Exam 15: Ethnicity and Race

The second half of the 20^th century saw a great increase in the significance of ethnicity as a factor in regional and world identity politics. What are the historical, social, and cultural reasons for this?

The term nation is used to refer to an ethnic group that shares a religion, language, history, territory, ancestry, and kinship.

Which of the following statements about ethnicity is true?

Which of the following is a major difference between Brazilian and American racial taxonomies?

Ethnic/racial diversity is decreasing in the United States.

De facto discrimination occurs when laws exist that harm a specific group and its members.

What term describes a complex sociopolitical system that administers a territory and populace having substantial contrasts in occupation, wealth, prestige, and power?

One of the definitions of state is a centrally organized political unit; a government.

What term refers to a culture that shares a single language, religion, history, territory, ancestry, and kinship?

When one's ethnic identity is flexible and situational, it can become an achieved status.

What is the term for policies and practices that harm a group and its members?

The 2009 poverty rates for different minority groups in the U.S. are an example of stratification.

The U.S. and Canadian governments use the same racial categories in their census.

Ethnocide refers to the deliberate elimination of a cultural tradition through aggressive policies forcing assimilation.

What are the major differences between the Brazilian and the U.S. systems of racial classification?

What is the term for the arbitrary rule that automatically places the children of a union between members of different socioeconomic groups in the less-privileged group?

An anthropological understanding of ethnicity and race requires exploring how people and institutions define, negotiate, and even challenge their identities in society. One way anthropologists-and social scientists in general-do this is by studying status, which refers to

Describe the political aspect of ethnicity. Give examples. How is multiculturalism an attempt to depoliticize ethnicity? (Start out with a careful definition of what you mean by political.)

According to Fredrik Barth's theories about ethnic identity, ethnic boundaries are most stable when

What is meant by the phrase "the social construction of race"? How does this concept differ from race as perceived by the average middle-class American? (Use the description given in the text.)