Social Sciences Research on Stereotypes in Popular Culture

Stereotypes in Popular CultureNameInstitutional AffiliationDate
The common stereotypes about the Indian Americans are often propagated by the different means. Most of the people get to know these stereotype in their learning process as they are covered in the educational materials that they used in the learning process. These materials often contain biased information about a particular group. In this essay, we provide a review of three major reading materials that explain how the reading materials portray the Indian-Americans in a negative manner. The authors of the materials also provide appropriate measures on how the teachers can evaluate history and provide the learners with the right information instead of propagating these stereotypes among the learners.
In the reading Sanitizing “Indians” in America’s Thanksgiving Story, the authors Sierra and Adams-Campbell take a look at the different ways through which the representation of the Indians in the thanksgiving books creates a stereotype about the Indians. The authors present an argument that it is important for the teachers to identify the existing ideologies about the Indian culture when they are teaching the kids using the books and help decolonize these ideologies by elaborating on the relationship between the Americans and the Indians. The books portray the Indians as obstacles to progress of the Americans. Most of the indigenous people had their culture before coming into contact with the Americans. Instead of acknowledging this culture, the Americans termed it as an ‘obstacle to progress’ and emphasized that people must get rid of these norms and emphasize more on conforming with the American culture which was viewed to be superior to the Indian cultureCITATION Sie16 \p "slide 3" \l 1033 (Sierra & Adams-Campbell, 2016, p. slide 3). The authors also encourage the teachers to learn how they can transform most of the things mentioned in the stories so that they can fit the context of a classroom. For example, Rockwell’s story found in the Thanksgiving Day about the thanksgiving ceremony can be conceptualized through the roles that the children play in the classroom contextCITATION Sie16 \p "p. 8" \l 1033 (Sierra & Adams-Campbell, 2016, p. p. 8). The authors also argue that there are also other challenges that are involved in the entire process of indigenizing the children books. The process involves challenging the commonly known notions of America as a master colonizer. Regardless of all these challenges, the autho...