Research

Much of Margaret Andersen’s work is clearly influenced by her longstanding dedication to the advancement of gender, racial, and class equity as well as to the change of social institutions insofar as they perpetuate the oppression and discrimination of disadvantaged groups in society. Many of Dr. Andersen’s publications can be seen as analyses of gender with intersecting ideas of race and class. Her publication titled “Restructuring for Whom? Race, Class, Gender and the Ideology of Invisibility” is no different. In this publication, originally presented as the presidential address for the Eastern Sociological Society (in 1999) Margaret Andersen examines and analyzes how the restructuring of society has differently affected the lives and perceptions of particular racial, as well as class and gender groups.
She takes a closer look at how restructuring has not only affected the situations of various groups, both subordinate and insubordinate and how this has changed the ideologies of race, class and gender as well as the visibility or invisibility as the case may be or these effects. Dr. Andersen concludes that this ideology of invisibility in regards to the intersecting effect of race, class and gender has essentially resulted in the hypersensitivity of people regarding these issues, even in the discipline of sociology.
She ends with a plea to her fellow colleagues to take off their “race-blinders” in order to improve the teaching and discussions of not necessarily overt but structural discrimination, whether classist, racist, or sexist; any ism that produces and reproduces inequality. Articles includes a variety of statistics regarding social institutions and how they structurally enforce and reinforce class-based, gender-based and race-based oppression
In the article, Dr. Andersen also discusses the dominant belief systems that frame our current ideologies about race, class and gender. She calls for the need for studies that identify and expose the “hidden racism and discrimination that persists in housing, employment, policing, education” and proposes that we should use sociological studies to raise public awareness of the perpetuation of structural inequity.
As an expert in both race and ethnic studies and women’s studies, Dr. Andersen accurately analyzes the effects and consequences of what she refers to as “race-blind, class-blind, and gender-blind” mentality which seems to have pervaded through contemporary American society, particularly in the ideology of the dominant group. Although she clearly states the problems facing our society, there is a sense of hope, as she encourages her readers to “speak about/write about/[and] think beyond the limits of liberal thinking, thinking that is framed in a perspective that race, class and gender should not matter.” She encourages the reader to “make the invisible visible and envision a more just world.”
As an expert in both race and ethnic studies and women’s studies, Dr. Andersen accurately analyzes the effects and results of what she refers as race-blind, class-blind, and gender-blind mentality which seems to have pervaded contemporary American society, predominantly in the ideology of the dominant group. Although she clearly states the problems facing our society there is a sense of hope, as she encourages her readers to “speak about/write about/[and] think about beyond the limits of liberal thinking, thinking that is framed in a perspective that race and class and gender should not matter.” She encourages the reader to “make the invisible visible and envision a more just world.”
Dr. Andersen just recently finished writing a book which will be out this summer. The book is a biography of Paul R. Jones, an African American art collector who donated a lot of his private collection of African American art to the University of Delaware, where Dr. Andersen is a faculty member. Paul R. Jones is an eighty year old man, who grew up in Alabama; and worked as a government civil servant for most of his life. He is now the owner of the largest privately held collection of African American art in the country, more information on the topic can be found on the University of Delaware museum web site.