Sociological analysis of Race and ethnicity

1. RACE & ETHNICITY

2. WHAT IS RACE?
• Race is a social construct referring to a group whose inherited biological
characteristics distinguish it from other groups.

3. IS RACE A MYTH OR REALITY?
• The concept of race is a belief. Sociologists study race as a social
construct. It is considered ‘real’ because people believe it to be ‘real’.
• An individual’s race varies according to the beliefs of a society, country
and culture. (see ‘can a plane ride change your race?’ in the assigned
reading)
• Trevor Noah is a mixed-race South African who arrived in the US hoping
to be perceived as Black. See a reflection of how race perception varies
in the video:
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=733RMVyL5KQ

4. TREVOR NOAH ON BEING BLACK

5. WHAT IS ETHNICITY?
• An ethnic group is:
• A group of people identifying with one another on the basis of
common ancestry and cultural heritage.
• They share cultural elements (language, symbols, beliefs and values)
• Shared biological characteristics are not necessary to be considered
part of an ethnic group.

6. ETHNICITY VS. RACE
• Race & ethnicity are both social constructs
• Race is based on the biological characteristics society attributes to a
particular group of people. Based on what people think. Varies by region
and society.
• Ethnicity is based on shared culture, ancestry, heritage and beliefs.
Biological characteristics are not always relevant. More fluid and
adaptable concept.
• Only one race: The human race.

7. ETHNIC IDENTITY
• Ethnic Identity- The extent to which one identifies with a particular
ethnic group.
• If your group is relatively small, has little power, looks different from
most people in society, and is an object of discrimination, you will have a
heightened sense of ethnic identity.
• If you belong to the dominant group that holds most of the power, look
like most people in the society, and feel no discrimination, you are likely
to experience a sense of “belonging”—and to wonder why ethnic
identity is such a big deal.

8. ETHNIC WORK
• Ethnic Work- the way people construct their ethnicity.
• People who have a strong ethnic identity, enhance and maintain their
group’s distinctions- from clothing, food, and language to religious
practices and holidays.
• For people whose ethnic identity is not as firm, it refers to attempts to
recover their ethnic heritage, such as trying to trace family lines or
visiting the country or region of their family’s origin.

9. PREJUDICE AND DISCRIMINATION

10. WHAT IS DISCRIMINATION
• An act of unfair treatment directed against an individual or group.
• Can be based on:
• Age
• Sex
• Height
• Weight
• Skin
Color
• Clothing
• Speech
• Income
• Educatio
n
• Marital
Status
• Disease
• Disability
• Religion
• Politics

11. INDIVIDUAL VS. INSTITUTIONALIZED
DISCRIMINATION
• Individual discrimination:
• person-to-person or face-to-face discrimination; the negative treatment
of people by other individuals
• Institutional discrimination:
• negative treatment of a minority group that is built into a society’s
institutions; also called systemic discrimination

12. WHAT IS PREJUDICE
• A rigid and unfair generalization about an entire category of people
• An attitude

13. WHAT IS RACISM?
• When the basis of discrimination is someone’s perception of race
• positive prejudice- exaggerates the virtues of a group, as when people
think that some group is superior to
• negative prejudice- involves prejudging a group as inferior.

14. HOW DO WE LEARN PREJUDICE?
• Learning from Associating with Others.
• Either through family, friends, groups joined or society.
• People who are prejudiced against one racial or ethnic group also
tend to be prejudiced against other groups.
• Prejudice does not depend on negative experiences with others. People
can be, and are, prejudiced against people they have never met.
• Internalizing Dominant Norms.
• When the minority group holds prejudiced beliefs against its own
members.

15. THEORIES OF PREJUDICE

16. THEORIES OF PREJUDICE
• Scapegoat Theory
• People who are unable to strike out at the real source of their frustration
(such as unemployment) look for someone to blame.
• This person or group becomes a target on which they vent their
frustrations.
• Gender and age are also common targets of scapegoating. So are
immigrants.

17. SCAPEGOAT THEORY IN AMERICA

18. THEORIES OF PREJUDICE
• Authoritarian Personality
• highly prejudiced people have deep respect for authority and are
submissive to authority figures.
• people who are older, less educated, less intelligent, and from a lower
social class are more likely to be authoritarian.

19. DOMINANT AND MINORITY
GROUPS

20. DOMINANT GROUPS
• the group with the most power, greatest privileges, and highest social
status.
Eg. Afrikaaners in South Africa under Apartheid

21. MINORITY GROUPS
• People who are singled out for unequal treatment and who regard
themselves as objects of collective discrimination.
• Not necessarily numerical
• Their physical or cultural traits are held in low esteem by the dominant
group, which treats them unfairly
• Tend to marry within their own group.

22. MINORITY GROUPS
• A group becomes a minority in one of two ways:
1. Expansion of political boundaries.
II. Migration.

23. MINORITY VS DOMINANT GROUPS

24. SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES
On prejudice

25. FUNCTIONALISM
• Prejudice and discrimination were functional for the Nazis.
• To help unite this fractured Germany, the Nazis created a scapegoat to
blame for their troubles. In addition, the Jews owned businesses, bank
accounts, fine art, and other property that the Nazis could confiscate.
• Prejudice becomes practically irresistible when state machinery is used
to advance the cause of hatred.

26. CONFLICT THEORY
Focus on the role of the owner (or capitalist) class in exploiting racial–
ethnic divisions.
• split labor market workers split along racial–ethnic, gender, age, or any
other lines; this split is exploited by owners to weaken the bargaining
power of workers.
• reserve labor force the unemployed; unemployed workers are thought
of as being “in reserve”—capitalists take them “out of reserve” (put them
back to work) during times of high production and then put them “back
in reserve” (lay them off) when they are no longer needed

27. SYMBOLIC INTERACTION THEORY
• Examine how labels affect perception and create prejudice.
• Gestures, facial expressions and body language is also used to indicate
prejudice.
• Stereotypes- stereotype assumptions of what people are like, whether
true or false
• the labels we learn affect the ways we perceive people.
• Labels create selective perception
• They lead us to see certain things while they blind us to
others.
• If we apply a label to a group we tend to perceive its
members as all alike.
LABELS USED IN BELIZE?

28. INTERGROUP RELATIONS

30. GENOCIDE
• The dominant group tries to destroy the minority group
• (e.g., Germany and Rwanda)
• compartmentalize—to separate their acts of cruelty from their sense of
being good and decent people. To regard members of some group as
inferior opens the door to treating them inhumanely.

31. RWANDA

32. RWANDA

33. POPULATION TRANSFER
• The dominant group expels the minority group
• (e.g., Native Americans forced onto reservations)

34. SEGREGATION
• the separation of racial or ethnic groups.
• Segregation allows the dominant group to maintain social distance from
the minority and yet to exploit their labor as cooks, cleaners, chauffeurs,
nannies, farm workers, and so on.

35. INTERNAL COLONIALISM
• The policy of exploiting minority groups for economic gain.
• The dominant group manipulates the social institutions to suppress
minorities and deny them full access to their society’s benefits.
• Eg, Apartheid

36. ASSIMILATION
• The dominant group absorbs the minority group

37. PLURALISM
• A policy of multiculturalism, also called pluralism, permits or even
encourages racial–ethnic variation.
• The minority groups are able to maintain their separate identities, yet
participate freely in the country’s social institutions, from education to
politics