Chapter 3

Racial and Ethnic Inequality

Race and Ethnicity

• Race – socially constructed category based on physical traits that members of a society define as important.

• Ethnicity – shared cultural heritage.

Immigration

• The “Great Immigration” (1865-1914) – 25 million people.

• Quota System enacted by Congress in the 1920s. Quota system ended in 1965, leading to another wave of immigration.

• Current Immigration Controversy. Illegal immigration an issue?

Minorities

• Minority – any category of people, identified by physical or cultural traits, that a society subjects to disadvantages.

1. Visibility

2. Power

3. Numbers

Patterns of Interaction

• Genocide – systematic killing of one category of people

• Segregation – physical and social separation of categories of people

• Assimilation – process by which minorities gradually adopt cultural patterns from the dominant majority population

• Pluralism – state in which people of all racial and ethnic categories have about the same overall social standing

The Social Standing of U.S. Minorities

• Native Americans

• African Americans

• Asian Americans

• Hispanic Americans/Latinos

• Arab Americans

Prejudice and Stereotype

• Prejudice – rigid generalizations about an entire category of people (a prejudgment)– Stereotype – exaggerated description applied to

every person in some category

• Racism – assertion that people of one race are less worthy than or even biologically inferior to others.

Measuring Prejudice: The Social Distance Scale

• Emory Bogardus (1925) measured prejudice among students in universities and colleges. Greater social distance/less acceptance against minorities regardless of their own race and ethnicity.

• Parrillo and Donoghue (2001) repeated the social distance scale and average response dropped.

Institutional Racism

• Institutional Racism – racism imbedded in the operation of social institutions in society, including the economy, schools, hospitals, criminal justice system, etc. – Racial profiling police, hiring practices,

schools, etc.

Theoretical Analysis

• Structural Functional – racial and ethnic inequality is a reflection of culture.

• Social-Conflict – race and ethnicity used to weaken lower classes.

• Symbolic Interaction – race as a master status in everyday interaction