Individal Differences in Insider Feelings

Who has insider-outsider ? Everyone has them. However, the strength of these kinds of feelings varies a great deal from person to person. Some people have little insider-outsider feeling and do not discriminate at all. Others have very strong insider feelings. They join organizations made up of people interested in criticizing or even harming those they consider outsiders. Sometimes these organizations have speakers who travel around encouraging listeners to discriminate against certain outsiders. They may also print newspaper or pamphlets (sometimes called "hate sheets") containing articles the writers hope will increase insider-outsider feelings.

These are extremes, of course. Most Americans have opinions and feelings somewhere in between. 

Questions about what kind of people tend to have strong insider-outsider feelings are important. so are questions about the causes of such feelings. Better answers to these questions will eventually help to improve human relationship. But what is important at moment are the specific problems which result from these feelings --- the discrimination against certain people.

Following are several case studies and examples of discrimination in America.

As you read each piece, identify

1. The group discriminated against.

2. The problem being created by discrimination.

3. Reasons why the treatment of the outsider is unfair.

Social scientists often conduct surveys and experiments to find out more about discrimination.
In the early summer season several years age, two Northern newspapers carried advertisements for a total 100 different reports. A social scientist, S.L. Wax, tried and experiment. He wrote two letters to ............... 

Read more

Swedish Family Life, and The problem of Aging in Georgia

Families :

Would you like a  unisex marriage- with husband and wife sharing housework and breadwinning ? I can only report that Swedish wives flourish on it.

They are outward-looking, and a conversation with them is likely to be about their work, hobbies or families. It is scarcely every about what so and so said to offend them, or what women's place in society ought to be.

They are enthusiastic in all kinds of ways. During the three years I lived in Sweden while my husband was working there, I repeatedly heard how much Swedish wives appreciated and enjoyed their families and homes because they were away from them for some of the time in their own careers.

The average Swede, though tall and handsome, doesn't spend much time paying a woman compliments. Perhaps this is because he is quite prepared to threat her as an equal.

When a young couple marry they don't take it for granted that the husband is the breadwinner, and the wife the housekeeper.

They have a flexible approach, sharing out the work and chore in a way which suits them. No one criticizes them if they reverse their traditional roles.

As Katerina, a Swedish wife, explained to me : "Stefan and I have known each other since childhood. We went to same kind of school, and we both trained as dentists, so why should only one of us have a career ?"

A doctor who works in a Child Care Department thought that women had a right to work and to support themselves.

"I can understand a woman who prefers housework to factory work, but I just cannot understand an educated woman who doesn't work."

"When we married I was studying," a woman psychiatrist told me "And, of course, when I qualified, I started to practise," she could not imagine training and then not using her vital skills.

Nor is it only professional women who expect to work. The girl who came to clean my house told me that her husband was a postman.

He's up early, and then he comes home early in the afternoon and looks after the baby while I go out to work."

Increasingly, the Swedish husband accepts that house-hold chores are partly his responsibility.

Read more