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The sociology of race and ethnic relations is the study of
social
Social organisms, including human(s), live collectively in interacting populations. This interaction is considered social whether they are aware of it or not, and whether the exchange is voluntary or not.
Etymology
The word "social" derives from ...
,
political
Politics (from , ) is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status. The branch of social science that studies ...
, and
economic
An economy is an area of the Production (economics), production, Distribution (economics), distribution and trade, as well as Consumption (economics), consumption of Goods (economics), goods and Service (economics), services. In general, it is ...
relations between
races and
ethnicities
An ethnic group or an ethnicity is a grouping of people who identify with each other on the basis of shared attributes that distinguish them from other groups. Those attributes can include common sets of traditions, ancestry, language, history, ...
at all levels of
society
A society is a group of individuals involved in persistent social interaction, or a large social group sharing the same spatial or social territory, typically subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations. Socie ...
. This area encompasses the study of systemic
racism
Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one race over another. It may also mean prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism ...
, like
residential segregation
Residential segregation in the United States is the physical separation of two or more groups into different neighborhoods—a form of segregation that "sorts population groups into various neighborhood contexts and shapes the living environment a ...
and other complex social processes between different racial and ethnic groups.
The sociological analysis of race and ethnicity frequently interacts with
postcolonial theory
Postcolonialism is the critical academic study of the cultural, political and economic legacy of colonialism and imperialism, focusing on the impact of human control and exploitation of colonized people and their lands. More specifically, it is ...
and other areas of sociology such as
stratification
Stratification may refer to:
Mathematics
* Stratification (mathematics), any consistent assignment of numbers to predicate symbols
* Data stratification in statistics
Earth sciences
* Stable and unstable stratification
* Stratification, or st ...
and
social psychology
Social psychology is the scientific study of how thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the real or imagined presence of other people or by social norms. Social psychologists typically explain human behavior as a result of the r ...
. At the level of political policy, ethnic relations is discussed in terms of either
assimilationism or
multiculturalism
The term multiculturalism has a range of meanings within the contexts of sociology, political philosophy, and colloquial use. In sociology and in everyday usage, it is a synonym for "Pluralism (political theory), ethnic pluralism", with the tw ...
.
Anti-racism
Anti-racism encompasses a range of ideas and political actions which are meant to counter racial prejudice, systemic racism, and the oppression of specific racial groups. Anti-racism is usually structured around conscious efforts and deliberate a ...
forms another style of policy, particularly popular in the 1960s and 1970s. At the level of academic inquiry, ethnic relations is discussed either by the experiences of individual racial-ethnic groups or else by overarching theoretical issues.
Classical theorists
W.E.B. Du Bois
W.E.B. Du Bois
William Edward Burghardt Du Bois ( ; February 23, 1868 – August 27, 1963) was an American-Ghanaian sociologist, socialist, historian, and Pan-Africanist civil rights activist. Born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, Du Bois grew up i ...
was a black scholar and activist in the 20th century. Du Bois educated himself about black people, and sought academia as a way to enlighten others on the social injustices against blacks. Du Bois' research "revealed the
Negro
In the English language, ''negro'' is a term historically used to denote persons considered to be of Black African heritage. The word ''negro'' means the color black in both Spanish and in Portuguese, where English took it from. The term can be ...
group as a symptom, not a cause; as a striving, palpitating group, and not an inert, sick body of crime; as a long historic development and not a transient occurrence".
[Du Bois, W.E.B. 1940. Dusk of dawn; an essay toward an autobiography of a race concept. Schocken Books.] Du Bois believed that Black Americans should embrace higher education and use their new access to schooling to achieve a higher position within society. He referred to this idea as the
Talented Tenth. With gaining popularity, he also promoted the belief that for blacks to be free in some places, they must be free everywhere. After traveling to Africa and Russia, he recanted his original philosophy of integration and acknowledged it as a long-term vision.
[Hynes, Gerald. ????]
A Biographical Sketch of W.E.B. Du Bois
. W.E.B. Du Bois Learning Center.
Marx
Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 p ...
described society as having nine "great" classes, the capitalist class and the working class, with the middle classes falling in behind one or the other as they see fit. He hoped for the working class to rise up against the capitalist class in an attempt to stop the exploitation of the working class. He blamed part of their failure to organize on the capitalist class, as they separated black and white laborers. This separation, specifically between Blacks and Whites in America, contributed to racism. Marx attributes
capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for Profit (economics), profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, pric ...
's contribution to racism through segmented labor markets and a racial inequality of earnings.
[Bohmer, Peter. 1998]
Marxist Theory of Racism and Racial Inequality
Readings in Black Political Economy
Booker T. Washington
Booker T. Washington
Booker Taliaferro Washington (April 5, 1856November 14, 1915) was an American educator, author, orator, and adviser to several presidents of the United States. Between 1890 and 1915, Washington was the dominant leader in the African-American c ...
was a noted black educator born in 1856 as a slave in Virginia. Washington came of age as slavery was coming to an end, and was replaced by a system of sharecropping in the southern United States that resulted in black indebtedness. With growing discrimination in the South following the end of the Reconstruction era, Washington felt that the key to advancing in America rested with getting an education and improving one's economic well-being, not with political advancement. Consequently, in 1881, he founded the
Tuskegee Institute
Tuskegee University (Tuskegee or TU), formerly known as the Tuskegee Institute, is a private, historically black land-grant university in Tuskegee, Alabama. It was founded on Independence Day in 1881 by the state legislature.
The campus was de ...
, now Tuskegee University, in order to provide individuals with an education that would help them to find employment in the growing industrial sector. By focusing on education for blacks, rather than political advancement, he gained financial support from whites for his cause. Secretly, however, he pursued legal challenges against segregation and disfranchisement of blacks.
[Harlen, Louis. 1972]
Booker T. Washington
University of North Carolina Press.
Weber
Max Weber
Maximilian Karl Emil Weber (; ; 21 April 186414 June 1920) was a German sociologist, historian, jurist and political economist, who is regarded as among the most important theorists of the development of modern Western society. His ideas profo ...
laid the foundations for a micro-sociology of ethnic relations beginning in 1906. Weber argued that biological traits could not be the basis for group foundation unless they were conceived as shared characteristics. It was this shared perception and common customs that create and distinguish one ethnicity from another. This differs from the views of many of his contemporaries who believed that an ethnic group was formed from biological similarities alone apart from social perception of membership in a group.
[Banton, Michael. 2008. The Sociology of Ethnic Relations. ''Ethnic and Racial Studies''.]
Modern theorists
Eduardo Bonilla-Silva
Eduardo Bonilla-Silva
Eduardo Bonilla-Silva (born February 6, 1962) is an American sociologist and professor of sociology at Duke University. He was the 2018 president of the American Sociological Association.
Early influences
Bonilla-Silva was educated in Puert ...
is currently a professor of sociology at
Duke University
Duke University is a private research university in Durham, North Carolina. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco and electric power industrialist James ...
and is the 2018 president of the American Sociological Association. He received his PhD in 1993 from
University of Wisconsin–Madison
A university () is an educational institution, institution of higher education, higher (or Tertiary education, tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several Discipline (academia), academic disciplines. Universities ty ...
, which is where he met his mentor,
Charles Camic, of which he said "Camic believed in me and told me, just before graduation, that I should stay in the states as I would contribute greatly to American sociology." Bonilla-Silva did not start off his work as a "race scholar," but originally was trained in
class analysis
Class analysis is research in sociology, politics and economics from the point of view of the stratification of the society into dynamic classes. It implies that there is no universal or uniform social outlook, rather that there are fundamental c ...
,
political sociology
Political sociology is an interdisciplinary field of study concerned with exploring how governance and society interact and influence one another at the micro to macro levels of analysis. Interested in the social causes and consequences of how ...
, and sociology of development (
globalization
Globalization, or globalisation (Commonwealth English; see spelling differences), is the process of interaction and integration among people, companies, and governments worldwide. The term ''globalization'' first appeared in the early 20t ...
). It was not until the late 1980s when he joined a student movement calling for racial justice at the University of Wisconsin that he began his work in race. In his book,
Racism without Racists
''Racism without Racists: Color-Blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in the United States'' is a book about color-blind racism in the United States by Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, a sociology professor at Duke University. It was orig ...
, Bonilla-Silva discusses less overt racism, which he refers to as "new racism," which disguises itself "under the cloak of legality" in order to accomplish the same things. He also discusses "color-blind racism," which is essentially when people go off the basis that we have achieved equality and deny past and present discriminations.
Patricia Hill Collins
Patricia Hill Collins
Patricia Hill Collins (born May 1, 1948) is an American academic specializing in race, class, and gender. She is a distinguished university professor of sociology emerita at the University of Maryland, College Park. She is also the former head of ...
is currently a Distinguished University Professor Emerita at the
University of Maryland, College Park
The University of Maryland, College Park (University of Maryland, UMD, or simply Maryland) is a public land-grant research university in College Park, Maryland. Founded in 1856, UMD is the flagship institution of the University System of Mary ...
. She received her PhD in sociology in 1984 from
Brandeis University
, mottoeng = "Truth even unto its innermost parts"
, established =
, type = Private research university
, accreditation = NECHE
, president = Ronald D. Liebowitz
, pro ...
. Collins was the president-elect for the
American Sociological Association
The American Sociological Association (ASA) is a non-profit organization dedicated to advancing the discipline and profession of sociology. Founded in December 1905 as the American Sociological Society at Johns Hopkins University by a group of fif ...
, where she was the 100th president and the first African-American woman to be president of the organization. Collins is a social theorist whose work and research primarily focuses on race, social class, sexuality, and gender. She has written a number of books and articles on said topics. Collins work focuses on
Intersectionality
Intersectionality is an analytical framework for understanding how aspects of a person's social and political identities combine to create different modes of discrimination and privilege. Intersectionality identifies multiple factors of adva ...
, by looking at issues through the lens of women of color. In her work, she writes "First, we need new visions of what oppression is, new categories of analysis that are inclusive of race, class, and gender as distinctive yet interlocking structures of oppression".
Denise Ferreira da Silva
Denise Ferreira da Silva is a trained sociologist and critical philosopher of race. She is a professor and director of The Social Justice Institute (the Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality, and Social Justice) at the University of British Columbia. Before joining UBC, she was an associate professor of ethnic studies, at the University of California, San Diego. Da Silva's major monograph, ''Toward a Global Idea of Race'', traces the history of modern philosophical thought from Descartes to Herder in order to reconstruct the emergence of the racial as an historical and scientific concept. This sociology of race relations for Da Silva locates the mind as the principle site of the development of the racial and cultural which emerge as the global (exterior-spatial) in the contemporary context.
Discipline development by country
United States
In the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
, the study of racial and ethnic relations has been widely influenced by the factors associated with each major wave of
immigration
Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not natives or where they do not possess citizenship in order to settle as permanent residents or naturalized citizens. Commuters, tourists, and ...
as the incoming group struggles with keeping its own cultural and ethnic identity while also assimilating into the broader mainstream
American culture
The culture of the United States of America is primarily of Western, and European origin, yet its influences includes the cultures of Asian American, African American, Latin American, and Native American peoples and their cultures. The U ...
and
economy
An economy is an area of the production, distribution and trade, as well as consumption of goods and services. In general, it is defined as a social domain that emphasize the practices, discourses, and material expressions associated with the ...
. One of the first and most prevalent topics within American study is that of the relations between white Americans and
African Americans
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...
due to the heavy
collective memory
Collective memory refers to the shared pool of memories, knowledge and information of a social group that is significantly associated with the group's identity. The English phrase "collective memory" and the equivalent French phrase "la mémoire c ...
and culture borne out of and lingering from centuries of forced
slavery
Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...
in
plantations
A plantation is an agricultural estate, generally centered on a plantation house, meant for farming that specializes in cash crops, usually mainly planted with a single crop, with perhaps ancillary areas for vegetables for eating and so on. The ...
. Throughout the rest of American history, each new wave of
immigration to the United States
Immigration has been a major source of population growth and Culture of the United States, cultural change throughout much of the history of the United States. In absolute numbers, the United States has a larger immigrant population than a ...
has brought another set of issues as the tension between maintaining
diversity
Diversity, diversify, or diverse may refer to:
Business
*Diversity (business), the inclusion of people of different identities (ethnicity, gender, age) in the workforce
*Diversity marketing, marketing communication targeting diverse customers
* ...
and
assimilating takes on new shapes.
Racism
Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one race over another. It may also mean prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism ...
and conflict often rears up during these times.
[Park, Robert Ezra. 1950]
The Early Sociology of Race and Ethnicity
The Free Press. However, some key currents can be gleaned from this body of knowledge: in the context of the United States, there is a tendency for minorities to be punished in times of economic, political and/or geopolitical crises. Times of social and systemic stability, however, tend to mute whatever underlying tensions exist between different groups. In times of societal crisis—whether perceived or real—patterns or retractability of American identities have erupted to the fore of America's political landscape. Examples can be seen in
Executive Order 9066 that
placed Japanese Americans in incarceration centers as well as the 19th century
Chinese Exclusion Act
The Chinese Exclusion Act was a United States federal law signed by President Chester A. Arthur on May 6, 1882, prohibiting all immigration of Chinese laborers for 10 years. The law excluded merchants, teachers, students, travelers, and diplom ...
that banned Chinese laborers from emigrating to the United States (local workers viewed Chinese laborers as a threat). Current examples include post-
9/11
The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial ...
backlash against Muslim Americans, although these have taken place in civil society, not through public policy.
United Kingdom
In the
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...
, foreign nationals were actively encouraged and sponsored to migrate in the 1950s after the dissolution of
the Empire and the social devastation of the
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
. The
1962 Commonwealth Immigrants Act changed the law so that only certain
British Commonwealth
The Commonwealth of Nations, simply referred to as the Commonwealth, is a political association of 56 member states, the vast majority of which are former territories of the British Empire. The chief institutions of the organisation are the Co ...
members were able to migrate. This law was tightened again with the
Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1968
The Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1968 (c. 9) was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom.
The Act
The Act amended the Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1962, further reducing rights of citizens of the Commonwealth of Nations countries (as of 2 ...
and
Immigration Act 1971
The Immigration Act 1971c 77 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom concerning immigration and nearly entirely remaking the field of British immigration law. The Act, as with the Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1962, and that of 1968, re ...
. The
Race Relations Act 1968
The Race Relations Act 1968 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom making it illegal to refuse housing, employment, or public services to a person on the grounds of colour, race, ethnic or national origins in Great Britain (although n ...
extended certain anti-discrimination policies with respect to employment, housing, commercial and other services. This was extended again with the
Race Relations Act 1976
The Race Relations Act 1976 was established by the Parliament of the United Kingdom to prevent discrimination on the grounds of race. The scope of the legislation included discrimination on the grounds of race, colour, nationality, ethnic and n ...
.
As with the UK establishments of
media
Media may refer to:
Communication
* Media (communication), tools used to deliver information or data
** Advertising media, various media, content, buying and placement for advertising
** Broadcast media, communications delivered over mass el ...
and
cultural studies
Cultural studies is an interdisciplinary field that examines the political dynamics of contemporary culture (including popular culture) and its historical foundations. Cultural studies researchers generally investigate how cultural practices re ...
, 'ethnic relations' is often taught as a loosely distinct discipline either within sociology departments or other schools of humanities.
Major British theorists include
Paul Gilroy
Paul Gilroy (born 16 February 1956) is an English sociologist and cultural studies scholar who is the founding Director of the Sarah Parker Remond Centre for the Study of Race and Racism at University College, London (UCL). Gilroy is the 2019 ...
,
Stuart Hall, Richard Jenkins,
John Rex,
Michael Banton
Michael Parker Banton CMG, FRAI (8 September 1926 – 22 May 2018) was a British social scientist, known primarily for his publications on racial and ethnic relations. He was also the first editor of ''Sociology'' (1966-1969).
Academic contrib ...
and
Tariq Modood
Tariq Modood, (born 1952) is a British Pakistani Professor of Sociology, Politics, and Public Policy at the University of Bristol (1997– ). Modood is the founding director of the Centre for the Study of Ethnicity and Citizenship and one of th ...
.
Social psychology
![Racistcampaignposter1](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c9/Racistcampaignposter1.jpg)
One of the most important social psychological findings concerning race relations is that members of stereotyped groups internalize those stereotypes and thus suffer a wide range of harmful consequences. For example, in a phenomenon called
stereotype threat
Stereotype threat is a situational predicament in which people are or feel themselves to be at risk of conforming to stereotypes about their social group. It is theorized to be a contributing factor to long-standing racial and gender gaps in acad ...
, members of racial and ethnic groups that are stereotyped as scoring poorly on tests will perform poorer on those tests if they are reminded of this stereotype. The effect is so strong that even simply asking the test-taker to state her or his race before taking the test (such is by bubbling in "African American" on a multiple choice question) will significantly alter test performance. A specifically sociological contribution to this line of research has found that such negative stereotypes can be created on the spot: an experiment by Michael Lovaglia et al.(1998) demonstrated that
left-handed
In human biology, handedness is an individual's preferential use of one hand, known as the dominant hand, due to it being stronger, faster or more dextrous. The other hand, comparatively often the weaker, less dextrous or simply less subjecti ...
people can be made to suffer stereotype threat if they are led to believe that they are a disadvantaged group for a particular kind of test.
[Lovaglia, Michael, JW Lucas, SR Thye. 1998. Status Processes and Mental Ability Test Scores. American Journal of Sociology.]
Audit studies
Another important line of research on race takes the form of
audit studies. The audit study approach creates an artificial pool of people among whom there are no average differences by race. For instance, groups of white and black auditors are matched on every category other than their race, and thoroughly trained to act in identical ways. Given nearly identical resumes, they are sent to interview for the same jobs. Simple comparisons of means can yield strong evidence regarding discrimination. The best known audit study in sociology is ''The Mark of a Criminal Record'' by
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
sociologist Devah Pager. This study compares job prospects of black and white men who were recently released from jail. Its key finding is that blacks are significantly discriminated against when applying for service jobs. Moreover, whites ''with'' a criminal record have about the same prospect of getting an interview as blacks ''without'' one. Another recent audit by
UCLA
The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...
sociologist S. Michael Gaddis examines the job prospects of black and white college graduates from elite private and high quality state higher education institutions. This research finds that blacks who graduate from an elite school such as Harvard have about the same prospect of getting an interview as whites who graduate from a state school such as UMass Amherst.
See also
*
*
Black feminism
Black feminism is a philosophy that centers on the idea that "Black women are inherently valuable, that lack women'sliberation is a necessity not as an adjunct to somebody else's but because our need as human persons for autonomy."
Race, gen ...
*
European Commission against Racism and Intolerance
European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) is the Council of Europe’s independent human rights monitoring body specialised in combating antisemitism, discrimination, racism, religious intolerance, and xenophobia. It publishes perio ...
*
Social cohesion
Group cohesiveness (also called group cohesion and social cohesion) arises when bonds link members of a social group to one another and to the group as a whole. Although cohesion is a multi-faceted process, it can be broken down into four main co ...
*
Sociology of immigration
References
Further reading
* Banton, M. 1987. Racial Theories. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
* Ellis, J. 2011
Race Relations , Culture and Ethnicity USARiseUp
* Feagin, J. 2003
Racial and Ethnic Relations Prentice Hall (8th edition)
* Gibson, Robert. 1978
Yale
* Jenkins, R. 2008. Rethinking Ethnicity. London: Sage (2nd edition).
* Malesevic, S. 2004. The Sociology of Ethnicity. London: Sage.
* Omi, M. & Winant, H. 1986. Racial Formation in the United States. New York: Routledge
* Thomas, C. 2022
The Racialized Consequences of Jail Incarceration on Local Labor Markets ''Race and Justice''.
* Vera, H; Feagin, J. 2007
Handbook of the Sociology of Racial and Ethnic Relations Springer
* Wilson, H. 2006
The Sociology of Racial and Ethnic Relations Bryant
*
Zuckermann, Ghil'ad et al. (2015), ''ENGAGING - A Guide to Interacting Respectfully and Reciprocally with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People, and their Arts Practices and Intellectual Property'', Australian Government: Indigenous Culture Support.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sociology Of Race And Ethnic Relations
Race
Race, RACE or "The Race" may refer to:
* Race (biology), an informal taxonomic classification within a species, generally within a sub-species
* Race (human categorization), classification of humans into groups based on physical traits, and/or s ...
*
Majority–minority relations