POLICIES GOVERNING MINORITY AND DOMINANT GROUP RELATIONS
Global level: deprivation of human rights -> human rights movements, international political pressures
Societal level: institutionalized discrimination -> education, media, legal-system revisions
Affirmative Action - one of the most contentious policies in the US, it involves affirmative or positive steps to make sure that unintentional discrimination does not occur
Other policies: quota system, preference policies
Group level: negative group interaction
positive contact, awareness by majority members of their many privileges
Individual level
stereotypes and prejudice -> therapy, tolerance-education programs
Meso- and Macro-Level Efforts to Bring Change: Nonviolent Resistance
India, 1950s, Mahatma Gandhi led the struggle for independence from Britain. Martin Luther King Jr. followed in the nonviolent resistance tradition.
THE EFFECTS OF PREJUDICE, RACISM AND DISCRIMINATION
Minority Reactions to Prejudice, Discrimination and Racism
Micro-Level Coping Strategies
Assimilation is an accommodation to prejudice and discrimination
Acceptance - some learned to live with their minority status.
Avoidance - withdrawal and isolation.
Aggression results from anger and resentment over minority status.
Ex: gypsies
The Cost of Racism
Racism leads to individuals’ suffer from the destruction of their lives, health and property.
Prejudice and discrimination result in loss of talents who could be productive and contributing members.
Hostility between groups occurs because of three factors:
If two groups can be identified by their appearance, ethnocentrism may develop
If two groups conflict over scarce resources, hostility may likely arise
If one group has more power, dislike between two groups may occur
Theoretical Explanations of Dominant-Minority Group Relations
Structural-Functional Theory
Maintaining a cheap pool of labourers who are in and out of work serves several purposes for society (fast-food workers).
Conflict Theory
Ex: gastarbeiter (guest workers) who migrate to more successful countries for work.
Creating a “lesser” group protects the dominant group’s advantages.
Pluralism - when each ethnic or racial group in a country maintains its own culture and separate set of institutions but has recognised equity in the society
Ex: Switzerland. People speak four languages that are official: French, German, Italian and Rommansh.
Assimilation - the structural and cultural merging of minority and majority groups , a process by which minority members may lose their original identity but contribute to their new society.
Ex: Basque people were restricted to speak their language during the WWII in Spain.
Population transfer - the removal, often forced, of a minority group from a region or country.
Ex: Native Americans in the US were removed to reservations.
The Nature of Prejudice
Explanation of Prejudice>
Scapegoating
occurs when a minority group is blamed for the failures of others.
Frustration-Aggression theory
focuses on poorly adjusted people who express their frustration through aggressive attacks on others> the Ku Klux Klan
people behave aggressively toward vulnerable minority group because they cannot achieve their goals
understandable response of humans to their social environment. The commitment of people to the group based on stressing distinctions from out-group.
their loyalties may be dysfunctional for out-group members
Prejudice: Micro-level Analysis
Discrimination: Meso-Level of analysis
DOMINANT AND MINORITY GROUP CONTACT: MACRO-LEVEL ANALYSIS
Segregation is a type of subjugation which separates minorities from the dominant group and deprives them of access to the dominant institutions.
Ex: Jim Crow laws that legislated separation between groups in southern US after the Civil War.
Subjugation - the subordination of one group to another that holds power and authority.
Slavery is a form of subjugation
Genocide - the systematic effort of one group, usually the dominant, to destroy a minority group.
Ex: Jews were sent to concentration camps to be gassed by Hitler.
Racism is any Meso-Level institutional arrangement that favors one racial group; may result in intentional/unintentional consequences for minority groups
Sometimes occur at individual, small-group levels, particularly problematic at the organizational/ institutional levels
Side-effects discrimination refers to practices in one institutional area that have a negative impact because they are linked to practices in another institutional area, because institutions are interdependent, discrimination in one results in unintentional discrimination in others. Ex: discrimination in the criminal justice system may influence the discrimination in health care system.
Past-in-present discrimination refers to practices from the past that may no longer be allowed but that continue to have consequences for people in the present.
Racial Bigotry and its forms
A bigot is someone who blindly insists that certain other people are so different that they are inferior-even less human
people insist that they are not prejudiced but fail to correct any problems created because racism is still embedded in our social system
Ex: since President Obama’s election the number of hate groups has risen to more than 1018. Many of these are “patriot” with deep distrust of the federal government
Refers to attitudes that prejudge a group, usually negatively and not based on facts.
if prejudiced attitude become actions they are referred to as discrimination
differential treatment of and harmful actions against minorities
Ex: refusal to sell someone a house because of the religion,race,etc.
The major type of minority group is
Ethnic group
Panethnicity - the process of merging many ethnicities into one broader category and emphasizes that ethnic identity is itself socially shaped/created. Ex: people from Brazil, Mexico, Cuba grouped together in a category called Hispanics/Latinos.
based on cultural factors: language, religion, values, norms, loyalty to a homeland/religious leader,etc.
The Concept of Race
Race is a socially created concept that identifies a group as “different” based on certain biologically inherited physical characteristics
Focuses on 3 issues:
Origins of the concept of race → the conclusion is that…> 1) people are born free and equal
2) racism stultilies personal development 3) race-based conflicts cost nations money and resources 4) prejudice foments international conflict
The social construction of race: symbolic interaction Analysis
if people believe something is real it may become real in its consequences.
as a social concept, race refers to psychological and moral characteristics as well as biological, justifying discriminatory treatment. Ex: treatment of colored people in US
The significance of race versus class-> racial bias has decreased on the micro level, but it is
still a significant determinant in the lives of African Americans, especially those in the lower class.
> the data are complex
> conclusion is that for upwardly mobile African Americans class may be more important than race
What Characterizes Racial and Ethnic and Racial Groups?
Dominant groups aren’t always the numerical majority
Ex: in South Africa, European weapons placed the native African Bantu population under the rule of a small number of white British and Dutch descendants in a system called apartheid.
Minority groups are :
Distinguishable from dominant group due to factors that make them different from the group that holds power
excluded/denied full participation at the meso-level of society in economic, political, educational, religious and other institutions.
evaluated less favorably based on their characteristics as minority group members, and have less access to power and resources within the nation
Are stereotyped, ridiculed and otherwise defamed, allowing the dominant group members to justify and not feel guilty about unequal and poor treatment
Develop collective identities among members to insulate themselves from the unaccepting world. This is in turn perpetuates their group identity by creating ethnic or racial enclaves, intragroup marriages, and segregated group institutions such as religious congregations
Definition
Minority groups are groups in a population that differ from others in some characteristics and are therefore subject to less power,fewer privileges, and discrimination.
Ch 8:Race and Ethnic Group Stratification
