2. Ethnicity and Race Ethnic Groups and Ethnicity Race and Ethnicity
The Social Construction of Race
Ethnic Groups, Nations, and Nationalities
Ethnic Tolerance and Accommodation
Roots of Ethnic Conflict

3. Ethnicity and Race
What is social status, and how does it relate to ethnicity?
How are race and ethnicity socially constructed in various societies?
What are the positive and negative aspects of ethnicity?

4. Ethnic Groups and Ethnicity
Ethnic group: a gathering whose members share certain beliefs, values, habits, customs, and norms because of their common background
Ethnicity: identification with, and feeling part of, a particular ethnic group and exclusion from certain other groups because of this affiliation

5. Ethnic Groups and Ethnicity
Ethnic feelings and their associated behavior vary in intensity within ethnic groups and countries over time.
Cultural differences may be associated with ethnicity, class, region, or religion.

6. Ethnic Groups and Ethnicity
Status: any position that determines where someone fits in society
Ascribed status: little or no choice about occupying the status given
Achieved status: gained through choices, actions, efforts, talents, or accomplishments

7. Table 15.1: Race/Ethnic Identification in the United States, 2007

8. Figure 15.1: Social Statuses

9. Status Shifting
Some statuses, particularly ascribed ones, are mutually exclusive.
Some statuses are contextual.
Minority groups: have an ascribed status that is associated with their position in the sociopolitical hierarchy
Inferior power and less secure access to resources than majority groups

10. Table 15.2: American Hispanics and Latinos, 200710

11. Race Race: an ethnic group assumed to have a biological basis
Racism: discrimination against an ethnic group assumed to have a biological basis

12. Race and Ethnicity
Race is a cultural category rather than a biological reality.
It is not possible to define human races biologically.
U.S. culture does not draw a very clear line between ethnicity and race.
“Hispanic”: ethnic category that cuts across racial contrasts like “black” and “white”
Better to use ethnic group than race

13. Hypodescent: Race in the United States
In U.S. culture, one acquires one’s racial identity at birth.
Rule of Descent: assigns social identity on the basis of ancestry
Hypodescent: automatically places the children of a union or mating between members of different groups into a minority group
Divides U.S. society into groups unequal in their access to wealth, power, and prestige

14. Race in the Census
The U.S. Census Bureau has been gathering data by race since 1790.
The Constitution specified that a slave counted as three-fifths of a white person, and Indians were not taxed.
Attempts by social scientists and interested citizens to add a “multiracial” category to the Census were opposed by the NAACP and the National Council of La Raza.

15. Race in the Census Canadian census asks about “visible minorities”
“persons, other than Aboriginal peoples [a.k.a. the First Nation in Canada, Native Americans in the United States], who are non- Caucasian in race or nonwhite in colour”
Canada’s visible minority population has been increasing steadily.

16. Figure 15. 2: The Questions on Race and Hispanic Origin, from U. S
Figure 15.2: The Questions on Race and Hispanic Origin, from U.S. Census 2000

17. Table 15.3: The Visible Minority Population of Canada, from the 2006 Census

18. Not Us: Race in Japan
American culture ignores considerable diversity, as it socially constructs race within the U.S.
Overlooks diversity in Japan
Scholars estimate 10 percent of Japan’s population is minorities of various sorts.
Intrinsic racism: the belief that a perceived racial difference is a sufficient reason to value one person less than another

19. Not Us: Race in Japan
Most Japanese define themselves by their opposition to others—anyone not us.
Burakumin are perceived as standing apart from the majority of Japanese.
Like blacks in the U.S., Japan’s burakumin are stratified: class structured, with differences in wealth, prestige, and power

20. Phenotype and Fluidity: Race in Brazil
Brazil’s construction of race is attuned to relatively slight phenotypic differences.
Phenotype: an organism’s evident traits, physiology and anatomy, including skin color, hair form, facial features, and eye color
More than 500 distinct racial labels have been reported in Brazil.

21. Phenotype and Fluidity: Race in Brazil
Brazil: “race” more flexible than in U.S.
An individual’s racial classification may change due to his or her achieved status, developmental biological changes, and other irregular factors.
No hypodescent rule ever developed in Brazil to ensure that whites and blacks remained separate.

22. Ethnic Groups, Nations, and Nationalities
Nation: a society sharing a common language, religion, history, territory, ancestry, and kinship
State: a stratified society with a formal, centralized government
Nation-State: an autonomous political entity; a country
Migration, conquest, and colonialism led most nation-states not to be ethnically homogeneous.

23. Nationalities and Imagined Communities
Nationalities: groups that now have,
or wish to have or regain, their autonomous political status
Imagined communities
– Language and print played a crucial role in various European national consciousnesses.
– Colonialism (the long-term foreign domination of a territory and its people) often erected boundaries that corresponded poorly with pre-existing cultural divisions.

24. Assimilation
Assimilation: when a minority adopts the patterns and norms of the host culture
Incorporates the dominant culture to the point where it no longer exists as a separate cultural unit

25. The Plural Society
Plural society: a culture combining ethnic contrasts, ecological specialization, and economic interdependence
Barth: Ethnic boundaries are the most stable and enduring when groups occupy different ecological niches.
Shifted focus from specific cultural practices and values to relations between ethnic groups

26. Multiculturalism and Ethnic Identity
Multiculturalism: The view of cultural diversity as valuable and worth maintaining in its own right
Of growing importance in U.S. and Canada
Multiculturalism seeks ways for people to understand and interact with a respect for their differences.

27. Figure 15.3: Ethnic Composition of the United States

28. Roots of Ethnic Conflict
Prejudice: the devaluing of a group because of its assumed behavior, values, capabilities, or attributes
Stereotypes: fixed ideas about what the members of a group are like

29. Roots of Ethnic Conflict
Discrimination: policies and practices that harm a group and its members
De facto: practiced but not legally sanctioned
De jure: part of the law 29

30. Roots of Ethnic Conflict
Chips in the Mosaic
Ethnic competition and conflict are evident in North America.
New arrivals versus long-established ethnic groups

31. Roots of Ethnic Conflict
Aftermaths of oppression
Genocide: deliberate elimination of a group
Ethnocide: an attempt to destroy the cultures of certain ethnic groups
Forced assimilation: when the dominant group forces an ethnic group to adopt the dominant culture

32. Roots of Ethnic Conflict (Continued)
Aftermaths of oppression
Ethnic expulsion: removing groups who are culturally different from a country
Refugees: people who are forced or who have chosen to flee a country
Cultural colonialism: internal domination by one group and its culture or ideology over others

33. Recap 15.1: Types of Ethnic Interaction