Chapter 9: Race and Ethnicity

What are the traits of a minority group, according to sociologist Louis Wirth?

- Minorities do not share the full privileges of mobility or opportunity enjoyed by the dominant group. - Membership in a minority group is involuntary. - Minority status is a question not of numbers but rather of control of valued resources.

Which of the following statements about minorities and prison are TRUE?

- Some state laws do not allow convicted felons to vote. - Some sociologists argue that the U.S. criminal justice system effectively functions as a modern version of Jim Crow laws.

Which of the following types of group relations are generally initiated and controlled by the dominant group?

- assimilation - expulsion - segregation

Which of the following are the primary drivers of minority population increase in the United States?

- increased life spans - births - better access to health care

Which of the following acts was considered a crime when genocide was outlawed by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948?

-Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group. -mass murder -Taking children away from their parents to be socialized by the dominant group.

Between 1500 and 1800, the North American Indian population was reduced from more than 20 million to fewer than ______.

600,000

What is an ethnic group?

A group of people who identify with each other based on similar ancestry, language, culture, and religion.

The term "Latino" includes all of the following groups, except ______.

Cambodians

(T/F) In the mid-1800s, Chinese immigrants were brought to the United States to start farms and work in factories.

False

(T/F) Racism is functional because it separates people into classes, so that exceptional groups do the job of making society run, while substandard groups do the difficult and dirty jobs no one else wants to do.

False

(T/F) The Human Genome Project mapped genetically identifiable racial groupings.

False

What was the term used to describe the collection of segregation laws passed after reconstruction ended in the south?

Jim Crow

Symbolic Interactionist Louis Wirth remarked that minority groups share particular traits. According to this theory, which of the following is NOT true?

Minority status is a question of numbers. Since the Somalis did not constitute a majority of the Lewiston population, they were not able to take a position of power.

What Polish émigré left his native country right before the Nazi army invaded and coined the term genocide to describe the horrors of what he'd seen?

Raphael Lemkin

(T/F) In a study of 600 popular films from 2007 to 2013, White actors populated about 75% of speaking roles.

True

(T/F) We have seen the mass killing of people based on their group membership throughout human history.

True

(T/F) Women are a minority group.

True

Controversy over flying the Confederate Flag raises questions about ______, the unearned and often oblivious advantages of whiteness.

White privilege

While symbols of the confederacy remain a contentious issue, which of the following is not true about the status of Whites overall in the United States?

Whites, on the whole, face more stigma.

Prejudice

a belief about an individual or a group that is not subject to change on the basis of evidence

Race

a group of people who share a set of characteristics (usually physical characteristics) deemed by society to be socially significant

Assimilation

absorption of a minority group into the dominant culture

Stigma

an attribute that is deeply discrediting to an individual or a group because it overshadows other attributes and merits the individual or group may possess

This is a vast "melting pot" in which significant differences between groups gradually disappear and the population is boiled into a single cultural soup

assimilation

Ethnicity

characteristics of groups associated with national origins, languages, and cultural and religious practices

While racism is clearly of no benefit to its victims and has negative effects on society as a whole, it has been functional for more powerful groups in society

conflict perspective

Restrictive Covenants

contractual agreements that restrict the use of land, ostensibly in order to preserve the value of adjacent land or a neighborhood

Cultural differences are respected for their contribution to the richness of society as a whole

cultural pluralism

High school teacher Mike McGraw was reported as telling his students, who are children of Somali migrants residing in Lewiston, Maine "... not to lose their culture, not to lose the things that made their family heritage important ..." McGraw's statements echo the importance of ______, the coexistence of different racial and ethnic groups characterized by the acceptance of one another's differences.

cultural pluralism

Institutionalized Discrimination

discrimination enshrined in law, public policy, or common practice—it is unequal treatment that has become part of the routine operation of such major social institutions as businesses, schools, hospitals, and the government

This creates refugees all over the world

expulsion

Which term describes what happened when the United States forcibly removed Native Americans from their lands to isolated reservations in the 1800s?

expulsion

Racism cannot be positively purposeful for a community or society because, by definition, it marginalizes some members of the group

functionalist perspective

your family disapproves of your spouse because they are foreign-born

individual discrimination

Mississippi state Senator Kenny Wayne Jones stated his disapproval for flying the Confederate flag, stating, "And as an African American, we start seeing that symbol over and over again for acts of violence, acts of bigotry, acts of racial hatred ..." In his view, the flag is a reminder of ______, discrimination enshrined in law, public policy, or common practice.

institutional discrimination

intended or unintended unequal treatment of a population

institutionalized discrimination

Mixed Contacts

interactions between those who are stigmatized and those who are "normal" (by normal, Goffman meant only those who are members of the dominant, nonstigmatized group—the term was not intended to denote normality as contrasting with deviance)

Minorities

less powerful groups who are dominated politically and economically by a more powerful group and, often, discriminated against on the basis of characteristics deemed by the majority to be socially significant

Durkheim believed that social groups held together by ______ were more culturally durable than are those based on ______.

mechanical solidarity; organic solidarity

Which concept describes interactions between the stigmatized and the stigmatizer?

mixed contacts

The Human Genome Project found that genetically human beings are ______.

nearly the same

Individual Discrimination

overt and intentional unequal treatment, often based on prejudicial beliefs

Linda is a grocery store cashier in Lewiston, Maine. A family of Somali migrants approaches her register. She politely scans their items and collects the money. After the family leaves the store, she remarks to a coworker, "All the Somalis are lazy and on welfare. I don't like them." Linda's treatment of the Somali migrants is an example of ______.

prejudice

What concept refers to inflexible attitudes toward others?

prejudice

inflexible attitudes toward others

prejudice

Which of the following statements about race is true?

races are social categories

Apartheid in South Africa was an example of this

segregation

influenced by media representations of a group

stereotyping

Minority groups are stigmatized and defined by their stigma, regardless of their merits as individual people

symbolic interactionist perspective

Which of the following was NOT a historical example of a group victimized by genocide?

the Japanese internment in the United States during World War II

Cultural Pluralism

the coexistence of different racial and ethnic groups is characterized by the acceptance of one another's differences

Stereotyping

the generalization of a set of characteristics to all members of a group

Racism

the idea that one racial or ethnic group is inherently superior to another

Genocide

the mass, systematic destruction of a people or a nation

Segregation

the practice of separating people spatially or socially on the basis of race or ethnicity

Expulsion

the process of forcibly removing people from a particular area

Social Epidemiology

the study of communities and their social statuses, practices, and problems with the aim of understanding patterns of health and disease.

Discrimination

the unequal treatment of individuals on the basis of their membership in a group