemic and the 2020 Presidential election are two recent examples of how maps can be used as a tool for distributing information.

"In the article, we write about the importance of basic map literacy and items like how to use a key and understand scale, which is traditionally how maps are taught," says Alan Marcus, a professor whose expertise includes teaching history on the high school level. "We also write about critical map literacy and this is understanding the decisions that mapmakers make and what subjectiveness there might be in maps.

"Another layer is digital literacy, as many maps are now online and we need to understand that maps can now be interactive and constantly changed."

Maps from the 2020 Presidential election can tell different stories depending on how the information is shown—whether it be a simple "red" or "blue" map on which candidate won the Electoral College vote in each state, a county-by-county winner map, or a map that uses "purple" to show percentages of popular vote and not winner-take-all.

"Our students who are training to become teachers debate on what maps should be used if they want to tell the truth about the election," says Marcus. "It's a very clear example of how maps can be subjective based on the decisions that a mapmaker makes or the purposes they have.

"One of the ideas we are trying to get at in this article is that maps are subjective documents. They should be treated just like we treat any other document in a social studies classroom or how any adult in society should approach the information they are getting in the news."

Understanding maps is part of a bigger concerns that citizens need to be properly informed as future leaders are selected.

"I think that the bigger context is that we live in a time where there's a lot of information," says Levine. "There's great concern a democracy can't survive or thrive if we don't have a shared set of facts. If we don't prepare people to use maps, including interactive maps, we increase the odds that we citizens will be manipulated by misinformation or very selective versions of the truth."

The COVID-19 pandemic has also seen a need for map literacy and has been a boom for online and interactive maps.

"COVID was a motivation for us to do this paper," says Marcus. "COVID has not changed the way we use maps, but it has emphasized the importance of maps in thinking about public health, in determining public policy and a source of information that is important to society."

Maps have shown prime locations of COVID-positive tests, hospitalizations, and vaccination rates.

"The pandemic has highlighted how important maps can be and how much policy makers can use data from maps in driving their decisions about items like mask mandates and vaccines," says Marcus. "COVID has really emphasized how critical they are."

The ease of creating on online map has made it even more critical for people to have a strong map literacy.

"Content online can be created by almost anybody now and it can be accessed by almost anyone," says Marcus. "You don't have to buy the newspaper, you don't have to buy the book and there is very little accountability and oversight in the production of some online maps. Online maps can be multi-layered and have hyperlinks, which you can't do with a static map. They can be updated and changed very frequently. That has made maps a different beast for public consumption."Google Maps shows COVID-19 hot spots

More information: Alan S. Marcus et al, Mapping the pandemic: teaching critical map literacy with interactive COVID-19 maps, Social Studies Research and Practice (2021). DOI: 10.1108/SSRP-08-2021-0021

Provided by University of Connecticut 

 Bias against Native Americans spikes when mascots are removed

by Kim Eckart, University of Washington

Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain

Research has shown that Native American mascots provoke racist stereotypes and harm the self-esteem of Native youth.

But what happens when a mascot is removed, as several college and professional teams have done?

"I remember seeing lots of racist reactions to the Cleveland Indians' decision to discontinue their mascot "Chief Wahoo,'" said Tyler Jimenez, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Washington and leader on both studies, which were published Dec. 10 in Group Processes and Intergroup Relations. "This research tries to understand why some people react in this way."

More than 2,000 mascots referencing Indigenous terms and images are estimated to exist in the U.S. today, from high school to pro sports, including the Atlanta Braves, with their "tomahawk chop" chant that gained renewed attention during the 2021 World Series.

The new UW studies surveyed people's attitudes relative to the removal of two other well-known mascots: the Cleveland Indians' Chief Wahoo, eliminated from uniforms and merchandising in 2018; and the University of Illinois' Chief Illiniwek, discontinued in 2007. (The Cleveland Indians during the 2021 season announced a name change to the Guardians.)

The studies also explored the role of two related beliefs, namely racial colorblindness—the idea that race has no bearing on decisions or events—and worldview threat, an individual's perception that the way society functions is under attack.

The research took the form of two separate online studies. The first, conducted in 2018, recruited a little more than half of its nearly 400 participants from Ohio and Maryland—where, at the time, two mascot-related developments had occurred. The Washington Redskins had just announced they would continue to use their name and mascot, while the Cleveland Indians had just removed theirs. (The Redskins in 2020 dropped their name and logo and are known as the Washington Football Team.) The study posed a fictional legal dilemma for participants to read about—vandalism, committed by a Native American, at either the Cleveland ballpark or Maryland stadium; or, as a neutral scenario, vandalism at the Kansas City Royals ballpark related to ticket price hikes. Each participant was randomly assigned one of the readings and asked to recommend bail for the arrested perpetrator.

Results showed that Ohio residents set the highest bail in the Cleveland case—substantially higher than the other scenarios, and when compared to participants from other locations. Maryland residents set only a slightly higher bail for the case in their home state than they did for the Cleveland or Kansas City scenarios.

The findings suggest that prejudice against Native Americans might increase in areas where a mascot has been removed, Jimenez said.

The second study relied on the use of hundreds of thousands of responses from Project Implicit, an online platform for collecting data about bias and educating about prejudice and stereotypes, co-created by Tony Greenwald, an emeritus professor of psychology at the UW. Among the many topics Project Implicit covers are ideas about and bias against Native Americans.

Jimenez's study used datasets from Project Implicit participants nationwide between 2004 and 2019, and two smaller subsets: one from the year before and after the removal of Chief Wahoo in Cleveland, and another from the year before and after the removal of Chief Illiniwek at the University of Illinois.

Based on responses to Project Implicit questions, prejudice against Native Americans increased in the year after a mascot was removed—specifically among Ohio residents after the discontinuation of Chief Wahoo; and, after the removal of Chief Illiniwek, among residents not only of Illinois, but also among those of all other states. That may have been due, Jimenez and his co-authors wrote, to the fact that the NCAA, not the team, made the decision to discontinue the mascot, which affected teams across the country because it banned any team with a Native American mascot from appearing on TV.

Over time, evidence of anti-Native American prejudice in Illinois declined, suggesting that a spike in such attitudes following the removal of a mascot might not last, the authors wrote.

The increase in racism, however temporary, should not be seen as a reason to retain Native American mascots, Jimenez said. Instead, these findings could inform how to approach removing mascots so as to mitigate racist attitudes and actions.

"Native people have been pushing sports teams to stop using Native 'themed' mascots for decades. Adding to this push, our findings suggest that more needs to be done," Jimenez said. "In addition to removing these harmful mascots, we should prepare for backlash by developing prejudice reduction interventions and directing resources to Native people, tribes and other organizations."Research shows Native American mascots and logos hurt all ethnic groups

More information: Stephanie A. Fryberg et al, Of Warrior Chiefs and Indian Princesses: The Psychological Consequences of American Indian Mascots, Basic and Applied Social Psychology (2008). DOI: 10.1080/01973530802375003

Provided by University of Washington 

Adding depth to the popular discussion of transgender rights

by Peter Dizikes, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Credit: Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group

In 2016, the state of North Carolina passed bill HB2, a controversial measure that barred most transgender people from using multiple-occupancy public restrooms. The legislation mandated that access for people was "based on their biological sex," and relied on a particular and contested definition of gender, namely, "the condition of being male or female" as stated on a birth certificate.

North Carolina did not seem to have a surfeit of restroom-use problems prior to 2016, and its law has not been replicated by any other state. Still, politicians elsewhere continue to tout HB2-style legislation, and transgender people's rights remain heavily politicized. On this front, the battle to inscribe values into law often involves defining gender in the first place.

"Competing definitions privilege different values and interests," says Edward Schiappa, the John E. Burchard Professor of the Humanities at MIT and author of a new book about public disputes over transgender rights.

The book, "The Transgender Exigency," is published in print form this month by Routledge. MIT Libraries has provided funding to make an open access version of it available as well. In the book, Schiappa examines transgender rights debates in multiple domains—education, sports, restrooms, the military—with a focus on the way varying definitions of gender and transgender identity have emerged.

Schiappa, who considers himself an ally in the struggle for transgender rights, developed the work to broaden public understanding of these rights disputes, even—or especially—if a policy resolution in these areas is not imminent.

"The main point of the book is not to provide final answers," Schiappa says. Instead, he says, he wants to provide "a framework with which to understand competing regulatory definitions more thoughtfully."

Practicing allyship

Schiappa is not part of the transgender community, which he acknowledges limits his perspective on the subject. But he has long been interested in LGBTQ+ rights and has previously researched public debates over the legal definitions used to categorize people.

"It is important to make clear that I do not pretend to speak for the transgender community," Schiappa says, who is mindful of the saying sometimes used in the community, "Nothing about us, without us." Referencing the philosopher Linda Alcoff's influential 1991 journal article, "The Problem of Speaking for Others," Schiappa adds: "I am aware that I speak from a position of privilege, even if I cannot be aware of all the ways my training and previous research limits my field of vision."

Even so, Schiappa notes, many activists and scholars (including Alcoff) have contended that those not experiencing oppression can still engage in effective advocacy about it. Schiappa says he feels a responsibility to do so.

"We certainly can't expect opponents of trans rights to remain silent, so allies need to speak up," he says.

College admissions

"The Transgender Exigency" focuses on three approaches to defining gender. One view regards gender assignment as a biological given with two clear categories: male and female. Another view holds that transgender status is a matter of self-identification. A third perspective focuses on the ambiguities and complications of gender categories. To some, those complications are a straightforward scientific fact (such as some people having physiological characteristics of both sexes), while others see science and medicine themselves being shaped by societal forces. Either way, in the third view, such complexities resist binary classifications.

To see some of these competing definitions at work, consider the admissions policies of single-sex colleges. Since 2014, about two-thirds of the 39 institutions in the Women's College Coalition have crafted policies formally admitting transgender women. Most of those schools, in turn, require applicants to self-identify as women (with some requesting an established duration of self-identification).

Still, two of the four remaining men's colleges in the U.S. have gone a different route, and regard gender as a binary, biologically-based matter. Schiappa suggests the larger institutional missions of schools explain much of this variation.

"Women's colleges that admit trans women see solidarity among women as part of battling discrimination, and thus see their mission … as consistent with admitting both cis and trans women," Schiappa observes. "In contrast, the two men's colleges that still do not allow trans men to apply seem to be wedded to a biological definition of sex that is fueled by the desire to 'protect' a vision of traditional masculinity."

A level playing field?

A seemingly even more complex situation emerges in the realm of sports, where women were long denied competitive opportunities—only 7.5 percent of high school athletes were female in the 1971-72 academic year, when the U.S. introduced its Title IX legislation requiring equal funding of sports by gender in public schools. Since then, given more chances to train and compete, women have eliminated much of the performance gap with men in many sports.

But not all of that gap has vanished, and current evidence suggests men have physiological advantages allowing them to perform better on aggregate. This complicates acceptance of transgender women into women's sports. Because sports are generally organized to produce close levels of competition, some transgender women could have physiological advantages over other female athletes.

"You have, combined, the history of wanting to correct a historical wrong—discrimination—plus the need to keep sports fair, competing with the desire to treat trans athletes with respect," Schiappa observes.

One way forward, he says, might include a split in approaches between K-12 level sports, where policies could prioritize inclusion, and elite-level sports, where certain physiological markers, such as testosterone levels, may be used in the long term to define eligibility for gender-based groupings. Even so, Schiappa notes, U.S. states are "increasingly polarized" about K-12 eligibility policies, something that "eventually may be resolved in the courts."

One size may not fit all

Other scholars active in the field have praised Schiappa's book. Deirdre McCloskey, a distinguished professor of economics, history, English, and communication at the University of Illinois at Chicago and a prominent transgender scholar, calls "The Transgender Exigency" a "warm, scholarly, humane, and readable book" that "brings the discussion of trans rights and responsibilities to a higher level. But perhaps more significantly, it raises, too, the level of the discussion about definition itself."

One theme emerging from that discussion, in Schiappa's book, is that attempts to craft a single overarching definition of transgender status are likely ill-advised or unrealistic—as the differing examples of higher education access and sports suggest.

"For the foreseeable future, it is neither necessary nor possible to devise a 'one-size-fits-all' definition that will meet all our needs at all times and in all contexts," Schiappa writes in the book.

Schiappa largely shies away from firm forecasts about the future of transgender rights. Still, he suggests that some of the current policy battles are fairly predictable ploys in cultural politics. Politicians use the issue to stir up voters during campaigns but don't follow through with actual legislation—possibly due in part to the fallout from North Carolina's HB2, which cost the state an estimated $400 million in lost concerts and sporting events.

"We will probably hear more about bathroom bills in upcoming election years, then they probably will be dropped," Schiappa says.

Overall, after looking at the public debates across society, Schiappa says he has come to regard self-identification as an important way to define transgender status—a firm starting point for policies in education and other realms that respects autonomy, unless or until solid rationales to think otherwise emerge.

"The further we move away from a default option of self-identification," Schiappa notes, "the more compelling the justification needs to be. Such decisions need to be context-sensitive, obviously, but it is important that we get it right, as lives are in the balance."

Transgender women may be more likely to have type 2 diabetes than cisgender women

More information: The Transgender Exigency: www.routledge.com/The-Transgen … p/book/9781032168203

Open access edition: www.taylorfrancis.com/books/oa … ency-edward-schiappa

Provided by Massachusetts Institute of Technology 

Archaeologist's book examines human adornment

by Mary Beth King, University of New Mexico

Mattson logging Chaco artifacts. Credit: UNM Newsroom

Across countries, continents, and centuries, humans have felt compelled to adorn themselves. A new book edited and co-authored by Hannah Mattson, Southwestern archaeologist and an assistant professor of Anthropology at The University of New Mexico, explores personal adornment as components of human identity and practice, as well as symbols of wealth, power, and status.

"Personal Adornment and the Construction of Identity: A Global Archaeological Perspective" explores the ways personal adornment was intertwined with the creation and transformation of social identity in the past, drawing on case studies spanning 9,000 years of human history and 10 different countries. The adornments detailed in the book by the international team of authors are from the pre-Hispanic northern Southwest; the Franchthi Cave in Greece; pre-contact Pacific Nicaragua; Nahuatl-speaking communities of Mesoamerica; the Castro Culture of northwestern Iberia; the early Viking Age; Sapelo Island off the coast of Georgia; and the ancient city of Hasanlu in Iran.

When paired with the broad temporal and geographic scope collectively represented by these studies, we gain a deeper appreciation for the subtle but vital roles these items played in human lives.

Mattson, who organized and edited the volume, specializes in the archaeology of Chaco Canyon and the larger Ancestral Pueblo region, personal adornment and social identity, ceramic technology, and public archaeology and has studied ancient jewelry assemblage from Pueblo Bonito at Chaco Canyon for over a decade.

"This book helps challenge a traditional and widespread view that these kinds of artifacts are purely decorative or somehow supplementary to the basic functioning of human society," Mattson explained. "Most often, the meanings of personal ornaments are assumed to relate to wealth and social status when found in archaeological contexts. The broad temporal and geographic scope of the studies compiled in this volume demonstrate that these materials are not only intricately enmeshed in all facets of identity—such as group affiliation, gender, age, role or profession, subscription to ideologies, social standing—but also that these are in a constant state of flux and negotiation."

"While there are other compilations on archaeological approaches to studying ornaments more generally or on jewelry from specific time periods and regions, to my knowledge this is the only work specifically focused on the topic of social identity and ornamentation with a global scope," Mattson said.

"Objects of adornment have been a subject of archaeological, historical, and ethnographic study for well over a century. Within archaeology, personal ornaments have traditionally been viewed as decorative embellishments associated with status and wealth, materializations of power relations and social strategies, or markers of underlying social categories such as those related to gender, class, and ethnic affiliation. Personal Adornment and the Construction of Identity seeks to understand these artifacts not as signals of steady, pre-existing cultural units and relations, but as important components in the active and contingent constitution of identities. Drawing on contemporary scholarship on materiality and relationality in archaeological and social theory, this book uses one genre of material culture—items of bodily adornment—to illustrate how humans and objects construct one another."

Basque ethnic identity and collective empowerment are associated with wellbeing

Provided by University of New Mexico 

1,500 endangered languages at high risk of being lost this century

by Australian National University

Professor Lindell Bromham (left) and her colleagues are researching how to preserve 

endangered languages across the globe. Credit: Jamie Kidston/ANU

A world-first study warns 1,500 endangered languages could no longer be spoken by the end of this century.

The study, led by The Australian National University (ANU), identified predictors that put endangered languages at high risk.

Co-author Professor Lindell Bromham said that of the world's 7,000 recognized languages, around half were currently endangered.

"We found that without immediate intervention, language loss could triple in the next 40 years. And by the end of this century, 1,500 languages could cease to be spoken."

Published in Nature Ecology and Evolution, they study charts the widest range of factors ever putting endangered languages under pressure.

One finding was that more years of schooling increased the level of language endangerment. The researchers say it shows we need to build curricula that support bilingual education, fostering both indigenous language proficiency as well as use of regionally-dominant languages.

"Across the 51 factors or predictors we investigated, we also found some really unexpected and surprising pressure points. This included road density," Professor Bromham said.

"Contact with other local languages is not the problem—in fact languages in contact with many other Indigenous languages tend to be less endangered.

"But we found that the more roads there are, connecting country to city, and villages to towns, the higher the risk of languages being endangered. It's as if roads are helping dominant languages 'steam roll' over other smaller languages."

The researchers say the findings also have important lessons for preserving many of the endangered languages spoken by Australia's First Nations peoples.

"Australia has the dubious distinction of having one of the highest rates of language loss worldwide," Professor Felicity Meakins, from the University of Queensland and one of the study's co-authors, said.

"Prior to colonization, more than 250 First Nations languages were spoken, and multilingualism was the norm. Now, only 40 languages are still spoken and just 12 are being learnt by children.

"First Nations languages need funding and support. Australia only spends $20.89 annually per capita of the Indigenous population on languages, which is abysmal compared with Canada's $69.30 and New Zealand's $296.44."

Professor Bromham said that as the world enters the UNESCO Decade of Indigenous Languages in 2022, the study's findings were a vital reminder that more action was urgently needed to preserve at-risk languages.

"When a language is lost, or is 'Sleeping' as we say for languages that are no longer spoken, we lose so much of our human cultural diversity. Every language is brilliant in its own way.

"Many of the languages predicted to be lost this century still have fluent speakers, so there is still the chance to invest in supporting communities to revitalize indigenous languages and keep them strong for future generations."Language extinction triggers loss of unique medicinal knowledge

More information: Lindell Bromham, Global predictors of language endangerment and the future of linguistic diversity, Nature Ecology & Evolution (2021). DOI: 10.1038/s41559-021-01604-y. www.nature.com/articles/s41559-021-01604-y

Journal information: Nature Ecology & Evolution 

Provided by Australian National University 

'Gentrification' changes the personality make-up of cities in just a few years, study suggests

by University of Cambridge

Openness and housing cost trajectories from 2006 to 2014 in three major U.S. cities

 (New York, Chicago, and San Francisco). Credit: American Psychological Association

Rising house prices may change the personality make-up of US cities within a few years, with residents becoming increasingly open-minded—not just as wealthier people move in, but also among longer-term locals.

This is according to a University of Cambridge-led study of almost two million people in the US living across 199 cities. Psychologists tracked annual personality scores over nine years (2006 to 2014) and compared the data to local housing markets.

The researchers found that just a $50 rise in a city's average housing prices saw the characteristic of "openness" increase significantly among residents (relative to other US cities). Openness is one of five major personality traits, and captures levels of curiosity and creativity.

Changes in housing prices were associated with shifts in 'Openness' in US cities where the trait was already very high compared to the rest of the country, such as New York and Chicago.

Even in San Francisco, long famous for its open-minded residents, citywide levels of 'Openness' rose sharply over the nine-year period as average housing costs jumped by almost $200.

Previous research has shown that house prices largely reflect the prevalence of "social amenities": from restaurants to theaters, sports venues, green spaces and well-performing schools.

The study's authors point out that such amenities appeal to open-minded people, and argue that greater access to these facilities helps to drive "local cultures of openness".

"Theorists going back to Karl Marx have argued that economic development drives national shifts in personality and culture," said Dr. Friedrich Götz, lead author of the study published today in the journal American Psychologist.

"We can now see how rapidly those changes occur in smaller and more nimble communities such as cities, where major cultural shifts can be experienced in just a few short years, rather than decades or centuries," he said.

The trait of 'Openness' is strongly associated with liberal votes and attitudes as well as entrepreneurial activity. It is also linked to socioeconomic status: the desire and freedom to explore new experiences can be a side effect of sufficient wealth and security.

Data modeling was used to discount socio-economic status at an individual level by incorporating education and self-reported "social class" into calculations. The team also separated out the cities from overall national and state-level trends for 'Openness'.

The psychologists then investigated two main ways that house prices and associated amenities are linked to personality shifts within urban populations.

"Selective migration" is when certain types of people move to cities or neighborhoods, having been attracted by the local culture. "Social acculturation" refers to changes in individual personalities, in this case through exposure to greater opportunities—from arts scenes to diverse cuisines—and more open-minded neighbors.

Researchers attempted to disentangle these effects by separating out the data into "established populations"—those who lived in a city prior to 2006, the earliest year in the study—and "newcomer populations": those who relocated between 2006 and 2014.

The study showed both factors at play: rising housing costs predicted a significant increase in 'Openness' among both established and newcomer populations in cities right across the US.

"Substantial personality shifts within cities can and do occur within a couple of years," said Dr. Jason Rentfrow, the study's senior author from Cambridge's Department of Psychology.

"Cities are magnets for certain types of people, even as they become increasingly unaffordable—particularly for young people. These cultural changes may go on to affect the personality of long-term residents."

"Research has shown that openness is related to economic resilience, creative capital and innovation, as well as liberal politics and arts," adds coauthor Tobias Ebert. "The geographical clustering of personality reinforces existing social and economic differences across the country. We can see this reflected in contemporary political divisions."

The study author's point to cities such as Pittsburgh: once home to blue-collar industry, it was devastated by the manufacturing collapse in the 1970s, yet by the mid-1980s had become a hub for medicine and higher education—leading to rising housing costs and a cultural transformation that continues to attract the young and open-minded.

The researchers analyzed all major personality traits, such as neuroticism and extroversion, as part of the study—but only openness was connected to housing costs. Importantly, the price of housing appears to drive local culture, but not vice versa: increases in openness did not predict more expensive housing.

Resilient personality of cities could help in a recession

More information: Local Housing Market Dynamics Predict Rapid Shifts in Cultural Openness: A 9-Year Study Across 199 Cities, American Psychologist (2021). DOI: 10.1037/amp0000812

Journal information: American Psychologist 

Provided by University of Cambridge