© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. 1 ©2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Ethnicity and Race Ethnic Groups and Ethnicity Race The Social Construction of Race Stratification and “Intelligence” Ethnic Groups, Nations, and Nationalities Peaceful Coexistence Roots of Ethnic Conflict

© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. 2 ©2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Ethnic Groups and Ethnicity Ethnic group – members share certain beliefs, values, habits, customs, and norms because of their common background –Ethnicity revealed when people claim a certain ethnic identity for themselves and are defined by others as having that identity

© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. 3 ©2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Ethnic Groups and Ethnicity –American culture doesn’t draw a very clear line between ethnicity and race. –Ethnicity – identification with, and feeling part of, an ethnic group and exclusion from certain other groups because of this affiliation Race is ethnic group assumed to have a biological basis

© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. 4 ©2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Race/Ethnic Identification in the United States, 2002

© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. 5 ©2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Ethnic Groups and Ethnicity Status – various positions that people occupy in society –Ascribed status – little or no choice about occupying status People are born members of a certain group and remain so all their lives –Achieved status – gained through choices, actions, efforts, talents, or accomplishments May be positive or negative

© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. 6 ©2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Social Statuses

© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. 7 ©2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Ethnic Groups and Ethnicity –Some statuses, particularly ascribed ones, mutually exclusive –Some statuses are contextual –Minority Groups – ascribed status associated with a position in the social- political hierarchy Inferior power and less secure access to resources than majority groups Status Shifting

© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. 8 ©2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Race –Not possible to define human races biologically –Better to use term “ethnic group” instead of “race” to describe any social group Cultural category rather than a biological reality

© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. 9 ©2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. The Social Construction of Race –Ethnic groups assumed to have biological basis but actually defined in a culturally arbitrary, rather than scientific, manner Race is socially constructed Social Races

© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. 10 ©2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Hypodescent: Race in the United States –Rule of Descent – assigns social identity on basis of ancestry –Hypodescent – automatically places children of a union or mating between members of different groups in the minority group Helps divide American society into groups that have been unequal in access to wealth, power, and prestige In American culture, one acquires his or her racial identity at birth

© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. 11 ©2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Race in the Census –Constitution specified that a slave counted as three-fifths of a white person, and Indians not taxed –Attempt by social scientists and interested citizens to add a “multiracial” category to the census category opposed by NAACP and National Council of La Raza U.S. Census Bureau gathering data by race since 1790

© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. 12 ©2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction of Questions on Race and Hispanic Origin from Census 2000 Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Census 2000 questionnaire

© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. 13 ©2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Americans Reporting They Belonged to Just One Race

© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. 14 ©2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Not Us: Race in Japan –Also overlooks diversity in Japan –Scholars estimate 10% of Japan’s population minorities of various sorts –Intrinsic racism – belief that perceived racial difference is a sufficient reason to value one person less than another American culture ignores considerable diversity as it socially constructs race within U.S.

© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. 15 ©2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Not Us: Race in Japan Valued group in Japan is majority (“pure”) Japanese, who are believed to share “the same blood” –Children of mixed marriages between majority Japanese and others may not get the same “racial” label as the minority parent, but still stigmatized for non-Japanese ancestry

© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. 16 ©2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Not Us: Race in Japan –Japanese culture regards certain ethnic groups as having a biological basis, when there is no evidence Burakumin – descendants of a low-status social class; genetically indistinguishable from the dominant population; treated as a different race Discrimination against burakumin strikingly similar to discrimination that blacks faced in U.S. Majority Japanese define themselves by opposition to others

© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. 17 ©2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Phenotype and Fluidity: Race in Brazil The Brazilian construction of race is attuned to relatively slight phenotypic differences –Phenotype – organism’s evident traits, its physiology and anatomy, including skin color, hair form, facial features, and eye color –More than 500 distinct racial labels reported

© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. 18 ©2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Ethnic Groups and Ethnicity –Individual’s racial classification may change due to achieved status, developmental biological changes, and other irregular factors –No hypodescent rule ever developed in Brazil to ensure whites and blacks remained separate Brazilian “race” far more flexible

© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. 19 ©2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Stratification and “Intelligence” –Evidence that within any stratified society differences in performance between economic, social, and ethnic groups reflect different experiences and opportunities Differences not genetic –Contemporary human populations seem to have comparable learning abilities Dominant groups declare minorities to be biologically inferior

© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. 20 ©2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Ethnic Groups, Nations, and Nationalities Nation now means a state – independent, centrally organized political unit Migration, conquest, and colonialism led most nation-states to become ethnically heterogeneous. Nation once synonymous with “tribe” or “ethnic group”

© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. 21 ©2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Nationalities and Imagined Communities –Nationalities are imagined communities Diasporas – dispersed populations spread out from a common center or homeland Nationalities – groups that now have, or wish to have or regain autonomous political status

© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. 22 ©2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Assimilation –“Melting pot” model –Incorporates into the dominant culture to point where it no longer exists as a separate cultural unit When minority adopts the patterns and norms of a host culture

© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. 23 ©2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. The Plural Society –Barth believed ethnic boundaries are most stable and enduring when groups occupy different ecological niches –Barth shifted analytic focus from specific cultural practices and values to relations between ethnic groups (interdependence and exchange) A society combining ethnic contrasts, ecological specialization, and economic interdependence

© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. 24 ©2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Multiculturalism and Ethnic Identity –Number and size of minority ethnic groups grew dramatically in recent years –Multiculturalism seeks ways for people to understand and interact with a respect for differences Multiculturalism – socializes individuals into the dominant (“national”) culture and into a minority (“ethnic”) culture (salad/mosaic model)

© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. 25 ©2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Ethnic Composition of the United States

© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. 26 ©2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Roots of Ethnic Conflict –Prejudice – devaluing a group because of its assume behavior, values, capabilities or attributes –Discrimination – policies and practices that harm a group and its members De facto – practiced but not legally sanctioned De jure – part of the law Prejudice and Discrimination

© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. 27 ©2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Roots of Ethnic Conflict –Ethnic competition and conflict evident in North America New arrivals versus long-established ethnic groups Aftermaths of oppression –Genocide –Forced assimilation –Ethnocide –Cultural colonialism Chips in the Mosaic

© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. 28 ©2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Roots of Ethnic Conflict –Colonialism – political, social, economic, and cultural domination of a territory and its people by a foreign power for an extended time –Refugees – people who have been forced or who have chosen to flee a country to escape persecution or war Cultural colonialism