Chapter8 - Race and Ethnicity

Ethnicity

Cultural characteristics such as language, religion, taste in food, shared descent, cultural traditions, and shared geographic locations.

Ethnic Origin (Objective Ethnicity)

Your historic ancestral background.

Ethnic Identity (Subjective Ethnicity)

How you personally identify.

• Ethnic origin and Ethnic Identity may not align.

Race

A socially constructed category used to classify humankind according to physical characteristics, such as like skin colour, hair texture, and facial features.

• Ethnicity and race are intertwined.

Racialization

The process by which groups come to be designated as being of a particular ‘race’ and on that basis subjected to different and/or unequal treatment.

Visible minorities

Persons other than Indigenous in Canada (people of colour), who are non-Caucasian. Term coined by Galabuzi

• Used to draw attention to the oppressive social and political practices that give rise to inequalities experienced by people of colour.

Racialized group

People of colour who are disproportionately affected by the process of racialization.

3 Objectives of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (2001)

Based on three objectives:

1. Reuniting families

2. Contributing to the nation’s economic development,

3. Protecting refugees.

Nation of origin eliminated from immigration policies in 1960.

Family Class Immigrants

Sponsored by close relatives living in Canada, particularly spouses/partners, dependent children, grandparents, and parents.

Economic Immigrants

Selected on the basis of some combination of educational attainment, occupational skills, entrepreneurship, business investment, and ability to contribute to the Canadian economy.

Refugees

Individuals who have been forced to flee from persecution.

• Someone who is unable or unwilling to return to their country of origin owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion.

Integration Pattern (Bicultural Youth)

Adaptation pattern involves identifying with both one’s heritage culture and one’s new, national culture.

This is when bicultural youth identify with both their own culture, and that of the culture they are living in.

Diffuse Pattern (Bicultural Youth)

Those who are confused about how they should be adapting to their bicultural experiences are following a diffuse pattern.

Bicultural (Youth)

When children of immigrant parents participate in two distinct cultures simultaneously.

Influence of their home culture is apparent in the home. However, it is also apparent outside of the home when they are “Canadian.”

Ethnic Pattern (Bicultural Youth)

When bicultural youth identify with their heritage culture.

National Pattern (Bicultural Youth)

Bicultural youth orient themselves primarily to the new, national culture are following the national pattern.

Dominant Groups

Groups that have institutionalized power and privilege in society.

• The British would be considered a dominant group.

Minority Groups

Definable groups that are socially disadvantaged and that experience unequal treatment. This refers to minority as it relates to power.

• This includes BIPOC, Chinese, South Asian, Jewish, Ukrainian, Italian, Portuguese.

Femmes du pay

The Indigenous “country" wives of European trades.

Ethnocide

Full assimilation and eradication of a culture.

Pluralism

Culture differences being valued in society. This is a relationship between a dominant group and a minority group.

• It emphasizes the coexistence and tolerance of diverse cultural, ethnic, religious, and social groups within a society, and it acknowledges that these groups may interact and influence one another without any one group dominating the others.

• Countries like Switzerland practice this.

Segregation

This is a relationship between a dominant group and a minority group. Minority groups are separated from the dominant group.

• Residential Segregation: Although racial segregation in housing is illegal, residential areas in many cities remain highly segregated due to historical factors like redlining (where banks refused loans to Black families) and ongoing economic inequalities.

• People of different races often live in separate neighborhoods, leading to disparities in access to resources such as quality education, healthcare, and job opportunities.

Anti-miscegenation laws

Laws prohibited interracial marriage. Specifically as it related to These laws were primarily aimed at preventing marriages between white people and people of African, Asian, or Native American descent, although they varied in their specifics depending on the region and time period.

Related to segregation

Prejudice

An attitude that is unrelated to reality and is generalized to all members of a certain group.

Racism & 3 Components

A specific form of prejudice, one based on aspects of physical appearance. Racism is related to the following three components:

1. Cognitive component (How we think)

2. Affective component (How we feel)

3. Behavioral component (How we act)

They correspond to how we think, how we feel and how we act.

Cognitive Component (Racism)

The cognitive component of prejudice reflects what we think, with stereotypes as the foundation.

• Stereotypes are assumptions that members of a specific group are more similar than they actually are; they reflect our image of the typical example of a member of a certain group.

The Affective Component (Racism)

The affective component of prejudice reflects how we feel. These are the emotions we attach to the stereotype.

• We may feel dislike toward a particular group that we stereotype as being untrustworthy or admiration for another group that we stereotype as being hard workers.

• Sometimes we aren’t even aware of the emotions we may be feeling.

• It is the emotional component that makes prejudice so resistant to change.

The Behavioural Component (Racism)

Prejudice put into action is discrimination, treating someone unfairly because of their group membership.

• Discrimination can occur anywhere from the individual level (e.g., not sitting next to someone on the bus because of the colour of her skin) to the institutional level (e.g., laws that treat certain groups unequally).

Hate Crimes

Criminal offences that are motivated by hate toward an identifiable group.

• They affect not only the individual who has been victimized but also, indirectly, members of an entire community.

Institutional (System) Discrimination

Embedded in policies and practices within organizations, such as through discriminatory hiring practices.

Conflict Theory on Race and Prejudice

Propose that the structure of society creates prejudice and racialization. Marxist conflict theories emphasize inequalities in the structure of societies under capitalism.

• The powerful have a vested interest in maintaining prejudice in society.

• The economically oppressed will then be too distracted by fighting with one another over scarce resources to join together to fight against their oppressors.

Dual/split labour market theory

Proposes that members of the dominant group develop prejudices against minority groups in order to protect their position in the labour market.

• Consists of the primary and secondary labour market.

Primary Labour Market

Related to the dual/split labour market theory and the economy.

• The primary labor market consists of well-paying, stable, and secure jobs. These jobs often offer good benefits, opportunities for advancement, and long-term employment. They typically require higher levels of education, skill, or experience.

• These jobs are typically filled by individuals who are already advantaged in society, such as those with higher social status or access to better education.

• Those that develop prejudice to protect their own positions in the market economy.

Secondary Labour Market

Related to the dual/split labour market theory and the economy.

Comprises jobs that are poorly paid and insecure and that provide little opportunity for advancement jobs that people in the primary labour market consider demeaning.

• Historically, members of minority groups have been overrepresented in the secondary labour market.

• Made up of jobs that are less stable, lower-paying, and often lack benefits such as health insurance or retirement plans. These jobs tend to have less opportunity for advancement and often involve precarious, part-time, or temporary work.

• Latino farming hands in the US on lettuce farms.

Critical Race Theory (CRT)

• W. E. B. Du Bois (1868-1963) - racism is not the product of individual prejudice

• White privilege is embedded in the entirety of the social fabric

• Economic, cultural, ideological, political, and psychological spheres (e.g., not only in wage gaps, but also in the way racialized groups are framed in the media).

• Racialization is not limited to the prejudice of some individual.

Economic Experience

Economic experiences can vary considerably based on ethnicity.

• Economic variations are especially evident when we compare the average incomes of Indigenous and non-Indigenous persons and of immigrants and Canadian-born persons.

Population Transfer

This is a relationship between a dominant group and a minority group.

• Expels a minority group from a country or limits its location.

• Examples include reservation system, internment camps, Acadians.

Assimilation

This is a relationship between a dominant group and a minority group.

Social Psychology Theories

Some people have authoritarian personalities, which are associated with higher levels of prejudice.

• When frustrated, we direct attention at scapegoats (e.g., someone may blame their own unemployment on immigration);

• Competition over scarce resources creates prejudice (e.g., during economic recessions, large-scale anti-immigrant sentiment increases).

Interactionist Theory

• These are play a role in how we think about ethnicity and race:

  • Significant others,

  • The generalized other (societal norms and expectations we internalize overtime)

  • The looking-glass self (how do we see ourselves, how will others react)

    • Contribute to our understandings of ethnicity and group relationships;

• Framing of ethnicity in media. What is good and bad? What language do they use to talk about certain groups?