Environmental Justice

[futuredoc331]

One of the in lecture questions in the EK Psych/Soc book asks about Environmental Justice.

It asks, Which of the following scenarios presents the LEAST threat to environmental justice?

I picked--- A. In a rural town with a high rate of obesity, a company opens a chain of gyms for women only.

They say it's C. In a large city, there is residential segregation by race.

There is a strong correlation with environmental hazards such as factories, garbage dumps, and airports being located in poor and often times minority neighborhoods. C should present a strong threat.

A. Doesn't have anything to do with the environment so it would be the least threat.

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[soccergurl1987]

One of the in lecture questions in the EK Psych/Soc book asks about Environmental Justice.

It asks, Which of the following scenarios presents the LEAST threat to environmental justice?

I picked--- C. In a large city, there is residential segregation by race.

They say it's A. In a rural town with a high rate of obesity, a company opens a chain of gyms for women only.

"A" can definitely create inequality, but how does it have anything to do with the environment?

There is a strong correlation with environmental hazards such as factories, garbage dumps, and airports being located in poor and often times minority neighborhoods.

I think the key to the question is that it is asking for the least threat to environmental justice. Like you said, scenario A creates inequality, but it has nothing to do with the fair distribution of environmental hazards, so it is a good answer.

 

[futuredoc331]

I think the key to the question is that it is asking for the least threat to environmental justice. Like you said, scenario A creates inequality, but it has nothing to do with the fair distribution of environmental hazards, so it is a good answer.

I made a mistake copying and pasting the answer choices and have since edited it. My thinking was the same as yours, but they say C. (racial segregation) would create the least threat. I dont see their logic.

 

[panda16]

I think it may be the fact that answer C doesn't specifically cite them being segregated into dangerous areas specifically. If environmental justice were an issue to consider, then I think the answer choice would have to say "by a dump, a factory, etc."

 

[carpediem22]

This was an annoying question. Basically it is C because the answer choice doesn't specifically state that the residential areas are unequal. We assume it is because we know that racial segregation usually leads to inequity. However, in A men would have no access to gyms, so that is environmental injustice.

It's a stupid question if you ask me. But I guess it teaches you not to bring in outside information when answering questions, which is a big problem a lot of people have.

 

[panda16]

This was an annoying question. Basically it is C because the answer choice doesn't specifically state that the residential areas are unequal. We assume it is because we know that racial segregation usually leads to inequity. However, in A men would have no access to gyms, so that is environmental injustice.

It's a stupid question if you ask me. But I guess it teaches you not to bring in outside information when answering questions, which is a big problem a lot of people have.

Oh yeah. I often found that for the Psych soc questions on the MCAT and during practice that it was best to think of JUST the dang dictionary definition of the term or phenomenon that they were asking and pick my first gut instinct response.

 

[El-Rami]

I agree. C is the correct answer because it doesn't state that the racially segregated areas of the city have inequalities with respect to their environmental space. However, A does because the gyms are women-only. You have to take the answer choices at face value. From what they say, you see obvious inequalities in all the answer choices except C. Now, there could very well be inequality (and that is most likely the case if you think about it realistically) but you don't know that because they did not tell you that there was. Maybe it's a "perfect" society where no one is treated any differently even though they segregate people by race.

You have to be careful with these questions. I had a similar problem with a question pertaining to memory in the Kaplan book. The question made me think of how memories are distributed in the brain, but the question actually was trying to get me to think about spatial memory and not memories in general. Although my thinking was valid, it was outside the scope of the question. I was thinking about the Parallel Distributed Processing Model of Memory.

 

[TheCruelOne]

I had a problem with this question when going through EK, too. I think the problem is actually in the defition of environmental justice. If you go back to page 18, it defines environmental justice as "the equal treatment of all people regardless of race, gender, or other social grouping with regard to prevention and relief from environmental and health hazards." So I think answer A really does show an example of a lack of environmental justice because in that case, men and women are treated unequally with the opening of the gym and a greater threat to prevention of men's health. That's how I interpreted it, anyway.

Edit: Whoops, just saw that this was already answered. My bad!

 

[futuredoc331]

I had a problem with this question when going through EK, too. I think the problem is actually in the defition of environmental justice. If you go back to page 18, it defines environmental justice as "the equal treatment of all people regardless of race, gender, or other social grouping with regard to prevention and relief from environmental and health hazards." So I think answer A really does show an example of a lack of environmental justice because in that case, men and women are treated unequally with the opening of the gym and a greater threat to prevention of men's health. That's how I interpreted it, anyway.

Edit: Whoops, just saw that this was already answered. My bad!

Thank you. This is the answer I was looking for. I didn't read through the EK book. I'm just doing the questions. I read through TPR and some of Kaplan. I was under the assumption that environmental justice strictly pertained to the environment. If general health is included then the answer makes sense.