Stratification:

1
Chapter 13

• Stratification Race and Ethnicity

2
Chapter Outline

• Racial Stratification
• Ethnicity and Ethnic Stratification
• The Nation-State and Ethnicity
• Ethnicity in the United States

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Racial Stratification Brazil and the United
States

• Brazils race relations are often contrasted with
  those of the United States.
• Both had plantation slave economies.
• Slavery in both societies lasted until the second
  half of the 19th century.
• The legacy of slavery continues in both in the
  form of racial inequality.
• Unlike the U.S., Brazil never encoded its racial
  system into law.

4
Racial Stratification Brazil and the United
States

• The U.S.
• Race is constructed based on skin color and
  presumed ancestry.
• By the 20th century, the system of race in the
  American South was very much like the caste
  system in India.

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Racial Stratification Brazil and the United
States

• Brazil
• A class-stratified society in which race is
  only one of many criteria, including education,
  wealth, and land ownership, that govern social
  status and social mobility.

6
Question

• With respect to interracial sexual and marriage
  relationships,
• neither Brazil nor the U. S. tolerates racial
  mixing.
• the general attitude in Brazil is significantly
  more accepting than in the U. S.
• Brazil does allow sexual relationships, but not
  marriage.
• they remain illegal in the U. S.
• the general view of disapproval by Brazilian and
  American societies is about the same.

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Answer b

• With respect to interracial sexual and marriage
  relationships, the general attitude in Brazil is
  significantly more accepting than in the U. S.

8
Question

• One of the insights gained from looking at racial
  categories and racial stratification in the two
  contemporary states of the U.S. and Brazil is
• that even though race is constructed quite
  differently, racial inequalities exist.
• racial inequality is more pronounced in a society
  with many racial distinctions.
• a dichotomy of two races leads to more social
  inequality than a continuum of perceived races.
• national and local-level policies can
  significantly reduce prejudice.
• that the category "mulatto" in Brazil has a
  higher status than other defined racial
  categories.

9
Answer a

• One of the insights gained from looking at racial
  categories and racial stratification in the two
  contemporary states of the U.S. and Brazil is
  that even though race is constructed quite
  differently, racial inequalities exist.

10
Ethnicity

• Perceived differences in culture, national
  origin, and historical experience by which groups
  of people are distinguished from others in the
  same social environment.
• Ethnic identity - The sense of self one
  experiences as a member of an ethnic group.

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Ethnic Groups

• Categories of people who see themselves as
  sharing an ethnic identity that differentiates
  them from other groups.
• Ethnic boundaries - Perceived cultural attributes
  by which ethnic groups distinguish themselves.

12
Ethnic Conflict

• Extreme ethnic conflict is a product of
  contemporary economic, political, and social
  conditions.
• Ethnic violence, as described for the former
  Yugoslavia, suggests that political manipulation
  of cultural differences, not ethnicity per se, is
  at the root of interethnic violence.

13
Perspectives in Ethnicity

• Essentialism
• Ethnicity comes from historical, demographic, and
  economic conditions.
• Social Constructionalism
• Ethnicity comes from responses to changing
  realities within the group and in the society of
  which it is a part.

14
The Nation-State and Ethnicity

• The most important contemporary context for the
  emergence, change, and disappearance of ethnicity
  is the nation-state.
• Nation-states are governments and territories
  that are identified with culturally homogeneous
  populations and national histories.
• States construct national identities by drawing
  boundaries between spatially defined insiders and
  outsiders.

15
The Nation-State and Ethnicity

• Regardless of their differences, people who live
  within these boundaries have an identity based
  on a common language and shared customs and
  culture.
• Nation-states are often in conflict with
  indigenous peoples, whom they have conquered and
  deprived of their land, leading to the
  destruction of indigenous cultures.
• Law has been an important tool of modern
  nation-states in changing the cultures of
  indigenous peoples.

16
Nation-States and Indigenous Peoples

• Indigenous peoples are small scale societies
  designated as bands, tribes, and chiefdoms.
• These societies are characterized by close
  identification with their land, relative social
  egalitarianism, community-level resource
  management, and high levels of self sufficiency.

17
U.S. Cultural Diversity

• The cultural diversity of the U.S. has largely
  been framed in terms of ethnicity based on the
  national origin of immigrants.
• From the 1880s through the 1920s, restrictive and
  racist immigration laws gave preference to
  immigration from European countries.
• In 1965, changes in American immigration laws led
  to increasing immigration from a wide diversity
  of nations and races.

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Models of Adaptation

• Assimilation model
• Melting pot model
• Mosaic Model

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Assimilation Model

• Immigrants should abandon traditions and become
  absorbed in American culture.
• Resulted in the building of urban Settlement
  Houses, designed to teach immigrants American
  ways.

20
Melting Pot Model

• Immigrants will melt together into a new American
  culture.
• By the late 1950s, it was clear that the melting
  pot theory had only limited application.

21
Mosaic Model

• Cultural diversity is a positive aspect of
  American national identity.
• Arose in response to the swell of immigration in
  the past 25 years.

22
Multiculturalism

• The view that cultural diversity in the United
  States is a positive value and makes an important
  contribution to American national identity.

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Quick Quiz
24

• 1. Brazil is described as culturally
  constructing race in a ________ system.
• dual racial
• caste-based
• homogeneous racial
• Multiracial
• tri-racial

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Answer c

• Brazil is described as culturally constructing
  race in a homogeneous racial system.

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• 2. Which one of the following immigrant groups
  has not been viewed as "ethnic" in the U.S.?
• Samoans
• Icelanders
• Irish
• Germans
• English

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Answer e

• The English immigrant group has not been viewed
  as "ethnic" in the U.S.

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• 3. The United States government's official
  category "Hispanic," has lumped groups of people
  together in government statistics who do not
  necessarily see themselves as part of the same
  ethnic group.
• True
• False

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Answer a

• The United States government's official category
  "Hispanic," has lumped groups of people together
  in government statistics who do not necessarily
  see themselves as part of the same ethnic group.

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• 4. Which model of adaptation suggests that
  immigrants should abandon traditions and become
  absorbed in American culture?
• Assimilation Model
• Melting Pot Model
• Mosaic Model
• Multiculturalism

31
Answer a

• The Assimilation Model of adaptation suggests
  that immigrants should abandon traditions and
  become absorbed in American culture.