Ch 9 Inequalities of Race and Ethnicity -Key Terms

assimilation: the process of being absorbed into the mainstream culture (p.223)

authoritarian personality: Adorno's term for people who are prejudiced and rank high on scales of conformity, intolerance, insecurity, respect for authority, and submissiveness to superiors (p.220)

compartmentalize: to separate acts from feelings or attitudes (p.222)

discrimination: an act of unfair treatment directed against an individual or a group (p.216)

dominant group: the group with the most power, greatest privileges, and highest social status (p.2IS)

ethnic cleansing: a policy of population elimination, including forcible expulsion and genocide (p.222)

ethnic work; activities designed to discover, enhance, or maintain ethnic and racial identification (p.216)

ethnicity (and ethnic): having distinctive cultural characteristics (p.213)

genocide: the systematic annihilation or attempted annihilation of a people based on their presumed race or ethnic group (p.221)

individual discrimination: the negative treatment of one person by another on the basis of that . person's perceived characteristics (p.218)

institutional discrimination: the negative treatment of a minority group that is built into a society's _ institutions, also called systematic discrimination (p.218)

internal colonialism: the policy of economically exploiting a minority group (p.223)

melting pot: the view that Americans of various backgrounds would blend into a sort of ethnic stew, leaving behind their distinctive ethnic identities and forming a new ethnic group (p.216)

minority group: people who are singled out for unequal treatment on the basis of their physical and cultural characteristics, and who regard themselves as objects of collective discrimination (p.213)

multiculturalism: (also called pluralism) a philosophy or political policy that permits or encourages groups to express their individual, unique racial and ethnic identities (p.223)

pan-Indianism: a movement that focuses on common elements in the culture of Native Americans in order to develop a cross-tribal self identity and to work toward the welfare of all Native Americans (p.238)

pluralism: the diffusion of power among many interest groups which prevents any single group from gaining control of the government (p.223)

population transfer: forcing a minority group to relocate (p.222)

prejudice: an attitude of prejudging; usually in a negative way (p.216)

race: a group whose inherited physical characteristics distinguish it from other groups (p.212)

racism: prejudice and discrimination on the basis of race (p.216)

reserve labor force: the term used by conflict theorists for the unemployed, who can be put to work during times of high production and then discarded when no longer needed (p.220)

rising expectations: the sense that better conditions are soon to follow, which, if unfulfilled, creates mounting frustration (p.231)

scapegoat: an individual or group unfairly blamed for someone else's troubles (p.219)

segregation: the policy of keeping racial or ethnic groups separated (p.223)

selective perception: seeing certain features of an object or situation, but remaining blind to others (p.221)

split labor market: a term used by conflict theorists for the practice of weakening the bargaining power of workers by splitting them along racial, ethnic, sex, age, or any other lines (p.22!)

WASP: white Anglo-Saxon Protestant; narrowly, an American of English descent; broadly, an American of western European ancestry (p.226)

white ethnics: white immigrants to the U.S. whose culture differs from that of WASPs (p.226)