Teaching Economic Inequality and Capitalism in Contemporary America by Kristin Haltinner & Leontina Hormel

Author:Kristin Haltinner & Leontina Hormel
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Springer International Publishing, Cham

Violence

I define violence as acts, intentional or otherwise, that result in physical harm to other persons, or a person. Students are asked to bring in examples of violence before discussing my definition. Most will bring in some example in the media of a shooting, rape, or domestic violence. Sometimes there is an example of violence caused by a corporation and, currently, I would imagine there might be examples of well-publicized police violence.

The course identifies three major types of violence: interpersonal, organizational, and structural. Students’ examples usually fit the first two categories, but they are less likely to bring in instances of structural violence. Instructors can introduce sociological analysis of students’ examples that use relevant concepts for the course. For instance, organizational violence is illustrated when individuals in decision-making bureaucratic roles choose policies that harm others.

When students present different examples of violence, instructors can illustrate why social class matters. Interpersonal violence is what most people think about when asked for examples of violence. Particular individuals directly injure others and are usually aware that they have done so. This form occurs most often among people of the same social class and often between members of the same community or household. Organizational and structural violence, on the other hand, are a direct or indirect result of decisions made at the elite level of society, while the victims are usually from less privileged groups.

One way we know that structural violence is occurring is to draw comparisons between groups living in the same society. If one group is healthier or safer than another we can demonstrate that these disparities are caused by more than just individual life-styles or attitudes.

We can compare infant mortality rates between African-American, Native American, and white infants. In 2013, for every 1000 African-American infants born 11.1 died before reaching their first birthday. For Native Americans it was 7.6 out of 1000 births, while for whites the figure was 5 of every 1000 births (Mathews et al. 2013). These figures are lower than in previous years and there are ways to lower the figures with different social policies, which demonstrates these can make a difference in levels of structural violence.

The forms of violence can interact with one another. Specific organizations make decisions, at given historical moments that maintain, increase, or reduce people’s vulnerability to structural violence and/or affect the likelihood of interpersonal violence. I provide Table 1 illustrating differences between the three types of violence.Table 1Summary of the characteristics of the three types of violence

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