science

Hate studies

Hate studies is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Hate studies rather than just read about it. In short: Hate studies is an interdisciplinary academic field focusing on the causes, effects, and prevention of manifestations of hatred, such as microaggressions, hate speech, hate crime, terrorism, and genocide, that target individuals based on hostility towards their race, religion, ethnicity, nationality, sexual orientation, gender, social class, disability, or other perceived conditions or identity categories. Origins H…

Key takeaways

Hate studies belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Hate studies to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Hate studies from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Hate studies is an interdisciplinary academic field focusing on the causes, effects, and prevention of manifestations of hatred, such as microaggressions, hate speech, hate crime, terrorism, and genocide, that target individuals based on hostility towards their race, religion, ethnicity, nationality, sexual orientation, gender, social class, disability, or other perceived conditions or identity categories.

Origins Hate studies developed from the civil rights movement in the United States. The interdisciplinary Institute of Hate Studies was founded at Gonzaga University, a Jesuit Catholic institution located in Spokane, Washington, and the Gonzaga Institute for Action Against Hate was founded in 1998 to "fight hate through education, research, and advocacy", as a response to growing concerns about increasing levels of hate crimes, hate groups, and online hate speech, to facilitate interdisciplinary study of the causes, effects, and prevention of hate in society. The institute began to publish the annual peer-reviewed Journal of Hate Studies in 2002, and as of 2023 Gonzaga University has hosted seven "International Conferences on Hate Studies." Other universities have added similar courses to their curricula, and the field of hate studies has now expanded globally. In 2014 the University of Leicester launched the "Centre for Hate Studies," which grew out of the "Leicester Hate Crime Project". The centre's continuing professional development program provides training on hate crime commission, prevention, and victimization, based on academic studies, policy, and victim statements. In 2018 Bard College founded the Bard Center for the Study of Hate, with Kenneth Stern as its director. Since 2013, the International Network for Hate Studies (INHS) has arranged a global forum for academics, policy experts, and practitioners to share knowledge and research findings about hate crime and related issues. Their website states that the study of hate "needs a multi-disciplinary and international focus as well as one which examines local and jurisdiction-specific causes and responses." The Network hosts an online blog, an online library for researchers, and various collaborative workshops, and organizes an international conference every two years, the first of which occurred in 2014 at the University of Sussex School of Law. In 2014, Palgrave Macmillan began to publish the "Palgrave Hate Studies Series".

Scope Kenneth Stern, an American attorney and an author, defines hate studies as "inquiries into the human capacity to define, and then dehumanize or demonize, an 'other', and the processes which inform and give expression to, or can curtail, control or combat, that capacity." Hate studies is an interdisciplinary field, with a scope which is not fully agreed or defined, but includes the study of hostility towards identity categories based on race (racism), culture (cultural racism), religion (Islamophobia and antisemitism), ethnicity, and nationality (xenophobia), socio-economic class (classism), and sex and gender identity (homophobia and transphobia). Elizabeth Thweat states that defining hate itself presents difficulties. She argues that "its scope is so broad that it touches almost all aspects of life and it dwells within the hearts and minds of each one of us" and its core feature is a "devaluation of the other." In A continuum of hate: delimiting the field of hate studies, Jennifer Schweppe and Barbara Perry describe a "continua of hate" from the 'banal' to the 'barbaric', including microaggressions, hate speech, hate crime, terrorism, and genocide, and the interplay between these concepts. The authors point out several common features of all of these actions; they are based on victims' identities; they reinforce the marginality of their victims; they do harm to their victims; and the victims are collective. In all except the case of microaggressions, these concepts are legally defined in most Western countries. However, not all Western countries agree as to what hate is, the relationship between hate speech and hate crime, the appropriateness of censorial interventions and sanctions, and many other important issues. Strossen has hailed Hate Studies for its non-censorial approach to addressing hate.

Interdisciplinarity Stern states that "various disciplines need to be integrated and cross-pollinated" in hate studies, and provides an analysis of some of the academic fields he considers relevant:

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Hate studies

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Hate studies claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Hate studies before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Hate studies ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Hate studies

In research: Hate studies appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Hate studies in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Hate studies is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Interdisciplinary subfields of sociology, Prejudice and discrimination, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Hate studies outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Hate studies in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Hate studies means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Hate studies out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Hate studies in simple terms?

Why does Hate studies matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Hate studies?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Hate studies.