Marginality

Marginality

Introduction

To understand the concept of marginality we must first look at the literal meaning of the word 'marginality.' In plain terms marginality refers to the "the property of being marginal or on the fringes" (wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn). To understand marginality think of a square, everything within the square is central, everything on the boundaries has been marginalized. It is outside the border of the norm; it has been outcast.

People get marginalized for a number of reasons. If we try to delve into the reasons for marginality, we need to take a closer look at the0 theme of social marginality; sociologists have long been interested in the social psychology of "marginal persons" who live at the intersection of two cultures. The children of immigrant parents often experience such marginality as they try to copy with the divergent cultures of home and the community at large (Lortie 2002).

Marginality affects not only a person's environment but also his/her personality.

Freedom Writers

An example of marginalized credits from The Price ...

The Minds of Marginalized Black Men

And in no other place is marginality as prominent as in educational institutes. Adolescents thrive on their differences and it's a completely different kind of jungle so to speak. Individuals come together to construct social marginal groups. A popular term for this is a persons 'click' which includes people who are just like them and excludes everyone else.

Personal experience

The one time that I can remember I was marginalized was during the beginning of the year. It was the time when everyone has chosen their extra curricular activities and I seemed to be the only person who had not zeroed in on anything. At the end of that month I realized all my friends had new 'groups' that they belonged to, where as I belonged no where. That was one incident where I had the strongest feeling of being abandoned and...