SOCIO-120 Lecture Notes - Lecture 11: Essentialism, Symbolic Ethnicity, One-Drop Rule
Document Summary
The words race and ethnicity are often used interchangeably. Race is a social distinction based on perceived physical or biological differences. Shared history among people in a group. Essentialism argues that some essential or inherent element makes a person part of a specific race or ethnic group. Each racial or ethnic group contains traits that have been passed down with little to no change. People who believe this, think race and ethnicity are fixed and permeant. As a sociologist e should be aware there is fluidity in everything nothing is fixed. The theory of social construction was developed by peter l. berger and thomas. Berger and luckmann argue that all knowledge is created and maintained by social interaction: when we interact with people, we reinforce our common knowledge of reality, through social interaction, we shape the definition of a situation. The probability of being stopped by toronto police is highly dependent on race.
