RACE IN THE MAKING by Lawrence A. Hirschfeld ( 9780262082471 )

Item Details

Title:

RACE IN THE MAKING
COGNITION, CULTURE, AND THE CHILD'S CONSTRUCTION OF HUMAN KINDS

By:

Format:

Hardback

List price:	£10.50
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ISBN 10:

0262082470

ISBN 13:

9780262082471

Publisher:

MIT PRESS LTD

Pub. date:

15 May, 1996

Series:

Learning, Development and Conceptual Change

Pages:

248

Description:

In this text the author argues that knowledge of race is not based on observation of physical difference, or develops in the same way as knowledge of other social categories. Instead, he claims that racial thinking is the product of a special-purpose cognitive competence.

Synopsis:

Race in the Making provides a new understanding of how people conceptualize social categories and shows why this knowledge is so readily recruited to create and maintain systems of unequal power. Hirschfeld argues that knowledge of race is not derived from observations of physical difference nor does it develop in the same way as knowledge of other social categories. Instead, his central claim is that racial thinking is the product of a special-purpose cognitive competence for understanding and representing human kinds. The book also challenges the conventional wisdom that race is purely a social construction by demonstrating that a common set of abstract principles underlies all systems of racial thinking, whatever other historical and cultural specificities may be associated with them. Starting from the commonplace observation that race is a category of both power and the mind, Race in the Making directly tackles this issue.Through a sustained exploration of continuity and change in the child's notion of race and across historical variations in the race concept, Hirschfeld shows that a singular commonsense theory about human kinds constrains the way racial thinking changes, whether in historical time or during childhood. After surveying the literature on the development of a cultural psychology of race, Hirschfeld presents original studies that examine children's (and occasionally adults') representations of race. He sketches how a jointly cultural and psychological approach to race might proceed, showing how this approach yields new insights into the emergence and elaboration of racial thinking.

Illustrations:

Publication:

Imprint:

MIT Press

Returns:

Returnable

Some other items by this author:

BIOLOGICAL AND CULTURAL BASES OF HUMAN INFERENCE