Reflecting upon the work of Peshkin and Steinberg what are their main points of agreement and disagreement? Be sure to talk about the relative weight each gives to structural and cultural arguments as well as the goals of each study.
Aug 182000
In our second Critical Thinking Paper we will attempt a critical evaluation of Alan Peshkin’s book, The Color of Strangers, The Color of Friends. This evaluation should include the following. First, what are the goals of the book, what is Peshkin trying to achieve? Second, does he succeed or fail to persuade you of his main arguments? Specifically, you might consider some of the following. How does Peshkin use the imagery of strangers and friends? Why is Riverview an interesting setting for a study on ethnic diversity? How does he see ethnicity operating in Riverview High School, its effects both on students academic lives and their social lives? Finally, there may be other issues you would like to touch on in this discussion, feel free to do so.
In this first critical thinking paper we will focus on the concepts of “race” and “ethnicity”. How are these concepts used in the different texts we are reading? How does each reading represent race and ethnicity in American society, its social construction, meaning, history, &c. Drawing on the texts discuss how they implicitly and explicitly emphasize structural forces or cultural forces and whether they focus on assimilation or conflict between groups. Discuss the strengths or weakness of the ways each author employs the theories.
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