Sociology Chapter 8

Pluralism (multiculturalism)

A pattern of inter-group relations that encourage racial and ethnic variation within a society.

Racism

A set of beliefs about the claimed superiority of one racial or ethnic group; used to justify inequality and often rooted in the assumption that differences among groups are genetic.

Ethnicity

A socially defined category based on a common language, religion, nationality, history, or some other cultural factor.

Situational Ethnicity

An ethnic identity that can be either displayed or concealed depending on its usefulness in a given situation.

Symbolic Ethnicity

An ethnic identity that is only relevant on specific occasions and does not significantly affect everyday life.

Prejudice

An idea about the characteristics of a group that is applied to all members of that group and is unlikely to change regardless of the evidence against it.

Color-Blind racism

An ideology that removes race as an explanation for any form of unequal treatment.

Individual Discrimination

Discrimination carried out by one person against another.

Passing

Presenting yourself as a member of a different group than the stigmatized group you belong to.

Racial Assimilation

Racial minority groups are absorbed into the dominant group through intermarriage.

Cultural Assimilation

Racial or ethnic groups are absorbed into the dominant group by adopting the dominant group's culture.

Minority Group

Social group that is systematically denied the same access to power and resources available to society's dominant groups though they are not necessarily fewer in number than the dominant groups.

Race

Socially defined category based on real or perceived biological differences between groups of people.

Institutional Discrimination

Systematic discrimination carried out by social institutions (political, economic, educational, and others) that affects all members of a group who come into contact with it.

Genocide

The deliberate and systematic extermination of a racial, ethnic, national, or cultural group.

Internal Colonialism

The economic and political domination and subjugation of the minority group by the controlling group within a nation.

Population Transfer

The forcible removal of a group of people from the territory they have occupied.

Segregation

The formal and legal separation of groups by race or ethnicity.

Assimilation

The minority group is absorbed into the mainstream or dominant group, making society more homogeneous.

Discrimination

Unequal treatment of individuals based on their membership in a social group; usually motivated by prejudice.

Double Consciousness

W.E.B. DuBois's term for the divided identity experienced by blacks in the United States.