I would say there’s a  difference between “hearing” and “listening”, Hearing is something done without your control. Everyday we listen to sounds we can’t block off for example when walking outside the people chatter or walking around you, ambulance sirens, police sirens or the ice cream truck and so forth. When we listen is us letting our brain know to give your attention to that person or any particular situation you’re in. I believe we do have a choice of what we can actually hear personally am the person who does a lot of selective hearing. I’ve trained myself to block any sound around me and focus on a person talking to me or focused on what i’m doing around any loud area(working in the restaurant industry you build this trait). I listen to what’s important to listen to and be attentive to around me. I would say race, gender, or social class do matter to how we listen. We chose those we want to listen to and it does sometimes have to do with a race, gender or who this person is and if we have interest in them especially if they are famous or someone we tend to like. So with Schafer and Krukowski discuss sound and space they talk about what we listen to , the sounds that affect the space we put ourselves in.  An example is living here in NYC I do feel like a good majority of us have learned to block a lot of noise that surrounds us being in control of what we hear. We’re a busy life city a city that doesn’t stop running or sleep and for the majority of us we would block off sounds by putting on headphones every where we go now of how much we sound revolves around us in this city.