01:920:108 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Ascribed Status, Ethnic Group, Common Descent
19 Dec 2016
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Every day vs. social scientist understanding of race: everyday: individual attribute, something everyone has (e. g. , height, weight, race, social scientist: way of classifying people based on physical attributes. What is ethnicity: a group with putative - supposed, regarded as such - common ancestry that shares cultural symbols and practices such as language, diet, religion, norms, and values, ethnic group. Actual distinctiveness irrelevant (ex: jews in america) Race vs. ethnicity - different: race - ascribed status; determined by outsiders, ethnicity - achieved status; determined by members, categories vs. groups. Category - a class whose nature and composition is decided by the person who defines the category; e. g. persons earning wages in a certain range may be counted as a category for income tax purposes. Group - defined by the nature of the relations between members. Race vs. ethnicity - similar: ethnic and racial identifications are both partial, unstable, contextual, fragmentary (wade p. 20)
