Deck 15: Ethnicity and Race

Question 1

Which of the following statements about the concept of race in Brazil is NOT true?

A) Racial classification in Brazil is built around the concept of hypodescent.
B) There are more than 500 different terms used to describe phenotypes.
C) The large number of racial categories does not lend itself easily to socioeconomic discrimination based on race.
D) The perception of biological races is influenced not just by the physical phenotype but by how one dresses and behaves.
E) A person's race can change from day to day.

Answer 1

Racial classification in Brazil is built around the concept of hypodescent.

Question 2

Organizations in the United States such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)and the National Council of La Raza,a Hispanic advocacy group,have opposed adding a "multiracial" census category.This suggests that

A) both organizations need to hire anthropologists.
B) racial classification is a political issue, in that these groups fear their political clout will decline if their numbers go down.
C) racial classification is all about cultural pride.
D) racial classification can become more scientifically accurate despite people's ignorance to the contrary.
E) racial classification matters only to Hispanic minorities in the United States.

Answer 2

racial classification is a political issue, in that these groups fear their political clout will decline if their numbers go down.

Question 3

Which of the following statements about ethnicity is true?

A) Ethnicity is one's identification with a group that shares a common set of beliefs, values, customs, and norms.
B) Americans maintain a clear distinction between ethnicity and race.
C) Ethnicity is based on common biological features.
D) Ethnicity is the politically correct term for race.
E) Ethnicity and race are synonyms.

Answer 3

Ethnicity is one's identification with a group that shares a common set of beliefs, values, customs, and norms.

Question 4

What is the term for ethnic groups that once had,or wish to have or regain,autonomous political status?

A) ethnicities
B) captive nations
C) nations
D) nationalities
E) ethnic avengers

Question 5

Depending on the situation,the same man might declare: "I'm Jimmy's father"; "I'm your boss"; "I'm African American"; or "I'm your professor." This phenomenon,whereby a person's claimed or perceived identity varies depending on context,is called

A) ethnicity.
B) hypodescent.
C) situational negotiation of social identity.
D) ethnic tolerance.
E) rotating core personality traits.

Question 6

Which of the following is NOT a Francophone West African nation where négritude ("black identity")developed?

A) Mali
B) Guinea
C) Liberia
D) Ivory Coast
E) Senegal

Question 7

In Japan,the burakumin

A) are perceived as pure Japanese, even if one of their parents is not Japanese.
B) are stigmatized despite being genetically indistinguishable from other Japanese.
C) are the cream of Japan's racial categories, having the purest blood.
D) no longer face discrimination.
E) constitute a numerical majority in Japan.

Question 8

What term does anthropologist Fredrik Barth use to refer to a society that combines ethnic contrasts,ecological specialization,and the economic interdependence of those groups?

A) pluralism
B) broad-spectrum subsistence
C) plural society
D) multicultural
E) assimilation

Question 9

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

A) Brazilians do not recognize racial differences.
B) American categories are purer than Brazilian categories.
C) There are no important differences between the two taxonomies.
D) In the United States, social race is determined at birth and does not change, but in Brazil race can change from day to day.
E) Brazilian racial categories are based on genotype, whereas U.S. categories are based on phenotype.

Question 10

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?

A) hypervitaminosis
B) polygyny
C) polyandry
D) hypodescent
E) hypogamy

Question 11

What term refers to an independent,centrally organized political unit,or a government?

A) state
B) tribe
C) nationality
D) bureaucracy
E) culture

Question 12

Ethnicity means identification with

A) the cultural values of the dominant culture.
B) and feeling part of a biologically racial group.
C) neighbors in a multicultural society.
D) and feeling part of a cultural tradition and exclusion from other cultural traditions.
E) and feeling part of two or more groups in a plural society.

Question 13

What term formerly referred to a culture that shared a single language,religion,history,territory,ancestry,and kinship?

A) monoculture
B) country
C) nation
D) society
E) homeland

Question 14

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

A) ethnic groups share a common ancestor.
B) ethnic groups occupy different ecological niches.
C) ethnic groups share the same nation-state.
D) the members of the ethnic groups are highly educated, as in postcolonial states.
E) ethnic groups are culturally very similar and tend to pursue the same goals.

Question 15

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

A) a mutually exclusive social identity that is set by others and has little to do with an individual's actions.
B) any position, no matter what its prestige, that someone occupies in society.
C) a biologically determined identity within a hierarchical society.
D) a socially negotiated identity that always changes throughout a person's lifetime.
E) an identity determined by the state through census practices.

Question 16

In 1998,the American Anthropological Association issued a statement on race.Which of the following is NOT among the points made by this statement?

A) There is greater variation within racial groups than between them.
B) Although the continued sharing of genetic materials has maintained all of humankind as a single species, some scientists suggest that current racial divisions in society that keep certain groups from interbreeding might lead to a true separate species.
C) Physical variations in any given trait tend to occur gradually rather than abruptly over geographic areas.
D) Physical variations in the human species have no meanings except the social ones that humans put on them.
E) Race evolved as a world view, a body of prejudgments that distorts our ideas about human differences and group behavior.

Question 17

Nation-states

A) are defined by their lack of ethnic identity.
B) are ethnically homogeneous.
C) are the same as tribes and ethnic groups.
D) are parts of other states.
E) sometimes encourage ethnic divisions for political and economic ends.

Question 18

Race,like ethnicity in general,is

A) a cultural category rather than a biological reality.
B) a biological reality as much as a cultural one.
C) used by social scientists to classify humans based on genes and shared blood.
D) poorly understood by geneticists and therefore considered a cultural category.
E) a meaningless concept to people living day to day.

Question 19

An ascribed status is a status that

A) people have little or no choice about occupying.
B) you choose for yourself.
C) you earn, as when a successful law student becomes a lawyer.
D) has a position of dominance in society; for example, that of a king.
E) is based on standardized test scores.

Question 20

Which of the following statements about U.S.racial categories is true?

A) U.S. racial categories are applied to endogamous breeding populations.
B) U.S. racial categories are biologically valid, as demonstrated by the Phipps case in the 1970s in Louisiana.
C) U.S. racial categories are based on global racial categories that vary little among societies.
D) U.S. racial categories are based on genetics, whereas Japan's are based upon undemonstrated descent.
E) U.S. racial categories are culturally arbitrary, even though most people assume them to be based in biology.

Question 21

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

Question 22

An achieved status is not automatic.It comes through choices,actions,efforts,talents,or accomplishments,and is always perceived as positive by a society.

Question 23

Most Americans are not very precise in distinguishing between the terms race and ethnicity.

Question 24

Hypodescent refers to individuals who are racially pure.

Question 25

Brazilian racial classification is based exclusively on an individual's phenotype.

Question 26

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

Question 27

Interracial,biracial,and multiracial identities are becoming more and more common in the United States.

Question 28

What term refers to the destruction of the culture of an ethnic group?

A) genocide
B) prejudice
C) ethnocide
D) discrimination
E) diaspora

Question 29

Racial categories in Japan are more rigid than they are in Brazil.

Question 30

Which of the following describes a demographic consequence in the United States of international migration,a key feature of globalization?

A) Whites now constitute 80% of older Americans, but only 56% of children.
B) Minorities now constitute the majority of senior citizens.
C) The aging white population is now being influenced by the politics of younger generations.
D) Older generations are now intermingling more with ethnic minorities, making the suburbs more diverse.
E) The older generation is more diverse than the younger generation.

Question 31

Ascribed statuses are based on an individual's talents,abilities,and actions.

Question 32

A policy of ethnic expulsion aims at removing groups who are culturally different from a country.There are many examples,including Bosnia-Herzegovina in the 1990s.Uganda expelled 74,000 Asians in 1972.The neofascist parties of contemporary Western Europe advocate repatriation of immigrant workers.What is one of the potential consequences of such policies?

A) the breakup of imaginary communes
B) the creation of refugees-people who have been forced (involuntary refugees) or who have chosen (voluntary refugees) to flee a country, to escape persecution or war
C) state-mandated forced assimilation
D) the creation of class consciousness
E) gender stratification

Question 33

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

A) colonialism
B) racism
C) prejudice
D) ethnocentrism
E) discrimination

Question 34

The presence of ethnic neighborhoods may indicate what kind of coexistence?

A) assimilation
B) acculturation
C) enculturation
D) colonialism
E) multiculturalism

Question 35

Hypodescent in the United States automatically determines the race of a child whose parents belong to different racial groups.

Question 36

In cultural terms,a race is an ethnic group that has a biological basis.

Question 37

What is the term for the use of force by a dominant group to compel a minority to adopt the prevailing culture?

A) attitudinal discrimination
B) genocide
C) forced assimilation
D) ethnocentrism
E) environmental racism

Question 38

Racial categories in Brazil are not rigid; rather,they often change depending on the social setting.

Question 39

In Japan,the burakumin represent an isolated breeding population that is genetically distinct from the rest of the country.

Question 40

Which of the following is a long-resident ethnic group in Europe that is experiencing an "ethnic revival?"

A) Bretons
B) Welsh
C) Corsicans
D) Basques
E) All of these answers are correct.

Question 41

The 2012 poverty rates for different minority groups in the U.S.are an example of stratification.

Question 42

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

Question 43

Ethnic/racial diversity is decreasing in the United States.

Question 44

A key element of multiculturalism is a respect for ethnic diversity.

Question 45

Is it contradictory to say that membership in an ethnic group is an ascribed status while arguing that we negotiate our social identities? Why or why not?

Question 46

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

Question 47

Most countries of the world have a single ethnic group accounting for 90 percent or more of the population.

Question 48

A plural society is the opposite of a society that forces groups to assimilate.

Question 49

It is the norm in Africa for countries to have no ethnic majority.

Question 50

The term nation formerly referred to an ethnic group that shared a religion,language,history,territory,ancestry,and kinship.

Question 51

In many countries,colonial nation building left ethnic strife in its wake.Thus,over a million Hindus and Muslims were killed in violence that accompanied the division of the Indian subcontinent into India and Pakistan in 1947.Similarly,problems between Arabs and Jews in Palestine began during the British mandate period.

Question 52

Nation-state refers to an ethnic group that is not politically autonomous.

Question 53

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

Question 54

Only dominant or majority groups can have prejudiced views; minority groups are not capable of being prejudiced.

Question 55

Host countries that emphasize assimilation tend to encourage minority ethnic groups to retain their identities.

Question 56

Multiculturalism emphasizes the need for a series of cultures to abandon their old ethnic identities and join together to forge a new and unique cultural identity.

Question 57

Institutional discrimination happens when institutions rather than individuals are the targets of discrimination.

Question 58

Colonialism often erected boundaries that corresponded poorly with preexisting cultural divisions.

Question 59

Migration and rapid population growth are fueling multiculturalism in countries like the United States and Canada.

Question 60

Genocide refers to the physical destruction of an ethnic or religious group through mass murder.

Question 61

Racial classification is a political issue.Compare the Canadian census,in its treatment of racial categories,to the U.S.census.What do you think would be the political consequences of using one census over another? The election of Barack Obama to the U.S.presidency in 2008 has rekindled many public discussions on race in the United States.What is the substance of these discussions? What are the terms of the debate?

Question 62

What is an imagined community? Explain how social roles such as ethnicity and nationality are important to this concept.

Question 63

Why aren't most nation-states homogeneous? How do countries vary in their ethnic compositions in different regions of the world?

Question 64

Why are forms of mass media such as print and television important to the existence of what Benedict Anderson calls an imagined community? How are new communication technologies supporting or changing what Anderson may mean by this term?

Question 65

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

Question 66

What is hypodescent? Why is it an arbitrary rule of racial classification? What are the effects of this rule in American society?

Question 67

What is meant by 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.)

Question 68

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.)

Question 69

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?