Racial and Ethnic Inequality

1
Chapter 3

• Racial and Ethnic Inequality

2
Race and Ethnicity

• Race socially constructed category based on
  physical traits that members of a society define
  as important.
• Ethnicity shared cultural heritage.

3
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?

4
Minorities

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

5
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

6
The Social Standing of U.S. Minorities

• Native Americans
• African Americans
• Asian Americans
• Hispanic Americans/Latinos
• Arab Americans

7
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.

8
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.

9
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.

10
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