Rice undergrads to deliver papers at national conference

Rice undergrads to deliver papers at national conference

BY FRANZ BROTZEN
Rice News Staff
 
Two Rice undergraduates have won first and second place in a national paper competition sponsored by the Association of Black Sociologists (ABS).
 
The undergraduates, Alicia Burns-Wright and Alley Lyles, will present their papers at the group’s annual conference in New York in August. Their trip will be underwritten by the Chandler Davidson Fund.

Burns-Wright’s paper, titled “Bratz: Friend or Foe to the Movement Toward Racial Equality,” analyzes the four main characters of a Saturday morning cartoon show to identify racial stereotypes.
 
Lyles’ paper, “EthniCities: Whites’ Perception of Black Discrimination in Houston, Texas,” looks at “the growing spatial and racial divide occurring between blacks and whites in Houston.”

Looking at stereotypes in cartoons
 
Burns-Wright’s paper emerged from the Race and Ethnic Relations class taught by Michael Emerson, the Allyn and Gladys Cline Professor of Sociology.

Burns-Wright said that while the literature on the effect of televised violence and advertising on children is extensive, there has been relatively little attention given to the effect of racial stereotypes on young viewers.
 
“Racial stereotypes in cartoons are particularly interesting because they are shown to children, particularly young children, who are still developing their sense of the world and their sense of identity,” Burns-Wright wrote. “By influencing children and their perception of the world, cartoons may have more power to shape the future than society realizes.”
 
Burns-Wright determined that three of the four main characters in a cartoon show called “Bratz” clearly fit racial and ethnic stereotypes. She found many problems with the racial representations of the Bratz characters on their TV show, but “progress is being made by simply including a cast of multiracial characters.”
 
Burns-Wright, who will be a senior this fall, is excited at the prospect of delivering her paper to the ABS — her first such experience outside the classroom.

“It goes to show how this the Department of Sociology helps support studies in race,” she said.

Studying a racial divide
 
Lyles’ project began in a class taught by Jenifer Bratter, assistant professor of sociology, and was revised and amended in Emerson’s class on Race and Ethnic Relations. Lyles, who will also be a senior this fall, is studying to be an urban sociologist and wanted to take on a project to prove to herself this is what she wanted to do.
 
She wanted to work on a project that gave a practical application to the theory on social and spatial segregation she was reading in her classes by asking the question: “Do Houstonians’ perceptions of racial discrimination against blacks differ based on factors contributing to an individual’s move to the suburbs?”
 
Lyles’ paper makes use of data included in the annual Houston-Area Survey produced by Stephen Klineberg, professor of sociology. Lyles looked at data on where Houstonians live and their socio-economic class to determine the degree to which they perceive racial discrimination.

She found that residence, income and education “have virtually no impact on perceptions of discrimination.” However, “the ethnicity of the respondent surfaces as the most telling variable as to whether or not an individual acknowledges black discrimination.”
 
Lyles called the trip to New York in August “a great opportunity to be recognized in a field I enjoy and to be supported by faculty members I admire.”

“As I read their papers, I knew they were both something special,” said Emerson, who directs Rice’s Center on Race Religion and Urban Life. “Placing first and second in the national competition tells us just how special both the papers and these students are. It has been a gift to have ‘the Alicias’ here at Rice.”

The ABS is a national professional organization of sociologists and social scientists founded by women and men of African descent. Its mission is to build a tradition of scholarship that will serve black people. The organization’s national paper competition for undergraduate sociology students is held annually. Cash awards are given for the top three papers, along with an invitation to present the papers at the national conference.