Race And Ethnicity : Biological And Sociological Factors

Ethnicity is characterized as the perceived belief that there is a commonality within a group may it be culture, language, religion, and/or history. They go on and state Schermerhorn’s definition of ethnic groups as those who are self-conscience of their identity

An ethnic group is a group of people who share a common culture. Groups can have a shared history, common ancestry, religion, language, traditions, and beliefs. These things make up a common culture that is shared by members of an ethnic group.

In the book that I chose to read, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fist Fight in Heaven, by Sherman Alexie, this was the chief determinant of ethnicity. In this novel, the main character spends much of his life on an Indian Reservation. The Reservation facilitates only Indians, and each inhabitant of the Reservation seems to know what the others are thinking. They all seem to accept the fact that the entire Reservation suffers with alcoholism, which was a burdening theme of the entire novel. The fact that all of the Indians live in the same area, with limited interaction involving non-Indian people, defines them as an ethnic race. In the case of this novel, they may have been poorly defined as alcoholics, but the Reservation defined them, nonetheless.

Race and ethnicity are two things that have been around since before the colonist journeyed over to America. But what do these two words mean? It is easy for people to confuse them and think that the two definitions can overlap. Race, in sociological terms, is a social concept. The majority of race is concerned with biology and the physical characteristics or hereditary traits a person might have. For example this could be skin, hair, or eye color, or bone structure. Ethnicity is cultural factors that a person would be able to conform to. These factors are shared by people in the subgroups and can be accepted or rejected. Examples of this would be languages, religion, food, and nationality.

There is a massive amount of ethnicities in this world. You have ethnic groups that are not necessarily related to where you came from but what group you identify yourself with. As a descendant who speaks the Spanish language we are categorized as being part of the Hispanic ethnic group. My father having twelve siblings and my mother having nine, it was a huge family. Our grandparents and parents inculcated us to be a united family with all the values and beliefs they initiated. Every ethnic group is similar but different in its own unique way. In which some have music, food and believes that characterize us as that specific ethnic group. The only difference is the way people embrace it. We also have many different types of celebrations

Both race and ethnicity are both socially constructed and are a cultural category instead of a biological reality. Race and ethnicity are contrasts between people that we perceive. Race is nearly impossible to exactly define someone as white or black because people are so many different shades of color which makes everyone unique. Ethnicity is socially constructed because the boundaries that make someone a particular ethnicity are fairly flexible. Both of these concepts are used to describe differences between humans and ways that people are identified in society.

Race is a classification system used to categorize humans into large and distinct populations or groups by anatomical, cultural, ethnic, genetic, geographical,

Race and Ethnicity – Race is a concept used to differ population groups on the basis of physical characteristics. Races used by the government for statistical purposes are Alaskan Native, American Indian, Asian or Pacific Islander, Black, White, and Unknown. Ethnicity is a concept used to differ population on the basis of cultural characteristics or geographical origins. Ethnic designations used by the government for statistical purposes are of a Hispanic origin o nor of Hispanic origin, and Unknown.

Race and ethnicity are the occasionally have been used interchangeably. Race is described as a person’s physical appearance such as skin color, eye color, hair and many other biological traits and characteristics. Race mainly refers to the differences in skin color in the contemporary world. When we say that person is fair skinned or is black we are referring to the race of that person. Ethnicity is the cultural aspect of a an individual or a group such as the nationality of the person, the language they use to communicate, their descendants , the particular region they inhabit for example American, African, African Americans, etc. In a nutshell race is an overview of how you look and ethnicity is the social and cultural aspect of grouping you are born into.

Ethnicity is a social label or category used to classify individuals who share a common ancestry and cultural background.

The English term ‘race’ is believed to originate from the Spanish word raza, which means ‘breed’ or ‘stock’ (Race). People use race to define other groups, this separation of groups is based largely on physical features. Features like skin color and hair don’t affect the fundamental biology of human variation (Hotz). Race is truly only skin deep, there are no true biological separations between two ‘racial’ groups. Scientifically speaking, there is more variation between single local groups than there is between two large, global groups; the human variation is constantly altering (Lewontin). The majority of today’s anthropologists agree that race is a form of social categorization, not the separation of groups based on biological

Ethnicity, however, relates more to a person’s identity outside of their genetic material. This could be based off of what type of culture a person was raised in. A persons’ ethnicity can be reflective of their race, but it could also differ. Sometimes, as Henslin explains, ethnicities can be confused and seen as races. One example he gives is Judaism. Some people see being Jewish as a race. Although for some people their beliefs may be tied in with their race, no genetic material determines if you are Jewish or not. For many people it is passed down through generations, yet it is by educating and raising a child in that culture rather than them being genetically imbedded with Judaism. Being Jewish does not dictate a person’s skin

People are usually categorized in terms of race and/or ethnicity. Race is a term typically used to classify people according to similar and specific physical characteristics. Ethnicity is a term more broadly used that connects people according to an inherited status such as: a shared ancestry, language, history, religion, cuisine, art, clothing style, and/or physical appearance, etc.

In contrast to the idea of race, Ethnicity refers to ethnic affiliation, or the “cultural practices and outlooks of a given community of people that set them apart from others” (Giddens, 1997:210). Members of a particular ethnic group see themselves as culturally distinct from other groups of people in a society or culture. There are different characteristics which serve as a way of

As Curtis Keim has pointed out, though, for Africans it is most often used in a very similar way to that in which Europeans use ‘ethnic group’. Therefore, when we use ‘ethnicity’ this will be, for some people, synonymous with ‘tribe’; however, it is best to avoid the latter and any accompanying connotations of primitivism and backwardness, so that it is clear along what lines we are talking. Carola Lentz may well have described ‘ethnicity’ as the ‘joker card’, a word that can be introduced at any stage in the game, replacing potentially more ‘problematic’ phrases and assuming the characteristics we require of it, but its introduction is made with the best intentions; in order that we may see ethnicity as a broad and evolving concept that can indeed mean many things simultaneously.