Transcript Race, Ethnicity & Families

Race, Ethnicity, and Families
Introduction to Family Studies
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Race, Ethnicity & Families
• How do we define race?
• How do we define ethnicity?
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Racial-Ethnic Groups
• Racial groups are those with a common
set of physical features that
distinguishes them from other groups
• Race is defined as a category composed
of people who share real or alleged
physical traits that members of a society
deem to be socially significant
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Race, Ethnicity & Families
• But race is also a social concept
• Race is socially constructed
• The characteristics associated with each
racial group are subjective
• Definitions of race:
– vary over time
– from one society to another
– have emerged from interaction of various
populations over long periods of human
history
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Race, Ethnicity & Families
• Why do sociologists argue that
race is socially constructed?
1) While racial characteristics may have
been biological in origin, the
interpretation of those characteristics
varies
– Societies each decide which racial
differences are meaningful
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Race, Ethnicity & Families
• Why do sociologists argue that
race is socially constructed?
2) Choice of racial characteristics is
subjective
• People differ in many ways, but only some
of those differences are emphasized
• For example, in defining differences in
racial characteristics, why have we
focused on skin color or the shape of a
person’s eyes?
• Why isn’t race based on different blood
types or eye color?
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Race, Ethnicity & Families
• Why do sociologists argue that race
is socially constructed?
3) The characteristics used to distinguish
racial differences and stereotypes
change over time
4) And the last reason to argue that race is
socially constructed is that definitions of
race differences vary from one society to
the next
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Race, Ethnicity & Families
• How do we define ethnicity?
• A population that shares a cultural
heritage
• Ethnic Groups have a sense of group
identity based on a distinctive cultural
pattern or heritage
• They often share a place of common
ancestry, language, or religion that is the
basis of their collective identity
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Race, Ethnicity & Families
• How do we define ethnicity??
• Ethnic groups often have a sense of
brotherhood or sisterhood that is
maintained within a larger society.
• Members of ethnic groups have usually
migrated to a new nation or have been
conquered by an invading population.
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Race, Ethnicity, and Families
• An indication of how fluid
racial/ethnic categories are:
• U.S. Census changed the way
they measured race and ethnicity
in the 2000 Census
• The federal government
considers race and Hispanic
origin to be two separate and
distinct concepts.
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U.S. Census Form: 2010
• On the next slide, note
questions 8 & 9 on the next slide
showing the 2010 U.S. Census
form
• #8 measures whether you are
Hispanic/Latino etc
• #9 measures race
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Race, Ethnicity and
Families
• The Census defines Hispanic or
Latino as “a person of Cuban,
Mexican, Puerto Rican, South or
Central American,or other Spanish
culture or origin regardless of race.
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U.S. Population by Race, 2010
Number (in
100s)
Total:
308,745,538
White only
Black or African American only
American Indian and Alaska
Native alone
Asian only
Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific
Islander only
Some other race
Two or more Races
Source: U.S. Bureau of the Census retrieved from
http://www.census.gov/prod/cen2010/briefs/c2010br-02.pdf
Percent
100.0
72.4
12.6
0.9
4.8
0.2
6.2
2.9
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U.S. Population by Hispanic Origin:
2000 & 2010
Hispanic Origin
2000
2010
Not Hispanic or Latino
13.0
16.3
Hispanic or Latino
87.0
83.7
Between 2000 and 2010, the Hispanic population grew by 43 percent!!!
The Hispanic population increased by 15.2 million between 2000 and
2010,
Number of Hispanics rose from 35.3 million in 2000 when group made
up 13 percent of the total population to 50.5 million or 16.3 percent of total
population
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Race, Ethnicity & Families
• How are the race categories used in
Census 2000 defined?
• “White” refers to people having origins in any of
the original peoples of Europe,the Middle
East,or North Africa.It includes people who
indicated their race or races as “White ”or wrote
in entries such as Irish, German, Italian,
Lebanese, Near Easterner, Arab, or Polish.
• “Black or African American” refers to people
having origins in any of the Black racial groups
of Africa.It includes people who indicated their
race or races as “Black,African Am.,or
Negro,”or wrote in entries such as African
American, Afro American, Nigerian, or Haitian.
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Race, Ethnicity & Families
• “American Indian and Alaska Native” refers to
people having origins in any of the original peoples
of North and South America (including Central
America), and who maintain tribal affiliation or
community attachment. It includes people who
indicated their race or races by marking this
category or writing in their principal or enrolled tribe,
such as Rosebud Sioux Chippewa or Navajo.
• Asian refers to people having origins in any of the
original peoples of the Far East, Southeast Asia,or
the Indian subcontinent. It includes people who
indicated their race or races as Asian Indian,
Chinese, Filipino, Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese,
or Other Asian, or wrote in entries such as Burmese,
Hmong, Pakistani, or Thai.
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Social Construction of Race
• Social Experiment repeated after 50
years
• Young filmaker, Kiri Davis tests
some old ideas
• See Assignment 3
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Race, Ethnicity & Families
• Need to recognize diversity in
families
• How do families vary by
race/ethnicity?
• How does family structure vary?
• How do families’ ties to other social
institutions, like education system,
the economy, or health care system,
vary by race/ethnicity?
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Race, Ethnicity & Families
• Different racial groups make their
homes in different neighborhoods
• This means they have different
access to a different set of social
institutions
• Social institutions create paths in
which families are assigned to a
different set of opportunities
• Think about schools
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Race, Ethnicity & Families
Minority families are:
• more likely to live in disadvantaged
neighborhoods
• go to under-funded schools
• have less access to high level
colleges
• have poorer health care options
• have less access to better, higher
paying jobs
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Interfamily differences
• Great differences in families by
racial ethnic groups
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African-American Families
• Decline of marriage
• Fewer young women who will ever marrya
• 64% in 1990s (88% in 1950s)
• Increase in percentage of nonmarital birthsb
• 69% in 1998 (38% in 1970) Increases in femaleheaded familiesc
• 58% in 1998 (33% in 1970)
Source: a Rodgers & Thornton, 1985; Goldstein & Kenney, 2001
b U.S.
c
Bureau of the Census, 1991; NCHS, 2005a
U.S. Bureau of the Census, 2003a, 2004a.
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African-American Families
– Union formation - first unions formed are
twice as likely to be cohabitations
compared to whites
– Family incomes for black families well
below averages for white families
– Economic gains to marriage have
declined for black women
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Percentage of Children under 18, by Family Type
and Racial-Ethnic Group, 2001
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Source: U.S. Bureau of the Census, 2005
Hispanic Families
• As much variation within the group as
between Hispanics and other groups
• Mexican Americans, Cuban Americans,
Puerto Ricans = 31.3 million people
– Mexicans and Mexican Americans =
65%
– Central and South Americans = 14%
– Puerto Rican = 10%
– Cuban Americans = 4%
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Asian-American Families
• Again Asian is an “umbrella” term
that includes diverse groups
• Less research on Asian-American
families as prior to 1965 numbers
were lower than Hispanics
• But for Example, in 1970 there were
69,000 Korean Americans
• By 1998 there were 980,000
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Asian-American Families
• In general Asian-Americans emphasize
interdependence among family members
over individualism favored by western
cultures
• Asian families place more emphasis on
children’s loyalty and service to parents
• Asian-American adults are more likely to
live in a household with an adult child
who provide most of the income
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Total Fertility Rate by Race and Ethnicity
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Percent of Mothers who were not Married
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Summary
• Race is socially constructed
• Family patterns vary greatly by
race/ethnicity
• Rates of marriage and fertility vary
across racial and ethnic groups
• Make sure you know percentages of
major racial/ethnic groups
• Race is based on biological
characteristics
• Ethnicity is based on cultural
characteristics
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