9781111434359.pdf - Introduction-to-Sociology-10th-Edition-Henry-L.-Tischler.pdf

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• race to refer to a category of people who are defined as similar because of a number of physical characteristics.

• s long ago as 1781, German physiologist Johann Blumenbach realized that racial categories did not reflect the actual divisions among human groups.

• Geneticists define race by noting differences in gene fre- quencies among selected groups. The number of distinct races that can be defined by this method depends on the particular genetic trait under investigation. Differences in traits, such as hair and nose type, have proved to be of no value in making biological classifications of human beings

• In 1982, Susie Guillory Phipps obtained a copy of her birth certificate so that she could apply for a passport.

• According to social definitions of race, if a person presents himself or herself as a member of a certain race and others respond to that person as a member of that race, then it makes little sense to say that he or she is not a member of that race.

• The U.S. census relies on a self-definition system of racial classification and does not apply any biologi- cal, legal, or genetic rules

• Multiracial Ancestr

• Between the 1660s and the 1960s, doz- ens of states enacted laws prohibiting interracial mar- riage.

• About 5% of U.S. married couples include spouses of a different race

• Native Americans are more likely to marry a white person than another Native American. People of Asian ancestry are also likely to marry interracially. In about 15% of married couples with an Asian-American mem- ber, the other member is not Asian. Racial intermarriage is particularly high among native-born Asians, where the intermarried percentage reaches 40%

• one parent’s racial identity, and that most often has been and continues to be black

• An ethnic group has a distinct cultural tradition that its own members identify with and that might or might not be recognized by others (Glazer and Moynihan, 1975).

• Many ethnic groups form subcultures (see Chapter 3, “Culture”). They usually possess a high degree of internal loyalty and adherence to basic customs, maintaining a similarity in family patterns, religion, and cultural val- ues. They often possess distinctive folkways and mores; customs of dress, art, and ornamentation; moral codes and value systems; and patterns of recreation. The whole group is usually devoted to something such as a mon- arch, religion, language, or territory. Above all, members of the group have a strong feeling of association. The members are aware of a relationship because of a shared loyalty to a cultural tradition

• as a group of people who, because of physical or cultural characteristics, are singled out from others in society for differential and unequal treatment, and who therefore regard themselves as objects of collective discrimination (Linton, 1936

• prejudice as an irrationally based negative, or occasionally positive, attitude toward certain groups and their members

• Second, when two or more groups are competing for access to scarce resources (jobs, for example), it is easier on the conscience if one can write off his or her competi- tors as somehow less than human or inherently unwor- thy.

• Of course, prejudice also has many negative conse- quences, or dysfunctions, to use the sociological term.

• Most notably, it is the necessary ingredient of dis- crimination, a problem found in many societies, includ- ing our ow

• ing our own.

• own