These tools will no longer be maintained as of December 31, 2024. Archived website can be found here. PubMed4Hh GitHub repository can be found here. Contact NLM Customer Service if you have questions.


Pubmed for Handhelds

PUBMED FOR HANDHELDS

Search MEDLINE/PubMed

  • Title: Doing psychology, doing inequality: rethinking the role of psychology in creating and maintaining social inequality.
    Author: Sadi-Nakar M.
    Journal: Sociol Inq; 2010; 80(3):354-76. PubMed ID: 20827856.
    Abstract:
    The relationship between psychological disciplines and inequality has been a subject of great scholarly interest in the last several decades. Most works on the subject analyze macro features of psychological disciplines (mainly their evaluative tools, theoretical assumptions, and disciplinary power) and criticize them as biased against minorities. This paper re-examines the relationship between psychology and inequality from a micro, face-to-face standpoint. Drawing on close observations of 33 placement committees in which professionals from various psychological fields (psychology, social work, school counseling, etc.) discuss children’s eligibility for special education services, it portrays the actual doing of psychology as an inconsistent and malleable endeavor. In contrast to the macro-oriented research on the relationship between psychology and inequality, it shows that in actual face-to-face interactions, professionals use different types of folk concerns that often exchange formal evaluative criteria, theoretical assumptions or professional authority in final placement decisions. By revealing the different folk considerations professionals use to sort and analyze working- versus middle-class parents, this project adds an essential layer to scholarly understanding of the relationship between psychological practice and inequality.
    [Abstract] [Full Text] [Related] [New Search]