Reading
Reflection Questions
(Click to view reading in HTML)
Allen provides a list of occupations on pages 2 & 3 (secretary, CEO,
soldier, hair stylist, janitor, basketball player, hotel maid, manager, elementary
school teacher, interior decorator, nurse, welfare recipient, plastic surgeon,
female impersonator, gang member, truck driver, gardener, special education
student, chemist, rap artist, and beauty queen). When you picture each of
these occupations, what do you notice about the gender, race, class, sexuality,
age, and ability characteristics you presume for each? Why do you think particular
images spring so readily to mind?
What is
problematic about the assumption that –isms are ‘simply’ the behaviors of
bad people? (p.4). What do you think about this
statement?
On page
5, Allen says “people rarely talk openly about topics like race or racism
when they are in mixed groups. Why is that? Well, these subjects often
are difficult to discuss or even acknowledge. They may arouse uncomfortable
responses, such as anxiety, fear, shame, guilt, anger, frustration, hostility,
or confusion.” What experiences have you had talking about –isms, and what
feelings have those conversations evoked? Think of both positive and negative
experiences you’ve had talking about difference. What characterized each
of those interactions?
Why does
Allen use the term difference instead of diversity?
How does
she use the word ‘matters’?
Why does
difference matter according to Allen?
How are
“others” defined in relationship to a social norm (p.12)? How does this
relate to Allen’s idea that “We often define ourselves in opposition to
others: “I know who I am because I am not you.” (p.17)
If you
had to describe yourself using only four social identity groups, which would
you use? How would you feel about having to limit your description of yourself
in this way?
What do
you think Dr. Allen means when she says that in this book “we will investigate
how discourse ‘produces, maintains, and/or resists systems of power and
inequality.’”(p.16)?
How is
personal identity different from social identity, and how does the process
of socialization work?
How can
stereotypes both be natural and helpful and problematic and harmful?
Read,
reflect on and answer the questions Allen poses on page 31.
After
reading this chapter, how do you understand the social constructionists’
school of thought?
Chapter
1
How does
Flick differentiate between the Conventional Discussion and Understanding
Processes?
How is
conventional discussion different from dialogue?
What is
the Debate Culture according to Flick?
What is
the difference between approaching the Understanding Process as a Technique
vs. approaching it as a living technology?
Why, according
to Flick, do we need to know and use the Understanding Process?
Why is
the Understanding Process important from an Organizational Standpoint?
Why is
the Understanding Process important to our ability to engage differences
productively?
Chapter
2
Does Flick
believe that there is value in Debate? Explain your answer.
How is
critical thinking related to the Understanding Process?
What are
the fundamental differences between the Understanding Process and Conventional
Discussion? How do you understand these differences? What would they look
like in practice?
Study
the chart on pages 36-37, be able to discuss and summarize its content.
Chapter
3
What does
Flick suggest are the rewards of using the Understanding Process?
Why is
practice important?
Flick
suggests that to use the Understanding Process, it “only takes one.” Are
you inclined to agree or disagree? What are the advantages and disadvantages
we might face if we accept this claim?
How can
the Understanding Process help us to “stay with our differences?” How might
this be beneficial to our understanding of Difference in organizational
contexts?
How can
using the Understanding Process transform our culture according to Flick?
Chapter
4
What are
Mind-Models?
How does
the concept of Mind-Models relate to other terms or concepts with which
you are familiar?
What happens
when people approach a situation from different Mind-Models?
How can
this be complicated by power differences?
Chapter
6
How can
using the Understanding Process help to transform destructive conflict?
How does
Flick’s example help you to understand the Understanding Process in action?
What questions
or challenges does this example raise for you?
Chapter
7
How can
the Understanding Process help to “bridge the Diversity Divide?”
What is
authentic healing and what are the conditions that support it?
How does
Flick’s example help you to understand the Understanding Process in action?
What questions
or challenges does this example raise for you?
Chapter
8
How can
the Understanding Process help to transform groups into inclusive, multi-disciplinary
teams?
How does
Flick’s example help you to understand the Understanding Process in action?
What questions
or challenges does this example raise for you?
Chapter
9
How can
the Understanding Process help enhance civility in our public conversations?
How does
Flick’s example help you to understand the Understanding Process in action?
What questions
or challenges does this example raise for you?
Deetz
& Simpson
(Click to view
reading in HTML)
How do Deetz/Simpson
propose that we engage in a ‘politically responsive constructionist’ mode
of communication?
What do
they mean by this?
How is
this similar to and/or different from other conceptions of dialogue?
How do
they argue that this approach is rooted in responsiveness to difference
in organizational contexts?
What would
this look like in practice?
What questions
are you left with after reading this piece?
Rosenblum & Travis pp. 481-486
Both sides come out fighting: The
argument culture and the press
~Deborah Tannen
Tannen suggests that “the way events are
reported shapes our thinking about them—and can affect the events themselves.
Writing in terms of opposition can actually create the opposition and all
that goes with it.” (p.482).
What effect
does the concept of ‘no fight, no story’ have on how we view and engage
difference(s)?
What is
‘one of the most dangerous effects of the argument culture,’ according to
Tannen (p.485)? Do you agree or disagree? Why?
In the
concluding section of this piece, what does Tannen
suggest we can do? What do you think of her recommendations?
(Click to view reading in HTML)
Allen
discusses three conceptions of power—power over, power with, power to. What
does she mean by each of these? How would you distinguish between them?
What is
the difference between surface and deep structure power relations?
Allen
explains that the word “discipline” can be used both as a verb and as an
adjective. How do you understand the concept in each of these senses?
What are
the “Rules of Right” that Allen describes?
How is
“power a struggle over meaning”?
Allen
discusses four conceptions of control— simple, technical, bureaucratic, and
concertive. What does she mean by each of these?
How would you distinguish between them?
How can
identification with the organization serve to support and reinforce particular
kinds of control?
Allen
explains that the concept of hegemony—domination through consent—also relies
on resistance. What does she mean by this? What would this look like in
practice?
Can you
think of examples of resistance to hegemonic power? How can it both challenge
and legitimate that power?
What is
Ideology?
Which ideological
positions most pervade
What is
the “Ideology of domination”? How does this concept normalize hierarchy?
How is power communicated through: everyday talk, written texts and documents, micropractices, policies and rules?
What is the rule of hypo-descent?
How are racial classifications culturally defined, according to Ore?
How do these classifications shape and define difference?
According to Ore, what is the value of understanding how difference and
inequality are constructed?
What are the four primary elements of thinking critically about these
issues that Ore identifies?
What is essentialism, and how is it different from a social constructionist
orientation?
What are the key features of social construction theory according to Ore?
Ore describes three stages of social constructionism first developed by
Berger and Luckman. What are they, and how do you understand them to operate?
What constructs categories of difference according to Ore?
Ore gives specific examples of how race/ethnicity, social class, sex and
gender, and sexuality are constructed. How are their constructions similar
and/or different from one another? Why use categories of difference at all?
What is a matrix of domination and how does it help us understand the
social construction of diference?
What is the difference between essentialist and constructionist orientations
to understanding the world according to Rosenblum and Travis?
Rosenblum and Travis argue “few of us have grown up as constructionists.”
Does this reflect your experience or not? Why do you think the authors
argue this is a common feature of US society?
What role does Naming play in constructing differences? Can you think
of personal examples where difference or similarity has been inscribed in
a name? What are they? What reactions, if any did you have to the examples
provided by Rosenblum and Travis on pages 6-15 describing processes of naming
both individuals and groups?
As Rosenblum and Travis use the term, what does dichotomizing mean? How
can it be potentially problematic? Provide examples.
How have different categories of difference been dichotomized historically
according to Rosenblum and Travis?
How are constructions of disability similar to and/or different from the
other categories of difference Rosenblum and Travis identify?
How is the process of dichotomization related to the production of the
“Other?” How does this work in practice? Give examples.
What social rules and norms may be used to sanction those who associate
with “Others” according to Rosenblum and Travis?
How does stigma operate to reinforce dichotomies?
This reading begins with examples of discrimination and racial profiling
targeted at persons of Arab descent or persons perceived to be Arab since
September 11th. What were your reactions to these experiences as you read
them? What factors influence your own personal response. How do the experiences
described compare or relate to the targeting or profiling of other groups
in the United States in recent history?
What are pretext stops? What impact, both real and perceived, might such
stops have both on those being stopped, and on public perceptions of that
population?
What is the relationship between one’s “master status” and other statuses
one might have? How does Ore suggest that master status comes to have significance?
What are the different types of privilege and oppression described by
Ore? How do they operate? What examples does she provide? What examples
can you think of that illustrate how these systems operate socially?
How do prejudice, discrimination, and institutionalized oppression differ
from and relate to one another?
On several occasions, using different examples, Ore states that members
of a privileged group benefit from a system of oppression even if individual
members of that group do not behave in an oppressive manner. What does she
mean by this? Can you think of examples to illustrate how this operates
for you personally?
What is heterosexism, and how does it differ from homophobia?
How do social organizations and institutions operate to maintain systems
of oppression and privilege? Give examples.
What is the impact of viewing institutionalized oppression or privilege
as “the way things are”?
According to Erica Goode (1999) what is one of the most powerful predictors
of health?
What is cultural capital? What is a “hidden curriculum”? How do both operate
through the educational system to reproduce and maintain systems of privilege?
How does language operate to reproduce and maintain these systems?
What is meant by the term “rape culture” and how does it function as a
form of social control?
Why are the twelve Supreme Court cases described in this piece “key” cases,
and how have they shaped and defined “difference” in the United States?
Summarize and explain the importance of each of the twelve cases described.
How did the Scott v. Sanford case shape and define “citizenship” in the
United States?
What did Amendments XII, XIV, and XV provide for? How did they serve
an equalizing function? In what ways did they perpetuate and reinforce
notions of difference?
What implications did Minor v. Happersett have for the rights of “citizens”
to vote? How did this decision function to reify (make natural and “real”)
social relationships between men and women?
In what social context did the Plessy v. Ferguson case arise?
How did the decision in Plessy v. Ferguson reify relationships between
“black” and “white” people?
What justification was provided in the Plessy v. Ferguson decision for
a doctrine of “separate but equal”?
Given what you have read about institutionalized privilege and oppression,
what is potentially problematic in the statement in the Plessy v. Ferguson
decision that “If the two races are to meet upon terms of social equality,
it must be the result of natural affinities, a mutual appreciation of each
other’s merits and a voluntary consent of individuals.”?
What does Harlan mean in his dissenting opinion when he argues “…the thin
disguise of ‘equal’ accommodations for passengers in railroad coaches will
not mislead anyone, nor atone for the wrong this day done.”
What is the difference between a social policy or practice that is enforced
de jure versus one that is enforced de facto?
How was Brown v. Board of Education a challenge to the separate but equal
doctrine?
What was the differential treatment applied to subjects of China that
precipitated the Wo v. Hopkins case?
What does the opinion of the court mean when it says “though the law itself
be fair on its face and impartial in appearance, yet, it is applied and
administered by public authority with an evil eye and unequal hand, so as
practically to make unjust and illegal discriminations between persons in
similar circumstances.”?
What are the implications of the Wo v. Hopkins decision for legal application
of equal protection under the fourteenth amendment?
How does the decision in Elk v. Wilkins extend and reify decisions made
in Scott v. Sanford and Minor v. Happersett? How did this decision reify
relationships between Native Americans and “citizens” of the United States?
What does the dissenting opinion contend is problematic about the decision
of the court in Elk v. Wilkins?
Why is the fact that Lau v. Nichols was decided not on the basis of the
Fourteenth Amendment, but on the 1964 Civil Rights Act significant?
What do Rosenblum and Travis mean when they argue that “Lau [v. Nichols]
underscores the idea that equality may not be achieved by treating different
categories of people in the same way.”?
In what way did the decision in San Antonio School District v. Rodriguez
examine the application of “equal protection” to people and their schools
based on financial resources and social class?
What does the court’s decision in San Antonio School District v. Rodriguez
do to establish social class as fundamentally different from other “classes”
of people? What are some implications of this decision? How does the dissenting
opinion differ in its analysis of this case?
What implications did the Bowers v. Hardwick decision have for gay rights?
How did this decision reify existing sodomy laws in a way that justified
and rationalized a prohibition of homosexual sex? How do critics of this
decision argue it is inconsistent with the overturning of other legislation,
including legislation prohibiting miscegenation (cohabitation, sexual relations,
interbreeding, or marriage involving persons of different races)?
What legal precedent was set in the Regents of the University of California
v. Bakke concerning the use of Affirmative Action in Higher Education?
In the dissenting opinion, four justices argue that “unlike discrimination
against racial minorities, the use of racial preferences for remedial purposes
does not inflict a pervasive injury upon individual whites in the sense that
wherever they go or whatever they do there is a significant likelihood that
they will be treated as second-class citizens because of their color.” What
does this mean? What do you think of this statement? What shapes your own
ideas and perceptions about this issue?
Rosenblum and Travis indicate that the Bakke decision was effectively
overturned when the Supreme Court refused to hear a case in the Hopwood
v. Texas case in which a lower court ruled that Texas could not use race
as a criterion in admissions decisions. This is somewhat misleading since
the issue has not been decided at the Supreme Court level, and other cases
have either been heard or are pending.
For more current information on the Hopwood case and its implications,
you may want to visit http://www.law.utexas.edu/hopwood/
Because this issue is still before the courts in the Grutter v. Bollinger,
et al. and Gratz v. Bollinger et al. cases with regard to admissions to
the University of Michigan Law school, you may want to review additional
information about these cases at http://www.umich.edu/~urel/admissions/overview/
For those interested in this topic, a history of Affirmative Action in
Higher Education can be found on-line at http://www.infoplease.com/spot/affirmative1.html
How did the decision in PGA Tour v. Martin shape and define the way that
the Americans with Disabilities Act is interpreted and enforced?
In each of these cases, how does the decision of the court reflect the
changing social context in which the decision is rendered?
What are some of the critical social issues either currently before the
court or that you deem likely to come before the Supreme Court in the coming
years?
How do court decisions both reflect and shape social values, norms, and
policies?
How would you answer Allen’s questions
following the opening scenario: “Why do you think I was upset when she did
not recognize that I was a woman? Why do you think employees who realized
their error were so apologetic? Do you think they would have been more,
or less alarmed if they had mistaken a man for a woman? Why?”
What is the difference between sex and gender? How is transgender related
to both?
What, if anything, was surprising to you in reading about the historical
perspectives on sex and gender?
What is the ideology of patriarchy, and how does it operate in US society?
What is hegemonic masculinity?
What are some of the themes of masculinity and femininity cited? Can
you think of others you would add?
How do gender and labor intersect?
What is job re-segregation?
How is English a “patriarchal language”?
How does Joan Acker argue organizations are gendered?
What did you find yourself reacting to most strongly when reading this
story?
How do you make sense of these reactions based on what you have learned
about social constructions?
Why does the author propose a five-sex classification instead of two?
What, does she argue, are the social impacts of a two-sex system?
What did you find most interesting or surprising in your reading?
In the follow-up piece the author wrote ten years later, how does she
indicate her own understanding has shifted?
Why does she now suggest that even a five-sex system is inadequate?
Ore argues “gender is so pervasive that in our society we assume it is
bred into our genes.” 9p.99) How and why is this the case? What does this
look like in practice?
Identify three examples of how you “do gender” on a daily basis.
How does a sex category become a gender status?
Ore says “the process of gendering and its outcome are legitimated by
religion, law, science, and the society’s entire set of values.” (p.101).
What are some examples of this?
Ore describes several ways in which work done by non-dominant groups is
less valued than that done by dominant groups. How is this reproduced?
Can you think of some examples?
How is the “gendered social order” upheld?
What is your understanding of “transgender” after reading this piece?
How is it similar to or different from intersex?
Boswell argues “therapists today acknowledge that androgyny is a healthier
gender model for self-actualization than either of the binary genders.” What
is your reaction to this statement? Why?
Boswell also claims, “if moist people were more honest about it they would
probably find themselves somewhere in the middle of the bell-shaped curve
of gender distribution rather than at the Rambo/bimbo extreme.” How do you
react to this statement? What about this statement is different from that
above?
What is the “tyranny of passing”? How is it reproduced and enforced?
How does Boswell se transgender as a “bridge”?
Answer Allen’s questions: What is
your race? How do you know? When and how did you learn your racial classification?
Do you remember?
Allen says “The concept of black pride was an empowering force against
internalized oppression.” What does she mean by this?
How do “the sociohistorical-political contexts in which the terms were
used” shape the appropriateness and acceptability of different terms to designate
race to different people?
How are language matters related to race?
What distinguishes race from ethnicity?
What are some of the reasons why race matters that you find to be most
compelling?
Allen says “Numerous sources socialize us about our own racial classification
as well as how to classify others.” What are some examples of this from your
own experience?
What are some examples of ways that racism persists in contemporary society?
How has science been used to support racial ideologies?
What is racial formation?
A recent statement by the American Anthropological Association states
“The ‘racial’ worldview was invented to assign some groups to perpetual
low status, while others were permitted access to privilege, power, and
wealth. . . Given what we know about the capacity of normal humans to achieve
and function within any culture, we conclude that present-day inequalities
between so-called ‘racial’ groups are not consequences of their biological
inheritance but products of historical and contemporary social, economic,
educational, and political circumstances.” What implications does this have
for your understanding of race? Given this, why does race still matter?
What is the ideology of white supremacy? How is it institutionalized in
US culture?
How was the “melting pot” assimilationist model premised on whiteness?
How do you understand the term “racism”?
How were and are racial differences reproduced through the labor market?
What was the rationale for creating affirmative action policies?
How do the media help shape our views about race?
How is race communicated organizationally?
What is white privilege and how does it operate?
How is whiteness an “unmarked” cultural category?
How do questions of racial, national, and cultural belonging leak into
one another?
Frankenberg states that for many of the white women she interviewed “being
white felt like being cultureless.” What does this mean? How does this measure
up to your own experience or to your experience with people who identify
as white?
What dilemmas are created by a cultural positioning that resists definition?
One of Frankenberg’s interviewees sees whites as “nondefined definers
of other people.” What does this mean? What are the implications of this
for US society?
Frankenberg asserts that there is “a double edged sword of a color- and
power- evasive repertoire, apparently valorizing cultural difference by
doing so in a way that leaves racial and cultural hierarchies intact.” Can
you think of examples of how this works?
How does whiteness intersect with class issues?
Frankenberg asserts “rather than feeling “cultureless,” white[s] need
to become conscious of the histories and specificities of our cultural positions,
and of the political, economic, and creative fusions that form all cultures.”
Do you agree? What is important about this approach?
What distinction does the author make between being born white and being
bred white?
What are some of the examples given of how children learn to be white?
How does the author argue that this construction of a privileged identity
comes at a cost?
What is the cost of whiteness?
What does a belief in biological whiteness make invisible?
How does whiteness enable particular class systems and relationships to
operate according to the author?
What is “survivor shame” according to the author?
What is “the box” referred to by the authors? What function does it serve?
How is this box symbolic of race relations?
What does the author imply is meant when white parent move out of mixed
neighborhoods to find “a nice place to raise kids”?
What are some of the examples given of how racially segregated neighborhoods
perpetuate themselves?
What point is the author making in describing the racially segregated
Hernando High School as perhaps “the most honest high school in America”?
How do students at America’s high schools learn to “act their color” according
to the author?
How can social stigmas reproduce class divisions along the lines of race?
How is a “culture of low expectations” produced?
What is racial tracking?
Why does Ore say that ethnicity is optional for Whites only?
What are some examples of “optional ethnicity”?
What does it mean to “pass” as white?
What is the “ethnic miracle” described by the author?
Why, does the author argue, that some whites selectively identify with
some but not all of their heritage?
What is a symbolic ethnicity?
What is a hyphenated identity?
What is the cost associated with symbolic ethnicity for society? How does
it impact non-whites whose ethnicities are not “optional” in the US?
What is made invisible when the stories of white success are told in terms
of individual triumph over adversity?
How do college campuses serve as a site where some of these issues become
visible to children of different racial backgrounds?
What does the author mean by the statement “like capitalism, the invisible
hand of pluralism does not do well when power relations and externalities
are ignored”?
Despite decreases in certain kinds of inequality in the US workforce since
the 1960s, how do the authors argue that sex, race, and ethnic inequality
persist?
The authors state that “job segregation is the linchpin of workplace inequality
because the relegation of different groups to different kinds of work both
facilitates and legitimates unequal treatment.” What do they mean by this?
Do you agree or disagree? Why or why not?
What do the terms “glass ceiling” and “sticky floor” mean with regard
to hierarchical segregation in the workplace?
How do “supply-side” explanations serve to justify and rationalize sex
and race segregation in the workplace? What factors are overlooked or ignored
from this perspective?
How does structural discrimination operate?
How does Allen argue attitudes toward class vary according to sociohistorical
context?
What are some examples of the ways in which quality of life varies according
to socioeconomic status according to Allen?
How does social class affect the political system?
How do race and gender intersect with class?
How can we understand power from a class perspective?
What is the difference between economic, social, and cultural capital?
How do they interact to produce socioeconomic class?
Allen argues that the “’white trash’ stereotype blames the poor for being
poor, and it helps to solidify for middle and upper class whites a sense
of cultural and intellectual superiority.” How does this operate socially?
Can you think of examples?
How do the “myth of meritocracy” and “culture of poverty ideology” support
and reinforce a belief that success is earned through hard work?
How does “the experience of class occurs primarily through communication”
?
What are some examples of media portrayals of class? How do they shape
and define class relationships and values?
How does “the educational system replicates the class structure and corporate
system of capitalist societies”?
What is the “correspondence principle”?
Complete the “The Level Playing Field” exercise. What is your score?
How do you feel about your score relative to the lowest and highest possible
scores? How do you think your life would have been different if your score
had been lower or higher?
How does “looking at wealth help solve the riddle of seeming black progress
alongside economic deterioration?”
How did the unfulfilled promise of land to the freed slaves shape the
contemporary economic landscape?
What impact did FHA lending laws have on protecting the white suburb and
creating the black ghetto?
How have the FHA’s actions had a lasting impact on the wealth portfolios
of black Americans?
How does contemporary bias in lending continue to reproduce this disparity?
How do each of these issues contribute to structural reproduction of inequality?
What impacts does the disparity in wealth distribution have on Black and
White Americans?
How has the growth in household debt helped keep the economy growing despite
wage stagnation at home and economic turmoil abroad…?
How has this produced an un-sustainable growth in debt?
What are some of the inequities reproduced by a growing wage gap?
How do these authors understand and represent the racial wealth gap?
What is the “possessive investment in whiteness”?
How did policies of the early 1900s “widen the gap between resources available
to whites and those available to aggrieved racial communities”?
How do “minority disadvantages craft advantages for others”?
How have “even seemingly race-neutral policies… increased the absolute
value of being white”?
How are “poor mothers blamed for almost every imaginable economic and
social ill under the sun?”
What is the “triple whammy” referred to by the authors?
What are the “real problems” of poverty according to the authors? How
has welfare reform failed to address those underlying issues?
What are the “dead ends” of the welfare reform debate? What solutions
are presented “beyond welfare reform”?
How might these changes break the cycle of socialization and create institutional
change?
Why does the unfairness in America’s schools “never benefit the children
of the poor”?
What are some of the rationalizations provided for this inequity?
How does Tunisia’s school’s story capture the experience of children in
under-funded schools? How do these experiences construct and reproduce difference?
How does the story of America’s elite boarding schools contrast with those
in Anacostia school in the previous chapter?
How are gender roles contrasted and reproduced in these schools?
How do race and class intersect with the way these roles are constructed?
Provide some examples.
How do these schools produce and reproduce cultural capital?
How did you react
to Allen’s opening story? Have you ever found yourself
in a similar situation? Why do you think that individuals
How do you define
sexuality? How does it differ from, and intersect
with gender issues?
What new information
did you learn in reading about the history of sexuality?
What surprised you?
How have understandings
of “normal” and “deviant” sexuality changed over the years?
How are notions
of sexuality tied to notions of race, class, and religion?
How has the emergence
of the medical profession shaped ideas about sexuality?
What two sexual revolutions occurred within
the
How do
you understand sexual orientation? How are essentialist and constructionist
understandings different?
How does
oppression on the basis of sexual orientation compare to and/or differ from
other differences we have explored in class?
How do
issues of passing impact GLBTQ people?
How does
sexuality infuse the workplace?
What is
heteronormativity? How is it manifest in organizations?
How has the notion of heterosexuality been produced historically?
How has sex and sexuality changed connotation over the years?
How did heterosexual sex emerge as a challenge by “working-class youths,
southern blacks, and Greenwich-Village bohemians” to middle-class, white,
norms of sexuality?
How did the construction of heterosexuality normalize binaries of gender
identity and associated sexual preference?
How does the author argue that heterosexuality gained hegemonic force?
How has heterosexuality come to be challenge and questioned in the last
twenty years?
How does this chapter depict sexual identity as evolving and in flux? How
does this fit with your understanding or experience?
What problems does the author pose with linear models of sexual identity
development?
How does identity shift according to a sexual landscape according to the
author?
How has the sexual landscape itself changed, and how does this affect sexual
identity development?
What importance does the author place on changes in the language we use
for self-definition? What are some examples?