1. Race and Ethnic Relations
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Basic Definitions
Race is a socially constructed category composed of people who share biologically transmitted traits that members of a society consider important. There are no biologically pure races.
Race is a significant concept chiefly because most people consider it to be such. Biologically speaking, race has less and less meaning in the United States
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Basic Definitions
Ethnicity is a shared cultural heritage. Ethnicity involves even more variability and mixture than race because most people identify with more than one ethnic background.
A minority is a category of people, distinguished by physical or cultural traits, who are socially disadvantaged.
Minorities have two major characteristics:
They share a distinctive identity.
They occupy a subordinate status.
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4. Racial and Ethnic Groups
Minority group: subordinate group whose members have significantly less control or power over their own lives than members of the dominant group
Racial group: group set apart from others because of physical differences that have taken on social significance
Ethnic group: group set apart from others primarily because of its national origin or distinctive cultural patterns
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5. Racial and Ethnic Groups in the United States, 2006
Note: Percentages do not total 100 and
subtotals do not add up to totals in major
categories because of overlap between
groups (for example, Polish American Jews
or people of mixed ancestry, such as Irish
and Italian). White ancestry is for the year
2000, and percentages are based on total
population in that year.
Source: Author estimates based on American
Community Survey 2006, Tables DP-1 and
R0203, in Bureau of the Census 2007d;
Sheskin and Dashefsky 2006.
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Race
Race as a biological construct does not exist
Racial formation: sociohistorical process in which racial categories are created, inhibited, transformed, and destroyed
Social construction of race: process by which people come to define a group as as a race based on physical characteristics as a race based on physical characteristics, but also on historical, cultural, and economic factors
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Race
The “one-drop” rule was a vivid example of the social construction of race
Race is often used to justify unequal access to economic, social, and cultural resources based on the assumption that such inequality is “natural”
Stereotypes: unreliable generalizations about all members of a group
Often used to justify inequality
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Race
Multiple Identities
2000 census gave people option of identifying themselves with multiple racial categories for the first time
Half of those classified as multiracial were under age 18
Points toward growing awareness of population diversity
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U.S. Racial Categories
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National Map 14-1
Where the Minority-Majority Already Exists Source: Macionis , John J. Sociology, 10th Ed , Pearson Prentice Hall , 2005 Ch 14
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Ethnicity
An ethnic group is set apart from others explicitly because of its national origin or cultural patterns
Distinction between racial and ethnic minorities not always clear-cut
Distinction between racial and ethnic groups is socially significant
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Attitudes and their consequences
Prejudice is a rigid and irrational generalization about an entire category of people. Prejudices are prejudgments and they may be positive or negative.
Stereotypes are exaggerated descriptions applied to every person in some category.
One measure of prejudice is social distance, that is, how closely people are willing to interact with members of some category.
Almost eighty years ago, Emory Bogardus developed the seven-point social distance scale and determined that people felt much more social distance from some categories than from others.
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Attitudes and their consequences
A recent study using the same scale reported three major findings:
A trend toward greater social acceptance has continued.
People see less difference in various minorities.
The September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks may have contributed to low social acceptance of Arabs and Muslims.
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Attitudes and their consequences
Racism refers to the belief that one racial category is innately superior or inferior to another.
Does Race Affect Intelligence?
Theories of prejudice:
Scapegoat theory holds that prejudice results from frustrations among people who are themselves disadvantaged.
A scapegoat is a person or category of people, typically with little power, whom unfairly blame for their own troubles
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Attitudes and their consequences
Authoritarian personality theory views prejudice as a personality trait in certain individuals.
The cultural theory of prejudice argues that prejudice is embedded in culture.
The conflict theory of prejudice proposes that powerful people use prejudice to justify oppressing others.
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Attitudes and their consequences
Authoritarian personality theory views prejudice as a personality trait in certain individuals.
The cultural theory of prejudice argues that prejudice is embedded in culture.
The conflict theory of prejudice proposes that powerful people use prejudice to justify oppressing others.
Discrimination is an action that involves treating various categories of people unequally.
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17. Patterns of Intergroup Relations
Pluralism: mutual respect for one another’s cultures among the various groups in a society, which allows minorities to express their own cultures without experiencing prejudice
In U.S., pluralism is more of an ideal than a reality
Switzerland exemplifies a modern pluralistic state
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18. Patterns of Intergroup Relations
The Melting Pot. Probably the most important theory stating that ethnic minorities would live together in harmony.
Multiculturalism is a society in which each group celebrates its own characteristics
Some people feel this harms the wider society, for example
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Patterns of Interaction.
Segregation refers to the physical and social separation of categories of people. It may be voluntary, but is usually imposed.
Assimilation is the process by which minorities gradually adopt patterns of the dominant culture. Racial traits can diminish over time only through miscegenation, biological reproduction by partners of different racial categories.
Genocide is the systematic annihilation of one category of people by another.
Amalgamation: when a majority group and a minority group combine to form a new group
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20. Racial Groups: African Americans
Brought to this country as indentured servants or slaves.
Sociologist Gunnar Myrdal referred to as “the American dilemma.” In 1865
This denial of basic human rights was a sharp contradiction to the promise of the American republic
Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution outlawed slavery
After Reconstruction, Jim Crow laws perpetuated the subordinate status of African Americans.
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21. Racial Groups: African Americans
In the first part of the twentieth century, a mass migration of African Americans to the cities of the North occurred
followed by the civil rights movement of the 1960s.
Even today African Americans continue to be economically disadvantaged as a group,
Problem exacerbated by the loss of factory jobs that has accompanied America’s move to a service economy.
The educational gap between whites and African Americans has narrowed substantially in recent years.
Political clout of African Americans has increased substantially in recent decades.
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Source: Macionis , John J. Sociology, 10th Ed , Pearson Prentice Hall , 2005 National Map 14.4 (b) The Concentration African Americans by County, 2000
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23. Racial Groups: Native Americans
Native Americans were the original inhabitants of the Americas.
Before European contact, they lived in hundreds of distinct societies.
Between 1871 and 1924, they were subjected to a policy of forced assimilation.
Now they are being encouraged to migrate from reservations to the cities in search of economic opportunity, but they remain far behind whites in educational and economic standing.
Many tribes and individuals have recently come together to assert pride in their culture.
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Source: Macionis , John J. Sociology, 10th Ed , Pearson Prentice Hall , 2005 National Map Land Controlled by Native Americans,
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25. Racial Groups: Asian Americans
Asian Americans make up about 4 percent of the United States population. They have a “model minority” image.
Chinese immigration started with the Gold Rush.
When the economy soured, discrimination increased and harsh laws were enacted limiting further immigration.
In response, most Chinese Americans clustered in closed ghettoes called Chinatowns. Assimilation and upward mobility marked the era that began with World War II.
Chinese Americans currently outpace the national average economically and educationally, although many living in Chinatowns continue to experience poverty
Currently, about 3.1 million Chinese Americans live in U.S.
© Alan S. Berger

26. Racial Groups: Asian Americans
Japanese Americans also came to this country in the last century to work, and soon experienced legal and social discrimination. During the Second World War many were confined in relocation camps. After the war, many made a dramatic economic recovery, and today this group is above the national average in financial standing. Their upward social mobility has also strongly encouraged cultural assimilation and interracial marriage.
More recent Asian immigrants include Koreans and Filipinos.
Large-scale Korean immigration followed the Korean War. Korean Americans often own and operate small businesses.
Filipinos enjoy relatively high incomes.
© Alan S. Berger

27. Racial Groups: Asian Americans
Vietnamese Americans
Came to U.S. during and after Vietnam War and, over time, gravitated toward larger urban areas
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28. Major Asian American Groups in the United States, 2006
Source: Author’s analysis of American Community Survey 2006
in Bureau of the Census 2007d.
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29. Racial Groups: WASPS
White Anglo-Saxon-Protestants (WASPs), mostly of English origin, have dominated the U.S. since colonial days.
Most came to this country highly skilled and motivated to achieve. Especially in the last century, many WASPs strongly opposed subsequent waves of non-Anglo immigrants. Their power is gradually declining in the twenty-first century.
Ancestry Across the United States. The highest concentrations of WASPs are in Utah, Appalachia, and northern New England.
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Racial Groups: WASPS
White ethnic Americans come from European nations other than Britain.
Most experienced substantial prejudice and discrimination when they arrived here in the nineteenth century. Many have now fully assimilated and achieved substantial success.
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Source: Macionis , John J. Sociology, 10th Ed , Pearson Prentice Hall , 2005 National Map 14-3 The Concentration of People of WASP
Ancestry across the United States
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Racial Groups: Hispanic Americans
Most Mexican Americans (or Chicanos) are recent immigrants, though some lived in Mexican territory annexed by the U.S. in the last century. They are well below the national average in economic and educational attainment.
Puerto Ricans are American citizens and travel freely between the island and the mainland, especially New York City. They are the most socially disadvantaged Hispanic minority.
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Racial Groups: Hispanic Americans
Many Cubans fled the 1959 Marxist revolution and settled in Miami and other U.S. cities. Most were well-educated business and professional people and have done relatively well in this country.
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Source: Macionis , John J. Sociology, 10th Ed , Pearson Prentice Hall , 2005 National Map 14.4 (a) The Concentration of Hispanics/Latinos by County, 2000
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Racial Groups
Arab Americans
About 3 million live in U.S.
Arabic language is single most unifying force
Most are not Muslim
For years, and especially after 9/11, have been subject to profiling and surveillance by law enforcement
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Source: Curry et al Sociology For The Twenty-First Century, Fifth Edition, Pearson Education, Upper Saddle River,2008
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37. Residential Segregation in the United States, 2005
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Source: Who Are the People in Your Neighborhood?
Gallup Organization July 12,2005.