1. Inequalities of Race and Ethnicity Key Terms
Chapter 12
Inequalities of Race and Ethnicity Key Terms

2. Race An inbreeding population that develops distinctive physical characteristics that are hereditary.
Racism An ideology based on the belief that an observable, supposedly inherited trait is a mark of inferiority that justifies discriminatory treatment of people with that trait.

3. Ethnic group A population that has a sense of group identity based on shared ancestry and distinctive cultural patterns.
Minority group A population that, because of its members’ physical or cultural characteristics, is singled out from others in the society for differential and unequal treatment.

4. Genocide State-sponsored mass killing explicitly designed to completely exterminate a population deemed to be racially or ethnically different and threatening to the dominant population.
Expulsion The forcible removal of one population from a territory claimed by another population.

5. Slavery The ownership of one racial, ethnic, or politically defined group by another group that has complete control over the enslaved group.
Segregation The ecological and institutional separation of races or ethnic groups.

6. De jure segregation Segregation created by formal legal sanctions that prohibit certain groups from interacting with others or place limits on such interactions.
De facto segregation Segregation created and maintained by unwritten norms.

7. Jim Crow The system of formal and informal segregation that existed in the United States from the late 1860s to the early 1970s.
Assimilation A pattern of intergroup relations in which a minority group is absorbed into the majority population and eventually disappears as a distinct group.

8. Ethnic stratification The ranking of ethnic groups in a social hierarchy on the basis of each group’s similarity to the dominant group.
Diversity A term used to refer to the heterogeneous nature of a society made up of numerous different racial, ethnic, religious, and other population groups.

9. Pluralistic society A society in which different ethnic and racial groups are able to maintain their own cultures and lifestyles while gaining equality in the institutions of the larger society.
Stereotype An inflexible image of the members of a particular group that is held without regard to whether it is true.

10. Prejudice An attitude that prejudges a person on the basis of a real or imagined characteristic of a group to which that person belongs.
Discrimination Behavior that treats people unfairly on the basis of their group membership.

11. Institutional discrimination The systematic exclusion of people from equal participation in a particular institution because of their group membership.
Ethnic (or racial) nationalism The belief that one’s own ethnic group constitutes a distinct people whose culture is and should be separate from that of the larger society.

12. Scapegoat A convenient target for hostility.
Projection The psychological process whereby we attribute to other people behaviors and attitudes that we are unwilling to accept in ourselves.

13. Internal colonialism A theory of racial and ethnic inequality that suggests that some minorities are essentially colonial peoples within the larger society.