sociology essay on race and ethnicity

Race and Ethnicity

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Race is a concept of human classification scheme based on visible features including eye color, skin color, the texture of the hair and other facial and bodily characteristics. Through these features, humans are ten categorized into distinct groups of population and this is enhanced by the fact that the characteristics are fully inherited.

Across the globe, debate on the topic of race has dominated for centuries. This is especially due to the resultant discrimination meted on the basis of these differences. Consequently, a lot of controversy surrounds the issue of race socially, politically but also in the scientific world.

According to many sociologists, race is more of a modern idea rather than a historical. This is based on overwhelming evidence that in ancient days physical differences mattered least. Most divisions were as a result of status, religion, language and even class.

Most controversy originates from the need to understand whether the beliefs associated with racial differences have any genetic or biological basis. Classification of races is mainly done in reference to the geographical origin of the people. The African are indigenous to the African continent: Caucasian are natives of Europe, the greater Asian represents the Mongols, Micronesians and Polynesians: Amerindian are from the American continent while the Australoid are from Australia. However, the common definition of race regroups these categories in accordance to skin color as black, white and brown. The groups described above can then fall into either of these skin color groupings (Origin of the Races, 2010, par6).

It is possible to believe that since the concept of race was a social description of genetic and biological differences then the biologists would agree with these assertions. However, this is not true due to several facts which biologists considered. First, race when defined in line with who resides in what continent is highly discontinuous as it was clear that there were different races sharing a continent. Secondly, there is continuity in genetic variations even in the socially defined race groupings.

This implies that even in people within the same race, there were distinct racial differences hence begging the question whether the socially defined race was actually a biologically unifying factor. Biologists estimate that 85% of total biological variations exist within a unitary local population. This means that the differences among a racial group such as Caucasians are much more compared to those obtained from the difference between the Caucasians and Africans (Sternberg, Elena & Kidd, 2005, p49).

In addition, biologists found out that the various races were not distinct but rather shared a single lineage as well as a single evolutionary path. Therefore there is no proven genetic value derived from the concept of race. Other scientists have declared that there is absolutely no scientific foundation linking race, intelligence and genetics.

Still, a trait such as skin color is completely independent of other traits such as eye shape, blood type, hair texture and other such differences. This means that it cannot be correct to group people using a group of features (Race the power of an illusion, 2010, par3).

What is clear to all is that all human beings in the modern day belong to the same biological sub-species referred to biologically as Homo sapiens sapiens. It has been proven that humans of different races are at least four times more biologically similar in comparison to the different types of chimpanzees which would ordinarily be seen as being looking alike.

It is clear that the original definition of race in terms of the external features of the facial formation and skin color did not capture the scientific fact which show that the genetic differences which result to these changes account to an insignificant proportion of the gene controlling the human genome.

Despite the fact that it is clear that race is not biological, it remains very real. It is still considered an important factor which gives people different levels of access to opportunities. The most visible aspect is the enormous advantages available to white people. This cuts across many sectors of human life and affects all humanity regardless of knowledge of existence.

This being the case, I find it difficult to understand the source of great social tensions across the globe based on race and ethnicity. There is enormous evidence of people being discriminated against on the basis of race. In fact countries such as the US have legislation guarding against discrimination on basis of race in different areas.

The findings define a stack reality which must be respected by all human beings. The idea of view persons of a different race as being inferior or superior is totally unfounded and goes against scientific findings.

Consequently these facts offer a source of unity for the entire humanity. Humanity should understand the need to scrap the racial boundaries not only for the sake of peace but also for fairness. Just because someone is white does not imply that he/she is closer to you than the black one. This is because it could even be true that you have more in common with the black one than the white one.

Reference List

Origin of the Races, 2010. Race Facts. Web.

Race the power of an illusion, 2010. What is race? . Web.

Sternberg, J., Elena L. & Kidd, K. 2005. Intelligence, Race, and Genetics. The American Psychological Association Vol. 60(1), 46–59 . Web.

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• Multi-Occupancy Buildings: Community Safety
• Friendship's Philosophical Description
• Gender Stereotypes on Television
• Karen Springen's "Why We Tuned Out"
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Bibliography

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11.2 Theoretical Perspectives on Race and Ethnicity

Learning objectives.

By the end of this section, you should be able to:

• Describe how major sociological perspectives view race and ethnicity
• Identify examples of culture of prejudice

Theoretical Perspectives on Race and Ethnicity

We can examine race and ethnicity through three major sociological perspectives: functionalism, conflict theory, and symbolic interactionism. As you read through these theories, ask yourself which one makes the most sense and why.

Functionalism

Functionalism emphasizes that all the elements of society have functions that promote solidarity and maintain order and stability in society. Hence, we can observe people from various racial and ethnic backgrounds interacting harmoniously in a state of social balance. Problems arise when one or more racial or ethnic groups experience inequalities and discriminations. This creates tension and conflict resulting in temporary dysfunction of the social system. For example, the killing of a Black man George Floyd by a White police officer in 2020 stirred up protests demanding racial justice and changes in policing in the United States. To restore the society’s pre-disturbed state or to seek a new equilibrium, the police department and various parts of the system require changes and compensatory adjustments.

Another way to apply the functionalist perspective to race and ethnicity is to discuss the way racism can contribute positively to the functioning of society by strengthening bonds between in-group members through the ostracism of out-group members. Consider how a community might increase solidarity by refusing to allow outsiders access. On the other hand, Rose (1951) suggested that dysfunctions associated with racism include the failure to take advantage of talent in the subjugated group, and that society must divert from other purposes the time and effort needed to maintain artificially constructed racial boundaries. Consider how much money, time, and effort went toward maintaining separate and unequal educational systems prior to the civil rights movement.

In the view of functionalism, racial and ethnic inequalities must have served an important function in order to exist as long as they have. This concept, sometimes, can be problematic. How can racism and discrimination contribute positively to society? Nash (1964) focused his argument on the way racism is functional for the dominant group, for example, suggesting that racism morally justifies a racially unequal society. Consider the way slave owners justified slavery in the antebellum South, by suggesting Black people were fundamentally inferior to White and preferred slavery to freedom.

Interactionism

For symbolic interactionists, race and ethnicity provide strong symbols as sources of identity. In fact, some interactionists propose that the symbols of race, not race itself, are what lead to racism. Famed Interactionist Herbert Blumer (1958) suggested that racial prejudice is formed through interactions between members of the dominant group: Without these interactions, individuals in the dominant group would not hold racist views. These interactions contribute to an abstract picture of the subordinate group that allows the dominant group to support its view of the subordinate group, and thus maintains the status quo. An example of this might be an individual whose beliefs about a particular group are based on images conveyed in popular media, and those are unquestionably believed because the individual has never personally met a member of that group.

Another way to apply the interactionist perspective is to look at how people define their races and the race of others. Some people who claim a White identity have a greater amount of skin pigmentation than some people who claim a Black identity; how did they come to define themselves as Black or White?

Conflict Theory

Conflict theories are often applied to inequalities of gender, social class, education, race, and ethnicity. A conflict theory perspective of U.S. history would examine the numerous past and current struggles between the White ruling class and racial and ethnic minorities, noting specific conflicts that have arisen when the dominant group perceived a threat from the minority group. In the late nineteenth century, the rising power of Black Americans after the Civil War resulted in draconian Jim Crow laws that severely limited Black political and social power. For example, Vivien Thomas (1910–1985), the Black surgical technician who helped develop the groundbreaking surgical technique that saves the lives of “blue babies” was classified as a janitor for many years, and paid as such, despite the fact that he was conducting complicated surgical experiments. The years since the Civil War have showed a pattern of attempted disenfranchisement, with gerrymandering and voter suppression efforts aimed at predominantly minority neighborhoods.

Intersection Theory

Feminist sociologist Patricia Hill Collins (1990) further developed intersection theory , originally articulated in 1989 by Kimberlé Crenshaw, which suggests we cannot separate the effects of race, class, gender, sexual orientation, and other attributes (Figure 11.4). When we examine race and how it can bring us both advantages and disadvantages, it is important to acknowledge that the way we experience race is shaped, for example, by our gender and class. Multiple layers of disadvantage intersect to create the way we experience race. For example, if we want to understand prejudice, we must understand that the prejudice focused on a White woman because of her gender is very different from the layered prejudice focused on an Asian woman in poverty, who is affected by stereotypes related to being poor, being a woman, and her ethnic status.

Culture of Prejudice

Culture of prejudice refers to the theory that prejudice is embedded in our culture. We grow up surrounded by images of stereotypes and casual expressions of racism and prejudice. Consider the casually racist imagery on grocery store shelves or the stereotypes that fill popular movies and advertisements. It is easy to see how someone living in the Northeastern United States, who may know no Mexican Americans personally, might gain a stereotyped impression from such sources as Speedy Gonzalez or Taco Bell’s talking Chihuahua. Because we are all exposed to these images and thoughts, it is impossible to know to what extent they have influenced our thought processes.

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10.2 The Meaning of Race and Ethnicity

Learning objectives.

• Critique the biological concept of race.
• Discuss why race is a social construction.
• Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of a sense of ethnic identity.

To understand this problem further, we need to take a critical look at the very meaning of race and ethnicity in today’s society. These concepts may seem easy to define initially but are much more complex than their definitions suggest.

Let’s start first with race , which refers to a category of people who share certain inherited physical characteristics, such as skin color, facial features, and stature. A key question about race is whether it is more of a biological category or a social category. Most people think of race in biological terms, and for more than 300 years, or ever since white Europeans began colonizing populations of color elsewhere in the world, race has indeed served as the “premier source of human identity” (Smedley, 1998, p. 690).

It is certainly easy to see that people in the United States and around the world differ physically in some obvious ways. The most noticeable difference is skin tone: some groups of people have very dark skin, while others have very light skin. Other differences also exist. Some people have very curly hair, while others have very straight hair. Some have thin lips, while others have thick lips. Some groups of people tend to be relatively tall, while others tend to be relatively short. Using such physical differences as their criteria, scientists at one point identified as many as nine races: African, American Indian or Native American, Asian, Australian Aborigine, European (more commonly called “white”), Indian, Melanesian, Micronesian, and Polynesian (Smedley, 1998).

Although people certainly do differ in the many physical features that led to the development of such racial categories, anthropologists, sociologists, and many biologists question the value of these categories and thus the value of the biological concept of race (Smedley, 2007). For one thing, we often see more physical differences within a race than between races. For example, some people we call “white” (or European), such as those with Scandinavian backgrounds, have very light skins, while others, such as those from some Eastern European backgrounds, have much darker skins. In fact, some “whites” have darker skin than some “blacks,” or African Americans. Some whites have very straight hair, while others have very curly hair; some have blonde hair and blue eyes, while others have dark hair and brown eyes. Because of interracial reproduction going back to the days of slavery, African Americans also differ in the darkness of their skin and in other physical characteristics. In fact it is estimated that about 80% of African Americans have some white (i.e., European) ancestry; 50% of Mexican Americans have European or Native American ancestry; and 20% of whites have African or Native American ancestry. If clear racial differences ever existed hundreds or thousands of years ago (and many scientists doubt such differences ever existed), in today’s world these differences have become increasingly blurred.

Another reason to question the biological concept of race is that an individual or a group of individuals is often assigned to a race on arbitrary or even illogical grounds. A century ago, for example, Irish, Italians, and Eastern European Jews who left their homelands for a better life in the United States were not regarded as white once they reached the United States but rather as a different, inferior (if unnamed) race (Painter, 2010). The belief in their inferiority helped justify the harsh treatment they suffered in their new country. Today, of course, we call people from all three backgrounds white or European.

In this context, consider someone in the United States who has a white parent and a black parent. What race is this person? American society usually calls this person black or African American, and the person may adopt the same identity (as does Barack Obama, who had a white mother and African father). But where is the logic for doing so? This person, as well as President Obama, is as much white as black in terms of parental ancestry. Or consider someone with one white parent and another parent who is the child of one black parent and one white parent. This person thus has three white grandparents and one black grandparent. Even though this person’s ancestry is thus 75% white and 25% black, she or he is likely to be considered black in the United States and may well adopt this racial identity. This practice reflects the traditional “one-drop rule” in the United States that defines someone as black if she or he has at least one drop of “black blood,” and that was used in the antebellum South to keep the slave population as large as possible (Wright, 1993). Yet in many Latin American nations, this person would be considered white. In Brazil, the term black is reserved for someone with no European (white) ancestry at all. If we followed this practice in the United States, about 80% of the people we call “black” would now be called “white.” With such arbitrary designations, race is more of a social category than a biological one.

President Barack Obama had an African father and a white mother. Although his ancestry is equally black and white, Obama considers himself an African American, as do most Americans. In several Latin American nations, however, Obama would be considered white because of his white ancestry.

Steve Jurvetson – Barack Obama on the Primary – CC BY 2.0.

A third reason to question the biological concept of race comes from the field of biology itself and more specifically from the studies of genetics and human evolution. Starting with genetics, people from different races are more than 99.9% the same in their DNA (Begley, 2008). To turn that around, less than 0.1% of all the DNA in our bodies accounts for the physical differences among people that we associate with racial differences. In terms of DNA, then, people with different racial backgrounds are much, much more similar than dissimilar.

Even if we acknowledge that people differ in the physical characteristics we associate with race, modern evolutionary evidence reminds us that we are all, really, of one human race. According to evolutionary theory, the human race began thousands and thousands of years ago in sub-Saharan Africa. As people migrated around the world over the millennia, natural selection took over. It favored dark skin for people living in hot, sunny climates (i.e., near the equator), because the heavy amounts of melanin that produce dark skin protect against severe sunburn, cancer, and other problems. By the same token, natural selection favored light skin for people who migrated farther from the equator to cooler, less sunny climates, because dark skins there would have interfered with the production of vitamin D (Stone & Lurquin, 2007). Evolutionary evidence thus reinforces the common humanity of people who differ in the rather superficial ways associated with their appearances: we are one human species composed of people who happen to look different.

Race as a Social Construction

The reasons for doubting the biological basis for racial categories suggest that race is more of a social category than a biological one. Another way to say this is that race is a social construction , a concept that has no objective reality but rather is what people decide it is (Berger & Luckmann, 1963). In this view race has no real existence other than what and how people think of it.

This understanding of race is reflected in the problems, outlined earlier, in placing people with multiracial backgrounds into any one racial category. We have already mentioned the example of President Obama. As another example, the famous (and now notorious) golfer Tiger Woods was typically called an African American by the news media when he burst onto the golfing scene in the late 1990s, but in fact his ancestry is one-half Asian (divided evenly between Chinese and Thai), one-quarter white, one-eighth Native American, and only one-eighth African American (Leland & Beals, 1997).

Historical examples of attempts to place people in racial categories further underscore the social constructionism of race. In the South during the time of slavery, the skin tone of slaves lightened over the years as babies were born from the union, often in the form of rape, of slave owners and other whites with slaves. As it became difficult to tell who was “black” and who was not, many court battles over people’s racial identity occurred. People who were accused of having black ancestry would go to court to prove they were white in order to avoid enslavement or other problems (Staples, 1998). Litigation over race continued long past the days of slavery. In a relatively recent example, Susie Guillory Phipps sued the Louisiana Bureau of Vital Records in the early 1980s to change her official race to white. Phipps was descended from a slave owner and a slave and thereafter had only white ancestors. Despite this fact, she was called “black” on her birth certificate because of a state law, echoing the “one-drop rule,” that designated people as black if their ancestry was at least 1/32 black (meaning one of their great-great-great grandparents was black). Phipps had always thought of herself as white and was surprised after seeing a copy of her birth certificate to discover she was officially black because she had one black ancestor about 150 years earlier. She lost her case, and the U.S. Supreme Court later refused to review it (Omi & Winant, 1994).

Although race is a social construction, it is also true, as noted in an earlier chapter, that things perceived as real are real in their consequences. Because people do perceive race as something real, it has real consequences. Even though so little of DNA accounts for the physical differences we associate with racial differences, that low amount leads us not only to classify people into different races but to treat them differently—and, more to the point, unequally—based on their classification. Yet modern evidence shows there is little, if any, scientific basis for the racial classification that is the source of so much inequality.

Because of the problems in the meaning of race , many social scientists prefer the term ethnicity in speaking of people of color and others with distinctive cultural heritages. In this context, ethnicity refers to the shared social, cultural, and historical experiences, stemming from common national or regional backgrounds, that make subgroups of a population different from one another. Similarly, an ethnic group is a subgroup of a population with a set of shared social, cultural, and historical experiences; with relatively distinctive beliefs, values, and behaviors; and with some sense of identity of belonging to the subgroup. So conceived, the terms ethnicity and ethnic group avoid the biological connotations of the terms race and racial group and the biological differences these terms imply. At the same time, the importance we attach to ethnicity illustrates that it, too, is in many ways a social construction, and our ethnic membership thus has important consequences for how we are treated.

The sense of identity many people gain from belonging to an ethnic group is important for reasons both good and bad. Because, as we learned in Chapter 6 “Groups and Organizations” , one of the most important functions of groups is the identity they give us, ethnic identities can give individuals a sense of belonging and a recognition of the importance of their cultural backgrounds. This sense of belonging is illustrated in Figure 10.1 “Responses to “How Close Do You Feel to Your Ethnic or Racial Group?”” , which depicts the answers of General Social Survey respondents to the question, “How close do you feel to your ethnic or racial group?” More than three-fourths said they feel close or very close. The term ethnic pride captures the sense of self-worth that many people derive from their ethnic backgrounds. More generally, if group membership is important for many ways in which members of the group are socialized, ethnicity certainly plays an important role in the socialization of millions of people in the United States and elsewhere in the world today.

Figure 10.1 Responses to “How Close Do You Feel to Your Ethnic or Racial Group?”

Source: Data from General Social Survey, 2004.

A downside of ethnicity and ethnic group membership is the conflict they create among people of different ethnic groups. History and current practice indicate that it is easy to become prejudiced against people with different ethnicities from our own. Much of the rest of this chapter looks at the prejudice and discrimination operating today in the United States against people whose ethnicity is not white and European. Around the world today, ethnic conflict continues to rear its ugly head. The 1990s and 2000s were filled with “ethnic cleansing” and pitched battles among ethnic groups in Eastern Europe, Africa, and elsewhere. Our ethnic heritages shape us in many ways and fill many of us with pride, but they also are the source of much conflict, prejudice, and even hatred, as the hate crime story that began this chapter so sadly reminds us.

Key Takeaways

• Sociologists think race is best considered a social construction rather than a biological category.
• “Ethnicity” and “ethnic” avoid the biological connotations of “race” and “racial.”

For Your Review

• List everyone you might know whose ancestry is biracial or multiracial. What do these individuals consider themselves to be?
• List two or three examples that indicate race is a social construction rather than a biological category.

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Berger, P., & Luckmann, T. (1963). The social construction of reality . New York, NY: Doubleday.

Leland, J., & Beals, G. (1997, May 5). In living colors: Tiger Woods is the exception that rules. Newsweek 58–60.

Omi, M., & Winant, H. (1994). Racial formation in the United States: From the 1960s to the 1990s (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Routledge.

Painter, N. I. (2010). The history of white people . New York, NY: W. W. Norton.

Smedley, A. (1998). “Race” and the construction of human identity. American Anthropologist, 100 , 690–702.

Staples, B. (1998, November 13). The shifting meanings of “black” and “white,” The New York Times , p. WK14.

Stone, L., & Lurquin, P. F. (2007). Genes, culture, and human evolution: A synthesis . Malden, MA: Blackwell.

Wright, L. (1993, July 12). One drop of blood. The New Yorker, pp. 46–54.

Sociology Copyright © 2016 by University of Minnesota is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Sociology of Race and Ethnicity

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The official journal of ASA’s Section on Racial and Ethnic Minorities , Sociology of Race and Ethnicity publishes the highest quality, cutting-edge sociological research on race and ethnicity regardless of epistemological, methodological, or theoretical orientation. Sociology of Race and Ethnicity provides a fulcrum upon which sociologically-centered work will swing as it also seeks to provide new linkages between the discipline of sociology and other disciplines and areas where race and ethnicity are central components.

Sociology of Race and Ethnicity, published four times per year, is devoted to publishing the finest cutting-edge, critical, and engaged public sociological scholarship on race and ethnicity.

Each issue is organized around a core group of original research articles. Depending on the length of the articles, each issue will have approximately nine or ten of these articles. Original articles, of 8,000 to 10,000 words, will represent rigorous sociological research in the sociology of race and ethnicity, broadly conceptualized, with varying methodologies. We are also very interested in publishing theoretically important pieces. The journal also includes a section that features pedagogical application pieces devoted to the teaching of race and ethnicity – “Race and Ethnicity Pedagogy” – as well as Book Reviews and a section on Books of Note.

We are currently welcoming submissions of:

o Regular length journal articles (8,000-10,000 words)

o Shorter pieces on race and ethnicity pedagogy (3,000 words)

The journal’s co-editors, associate editors, and editorial board members are committed to creating a high quality outlet for the most important work in the sociology of race and ethnicity, through timely and constructive peer reviews, careful and engaging editorial decision-making, as well as drawing from all epistemological, theoretical, and methodological perspectives and approaches.

As the national organization for sociologists, ASA, through its Executive Office, is well positioned to provide a unique set of services to its members and to promote the vitality, visibility, and diversity of the discipline. Working at the national and international levels, ASA aims to articulate policy and implement programs likely to have the broadest possible impact for sociology now and in the future.

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Sociology of Race, Racism and Ethnicity: Trends, Debates and Research Agendas

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In 1969 the British Sociological Association (BSA) organised its Annual Conference on the theme of race relations. In choosing this topic the BSA was both recognising the emergence of what then a relatively new area of research and providing a space for academic debate on what had by then become a controversial issue in both civil society and politics. The edited volume produced after the conference contained influential contributions from key scholars in the field, including Michael Banton, John Rex and Sheila Allen, among others. As Tom Bottomore noted in his foreword to this volume, the various contributions to the conference had sought to ‘connect the understanding of race and racialism with broader sociological theories’ (Zubaida, 1970, p. xiii). The conference came at a time when the issue of race and immigration was becoming an important facet of policy debates. Within the wider political culture the interventions of Enoch Powell through his various speeches had helped to create an atmosphere in which debates about race and immigration had become increasingly politicised and polarised (Foot, 1969; Schoen, 1977). Within the academy there had been a shift from relative silence on questions about race and immigration to an engagement with at least some aspects of the politics of immigration and the changing position of the migrant communities that were emerging as a feature of urban life and culture in British society. It is interesting to note in this regard that in a review of the conference proceedings A.H. Halsey argued: It is not too far-fetched to suggest that the essential shift in European sociological thought on human conflict from before to after the Second

World War has been a shift in focus form class conflict to race conflict. (Halsey, 1971, p. 301)

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Solomos, J. (2014). Sociology of Race, Racism and Ethnicity: Trends, Debates and Research Agendas. In: Holmwood, J., Scott, J. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Sociology in Britain. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137318862_18

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11.3 Theoretical Perspectives on Race and Ethnicity

Contemporary sociologists reject the argument that race is rooted in biology and have devoted decades of sociological research to understanding how race is socially constructed. According to German-American anthropologist Franz Boas (1911), “The existence of any pure race with special endowments is a myth, as is the belief that there are races all of whose members are foredoomed to eternal inferiority.” In the following sections, we’ll explore a variety of theories used to understand race. First, we will examine the role of pseudoscience in understanding racial categories, before moving on to theories that challenge some initial constructions of race and difference.

11.3.1 “Science” and Social Theory

Thanks to Charles Darwin’s work on natural selection , early European scientists came to accept that all humans descend from a common ancestor and therefore are the same species. However, the misleading racial categories outlined by Blumenbach endured and created the false assumption that race was a biological phenomena. The superiority of the white race was accepted by early scientists and social theorists. This led them to believe that race was rooted in biology and that white people were “naturally” superior, even as they struggled to understand and describe the origins of social inequality.

Many scientists and social theorists doubled down on biological race, by way of social Darwinism . This worldview combines Darwin’s ideas about biological evolution with unsupported theories that race is genetically determined and can therefore be selected for through breeding. During the late 1800s, eugenics was a pseudoscientific political project to “improve humanity” through selective breeding of the “best” specimens of white humans. Eugenics lent a veneer of scientific legitamcy to Hitler’s racist campaign of genocide in Europe. In addition eugenics undergirded the forced sterilization by the U.S. government of women of color, mostly Indigenous and black women, who were seen as unfit mothers. Even with these faulty and problematic foundations, eugenics and biological race were also widely accepted in the United States for much of the twentieth century.

11.3.2 Emancipatory Theories

The anthropologist Franz Boas began to question commonly held ideas about biological race and European racial superiority while working with Inuit people on Baffin Island in 1883. He developed a theory of cultural relativism, which asserts that the differences between groups of people were culturally determined, and could only be understood by considering specific cultural and historic contexts. Throughout his career, Boas challenged racism with rigorous social science. In spite of his broad impact in the field of cultural anthropology, the biological basis for race remained a basic assumption of physical anthropology until the 1960s (Caspari 2003).

In his classic 1903 sociological text, The Souls of Black Folks , W. E. B. Du Bois—you met him in Chapter 2 —theorized about racial identity. Du Bois posed a provocative question, “How does it feel to be a problem?” . Starting with his own childhood experience of being excluded and treated differently by children who were white, he describes a growing awareness of his racialized identity, and of how racial identity connects to meaning, power, and social consequence. His groundbreaking field research described the harsh economic and social consequences of racial segregation, including extreme poverty, exploitation, and alienation.

Du Bois also described the “spiritual strivings” of an enduring human community subject to the harsh impacts of a racist state. He celebrated the agency, beauty, and inherent human dignity of people who are black and of black community. His research demonstrated that the problem is not black folks, the problem is racism, which he described as “the color line.” He urgently invited people who are white to look through the veil of racism that divides us. Aldon Morris, a Du Boisian scholar, argued that The Souls of Black Folks was an early iteration of #BlackLivesMatter (Morris 2017).

11.3.2.1 White Privilege

White privilege , the unearned set of social advantages available to white people, was first identified by Du Bois as a “psychic wage of whiteness.” As white theorists began to respond to critical theories of race, their scholarship became more reflexive and attentive to the meanings and impacts of white racial identity on people who are white. White theorists have explored this idea, by considering white privilege (McIntosh 1988), and white fragility (DiAngelo 2018) and racial identity formation in working-class people who are white (Roediger 2017).

11.3.3 Critical Race Theory

Critical race theory is an intellectual and social framework that examines how racism is embedded in American social life through its systems and institutions. This theoretical framework emerged from the intellectual and social movements of civil-rights scholars and activists who want to examine the intersection of race, society, and law. In this framework, race is a social construct, something that changes depending on the social and political conditions of the society at a particular point in time. Race is not something that is rooted in biology or has some essence behind it. The framework centers the knowledge and experiences of people of color and points to how those knowledges and experiences intersect with other identities, such as gender and sexuality.

11.3.4 Racial Formation Theory

Racial formation theory refers to the fact that society is continually creating and transforming racial categories (Omi and Winant 1994). For example, groups that were once self-defined by their ethnic backgrounds (Mexican American, Japanese Americans) are now racialized as “Hispanics” and “Asian Americans.” The notion of racial formation points to how what we define as race varies and changes as political, economic, and historical contexts. In other words different race classifications arise at particular places and at particular points in time. For more about this topic, revisit “What Is Race?’ earlier in this chapter.

11.3.5 Colorblindness/Theory of Racial Ignorance

Colorblindness, or color-blind racism, is a form of racism that is hidden and embedded in our social institutions. The notion that one “does not see color” is problematic and serves to erase experiences of racial and ethnic minority groups. The United States cultural narrative that typically focuses on individual racism fails to recognize systemic racism. Colorblind racism has arisen since the post-Civil Rights era and supports racism while avoiding any reference to race (Bonilla-Silva 2015).

The theory of racial ignorance explains how racial ignorance (“I don’t see color”) reinforces white supremacy, the belief that white people are better than other races. Racial ignorance is built into the core of racialized social systems and leads to the reproduction of inequalities (Mueller 2020). Colorblindness or claiming racial ignorance is problematic at both individual and structural levels. At the level of the individual, white ignorance refers to a person’s willful ignorance about racial injustice. From a structural perspective, racial ignorance develops from a process that systematically perpetuates racial injustice. The structuralist view allows us to identify patterns of ignorance that contribute to white racial domination. By examining racial ignorance as a structural problem, we can begin to work towards building equity (Martín 2021).

11.3.6 Intersection Theory

Feminist sociologist Patricia Hill Collins (1990) further developed intersection theory, originally articulated in 1989 by Kimberlé Crenshaw, which suggests we cannot separate the effects of race, class, gender, sexual orientation, and other attributes. You first learned about this theory in Chapter 2 and Chapter 9 . When we examine race and how it can bring us both advantages and disadvantages, it is important to acknowledge that the way we experience race is shaped, for example, by our gender and class. Multiple layers of disadvantage intersect to create the way we experience race. For example, if we want to understand prejudice, we must understand that the prejudice focused on a white woman because of her gender is very different from the layered prejudice focused on an Asian woman in poverty, who is affected by stereotypes related to being poor, being a woman, and her ethnic status.

11.3.7 Postcolonial Theory

Postcolonial theory explores colonial relations and their aftermath, and how those relations have been constituted. The framework tends to focus on subjugated people and their ways of thinking. Postcolonial theory challenges the theoretical frameworks of mainstream American sociology. Most classical and modern theorists assume that their frameworks are universal and can be applied to all societies (Connell 2007). Even though the theorists, who have specific backgrounds and positions within their own societies, developed their theories in very specific societies at particular points in time. As noted earlier, most of what is considered sociological theory is derived from the ideas of white, upper middle class men living in the United States and Europe. Generally, postcolonial theories critique empires by suggesting that empire, colonialism, and imperialism matter and they should be critiqued. Theorists believe that power struggles tied to colonialism shape societies and influence how individuals view the social world (Go 2016).

11.3.8 Licenses and Attributions for Theoretical Perspectives on Race and Ethnicity

“Theoretical Perspectives on Race and Ethnicity” by Jennifer Puentes is licensed under CC BY 4.0 .

“‘Science’ and Social Theory” by Nora Karena is licensed under CC BY 4.0 .

“Emancipatory Theories” by Nora Karena is licensed under CC BY 4.0 .

“White Privilege” by Nora Karena is licensed under CC BY 4.0 .

“Intersection Theory” from “11.2 Theoretical Perspectives on Race and Ethnicity” by Tonja R. Conerly, Kathleen Holmes, Asha Lal Tamang in Openstax Sociology 3e , which is licensed under CC BY 4.0 . Access for free at https://openstax.org/books/introduction-sociology-3e/pages/11-2-theoretical-perspectives-on-race-and-ethnicity

“Critical Race Theory” by Jennifer Puentes is licensed under CC BY 4.0 .

“Theory of Ignorance/Colorblindness” by Jennifer Puentes is licensed under CC BY 4.0 .

“Postcolonial Theory” by Jennifer Puentes and Matt Gougherty is licensed under CC BY 4.0 .

Sociology in Everyday Life Copyright © by Matt Gougherty and Jennifer Puentes. All Rights Reserved.

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12 ‘Race’ and Ethnicity

• Published: January 2016
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While the process of conceptualizing, defining, and measuring race and ethnicity as key elements of human identities is complex, both have long been regarded as markers of social advantage and disadvantage. Indeed, the boundaries that are used to distinguish groups are often implicated in processes of exclusion and privilege. While recognizing significant diversity within categories of race and ethnicity, the chapter explores different accounts of the mechanisms which lead or have led to systematically different social locations across groups. Drawing theories of ethnic disadvantage from both the US and Europe, it provides specific examples for the UK of patterns of ethnic and racial advantage and disadvantage in the labour market, and of residential clustering. Focusing on the combination of entrenched poverty and racialized concentration at the neighbourhood level allows consideration of how both cultural and structural reasons have been used to account for these patterns.

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The Sociology of Race and Ethnicity

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The sociology of race and ethnicity is a large and vibrant subfield within sociology in which researchers and theorists focus on the ways that social, political, and economic relations interact with race and ethnicity in a given society, region, or community. Topics and methods in this subfield are wide-ranging, and the development of the field dates back to the early 20th century.

W.E.B. Du Bois Pioneers the Subfield

The sociology of race and ethnicity began to take shape in the late 19th century. The American sociologist W.E.B. Du Bois , who was the first African American to earn a Ph.D. at Harvard, is credited with pioneering the subfield within the United States with his famous and still widely taught books The Souls of Black Folk  and Black Reconstruction .

However, the subfield today differs greatly from its early stages. When early American sociologists focused on race and ethnicity, du Bois excepted, they tended to focus on the concepts of integration, acculturation , and assimilation , in keeping with the view of the U.S. as a "melting pot" into which difference should be absorbed. Concerns during the early 20th century were for teaching those who differed visually, culturally, or linguistically from the white Anglo-Saxon norms how to think, speak, and act in accordance with them. This approach to studying race and ethnicity framed those who were not white Anglo-Saxon as problems that needed to be solved and was directed primarily by sociologists who were white men from middle to upper-class families.

Different Theoretical Perspectives Developed

As more people of color and women became social scientists throughout the twentieth century, they created and developed theoretical perspectives that differed from the normative approach in sociology, and crafted research from different standpoints that shifted the analytic focus from particular populations to social relations and the social system.

Today, sociologists within the subfield of race and ethnicity focus on areas including racial and ethnic identities, social relations and interactions within and across racial and ethnic lines, racial and ethnic stratification and segregation, culture and worldview and how these relate to race, and power and inequality relative to majority and minority statuses in society.

But, before we learn more about this subfield, it's important to have a clear understanding of how sociologists define race and ethnicity.

How Sociologists Define Race and Ethnicity

Most readers have an understanding of what race is and means in U.S. society. Race refers to how we categorize people by skin color and phenotype—certain physical facial features that are shared to a certain degree by a given group. Common racial categories that most people would recognize in the U.S. include Black, white, Asian, Latino, and American Indian. But the tricky bit is that there is absolutely no biological determinant of race. Instead, sociologists recognize that our idea of race and racial categories are social constructs that are unstable and shifting, and that can be seen to have changed over time in relation to historical and political events. We also recognize race as defined in large part by context. "Black" means something different in the U.S. versus Brazil versus India, for example, and this difference in meaning manifests in real differences in social experience.

Ethnicity Based on Shared Common Culture

Ethnicity is likely a bit more difficult to explain for most people. Unlike race, which is primarily seen and understood on the basis of skin color and phenotype, ethnicity does not necessarily provide visual cues. Instead, it is based on a shared common culture, including elements like language, religion, art, music, and literature, and norms , customs, practices, and history. An ethnic group does not exist simply because of the common national or cultural origins of the group, however. They develop because of their unique historical and social experiences, which become the basis for the group’s ethnic identity. For example, prior to immigration to the U.S., Italians did not think of themselves as a distinct group with common interests and experiences. However, the process of immigration and the experiences they faced as a group in their new homeland, including discrimination, created a new ethnic identity.

Within a racial group, there can be several ethnic groups. For example, a white American might identify as part of a variety of ethnic groups including German American, Polish American, and Irish American, among others. Other examples of ethnic groups within the U.S. include and are not limited to Creole, Caribbean Americans, Mexican Americans, and Arab Americans.

Key Concepts and Theories of Race and Ethnicity

Early American sociologist W.E.B. du Bois offered one of the most important and lasting theoretical contributions to the sociology of race and ethnicity when he presented the concept of "double-consciousness" in  The Souls of Black Folk . This concept refers to the way in which people of color in predominantly white societies and spaces and ethnic minorities have the experience of seeing themselves through their own eyes, but also of seeing themselves as "other" through the eyes of the white majority. This results in a conflicting and often distressing experience of the process of identity formation.

Racial Formation Theory

Racial formation theory , developed by sociologists Howard Winant and Michael Omi, frames race as an unstable, ever-evolving social construct that is tied to historical and political events. They assert that differing " racial projects " that seek to define race and racial categories are engaged in constant competition to give the dominant meaning to race. Their theory illuminates how race has been and continues to be a politically contested social construct, upon which is granted access to rights, resources, and power.

Theory of Systematic Racism

The theory of systemic racism , developed by sociologist Joe Feagin, is an important and widely used theory of race and racism that has gained particular traction since the rise of the BlackLivesMatter movement . Feagin's theory, rooted in historical documentation, asserts that racism was built into the very foundation of U.S. society and that it now exists within every aspect of society. Connecting economic wealth and impoverishment, politics and disenfranchisement, racism within institutions like schools and media, to racist assumptions and ideas, Feagin's theory is a roadmap for understanding the origins of racism in the U.S., how it operates today, and what anti-racist activists can do to combat it.

Concept of Intersectionality

Initially articulated by legal scholar Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw, the concept of intersectionality would become a cornerstone of the theory of sociologist Patricia Hill Collins , and an important theoretical concept of all sociological approaches to race and ethnicity within the academy today. The concept refers to the necessity of considering the different social categories and forces that race interacts with as people experience the world, including but not limited to gender, economic class, sexuality, culture, ethnicity, and ability.

Research Topics in Race and Ethnicity

Sociologists of race and ethnicity study just about anything one could imagine, but some core topics within the subfield include the following.

Racial Identity, Racism, and Criminal Justice

• How race and ethnicity shape the process of identity formation for individuals and communities, like for example the complicated process of creating a racial identity as a mixed-race person .
• How racism manifests in everyday life and shapes one's life trajectory. For example, how racial biases affect student-teacher interaction from elementary school to university and graduate school , and how skin color affects perceived intelligence .
• The relationship between race and the police and the criminal justice system, including how race and racism affect policing tactics and arrest rates, sentencing, incarceration rates, and life after parole. In 2014, many sociologists came together to create The Ferguson Syllabus , which is a reading list and teaching tool for understanding the long history and contemporary aspects of these issues.

Residential Segregation and "Whiteness"

• The long history and contemporary problem of residential segregation , and how this affects everything from family wealth, economic well-being, education, access to healthy food, and health.
• Since the 1980s,  whiteness has been an important topic of study within the sociology of race and ethnicity. Up until that point, it was largely neglected academically because it was simply seen as the norm against which difference was measured. Thanks largely to scholar Peggy McIntosh, who helped people understand the concept of white privilege , what it means to be white, who can be considered white, and how whiteness fits within the social structure is a vibrant topic of study.

The sociology of race and ethnicity is a vibrant subfield that hosts a wealth and diversity of research and theory. The American Sociological Association even has a webpage devoted to it .

Updated  by Nicki Lisa Cole, Ph.D.

• Introduction to Sociology
• Ethnicity Definition in Sociology
• Definition of Aggregate and Social Aggregate
• The Sociology of the Family Unit
• Definition of Intersectionality
• What Is a Master Status?
• The Definition of Whiteness in American Society
• Definition of Scapegoat, Scapegoating, and Scapegoat Theory
• Ethical Considerations in Sociological Research
• Understanding and Defining White Privilege
• What Is a Reference Group?
• What Is Multiculturalism? Definition, Theories, and Examples
• Definition of Cultural Relativism in Sociology
• Understanding Meritocracy from a Sociological Perspective
• 11 Black Scholars and Intellectuals Who Influenced Sociology

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Dasgupta, Kushan, Nicole Iturriaga, and Aaron Panofsky. Available OnlineFirst. “Racist Agnotology: How Myth-Making About Institutions and Knowledge Production Contributes to Racialized Ignorance.” Sociology of Race & Ethnicity . doi:10.1177/23326492241259403.

Gast, Melanie Jones , Yohimar Sivira-Gonzalez, James Chisholm, & Trisha Douin . 2024. “ Multilingual Adolescent Mentors and Tailored College Knowledge for Students of Immigrant Backgrounds .” Supporting College Students of Immigrant Origin: New Insights from Research, Policy, and Practice , edited by Blake Silver & Graziella Pagliarulo McCarron. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 

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Lanphier, Tonya Scott   and   Robert M. Carini .  2022.  " A Process Evaluation of a Learning Community Program: Implemented as Designed? "   Education Sciences  12, no. 1: 60. 

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Measuring Potential Effects of Introducing the 2024 Race and Ethnicity Standards into the Current Population Survey

NBER Working Paper No. w32812

30 Pages Posted: 13 Aug 2024

Mark Loewenstein

Bureau of Labor Statistics

David Piccone

Anne elise polivka.

Date Written: August 2024

When obtaining information on individuals’ race and ethnicity, the Current Population Survey (CPS) currently follows the 1997 OMB standards, which prescribes race and Hispanic ethnicity as distinct concepts that should be asked about in separate questions. In 2024, OMB updated the standards to stipulate that race and ethnicity be asked in one question and that a separate category be added to the single race and ethnicity question for Middle Eastern and North African. We examine the CPS microdata to tease out the effects that introduction of the 2024 standards might have on CPS labor force estimates across time. Our estimates show that individuals who indicate they are Middle Eastern or North African will likely be those who previously would have indicated that they are White, however their proportion of the population is small. In contrast, Hispanics make up a larger proportion of the population. “Other Race” responses in the CPS provide a lower bound estimate of the number of individuals who will identify as just Hispanic (Hispanic Alone) in a combined question while responses to the Hispanic ethnicity question provide an upper bound. Results from the Census Bureau’s National Content test suggest that the upper bound estimate is closer to the proportion of the population that will identify as Hispanic Alone, but there is insufficient information in the National Content test to determine how this will affect the various CPS labor force estimates. To address this issue, we calculate the labor force estimates corresponding to our lower and upper bounds However, we note that to obtain a more precise estimate of the effects changing the race and ethnicity questions on labor force estimates the two sets of questions should administered to the same respondents. One way of accomplishing this is to take advantage of the longitudinal aspect of the CPS. Individuals who initially provided their race and ethnicity using the 1997 standard questions can be asked their race and ethnicity using a combined question in subsequent months. An ongoing question is how the children of Hispanic immigrants who were born in the United States will view themselves. We therefore look at the tendency of individuals to identify as Hispanic because they were either born in a Hispanic country or were born in the U.S. but have one or two Hispanic parents. Institutional subscribers to the NBER working paper series, and residents of developing countries may download this paper without additional charge at www.nber.org .

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