The construction of nature and social categories
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- The idea that something "natural" is better than something not natural is regularly used to make decisions and justify beliefs in American life, in contexts as diverse as deciding what to buy in a grocery store to advocating for the righteousness of the gender binary. This dissertation identifies ways that concepts of nature and social categories (e.g. gender, race, and age) are socially constructed, and explores their consequences for inequality. It consists of three separate empirical papers. In the first, I present a theoretical framework of the cultural components of the cultural valuing of nature and naturalness. I argue that the idea that natural options are better consists of at least three separate cultural products: first, the "naturalness schema" that defines some things as natural and some as unnatural; second, the "natural-is-better cultural logic" that positions natural options as morally and instrumentally better than non-natural ones; and third, "appeal to nature frames" that cultural actors use to render meaning and make persuasive claims using the naturalness schema and natural-is-better cultural logic. Through a series of nationally representative surveys, I find that the idea that natural options are better can be understood as a cultural logic that helps people make decisions across myriad aspects of life. I further find that one consequence of this logic may reinforce an unequal status quo, thereby contributing to the maintenance of inequality. In the second empirical paper, I explore ways that nature is mobilized in cultural conversations through an analysis of an original database of 5700 print magazine advertisements. I find that there are two common and distinct strategies by which nature is used to frame persuasive messages: appeals to the outdoors and appeals to natural properties. These two types of appeals are associated with images that construct notions of rugged individualist masculinity and authentic care-focused femininity. In this way, appeals to the concept of nature may help reinforce the gender binary and harmful gender stereotypes that can reinforce gender inequality. The third empirical paper examines a different type of social process related to the construction of social categories: the ways that common American first names signal age, gender, and race. It shows that names are strong signals of all three types of social categories, and that people's perceptions of a name's age do not closely match the true population distribution. Together, these papers answer and raise empirical and theoretical questions related to the roles of social constructs of nature and social categories in processes of inequality.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Form | electronic resource; remote; computer; online resource |
| Extent | 1 online resource. |
| Place | California |
| Place | [Stanford, California] |
| Publisher | [Stanford University] |
| Copyright date | 2023; ©2023 |
| Publication date | 2023; 2023 |
| Issuance | monographic |
| Language | English |
Creators/Contributors
| Author | Johfre, Sasha Shen |
|---|---|
| Degree supervisor | Freese, Jeremy |
| Degree supervisor | Saperstein, Aliya |
| Thesis advisor | Freese, Jeremy |
| Thesis advisor | Saperstein, Aliya |
| Thesis advisor | Ridgeway, Cecilia L |
| Degree committee member | Ridgeway, Cecilia L |
| Associated with | Stanford University, School of Humanities and Sciences |
| Associated with | Stanford University, Department of Sociology |
Subjects
| Genre | Theses |
|---|---|
| Genre | Text |
Bibliographic information
| Statement of responsibility | Sasha Shen Johfre. |
|---|---|
| Note | Submitted to the Department of Sociology. |
| Thesis | Thesis Ph.D. Stanford University 2023. |
| Location | https://purl.stanford.edu/ys198pn8143 |
Access conditions
- Copyright
- © 2023 by Sasha Shen Johfre
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).
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