Ch. 8 Race and Ethnicity Flashcards
Race
A category of people who have been singled out as inferior or superior, often on the basis of physical characteristics and attributes.
Ethnic Group
A collection of people distinguished by others or themselves based on culture or national characteristics.
Social Significance
Ethnicity and race form a base of hierarchical ranking “classes”.
Ethnic Groups
-Unique cultural traits
-A sense of community and ethnocentrism
-ascribed membership from birth
-territorial
Majority
A group that is advantaged and has superior resources and rights in a society.
Minority (subordinate group)
A group whose members are disadvantaged and subjected to unequal treatment by the dominate group and often face discrimination.
Visible Minority
An official government category of nonwhite peoples.
Prejudice
A negative attitude based on preconceived notions about members of selected groups.
Racial Prejudice
Involves beliefs that certain racial groups are inferior to others or have a number of negative traits to a dominate race.
Ethnocentrism
The tendency to regard one’s own culture and group as the standard “superior”.
Stereotypes
overgeneralizations about appearance, behavior, or other characteristics of members.
Sources of stereotypical behavior/attitude
Media, ethnic jokes, learned attitudes from family, fellow people and religious groups.
Scapegoat
A person or group that is incapable of offering resistance or support to others.
Authoritarian Personality
A person characterized by excessive conformity or submissive to authority, and stereotypical thinking.
Measuring Prejudice
Bogardus constructed a scale that uses social distance as a criteria for measuring prejudice.
Social Distance
The extent to which people are willing to interact with members of racial and ethnic groups other than their own.
1991 Canadian Study
Candain born respondents reported significantly less comfort when interacting with Canadians of West Indian, Black, Muslim, Arab, Indo-Pakistani, and Sikh origins.
Discrimination
Actions or practices of dominant group members that have a harmful impact on members of a subordinate group.
De jure
Legal discrimination which is encoded in laws.
ex: Indian Act
De facto
Informal discrimination which is entrenched in social customs and institutions.
Merton’s 4 Combinations of Prejudice and Discrimination.
-Not prejudiced and non-Discriminatory
-Not Prejudiced and Discriminatory
-Prejudiced and Non-Discriminatory
-Prejudiced and Discriminatory
Genocide (most extreme form of discrimination)
The deliberate, systematic killing of an entire people or nation.
Racism
A set of ideas that implies the superiority of one social group over another on the basis of biological or cultural characteristics.
Overt
Beating death of a 65-year old Sikh Temple employee in Surrey in 1998. Murder of 11 Jewish worshippers in synagogue in.