Week 6: Race, Ethnicity, and Indigenous Peoples

Race

A social distinction based on perceived pysical or biological characteristics

ethnicity

The shared language, religion, customs, and history of a particular group. The core difference is that this is based on cultural differences

essentialism

The theory that some essential element makes a person part of a particular race or ethnic group. From this perspective, ethnic groups and nationalities are based on biological factors and territorial location

Census

The systematic collecting and recording of informaiton about members of a given population

Symboylic ethnicity

Water’s term for the individualistic type of ethnicity that some people can adopt with little social cost

1. people categorize experience and then act on the basis of those classificaions

2. They eventually forget the social origins of the categories and come to see them as natural and interchangeable

Social construction two steps:

Thomas Principle

Thomas and Thomas’s theory that if we define a situation as real, it is real in its consequences

racism

The systematic belief, which operates at every level of society, that races have particular characteristics or abilities that make them inferior or superior to others

Invisible knapsack

Coined by McIntosh, an unseen collection of unearned assets that white people use in their daily lives but about which they are expected to remain oblivious.

Islamophobia

The intense fear or hatred of muslims

First Nations

A term of ethnicity that refers to the indigenous people in what is now Canada who are neither Inuit nor Metis

Inuit

General term for indigenous people living in the arctic

Metis

People who have oth first nations and european ancestors

The Royal Proclamation of 1763

instructed colonial governments to respect Indian land and resulted in many treaties between First Nations people and, following Confederation, the Canadian government

The Indian Act of 1876

outlined whom the Government of Canada deemed to be “Indian” people and stated that the government could regulate many aspects of their lives.

Status

being registered under the Indian Act and makes a person eligible for benefits, rights, programs, and services.

1. children who are racialized

2. recent immigrants

3. indigenous

Research shows that which children in canada are more lifely to live in poverty than their white counterparts?

1. Education and recognition of indigenous issues

2. movements and campaigns working to redress and compensate for abuse and forced enrolemtn in residential schools

3. organizations working to lobby government on behalf of First Nations People

4. Social programs to help facilitate health, education, and employment of indigenous people.

Policy solutions that have attempted to address inequalities between indigenous people and the rest of canada: [4]

Prejudice

A negative attitude toward someone, based solely on their membership to a particular group

Discrimination

The unfair treatment of an individual based on their actual or perceived membership in a certain group or category

Authoritarian personality

Adorno’s term for a personality that is more likely to develop prejudicial attitudes. People with this type of personality tend to see the world in terms of good and evil and strictly follow rules and orders

World values survey

Large international survey that asks citizens of vaious countries about their lives, values, and political participaion. This information allows us to compare the attitudes and behaviours of citizens around the world

Realistic conflict theory

Based on the work of Bobo, the theory that prejudice originates from social groups competing over valued resources and opportunities

Contact theory

Allport’s theory that increasing contact between antagonistic groups can reduce prejudice, lead to a growing recognition of simiarities, and alter stereotypes about the group

Critical race theory

A theory of race ta argues that racism is an “ordinary” part of society, many people benefit from racial hierarchies, race is based on socially constructed categories, and raceis fundamentally intersectional

Immigration

The movement of people around the world.

1. economic

2. family class

3. refugees

Canada has three makor categories of immigrants:

Multiculturalism

Based on the idea of pluralism, support for having various cultural or ethnic groups in a society; the beief that conflict is a cenral feature of societies and that ethnicity is an esential aspect of individual identity and group behaviour

Canadian Multicultiralism (1988)

This act is focused on te management, not elimination, of racial and ethnic conflict. Pledges federal assistance in “ bringing about equal accesss and participation for all Canadians in the economic, social, cultural, and political life of the nation”

Vertical mosaic

John Porter’s term that dscribes a society, such as Canada, that contains different ethnic, language, regional, and religious groups with unequal levels of status and power

Nation

A group of people united based on shared language, ethnicity, or history

Nation-state

A group of people who share a physical territory and government

imagined communities

Anderson’s term to describe members of a nation feeling a sense of community even though they will never know most of their fellow citizens