© 2015, 2013, 2011 by Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved. Essentials of Sociology: A Down-to-Earth Approach, 11e James M. Henslin Chapter 9 Race and Ethnicity

© 2015, 2013, 2011 by Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved. LO 9.1 Laying the Sociological Foundation Race: refers to supposed biological characteristics that distinguish one group of people from another. Ethnicity, refers to cultural characteristics.

© 2015, 2013, 2011 by Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved. LO 9.1—Race: Myth and Reality Reality of Human Variety The Myth of Pure Races The Myth of a Fixed Number of Races The Myth of Racial Superiority The Myth Continues

© 2015, 2013, 2011 by Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved. What “race” are these two Brazilians? Is the child’s “race” different from her mother’s “race”? The text explains why “race” is such an unreliable concept that it changes even with geography.

© 2015, 2013, 2011 by Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved. LO 9.1—Minority Groups and Dominant Groups Not Size, But Dominance and Discrimination Minority groups are people who are singled out for unequal treatment and who regard themselves as objects of collective discrimination. –sociologists refer to those who do the discriminating as the dominant group because this group has the greater power and privilege.

© 2015, 2013, 2011 by Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved. Assumptions of race-ethnicity can have unusual consequences. In this photo, Ethiopian Jews in Gondar, Ethiopia, are checking to see if they have been given a date to immigrate to Israel. Because Ethiopian Jews look so different from other Jews, it took Israeli authorities several years to acknowledge that the Ethiopian Jews were “real Jews” and allow them to immigrate.

© 2015, 2013, 2011 by Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved. LO 9.1—Ethnic Work: Constructing Our Racial-Ethnic Identity Ethnic Work, refers to activities designed to discover, enhance, or maintain ethnic and racial identification.

© 2015, 2013, 2011 by Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved. As some groups do ethnic work, they produce a mythical long-lost heritage, as in this photo of “1500s Spanish” that I took in St. Augustine, Florida.

© 2015, 2013, 2011 by Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved. Many European Americans are involved in ethnic work, attempting to maintain an identity more precise than “from Europe.” These women of Czech ancestry are performing for a Czech community in a small town in Nebraska.

© 2015, 2013, 2011 by Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved. Many Native Americans have maintained continuous identity with their tribal roots. You can see the blending of cultures in this photo taken at the March Pow Wow in Denver, Colorado.

© 2015, 2013, 2011 by Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved. The Cinco de Mayo celebration is used to recall roots and renew ethnic identities. This one was held in Los Angeles, California

© 2015, 2013, 2011 by Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved. LO 9.2 Prejudice and Discrimination Learning Prejudice Individual and Institutional Discrimination –Home Mortgages Prejudice is an attitude, and discrimination is an action.

© 2015, 2013, 2011 by Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

LO 9.3 Theories of Prejudice Sociological Perspectives –Functionalism, stresses the benefits and costs that come from discrimination. –Conflict Theory, looks at how the groups in power exploit racial– ethnic divisions in order to control workers and maintain power.

© 2015, 2013, 2011 by Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved. LO 9.3 Theories of Prejudice –Symbolic Interactionism, stresses that the labels we learn affect the ways we perceive people. Labels create selective perception; that is, they lead us to see certain things while they blind us to others.

© 2015, 2013, 2011 by Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

The United States is the most racially– ethnically diverse society in the world. This can be our central strength, with our many groups working together to build a harmonious society, a stellar example for the world. Or it can be our Achilles heel, with us breaking into feuding groups, a Balkanized society that marks an ill-fitting end to a grand social experiment. Our reality will probably fall somewhere between these extremes.