CHAPTER 10
RACIAL AND ETHNIC
RELATIONS
Section 1: Race, Ethnicity, and The
Social Structure

One of the best known classification
systems sort people into three racial
groups:
• Caucasoids: fair skin, straight or wavy hair
• Mongoloids: yellowish or brownish skin,
distinct folds on the eyelids
• Negroids: dark skin, woolly hair
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This classification system is no longer
used because there are no biologically
“pure” races.

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Race deals with physical
characteristics
Ethnicity deals with cultural
characteristics
Five characteristics that distinguish
minority groups from other groups
in society :
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Identifiable physical characteristics
that differ from the dominate group
Victims of unequal treatment at the
hands of the dominant group
Membership is an ascribed status
Share a strong bond and a sense of
group loyalty
Tend to practice endogamy
Section 2: Discrimination and
Prejudice

Discrimination involves behaviors
• Range from name calling to acts of
violence on an individual level
• Legal discrimination and institutionalized
discrimination on a societal level

Prejudice involves attitudes
• Sociologist generally focus on the
negative forms of prejudice such as
racism
Robert K. Merton’s Patterns of
Discrimination and Prejudice
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Active Bigot: is prejudice, does
discriminate
Timid Bigot: is prejudice, afraid to
discriminate
Fair-weather Liberal: is not
prejudice, does discriminate
All-weather Liberal: is not
prejudice, does not discriminate
SOURCES OF DISCRIMINATION
AND PREJUDICE

STEREOTYPING

SCAPEGOATING

SOCIAL ENVIRONMENT
Patterns of Minority Group
Treatment:
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Assimilation
Cultural Pluralism
Legal Protection
Population Transfer
Subjugation
Extermination
Section 3: Minority Groups in the
United States

The American Dilemma
• Americans have not always practiced
what they preached:

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Preach- equality, freedom, individual and
inalienable rights…
Practiced- segregation, population transfer
of Indians to reservations, and the
internment of Japanese during WWII
• Standard by which minority groups were
measured… how closely they adapted to
the WASP (white, Anglo-Saxon,
Protestant)
African Americans

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Second largest minority group as of
the 2000 census.
First brought to the U.S. as slaves
Civil Rights Act helped them gain
more power and status
Election of 2008: First African
American President of the U.S.
Hispanic Americans
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Largest and fastest growing minority
group in the U.S. as of the 2000
census
Have gained increasing political
power in recent years.
Still lag behind non-Hispanic
Americans in areas as education and
employment