SOC280 Sociology
Week 5 Discussion
DQ1 In your own words, define discrimination and prejudice and provide at least two examples of each. Include both institutional discrimination and institutional racism.
DQ2 Read the following
What is your reaction to this? Discuss this project in terms of global inequality, which you studied in this week’s materials.
How could the different sociological perspectives explain global inequality?
If the World Were 100 People
Sometimes it is hard to understand how big, complicated, and interconnected the world is.
In the early 1990’s, Donella Meadows presented a framework for understanding the world as a fabric of physical, economic, or social relationships that determine world development. If we look at the world population as a village of 100 people, it is easier to know our world neighbors and we can often gain a greater understanding of some of the issues that affect the planet we all share, as well as learn more about what it means to be a global citizen.
The world population has now reached 7 billion people and the statistics have been updated from the original. The changes over the past five years are remarkable. In 2006, only 1 person out of 100 would have had a college education – today that number has jumped to 7 thanks in part to advances in higher education in Asia.
If we look at the world population as a village of 100 people, today:
50 would be female 50 would be male
26 would be children There would be 74 adults,
8 of whom would be 65 and older
There would be:
60 Asians
15 Africans
14 people from the Americas 11 Europeans
33 Christians 22 Muslims 14 Hindus
7 Buddhists
12 people who practice other religions 12 people who would not be aligned with
a religion
7 would have a college degree 22 would own or share a computer
Resources:
· 100 People: A World Portrait
12 would speak Chinese 5 would speak Spanish 5 would speak English 3 would speak Arabic 3 would speak Hindi
3 would speak Bengali
3 would speak Portuguese 2 would speak Russian
2 would speak Japanese
62 would speak other languages
77 people would have a place to shelter them from the wind and the rain, but 23 would not
87 would have access to safe drinking water 13 people would have no clean, safe water to drink
1 would be dying of starvation 15 would be undernourished 21 would be overweight
83 would be able to read and write; 17 would not
