Social Categories

    During day to day activities, we are placed in to social constructed categories, and these categories set parameters for how others interact with us. There are many different frameworks that have been presented on how to account for social properties, who has the authority, and how do these properties come about. The best framework is the conferrals framework. According to Asta, " The conferrals schema, when filled out, is a way to articulate the idea that we have a social property because of something about other people by saying that a social property is conferred upon us." This means that, in the conferrals framework, we have social properties because others bestow the property onto us. These conferred properties can either be institutional or communal. An institutional property is a property linked to one's status in a social structure; a good example would be being a queen or president. Therefore, social categories are placed onto us by people with standing, and these properties effect how people interact with us and effect how much authority or power we obtain.

    I think that the Conferral framework makes a lot of sense because a category we are assigned to is solely based on an individual's thoughts. One person can assume you are one gender and place you in a category, such as female. While another person can assume you are a different gender, and place you into a different gender category. Although the validation of a new category may come from society as a whole and past understandings, our properties are categorized by individuals, not a whole society. How one person may categorize your gender or race may,  differ from another's categorization. Asta's example of popularity helped me understand the framework better. Kids are placed into the popular category because  other kids like them and confer the property of being popular onto them. Basically, individuals decide that they are popular, and furthermore, treat them as such. Conferring kids with the property of popularity, allows these kids to have power and have others accept their power. The popular kids only have the power to decide what is cool because others decided to view them as popular. Therefore, the kids that conferred them with the popularity property, view the kids as powerful and popular.  I think that this framework is helpful in understanding where properties come from and why we are placed in different categories by different people. Ultimately, we decide our gender and race, but others place us into categories based on their understandings and viewpoints. 

 

Comments

  1. UnknownNovember 9, 2020 at 6:45 PM

    Hi Audrey,

    Great post overall! I agree that the conferral framework seems logical, as other people have a large amount of control over the social categories we are placed into. I think you bring up an interesting point about the categorization of race, as I did not think about it before but people can assume the ethnicity, race, or ancestry of a stranger without even knowing them based on their morphological facial features or the way they talk. With biracial individuals, this is a common occurrence a others people assume their race based on the color of their skin even if their appearance does not indicate all aspects of their racial identity. You mention that by conferring the property of popularity, these kids have power in themselves as they have the authority to decide who fits into that social category or not. Do you think this power structure is also true for other social categories such as gender? Also, if belonging to a social category depends on conferral from others, a transgender individual could be told that their gender identity is not valid just based on the perceptions and views of other people. How do you think Asta would respond to this and do you have any ideas for how to fix this issue?

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    Replies
    1. Ashna GuptaNovember 9, 2020 at 6:46 PM

      (this post was by Ashna Gupta)

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    2. Audrey DubauskasNovember 12, 2020 at 12:14 PM

      Hello Ashna!

      I think this power structure is true for other social categories, especially gender. Overtime, society has given men the role of providing for family, and although that isn't very relevant anymore, that past role gave men power and authority. I feel like that power and authority from that past role has carried into society now. Men have power and authority partially due to the fact that they have had a majority of leadership roles in various jobs and in government. So I would definitely say that this power structure could be true for other social categories.

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