A Meta-analysis of the Literature on Privileged Identities

Vu Tran EDUC 352 Dr. Ronald Hallett

!"#$%&#'%$(%$)"$*(+,(-%")"!$.$( A Meta-analysis of the Literature on Privileged Identities In the various social contexts within larger society, some individuals receive unearned advantages over others based on various identities that they carry. For instance, men tend to be more valued in China, South Korea, and India in which there is a direct correlation to child mortality rates of women (Das Gupta & Shuzhuo, 1999). In the United States, individuals who are White tend to receive privileges that bi/multiracial people and people of color do not (McIntosh, 1992). More often than not, privilege is not very salient for those who hold it, but incredibly obvious to those who do not have it (Black and Stone, 2011; Goodman, 2011; Owen, 2007). Scholars and practitioners often focus more on the individuals and groups who experience oppression. There is a vast array of literature on the inequalities that women and

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people of color face, but not nearly as much on the role that men and Whites play in our society. Privilege is a core concept that underwrites social justice education, along with concepts of oppression, power, and social identity (Goodman, 2011). There is general sentiment amongst many educators expressing that the focus of privilege primary centers on an image of the straight, white man. It is reinforced by studies like the one that was recently conducted through Georgetown Universitys Public Policy Institute looking at how institutions of higher learning reinforce White Racial Privilege. The Georgetown study looks at the polarization and pseudosegregation of higher education institutions based on race. However, why is race the only identity that is on the table for discussion during these studies? What about ways in which we polarize learning opportunities for those who are able-bodied and those with disabilities? Or how we develop separate tracks for students who do not speak English as their first language? It is uncommon for diversity and social justice education to go beyond race (Schlosser, 2003).

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There are also other forms of privilege that can be considered beyond White Privilege. In this paper, I take a close look at the literature on privileged identities through a lens of social justice education and explore opportunities for further development for this area of study. Specifically, I expand upon a framework that Black and Stone (2011) utilized to expand the definition of privilege by broadly looking at how much work has been done in each area of privilege, including White Privilege, Male Privilege, Heterosexual Privilege, Class Privilege, Age Privilege, Ability Privilege, and Christian Privilege. Given the broad nature of this metaanalysis, I do not attempt to go in-depth into each identity, but offer the reader an opportunity to look further into each area. Defining Privilege Black and Stone (2011) have provided initial inquiry into defining privilege and assert that there is basic agreement among scholars (Lucal, 1996; McIntosh, 1992; Robinson, 1999) on how to define this concept. They provide five core components of privilege that prior scholars utilize in their definition: 1. It is a special advantage. 2. It is granted, not earned through individual effort or talent. 3. It is a right or entitlement that is related to a preferred status or rank. 4. It is exercised for the benefit of the recipient and the exclusion or detriment of others. 5. It is a privileged status often outside of the awareness of the person possessing it (McIntosh, 1992; Robinson & Howard-Hamilton, 2000). Black and Stone (2011) create their own concept that they call social privilege, defined as any entitlement, sanction, power immunity, and advantage or right granted or conferred by the dominant group to a person or group solely by birthright membership in prescribed identities.

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They differentiate their definition from prior scholars by stating that individuals may or may not be aware of their privileged status, compared to past assertions that people are likely to not be aware of privilege. I see the awareness component as a point of contention in the definition of privilege, and find my own definition of privilege to align more closely to prior scholars who assert that privilege is generally invisible. One of the common confusions that exist is the differentiation between power and privilege. In review of the literature, authors tend to utilize the language of power in their definition of privilege. Some authors describe privileges based on social contexts (Johnson, 2005; Goodman 2011), and others focus more on institutional contexts (Goodman, 2011). In general, everyday language, privilege and power are often conflated. I define privilege to be socially defined advantages that individuals receive based on certain identities, and power to be institutionally defined positions of influence and authority, such as individuals who serve as supervisors. Background The metaphor of privilege being unpacked from a knapsack (McIntosh, 1998) is commonly cited as a way of understanding the invisible nature of advantages that people receive. McIntosh pioneered conceptions of White privilege and male privilege into the literature with a working paper in 1988 entitled White Privilege and Male Privilege: A Personal Account of Coming to See Correspondences Through Womens Studies. Before this paper, the discourse in social justice work centered mostly on the experiences of those who were oppressed as opposed to the oppressors. It is much easier and more convenient to study those who are Black, women, poor, non-Christian, disabled, old, and queer. However, there is an emerging body of literature

!"#$%&#'%$(%$)"$*(+,(-%")"!$.$( on privileged identities that has stemmed from McIntoshs work on White Privilege and Male Privilege, and this paper looks the state of scholarship for other areas of privilege. Theoretical Framework Social Justice Education (Adams, Bell, Griffin, 2007) provides a framework to understand how to conceptualize privilege and certain identities that provide individuals with

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privilege. Hardiman and Jackson (2007) provide us with a model that looks at the complexity of oppression through their Multiple Dimensions of Oppression model. They posit that oppression exists on three dimensions: contextual, consciousness, and applied. They do not go so far to say that those same dimensions exist for the concept of privilege, particularly on the social/cultural level. Numerous scholars have assembled tables and depictions of groups who are privileged and groups who are oppressed. I will utilize a contemporary depiction created by Dianne Goodman (2011): Dominant Racism (race) People of European Descent (Whites) People of African, Asian, Latin, Native American, and Middle Eastern Descent (People of Color and Multi-Racial People) Sexism (biological sex) Males Females Intersex People Heterosexism (sexual identity) Heterosexuals People who are Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Queer, Asexual Transgender Oppression (gender identity/expression) Gender Conforming Biological Males and Transgender People Females Classism (socioeconomic status) Upper-class People Middle Class People Working-Class people Poor People Ableism (ability) Subordinated

!"#$%&#'%$(%$)"$*(+,(-%")"!$.$( Temporarily Able-Bodied People Ageism (age) Youth and Middle Adults

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Christians Native Born People

Religious Oppression (religion) Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Atheists, and other religious minorities Xenophobia (nationality) Non-Native Born People

While there is a wide array of identity models that exist in the literature, Goodmans conceptualization of identity allows for us to acknowledge fluidity of identities, particularly those that fall outside of binaries such as black and white. This framework allows for us to acknowledge certain individuals as privileged: whites, males, men, heterosexuals, upper-class people, temporarily able-bodied people, youth and middle adults, Christians, and Native Born People. Methodology I take a broader look at the literature through examining the amount of articles, books, and other publications that have been produced on each privileged identity. My primary tool for searching is Google Scholar, as it provides a broad range of publications spanning across multiple scholarly formats. I look at one or two of the most cited sources for each privileged identity and consider the quality of the work that is produced. Utilizing the classification of identities given by Goodman (2011) the seven types of social privilege identified by Black & Stone (2011), I determined a set of search terms that I would utilize for my search criteria. For race, gender, sexual identity, and religion, I was able to directly utilize Goodmans language for those who are in the dominant group (White Privilege, Male Privilege, Heterosexual Privilege,

!"#$%&#'%$(%$)"$*(+,(-%")"!$.$( and Christian Privilege). However, such terms were not possible for age, ability, and class.

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Therefore, I had to utilize more indirect search terms as Age Privilege, Ability Privilege, and Class Privilege. I then search for the most-often cited piece of literature and determine its quality of writing based on the format and mode of publication. Findings and Discussion Google Scholar Results Search White Privilege Male Privilege Results About 23,700 Most Cited Source Number of Citations 2105 2105 67 731 152 73 97

White Privilege: Unpacking the invisible knapsack (McIntosh, 1988) About 15,800 White Privilege: Unpacking the invisible knapsack (McIntosh, 1988) Heterosexual About 2,630 Hegemonic Heterosexual Masculinity Privilege (Frank, 1987) Class Privilege About 14,500 Black picket fences: Privilege and peril among the black middle class (PattilloMcCoy, 2000)* Age Privilege About 114 The Changing Contract Across Generations (Bengtson & Achenbaum, 1993) Ability About 81 Cognitive Ableism and Disability Studies: Privilege Feminist Reflections on the History of Mental Retardation (Carlson, 2001) Christian About 1,330 Christian Privilege: Breaking a Sacred Privilege Taboo (Schlosser, 2003) *Second-most cited source, behind McIntoshs White Privilege paper. Race

It is no surprise that race and White Privilege is the most commonly explored area in literature pertaining to privilege. In looking through the types of publications that have cited McIntosh, there is clear evidence that McIntoshs article on White Privilege has had a profound impact for social justice educators, scholars, and researchers. One of the more widely utilized books, Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together by Beverly Tatum, utilizes McIntoshs work on White Privilege to situate the experiences of black children in school cafeterias.

!"#$%&#'%$(%$)"$*(+,(-%")"!$.$( McIntoshs work would truly have to be classified as conceptual and theoretical, as she focuses primarily on the metaphor of the knapsack and listing of numerous social privileges that White

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individuals have. Most of the literature in the area of White Privilege is in the formats of books, qualitative studies, personal narratives, or editorials in magazines and journals. Gender Similar to race, gender is a very heavily explored identity when as it pertains to privilege. Because McIntoshs work is borne out of a feminist framework, she actually bases much of her work about Whiteness on her own awareness and knowledge about Male Privilege. There is a great body of work that unpacks the various dimensions and dynamics of male privilege through different lenses, mostly through feminism studies. Similar to White Privilege, the majority of literature pertaining to Male Privilege is in the formats of books, qualitative studies, personal narratives, or editorials in magazines and journals. And like White Privilege, there is much opportunity to continue expanding upon the complexities of understanding privilege. Sexual Orientation The search on Heterosexual Privilege yielded a very scarce amount of scholarly material in this area. It is rather surprising given the robust body of literature that exists in Queer Studies, particularly over the past 40 years. The only article that was commonly cited was entitled Hegemonic Heterosexual Masculinity by Blye Frank. In this article, the focus is on the intersectionality of heterosexual and male privilege, and does not provide clear narrative on when something can be defined purely as heterosexual privilege. Women who identify as heterosexual would not be able to fully relate to the narrative of this piece. It is evident that there is not much work that is focused on the privileged experiences of those who are heterosexual. Socioeconomic Status

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It is interesting to note that Peggy McIntoshs paper rose to the top of my Google Scholar search for Class Privilege. However, as McIntosh does not explicitly discuss Class Privilege, I selected the second-most cited source: Black Picket Fences: Privilege and Peril Among the Black Middle Class. It is a book that takes a look at class privilege within the Black community, and provides a narrative of Black middle class families in the South Side of Chicago. While it does offer a comparative analysis of Black Middle Class families compared to White Middle Class families, it also looks at these families in relation to poor Black families. This book utilizes an ethnographic approach, and offers narratives on a the neighborhood of Groveland, and the invisibility that they experience as a community that is not quite in poverty, but also not flourishing as much as White middle class families. Ultimately, the focus of the book places more emphasis on racial inequalities, but there are parts of the book that highlight the class privileges of the neighborhood. One example is the assertion that the individuals from that neighborhood were quite invested in improving the situation of the black poor, which offers a wonderful narrative of a community utilizing their privileges to positively benefit society. Class privilege seems to be an area of study that is well researched with over 14,000 returns on Google Scholar, but presents challenges for scholars and practitioners to engage with because of the fluidity of its social construct. Age Hardiman and Jackson leave out age from their examples of social oppression, and it is not by coincidence. Age Privilege is one of the least written about identities (Black & Stone, 2011), as there is so much fluidity pertaining to that identity. As such, my Google Scholar search yielded the second-least number of results, with a book on generational differences by Bengtson and Achembaum as the most-cited source. In their chapter entitled a Lifetime of

!"#$%&#'%$(%$)"$*(+,(-%")"!$.$( Privilege? Aging and Generations at Centurys End, they discuss the definitional problems and complexities that exist in how we classify generations. Bengtson and Achembaum introduce a

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concept they call temporal equity, as power dynamics are constantly shifting over the course of time and space. They claim that the citizen-taxpayer was to expect major benefits in the early adult years, defining those years as ages 25 34. This example highlights the complexity that exists in any attempts to define age privilege as an area of education and unpacking. Ability The search for Ability Privilege yielded the least number of results, and an article that focuses on cognitive ableism. The article itself focuses on the experiences of those who are feeble-minded and mentally retarded, and does not directly address ability privilege. This is not very surprising, as my Google Scholar search results suggest that ability privilege is clearly an area of research that has one of the largest gaps within the discourse about social privilege. Religion My Google Scholar search led me to an article entitled: Christian Privilege: Breaking a Sacred Taboo by Lewis Schlosser. Interestingly enough, Schlosser begins his article with a direct reference to McIntosh: The author discusses the concept of privilege in terms of the benefits enjoyed by Whites and men. It reinforces the rooted impact that McIntosh has in the realm of privilege studies. Schlosser affirms Christianity as the dominant religion in the United States based on numerical superiority and long-standing political positions. He follows McIntoshs precedent and goes on to list privileges that Christians enjoy such as being able to listening to music on the radio and watch specials on television that celebrate the holidays of their religion, assuming that they will not have to go to work or school on a significant religious holiday, and not needing to worry about ramifications of disclosing their identity to others

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(Schlosser, 2003). This article finds many parallels between Christian privilege, male privilege, and white privilege and is a prime example of how McIntoshs work has influenced and inspired others to unpack other forms of privileges. Limitations The broad nature of my methodology places an unbalanced amount of attention toward the most-cited published works, which may not be entirely representative of the quality of the field of study for different identity groups. My methodology can be taken and expanded upon to produce literature reviews for each and every identity discussed in this paper. Additionally, while Google Scholar is an incredible tool that spans an incredibly farreaching amount of literature, it cannot be relied on as the sole method of searching for resources and literature. It is recommended for further study implications to utilize additional tools that will create a better-rounded search query for each identity. Black and Stone (2011) also look at a limited number of identities, omitting identities such as English-speaking privilege, citizenship privilege, education privilege, body size privilege, and cis-gender privilege. There is seemingly a dearth of literature on any of these privileged identities, which provides opportunities for those who are looking to pioneer research and education on these identities such as McIntosh has done with White Privilege. There are also limitations based on the definition of certain identities, and lack of agreement on which identities are considered as privileged. For instance, age is not an easily defined identity, and there is a lack of agreement on which ages would be socially defined to have privilege in the United States. I encourage more discussion amongst scholars and practitioners about how we go about finding more definitional alignment with privileged identity groups.

!"#$%&#'%$(%$)"$*(+,(-%")"!$.$( Conclusions The literature on privilege is currently dominated by qualitative research, personal narratives, ethnographies, books, and editorials. I was not able to find any examples of

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quantitative studies that pertain to privilege. Within higher education, there is an emerging body of practice that looks more explicitly at privilege, such as bystander trainings, diversity retreats, Safe Zone/LGBTQ Ally trainings, etc. These serve as great opportunities to explore attitudes and behaviors of those who hold certain privileges in our society. One critical question came to my attention during this writing process: Why are some areas so much more well-researched than others? There would certainly be an inordinate number of factures, but one that would be interesting to take a closer look at the identities of individuals who are publishing in each area, and whether there is congruency between their own identities and the identities that they are researching. Do our own individual identities serve as motivation to pursue certain areas of scholarship? There is an abundant amount of opportunities to expand studies on other privileged identities and it is quite possible given the robustness of male privilege and white privilege studies. However, other identities pose unique challenges, as they are either more fluid such as age and class, or not as visible such as race and gender. It is equally as important that we continue to expand on the literature of race and gender, as they can continue to serve as the guides for unpacking other forms of privilege, and I encourage the reader to seize such opportunities.

!"#$%&#'%$(%$)"$*(+,(-%")"!$.$( References Adams, M., Bell, L. A. & Griffin, P. (eds) (2007) Teaching for Diversity and Social Justice, (2nd Edition), New York, Routledge.

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Bengtson, V.L. & Achenbaum, W.A. (1993) The Changing Contract Across Generations. New York: Walter de Gruyter. Black, L.L., & Stone D. (2011). Expanding the Definition of Privilege: The Concept of Social Privilege. Journal of Multicultural Counseling and Development. 33(4), 243 255. Carlson, L. (2001). Cognitive Ableism and Disability Studies: Feminist Reflections on the History of Mental Retardation. Hypatia. 16(4), 124 146. Das Gupda, M. and Shuzhuo, L. (1999). Gender Bias in China, South Korea and India 1920 1990: Effects of War, Famine and Fertility Decline. Development and Change. 30(3), 619 652. Frank, B. (1987). Hegemonic heterosexual men. Studies in Political Economy. 24, 159 170. Georgetown Public Policy Institute (2013). Separate & Unequal: How Higher Education Institutions Reinforces the Intergenerational Reproduction of White Racial Privilege. Washington, D.C.: Carnevale, A. & Strohl, J. Goodman, D.J. (2011). Teaching Diversity and Social Justice: Educating People from Privileged Groups (2nd edition). New York, NY: Routledge. Johnson, A.G. (2005) Privilege, Power, and Difference (2nd edition). New York, NY: Prentice Hall Lucal, B. (1996). Oppression and privilege: Toward a relational conceptualization of race. Teaching Sociology, 24, 245255. Hardiman, R. & Jackson, B. (2007). Conceptual Foundations for Social Justice Education. Teaching for Diversity and Social Justice, pp. 35 66. McIntosh, P. (1992). White and male privilege: A personal accounting of coming to see correspondences through work in womens studies. In M. L. Anderson & P. H. Collins (Eds.), Race, class, and gender: An anthology (pp. 7081). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth. Patillo-McCoy, M. (2000). Black picket fences: Privilege and peril among the black middle class. London: The University of Chicago Press. Robinson, T. L. (1999). The intersection of dominant discourses across race, gender, and other identities. Journal of Counseling & Development, 77, 7379.

!"#$%&#'%$(%$)"$*(+,(-%")"!$.$( Robinson, T. L. & Howard-Hamilton, M. F. (2000). The convergence of race, ethnicity and gender: Multiple identities in counseling. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill. Schlosser, L.Z. (2003) Christian privilege: Breaking a sacred taboo. Journal of Multicultural Counseling and Development. 31(1), 44 51.

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