SYG-2010 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Housing Discrimination, Blockbusting, Residential Segregation In The United States
Document Summary
Sociology of race/ethnicity, sociologists often combine the words race and ethnicity . They are both social categories without a natural biological reality they are both used to stratify and di erentiate according to super cial traits ratjer than essential traits: race/ethnic inequality ts the objectivist and constructionist de nitions of social problems. On the radar screen of public concern as evidence in media, law. De nitions of race and degree of racism vary over time and place: key race/ethnicity issues, racism is a process of strati cation based in arbitrary race distinctions, race is a social construction. Race/ethnicity is a social reality not a biological reality. Race is a system of meanings - it is what a society or sub-group de nes/believes it to be. Characteristics that de ne race groups change over time and vary by place: the media represents and construct race/ethnicity. Media are a vehicle for constructing our ideas of race/ethnicity.