Chapter 11

Question 1

White ethnics

Answer 1

• A term used in American sociology to refer to whites who are not of Northern European or White Anglo-Saxon Protestant background
• They consist of a number of distinct groups, and within the United States make up approximately 9.4% of the population

Question 2

American dilemma

Answer 2

The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy is a 1944 study of race relations authored by Swedish Nobel-laureate economist Gunnar Myrdal and funded by Carnegie Corporation of New York

Question 3

WASP

Answer 3

-White Anglo-Saxon Protestant (WASP) is an informal, sometimes disparaging term for a group of high-status and influential White Americans of English Protestant ancestry -The term applies to a group who control disproportionate financial, political and social power in the United States

Question 4

Assimilation

Answer 4

Minorities gradually adopt patterns of the dominant culture

Question 5

Genocide

Answer 5

Systematic killing of one category of people by another

Question 6

Miscegenation

Answer 6

Biological reproduction by partners of different racial categories

Question 7

Hypersegregation

Answer 7

• A form of racial segregation that consists of the geographical grouping of racial groups
• Most often, this occurs in cities where the residents of the inner city are African Americans and the suburbs surrounding this inner core are often white European American residents

Question 8

Pluralism

Answer 8

People of all races and ethnicities are distinct but have equal social standing

Question 9

Segregation

Answer 9

Physical and social separation of categories of people

Question 10

Prejudice

Answer 10

Rigid and unfair generalization about an entire category of people

Question 11

Discrimination

Answer 11

Treatment or consideration of, or making a distinction in favor of or against, a person or thing based on the group, class, or category to which that person or thing is perceived to belong to rather than on individual merit

Question 12

Minority

Answer 12

Any category of people distinguished by physical or cultural difference that a society sets apart and subordinates

Question 13

Ethnicity

Answer 13

• Shared cultural heritage
• Like race, ethnicity is socially constructed
• For most people, ethnicity is more complex than race
• U.S. is a multiethnic society

Question 14

Race

Answer 14

• Socially constructed category
• Composed of people who share biologically transmitted traits
• Considered important by members of a society

Question 15

Institutional prejudice and discrimination

Answer 15

Bias built into operation of society’s institutions

Question 16

Vicious circle

Answer 16

Prejudice and discrimination begin as ethnocentric attitudes -> Groups can be placed in a situation where they are socially disadvantaged and labeled -> A group’s situation is explained as a result of innate inferiority rather than looking at the social structure -> The cycle repeats itself

Question 17

Stereotype

Answer 17

Exaggerated description applied to every person in some category