Table of Contents
Definition of Ethnicity(noun) A category of people who share a cultural background such as language, location, and religion.
Ethnicity PronunciationPronunciation Usage Guide
Syllabification: eth·nic·i·ty
Audio Pronunciation
– American English – British EnglishPhonetic Spelling
American English – /eth-nIs-uh-tee/British English – /eth-nIs-i-tee/International Phonetic Alphabet
American English – /ɛθˈnɪsədi/British English – /ɛθˈnɪsᵻti/Usage NotesPlural: ethnicitiesPanethnicity refers to people or cultures that span multiple ethnicities.People who share the same ethnicity are an ethnic group.A type of ascribed status.Related Quotations“Not all men enjoy the same privileges and there are some women who enjoy certain privileges that men do not. Many things determine privileges we enjoy: our sexual orientation, the color of our skin, our ethnicity, our socioeconomic class, our physical abilities, our religion, our native language, and so on” (Kaufman and Kimmel 2011:126).“[S]ingling out members of a race or ethnic group for heightened police surveillance—is a way to act on the assumption that whole categories of people are dangerous” (Rosenblum and Travis 2012:199).“The long history of deliberate discrimination against racial and ethnic groups in America belies the American ideology of individual freedom and equality of opportunity. From the near genocide of Native Americans to the banishment of survivors to reservations, to the importation and enslavement of Africans, to the subsequent Jim Crow legislation that legalized racial segregation and unequal opportunity in the South, to exclusionary acts and discriminatory immigration quotas, to land displacement of Mexican Americans, to the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, to current forms of residential, occupational, and educational discrimination against various minorities, the American experience has for many been more of an American Nightmare than an American Dream” (McNamee and Miller 2013:180).“Where ethnic groups are racially defined, relations among them tend toward caste. Endogamy within castes is strictly enforced, and interaction between them in intimate social settings such as peer groups, clubs, neighborhoods, and so on are minimized. Subordinate castes are usually exploited occupationally by the dominant group and experience little or no change in their collective social position” (Marger 1985:37).Additional InformationWord origin of “ethnicity” – Online Etymology Dictionary: etymonline.comSteinberg, Stephen, and William F. Lott. 2001. The Ethnic Myth: Race, Ethnicity, and Class in America. Boston: Beacon Press.Related Termsdominant groupinstitutioninstitutional discriminationminority groupnormpowerracescapegoat theorysocial construction of racesubordinate groupReferencesKaufman, Michael, and Michael S. Kimmel. 2011. The Guy’s Guide to Feminism. Berkeley, CA: Seal Press.
Marger, Martin. 1985. Race and Ethnic Relations: American and Global Perspectives. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
McNamee, Stephen J., and Robert K. Miller, Jr. 2013. The Meritocracy Myth. 3rd ed. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
Rosenblum, Karen Elaine, and Toni-Michelle Travis. 2012. The Meaning of Difference: American Constructions of Race, Sex and Gender, Social Class, Sexual Orientation, and Disability. 6th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill.
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Cite the Definition of EthnicityASA – American Sociological Association (5th edition)
Bell, Kenton, ed. 2013. “ethnicity.” In Open Education Sociology Dictionary. Retrieved November 9, 2024 (https://sociologydictionary.org/ethnicity/).
APA – American Psychological Association (6th edition)
ethnicity. (2013). In K. Bell (Ed.), Open education sociology dictionary. Retrieved from https://sociologydictionary.org/ethnicity/
Chicago/Turabian: Author-Date – Chicago Manual of Style (16th edition)
Bell, Kenton, ed. 2013. “ethnicity.” In Open Education Sociology Dictionary. Accessed November 9, 2024. https://sociologydictionary.org/ethnicity/.
MLA – Modern Language Association (7th edition)
“ethnicity.” Open Education Sociology Dictionary. Ed. Kenton Bell. 2013. Web. 9 Nov. 2024. .