Occupation-Centered Analysis of Social Difference: Contributions to a Socially Responsive Occupational Science

Abstract

The call for a more socially responsive occupational science demands critical analysis of occupational injustice. While scholarship has highlighted the role of occupation in social transformation, less attention has been paid to the role of occupation in perpetuating the hegemonic social order. This paper explores the mechanisms of social inequality by arguing that occupation can be a site of reproduction of the social order such as gender, race and class. I will ground my argument in Black feminist theory and sociological interactional theory, showing how gender, race and class can be experienced as linked systems of oppression. Three developments in occupational science will be outlined as a foundation for an occupation-centered analysis of social difference: the increased attention to inequality in opportunity for occupational participation based on social categories such as gender, race, and class; the development of occupation-centered analyses; and the movement from individualistic to contextual approaches which consider all occupation to be inherently intersubjective. I will show how an occupation-centered analysis of social difference reveals the ways that occupation can be a site of both resistance to and reproduction of the social order. Finally, I will use ethnographic material from Barry Thorne's (1999) Gender Play: Girls and Boys in School and Ann Arnett Ferguson's (2001) Bad Boys: Public Schools in the Making of Black Masculinity for analysis, focusing on the occupations of school-aged children.