Ethnicity

1
Ethnicity

• Aim To tie up the loose ends

2
Exclusive Alternative economies

• Bourgois studied Harlem in 2002 they found
  there was an illegal economy.
• This was because many of the ethnic minority
  groups were excluded and treated negatively.
• Can you think of examples of how people would be
  forced to make money without officially having a
  job?

3

• The problems of this illegal economy are that the
  worst ones such as drug dealing lead to violence.
  Why does drug dealing lead to violence?
• The idea of this argument is that exclusion and
  racism result directly in illegal activities.

4
Statistical Artefact approach

• Fitzgerald et al ( 2003 ) researched
  afro-carribean crime to establish whether crime
  is a reflection of how statistics are interpreted
  rather than fact.
• Their findings came from interviewing ethnic
  minority offenders and their mothers, as well as
  14-16 year olds in local schools.

5
The findings were

• Crime is related to how deprived an area is and
  the population turnover (where have we
  encountered that?)
• High rates of ethnic minority crime relate to the
  fact that there are higher numbers of young
  ethnic males than most other sectors of society

• African Carribean families were more likely to be
  lone parent families. Lone parent families
  statistically have a higher level of crime.
• There is a subculture amongst ethnic minority
  children that justifies crime as a result of
  failure or alienation at school. This was also
  the case with white under-achievers however.

TASK Write down what sort of conclusion you
think Fitzgerald and co would have come up with
based on these facts
6
Task

• Attempt question a), p.297