Race Study Guide Chapter 1 Minority group a subordinate group whose members have significantly less control or power over their own lives than do the members of a dominate or majority group Subordinate group minority means the same as subordinate Majority group dominant is used interchangeably with majority 5 Characteristics of a minority or subordinate group o Members of a minority experience unequal treatment and have less power over their lives than members of a dominant group have over theirs Prejudice discrimination segregation and even extermination create this social inequality o Members of a minority group share physical and cultural characteristics such as skin color or language that distinguish them from the dominant group Each society has its own arbitrary standard for determining which characteristics are most important in defining dominant and minority groups o Membership in a dominant or minority group is not voluntary people are born into the group A person does not choose to be African American or White o Minority group members have a strong sense of group solidarity William Graham Summer writing in 1906 notes that people make distinctions between members of their own group the ingroup and everyone else the outgroup When a group is the object of long term prejudice and discrimination the feeling of us versus them often becomes intense o Members of minority generally marry others from the same group A member of a dominant group often is unwilling to join a supposedly inferior minority by marrying one of its members In addition the minority group s sense of solidarity encourages marriage within the group and discourages marriage to outsiders 4 types of minority or subordinate groups o Racial group o Ethnic group A group that is socially set apart because of obvious physical differences A group set apart from others because of its national origin or distinctive cultural patterns o Religious group o Gender groups Biological notions of race o Biological race o Absence of pure races The mistaken notion of a genetically isolated human group o Intelligence tests Intelligence quotient IG the ratio of a person s mental age as computed by an IQ test to his or her chronological age multiplied by 100 The social construction of race o Racism a doctrine that one race is superior o Racial formation a socio historical process by which racial categories are created inhabited transformed and destroyed o The one drop rule this is what the social construction in the south was known as This tradition stipulated that if a person had even a single drop of black blood that person was defined and views as Black Pan ethnicity the development of solidarity between ethnic subgroups as reflected in the terms Hispanic or Asian American Marginality the status of being between two cities at the same time such as the status of Jewish immigrants in the United States Sociology the systematic study of social behavior and human groups Stratification a structured ranking of entire groups of people that perpetuates unequal rewards and power in a society Class as defined by Max Weber people who share similar levels of wealth Theoretical Perspectives A sociological approach emphasizing how parts of a society are structured to maintain its stability An element of society that may disrupt a social system or decrease its stability A sociological approach that assumes that they social structure is best understood in terms of conflict or tension between competing groups Portraying the problem of racial and ethnic minorities as their fault rather than recognizing society s responsibilities A sociological approach introduced by Howard Becker that attempts to explain why certain people are viewed as deviants and others engaging in the same behavior are not o Functionalist perspective o Dysfunction o Conflict perspective o Blaming the victim o Labeling theory o Stereotypes o Self fulfilling prophecy Unreliable exaggerated generalizations about all members of a group that do not take individual differences into account The tendency to respond to and act on the basis of stereotypes a predisposition that can lead one to validate false definitions 3 situations that are likely to lead to the formation of a subordinate group A general term that describes any transfer of population Leaving a country to settle in another Coming into a new country as a permanent resident o Migration o Emigration o Immigration o Globalization o Colonialism Worldwide integration of government policies cultures social movements and financial markets through trade movements of people and the exchange of ideas A foreign power s maintenance of political Social economic and cultural dominance over people for an extended period o World Systems Theory A view of the global economic system as divided between nations that control wealth and those that provide natural resources and labor 6 consequences of subordinate group status o Extermination o Expulsion o Secession o Segregation o Fusion Genocide the deliberate systematic killing of an entire people or nation Ethnic cleansing forced deportation of people accompanied by systematic violence Dominant groups may choose to force a specific subordinate group to leave certain areas or even vacate a country A group ceases to be a subordinate group when it secedes to form a new nation or moves to an already established nation where it becomes dominant The physical separation of two groups often imposed on a subordinate group by the dominant group A minority and a majority group combining to form a new group Amalgamation the process by which a dominant group and a subordinate group combine through intermarriage to form a new group Melting pot diverse racial or ethnic groups or both forming a new creation a new cultural entity Assimilation the process by which a subordinate individual or group takes on the characteristics of the dominant group o Pluralism Mutual respect between the various groups in a society for one another s cultures allowing minorities to express their own culture without experiencing prejudice or hostility Chapter 2 Prejudice a negative attitude toward an entire category of people such as racial or ethnic minority o Ethnophaulisms ethnic or racial slurs including derisive nicknames Discrimination the denial of opportunities and equal rights to individuals and groups because of prejudice or for other arbitrary reasons Robert Merton s typology attitudes shouldn t be confused with behavior