bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Diseases, Racial Biases In
Authors: Hoverman Victoria J.
Published: December 2015

The term disease refers to a biological problem within a living organism. Disease is something that impacts the lives of all humans, but unfortunately due to various social and structural factors, certain racial minority groups disproportionately suffer from particular types of diseases compared to the white majority group. Though, in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century, the dominant medical consensus claimed racial differences in disease were due to biological differences, current scientific understandings of race as a socially created classification show racial bias in disease is actually due more to a complex interplay of social, institutional, and environmental factors than biological determinants. In order to eliminate racial bias in disease, policies and programs need to be implemented that focus on addressing how social inequalities, such as residential segregation, perpetuate racial bias in disease.
Intermarriage
Authors: Chiswick Barry R. , Houseworth Christina A.
Published: December 2015

This entry analyzes the determinants of intermarriage. It first defines the boundary of what is considered to be one's “group.” It then uses the prism of opportunities and incentives for ingroup marriage to analyze the determinants of intermarriage.
H
arlem
R
enaissance, Cultural Politics of
Authors: Sanders Mobley Marilyn
Published: December 2015

The Harlem Renaissance is often celebrated and critiqued due to its literary and cultural productions. This entry outlines the major reasons it came into being; the key thought leaders, artists, and spokespersons who shaped it; and the issues and concerns that have been central to its scholarly and popular assessments over time.
Uneven Development
Authors: Kiely Ray
Published: December 2015

This contribution provides a summary analysis of uneven development by situating the context of critiques of unilinear approaches to development in social and political theory. The strengths, weaknesses, and utility of the concept are outlined.
Opportunity Hoarding
Authors: Rury John L. , Saatcioglu Argun
Published: December 2015

“Opportunity hoarding” is a sociological concept utilized by Charles Tilly in 1998 that has been used to explain a growing range of phenomena related to social inequality. It concerns the control of resources, defined in any number of ways, that allow certain groups to exclude others from access to said resources or benefits accruing to them. While Tilly used the term in distinction to other forms of social control and manipulation, such as exploitation, in recent years other scholars have viewed opportunity hoarding as a mechanism or means of exploitation. With its growing use, opportunity hoarding has been employed in a range of studies and likely will find even wider use in years to come. In the meantime, it is likely that its meaning and significance will continue to change as well.
Ethnic Options
Authors: Rost‐Banik Colleen , Chhuon Vichet
Published: December 2015

Ethnic optionsis a phrase popularized by Mary C. Waters and is used to explain the phenomenon of white European Americans who adopt certain ethnicities over others within their family heritage. This concept is associated with the notion ofsymbolic ethnicity, which alludes to people voluntarily choosing to practice specific ethnic customs and traits without much impact on or cost to their daily lives. Ethnic options and symbolic ethnicity allow people to feel part of a larger ethnic community, but they do not constrict their individual life choices. Other scholars have noted that individuals from racial and ethnic minority groups may also employ ethnic options in how they affirm, reject, or take creative agency in the stereotypes associated with their ethnic group.
Nationalism
Authors: Metreveli Tornike , Polyakova Alina
Published: December 2015

What is nationalism? When did it originate and how did it develop throughout the centuries? What types of nationalism have evolved in different sociopolitical settings and why? By addressing these questions, this entry seeks to address the key issues of the conceptualization of nationalism, followed by an analysis of its development in different structural, cultural, and political contexts. The entry reflects on the writings of the most prominent social thinkers studying nationalism in order to bring the classical texts into critical discussion with contemporary thinking about this phenomenon.
Ethnic Politics
Authors: Lynch Gabrielle
Published: December 2015

The phrase “ethnic politics” refers to a situation in which politicians tend to mobilize support on the basis of an appeal to ethnic identity and people tend to support leaders from the same ethnic group. Ethnic politics is often regarded as a problem when different groups come to see each other as competitors for power and when members believe that they will be excluded from the benefits of state assistance and protection if “one of their own” is not in power. The reason is that such politics often promotes interethnic tension and violence, leading many to argue that ethnic politics needs to be eradicated or managed through tailored institutional arrangements.
Humor and Race
Authors: Weaver Simon
Published: December 2015

The article explains some of the relationships between race and humor. It gives examples of humor that have been described as racist, through the example of Minstrelsy. It presents an example of humor that attempts a satirical representation of race, through the example of “Till Death Us Do Part.” It offers examples of humor that might act as antiracist resistance from ethnic minority comedians, in situation and stand‐up comedy. Finally, race humor that is polysemic and unstable is highlighted through Ali G.
Leadership Styles
Authors: Gabrielle Foldy Erica , Ospina Sonia M.
Published: December 2015

Leadership is generally understood as an unequal influence process between one or more individuals and a larger group, which is intended to achieve a collective goal. Research on race, ethnicity, and leadership has a long history and occurs in numerous disciplines, for instance psychology, political science, management, and education. Overall, this work falls into three large groupings, which look at how race and ethnicity influence perceptions of leaders; how they influence leaders' enactment of leadership or leadership style; and how they manifest themselves in a given context including the question of how individual leaders grapple with racial dynamics. Ultimately, research on leadership and race shows their mutual embeddedness: race influences leadership practice and leadership perceptions, while leaders shape racial meanings and dynamics.
Immigrant Education
Authors: Dyrness Andrea
Published: December 2015

As the primary social institution for socializing newcomers, immigrant education can be seen as a reflection of the society's assimilation goals for immigrants and reflects the broader political and ideological conflicts surrounding immigration. Most schooling for immigrants in the United States has been assimilationist, requiring students to abandon their native languages and cultures in exchange for becoming American. Recent research has highlighted the harmful effects of assimilationist schooling for immigrant students and the complex and uneven paths through which they develop their new identities. Scholars of transnationalism have begun to explore the potential of transnational ties and identities for immigrant adaptation, school success, and citizenship.
S
witzerland
Authors: Dahinden Janine
Published: December 2015

The multiethnic and multilinguistic character of Switzerland has represented a puzzle for major scholars on European nationalism since the nineteenth century. Research shows that this multiethnicity is a pivotal element of pride and central to the common Swiss imaginary of a “nation of will,” which embraces local, cantonal, and linguistic identities. In parallel, this particular case of collective nation building created strong and exclusive boundaries against immigrants and foreigners along national lines, thus ethnicizing and culturalizing immigrant policies and the naturalization regime.
J
ewish Identity and Modernity
Authors: Stratton Jon
Published: December 2015

Jews were always positioned as external to the evolving nation‐states of modernity. Having been identified as non‐Christian in the Christian societies of premodern Europe, in modernity Jews found themselves increasingly excluded from the developing modern nation‐states, whose populations were predominantly constructed as nationally homogeneous. Jews were either excluded or forced into ghettos. When emancipated, Jews were expected to assimilate. The Jews' discussions about their place in the modern world are known as the Haskalah, the Jewish Enlightenment. At the same time Jews were increasingly racialized. The end result was the Holocaust. This, the foundation of Israel, and the increasing secularization of large numbers of Jews have transformed and modernized Jewish identity, placing it in a now identifiably postmodern order.
Sufism
Authors: Ziad Waleed
Published: December 2015

Sufism,tasawwuf, is the mystical dimension of Islam. From the ninth century onward, Sufi pedagogies, aimed at purifying the heart and at defeating the ego or the lower self, were formalized into distinct schools of mysticism and enshrined in a variegated corpus of literature, which included poetry, manuals of ethnics, and biographies. Prominent Sufis established their own centers of mystical activity, where transregional Islamic traditions engaged with localized sacred symbols and practices. These centers were loci for the production of both popular religious–cultural expressions and high literature. While during the first four centuries of Islam Sufi literature was written predominantly in the Arabic language, afterwards Sufism played a pivotal role in the development of vernacular literatures across the Muslim world.
Iran
Authors: Gheissari Abbas
Published: December 2015

A radical viewpoint might reduce the ethnic complexities in Iran to crude group conflicts. Although there have always been interpretations of Aryanism suggesting that everyday life in Iran is unbalanced and somehow Persian‐oriented, an interpretation of the country as a land in which non‐Persian ethnicities are subject to discrimination and are always unfairly treated cannot be substantiated.
T
rinidad and
T
obago
Authors: Reddock Rhoda
Published: December 2015

The concepts of diversity, race, and ethnicity are integral to analyses on the multiethnic society of Trinidad and Tobago; but these notions are not easily defined, nor are they simply understood within the country's context. It is impossible to understand the intricacies of these multiethnic identities without reference to the historical and social processes that have strongly influenced the interpretations of the term “race,” since the legacies of a racialized historical past continue to the present. In addition, scholars have developed narratives beyond the basics of race to understand this society, including pluralism and creolization, ethnic dualism and hybridity, which seek to interpret and explain the values and practices of the society. The roots of these ideologies go as far back as the seventeenth century, when economically exploitative and racist colonial systems existed on both of the islands of Trinidad and Tobago although to varying degrees and in different ways.
Herder,JohannGottfried (1744–1803)
Authors: Spencer Vicki A.
Published: December 2015

The German philosopher Johann Gottfried Herder was the first thinker in the western tradition to emphasize the importance of language and culture to individual identity and to recognize the radical harm endured by those who suffer from linguistic and cultural oppression. He applied the principle of collective self‐determination universally, to all peoples, whether or not they possessed their own state. His thought is also distinguished from modern conceptions of nationalism due to his opposition to state centralization and cultural homogeneity in multination states. A staunch critic of European colonialism and slavery, Herder advanced instead the use of empathy in our interactions with other peoples and was an advocate for the rights of indigenous peoples and minority nations.
Indigenismo
Authors: Bueno Christina
Published: December 2015

As a multifaceted intellectual current ideology in Latin America, which aims to defend and valorize the Indians, indigenismo has influenced many social, cultural, and political developments in the region. Although indigenismo can be traced to the period soon after the Spanish conquest, when a small minority of Spaniards sought to protect the native people, it is usually associated with the egalitarian and revolutionary movements that surfaced in the early twentieth century in Mexico and Peru. Leaders and intellectuals at the time presented various ways to bring the marginalized indigenous populations into national life. Artists similarly focused on depicting and often exalting indigenous cultures. By the 1960s, however, indigenismo suffered from internal divisions and was criticized as a paternalistic and ineffectual movement promoted by elites who existed outside indigenous society.
Hansen'sLaw
Authors: Attias‐Donfut Claudine
Published: December 2015

In 1938 Marcus Lee Hansen developedthe principle of third‐generation interest, according to which second‐generation migrants are eager to assimilate the cultural norms of their host country, whereas third‐generation migrants are more likely to revert to those of their grandparents' generation, thereby asserting their difference from mainstream culture. This hypothesis has come to be known as Hansen's Law and is highly discussed and criticized. The present entry concludes that Hansen's Law holds true for the first and second generations, but not for the third. While the third generation may establish some symbolic association with its ancestral roots, this cannot be read as a return to grandparents' norms. The most radical shift is likely to be the one away from the first generation; the second generation is eager to assimilate, but this eagerness can be in tension with the host society's reluctance to embrace these migrants as equal fellow citizens.
Census and Categorization
Authors: Nobles Melissa
Published: December 2015

Census categorization by race and/or ethnicity has long been an overlooked topic of study, although scholarly interest has grown. Such interest may be attributed to the multiple, overlapping, and sometimes competing political purposes that categorization serves. States categorize to satisfy larger goals of governance. Many public policies rely on ethnic and/or racial data. For example, in the United States, racial data are used to track the electorate's geographic distribution at the state and congressional district levels for the purposes of voting rights legislation. On the other hand, states may decide not to enumerate by race and/or ethnicity in order to preserve national cohesion and or uphold a national identity. The French census, for instance, expressly does not contain an ethnic/racial inquiry because many French believe that such an inquiry violates French national identity itself. Finally, census classifications are used to expressly combat ethnic or racial discrimination. In the United Kingdom and the United States, for example, ethnic and class data are used to track socioeconomic inequalities and to devise racial and ethnic‐targeted public policies. Given all that is at stake politically, it is not surprising that ethnic and racial categorization in censuses is often highly contentious.
Andes
Authors: Rice Roberta
Published: December 2015

The recent politicization of ethnic identities in the Andes has led to the emergence of vibrant indigenous rights movements and parties in the region. Indigenous peoples' interests have long been excluded from national political agendas. Contemporary indigenous mobilizations are challenging the region's exclusionary governing structures and prompting society to rethink the meaning of democracy and how best to govern in the context of ethnic pluralism. Contrary to the conventional view of ethnic parties and movements as increasing the likelihood of ethnic violence, the policies and appeals of indigenous movements and parties in the Andes tend to be inclusionary rather than exclusionary in nature.
Index of Dissimilarity
Authors: Yalonetzky Gaston
Published: December 2015

Dissimilarity indices quantify the differences between conditioned probability distributions of categorical variables. Traditionally they have been used to study social segregation in labor markets, housing, and school districts. Recently they have also been used to measure “horizontal” inequalities—that is, inequalities between groups—and inequality of opportunity concepts. The current methodological literature provides indices for unordered categorical variables and different indices suitable for ordered variables.
Abolitionism
Authors: Newman Richard
Published: December 2015

Abolitionism refers to a movement in Atlantic history to end the institution of slavery. Encompassing a wide range of reformers and ideas (including gradual emancipation, compensated abolition, and even slave rebellion), abolitionism was a contentious part of western nation‐building efforts during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Missionaries
Authors: Ruble Sarah E.
Published: December 2015

The first people called missionaries were Christians sent out to spread their faith. Today the term is applied to and appropriated by people of various religions who seek to spread their message either by gaining converts or by doing humanitarian work. Often the term is used for people who relocate in order to communicate their message across ethnic, racial, linguistic, cultural, and national boundaries and who undertake such work as a full‐time occupation. Scholars have debated how the term should be applied outside of Christianity. They have also disagreed about the consequences of missionary endeavors. Some highlight missionaries' roles in spreading cultural, economic, and political hegemonies. Others note the positive effects of missionaries' work, such as their humanitarian efforts, their contributions to democratic governments, and the ways in which their activities can lead to cultural differentiation.
Muslim Minorities inChina
Authors: Mackerras Colin
Published: December 2015

There are ten Muslim minorities in China, of which the most populous and important (in terms of their impact on China's history, contemporary politics, and society) are the culturally Chinese Hui and the Turkic Uighurs. The total population of the ten Muslim minorities is just over twenty‐three million (2010 Census). Almost all Muslims in China are Sunni. In general the Muslim minorities have been loyal to the Chinese state since 1949. The main exception is the Uighurs, among whom separatist movements, beginning in 1990, have increased in number. Relations between Uighurs and Han have worsened since the 1990s. Violent rioting reached a climax in July 2009 and violent incidents have continued since then.
Nihonjinron
Authors: Yoshino Kosaku
Published: December 2015

Nihonjinron
refers to discourses on the distinctiveness of the society, culture, and national character of the Japanese. In its general sense, the term refers to such discourses that have appeared periodically since the start of the Meiji era (1868–1911). More specifically, the term refers to the vogue of such discourses during the 1970s and the early 1980s.
Nihonjinron
should be regarded as one variation of the more general phenomenon of discourses on national distinctiveness, which normally take place in cultural nationalism.
Entertainment and Race
Authors: Weaver Simon
Published: December 2015

This entry explains how race is a flawed idea with no scientific value but exists for the purposes of group identity and boundary making. Race has impacted the development of many forms of entertainment. Examples are drawn from the United States and the United Kingdom. One example is the minstrel. Minstrelsy is shown to be a genre that used race, influenced race stereotypes and created racist epithets, and the music of minstrelsy influenced ragtime, jazz, and rock and roll. The minstrel heritage is readily seen in African American situation comedy and in film. Racist and antiracist films are discussed, as is the filmmaking of racial minority groups. Finally sport is discussed, inasmuch as it is also a form of entertainment in contemporary life. Whereas sporting ability is erroneously attributed to race, it can be shown that sport is often structured by race and its discourses are replete with racist stereotyping.
Emancipation Proclamation
Authors: Wallace Bernier Julia
Published: December 2015

The Emancipation Proclamation was issued by President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, in the midst of the American Civil War, freeing the enslaved who were held in the territories of the Confederacy. Lincoln issued the proclamation using a broad and loose interpretation of “presidential war powers” in Article II, Section 2 of the United States constitution. The Emancipation Proclamation marked a signal shift in the Civil War. As a war measure, it removed the Confederacy's control over its enslaved manpower and thus increased the Union Army's ability to fight the war. More fundamentally, it freed three million enslaved African Americans and allowed African American men to enlist as federal troops. In this pivotal sense, it changed the moral course of the war; and it changed the nation by officially connecting the mission of the Union Army and the United States government to the cause of freedom.
Internal Migration
Authors: Skeldon Ronald
Published: December 2015

Internal migration is associated with the redistribution of population within the borders of states and territories. The difficulties of measuring internal migration and generating comparable data are highlighted. Rarely are internal population movements simple origin‐to‐destination flows; they are made up of complex systems of return migration, repeat migration, or circular flows of people. The patterns of internal migration by urban and rural sector are examined, with emphasis on rural‐to‐urban movements, and the great transition to urban‐based societies is described. However, the other intersectoral migrations are also outlined, and particular attention is paid to the implications of rural‐to‐rural movements for the construction of the state. The processes of integration of migrants into the social and economic fabric of cities are discussed, as are the emerging linkages between internal and international migrations.
Global Cosmopolitanism and Cosmopolitans
Authors: Darieva Tsypylma
Published: December 2015

Global cosmopolitanism is a metaphor, goal, and social vision deployed to challenge spatial or cultural encapsulation and to generate a sense of interaction, global mixing, and sharing around the world. The term “global cosmopolitans” is a self‐ascribed status of those highly educated individuals who, seeking travel across national borders, are considered to practice a positive attitude towards the unfamiliar, have skills for intercultural communication, and a taste for different cuisines. However, global cosmopolitanism is a controversial set of political ideas. Analytically, global cosmopolitanism can take various forms and include different social groups. It differs from the concept of transnationalism and multiculturalism.
Fortress
E
urope
Authors: Schlenker Andrea
Published: December 2015

“Fortress Europe” is a vivid metaphor coined by the media and political discourses to refer to the state of immigration into the European Union, where the free mobility of insiders is matched by an increasingly strict closure toward outsiders—a closure defended either by EU policies and institutions or by public opinion regarding immigrants of non‐European origin. Various aspects indeed speak for the development of a fortress Europe; others offer counterevidence.
DominicanAmericans
Authors: Aponte Sarah , Stevens‐Acevedo Anthony
Published: December 2015

Ever since 1613, when the first Dominican immigrant arrived in what is today New York City, Dominicans have been an important part of the United States. Dominicans are one of the largest and fastest growing Latino groups in the United States. This entry will provide a brief overview of this population, reflecting on its contribution to the shaping of US society, documenting its evolution and life experiences, and expanding on the theme of where the Dominican people will go in the future. The entry will help reconstruct and contextualize an early Dominican presence in the United States.
Party Nationalization
Authors: Morgenstern Scott
Published: December 2015

While ethnicity and other social divisions have the potential to drive politics, they are much more central to elections in some countries than in others. One factor that they sometimes drive is party and party system nationalization. Nationalization fits along with concepts such as number of parties, institutionalization, and polarization, as a defining characteristic of parties and party systems. Together, these ideas and concepts shape critical aspects of politics such as the ways governments target spending, the representation of important social groups, and the relations between executives and legislatures. Party nationalization has two dimensions: static–distributional and dynamic. These two dimensions have different effects on politics, and different institutions (in particular the executive and electoral systems) combine with particular social contexts to explain variability in the levels of nationalization.
Darfur
Authors: Kaiser Joshua
Published: December 2015

Darfur is the western region of the Sudan, best known for the 2003 genocide, which continues to the present. Darfurian ethnoracial identities are especially notable because they exist among groups that share similar phenotypes, which makes the case exemplary in discussions of the social construction of race, ethnicity, and other group identities. The history that lies behind genocide in this region is a complex mix of colonialism, conflict over resources, famine, desertification, political strategies, external conflict between Sudan and neighboring countries, north–south conflict within the Sudan, and Sudan's nationalist movements. Racial markers like “Arab” and “African” were periodically imposed on local ethnic communities, until circumstances toward the end of last century permitted their use in conflict over resources. After the modern al‐Bashir government's arabization movement and the consequent development of rebel groups, genocide erupted. Debates over the genocide revolve around the attackers' motives and usage of racialized identities.
Friendship, Race, and Ethnicity
Authors: Vaquera Elizabeth
Published: December 2015

Friendships across racial and ethnic lines can be interpreted as barometers of social integration and social support in a given society. In the United States, while racial and ethnic integration has steadily increased since the end of legalized racial segregation in the 1960s, race and ethnicity continue to prove an important divider of friendship. Blau's theory of intergroup relations and Allport's contact hypothesis provide the main theoretical propositions guiding scholarly work on race/ethnicity and friendships. The significance of friendships along racial and ethnic lines, the conditions under which spatial proximity increases friendships between individuals of different racial/ethnic groups, and the consequences of interracial and interethnic friendship for attitudes and behaviors are discussed.
Muslim Minorities in theUnitedStates
Authors: Mostafavi Mobasher Mohsen
Published: December 2015

Islam is the second‐largest religion in the world and Muslims are the second‐largest religious group in much of Europe and North America. Their precise number in the United States is unknown. Estimates range between three and eleven million. The bulk of Muslim population in the United States consists of Sunni indigenous African Americans and immigrants from Asia and the Middle East/North Africa. The 1965 immigration reform, the abolishment of the national origin quota system, and a series of political conflicts and civil wars in the Middle East and North Africa had a significant impact on the immigration of Muslims to the United States in the last four decades. The 9/11 attacks fundamentally changed the course of life for Muslims and Arabs in the United States. Despite the backlash after the 9/11 attacks, Muslim and Middle Eastern American leaders demanded civil rights and moved forward with political integration.
History and Nationalism
Authors: Lim Jie‐Hyun
Published: December 2015

Nationalism emerged almost simultaneously with the formation of history as a modern discipline. National history has dominated a disciplinary form of history since the emergence of modern historiography, which contributed to establishing nationalism as the regime of truth and the nation state as a natural unit of history. But the paradox is that nationalism is not national but transnational; and national history is not exempt from this paradox. The essentialist perception of “national characteristics” cannot occur outside overlapping relations between nation states in the global chain of national histories. This signifies that it is the transnationality of the nationalist imagination and its history that are important. If national history is transnational, transnational history is often no less national, as some narratives in Euro‐historiography and transnational East Asia demonstrate. In the twenty‐first century the marriage between nationalism and history is in crisis, but they are not yet divorced.
Gentlemen's Agreement
Authors: Hajimu Masuda
Published: December 2015

The Gentlemen's Agreement was a series of informal and nonbinding arrangements between Japan and the United States in 1907–8, in which the Japanese government agreed to voluntarily restrict issuing passports good for the continental United States to laborers while the US government promised to protect the rights of Japanese immigrants and their children already living in the United States. The goal of this agreement was to calm down immigration disputes and war scares that had escalated in these countries. The agreement was made without formal ratification, and its contents were not revealed to the public until it was harshly criticized in the early 1920s. It was eventually nullified by the enactment of the US Immigration Act of 1924. While the Gentlemen's Agreement between Japan and the United States has been relatively well known, the Japanese government simultaneously entered into a similar but less known agreement with the Canadian government.
Environmentalism (Environmental Racism)
Authors: Dickinson Elizabeth
Published: December 2015

Environmental racism typically describes how people of color are excessively affected by environmental damage and racially driven environmental policies and practices. Those wielding power can, intentionally or unintentionally, promote public and private environmental initiatives that negatively impact some people and communities over others. Effects include health‐related disparities resulting from increased exposure to contaminants and pollution, spatializing practices, and political alienation. As a broad and diverse activist movement that inserts social justice into traditional environmentalism, environmental justice exposes and eliminates harmful and discriminatory environmental practices, shifts the burden of proof, and holds offenders accountable.
Census Data and Ethnicity
Authors: Costanzo Joseph M.
Published: December 2015

Countries struggles with how best to classify then effectively prevent discrimination against minority populations without stigmatizing them or negating their uniqueness through broad aggregations with “similar” populations. To take the United States as an example, “ethnicity” is officially defined by the federal government. The US statistical authorities consider race and ethnicity as “separate and distinct” concepts where ethnicity is either “Hispanic or Latino” or “Not Hispanic or Latino.” Changes in official ethnoracial classifications have followed US society's sociodemographic shifts, such as allowing self‐identified multiple racial categories starting in the 2000 decennial census. Based on the US government's ongoing research and question testing, continued popular confusion over the differences between “race” and “ethnicity,” and a growing and increasingly diverse population, the official ethnoracial classifications in the United States are again likely to change.
Science, Ethnicity, and Culture
Authors: Russell Melody
Published: December 2015

Historically, racial and ethnic groups in the United States have experienced discrimination and marginalization as a result of scientific racism. Researchers dispute the legitimacy, validity, and misuse of mental measurements or IQ tests when used to make inferences about the inferiority or superiority of various ethnic or racial groups in comparison to whites or Anglo‐Saxons. Race and ethnicity are social and political constructs that have been used to promote supremacy between racial and ethnic groups. Unfortunately, science has been employed as a tool to perpetuate supremacist ideals of racial superiority.
Confederate States of
A
merica (the Confederacy)
Authors: Hutchison Coleman
Published: December 2015

The Confederate States of America was in many ways a
sui generis
nationalist movement—a revolutionary political experiment to establish a modern, proslavery, and antidemocratic state. This failed slaveholding republic has a great deal to teach students of race, ethnicity, and nationalism, especially since its racist and nationalistic ideologies proved far more durable than its state apparatus.
Bounded Rationality
Authors: Jones Bryan D. , McDaniel Eric
Published: December 2015

This entry outlines bounded rationality and shows its relevance for the study of race and ethnic politics.
Skinheads
Authors: Borgeson Kevin , Maria Valeri Robin
Published: December 2015

The skinhead movement, which dates back to Britain in the 1960s, originally embraced working‐class values and styles and had strong ties to “ska” and “reggae” music. Today the term “skinhead,” although often thought to describe white racialists, white supremacists, or neo‐Nazis, in actuality is used by a heterogeneous group of individuals, both male and female, hetero‐, homo‐, and bisexual, from around the world and with a variety of political views ranging from right‐wing, neo‐Nazi to the far left, liberal, and racially tolerant. Even with this diversity, music and dress or style still play a key role in the skinhead identity.
Intelligence Tests
Authors: Molenaar Dylan
Published: December 2015

Intelligence tests are instruments used in psychology to measure cognitive ability. The intelligence quotient (IQ) is an index that summarizes the performance of a given individual on all subtests of an intelligence test. The IQ score is taken as an indicator for general intelligence or
g
. There are various theories about what
g
is. In addition, much effort has been devoted to establishing group differences in
g
. However, intelligence test scores can only be meaningfully compared when measurement bias is absent, which is, for instance, not the case in research into the increase of IQ over time (the Flynn effect) and into differences in national IQ.
S
omali
I
mmigrants to the
U
nited
S
tates
Authors: Voyer Andrea
Published: December 2015

Immigration statistics suggest that by 2012 approximately 120,751 Somalis resided in the United States. Somalis have settled in increasing numbers since the late 1980s. Despite the relatively small size of the Somali American population, Somali immigrants have drawn attention as a result of their unique settlement practices, Somalis' position as religious and racial minorities in the United States, the ongoing involvement of Somali Americans in the United States' domestic anti‐terror efforts, and the strength of Somalis' transnational ties to a country with tremendous international significance for its role in international piracy and the global fight against terrorist organizations.
Racism, Structural and Institutional
Authors: Henricks Kasey
Published: December 2015

What are racial institutions and structures, and, more importantly, what insights does sociological theory offer to understand them? This entry traces the genealogy of three theoretical frameworks that are examined from institutional and structural perspectives: institutional racism, racial formation, and racialized social systems. The distinguishing features of each of these theories are delineated, as are some of their inherent strengths and weaknesses.
Market Transition
Authors: Hou Xiaoshuo
Published: December 2015

Market transition refers to the process in which an economy moves from central planning in state socialism toward market coordination. This entry discusses the major debates regarding the process, configuration, and consequences of this postsocialist transition by focusing on the case of China.
R
wanda (
B
urundi)
Authors: Burnet Jennie E.
Published: December 2015

Hutu, Tutsi, and Twa (Batwa) are the most widely recognized ethnic groups of Rwanda and Burundi. Since the mid‐twentieth‐century violent conflict between Hutu and Tutsi has shaped the politics and history of the region. The two most intense episodes of ethnic violence were the 1994 genocide against Tutsi in Rwanda and the 1972 massacres of Hutu in Burundi. Since Europeans first arrived in Rwanda and Burundi in the late nineteenth century, outsiders have debated whether Hutu, Tutsi, and Twa constituted tribes, races, castes, nations, ethnic groups, or socioeconomic classes. Hutu, Tutsi, and Twa people speak the same language, known as Kinyarwanda‐Kirundi, share the same culture, and live interspersed across a large area of the African Great Lakes region, which ranges from the border of Tanzania westward to the Democratic Republic of the Congo and from the northwestern shore of Lake Tanganyika northward into southern Uganda.
Citizenship and Nationality
Authors: Piattoeva Nelli
Published: December 2015

Citizenship and nationality are commonly treated as synonymous, or, at least, as two sides of the same political coin. The bundling of the terms is essentially a product of the modern territorial nation‐state and the ideology of nationalism, which asserts congruity between the state and the nation. This entry provides an overview of the different political processes and ideological beliefs at the background of this development. It also discusses how globalization, in its different forms, challenges the bond between the two concepts.
Black
M
uslims (
A
frican
A
merican
M
uslims)
Authors: Diamant Jeff
Published: December 2015

The history of black Muslims in North America predates the founding of the United States; it begins with a minority of black slaves who were Muslims. While very few descendants of black Muslim slaves appear to have practiced Islam as adults, the presence of black Muslims in northern American cities would grow in the early twentieth century through efforts of the foreign missionary Ahmadiyyah movement and two indigenous groups, the Moorish Science Temple of America and the Nation of Islam. These groups were able to convince African Americans that Islam was free of racism and a better fit for them than Christianity. In 1975, after the death of the Nation of Islam's long‐time leader Elijah Muhammad, his son Wallace Mohammed moved the organization closer to Sunni Islam and changed its name to the World Community of Islam. In 1978 Louis Farrakhan reconstituted the Nation of Islam, bringing back the original theology.
Underground Railroad
Authors: Crew Spencer
Published: December 2015

The operation of the Underground Railroad depended upon the dedication of a panoply of individuals who believed that slavery was morally wrong and that the enslaved had the right to be free. In support of that belief they were willing to take the actions necessary to destabilize that institution when the opportunity presented itself. They did this despite the fact that they were breaking federal fugitive slave laws put in place to protect the property rights of southern slaveholders. Ignoring these laws might result in fines and incarceration for the people who aided freedom seekers and a return to slavery for the fugitives. Despite these repercussions, for these committed individuals the risks were less important than the larger moral goals in which they believed.
L
oving v.
V
irginia
Authors: Hoewe Jennifer
Published: December 2015

Loving v. Virginia
is the landmark civil rights case that abolished race‐related legal restrictions on marriage in the United States. On June 12, 1967 the US Supreme Court declared Virginia's antimiscegenation statute, the Act to Preserve Racial Integrity of 1924, unconstitutional. Richard Loving, a white man, and Mildred Jeter, an African American and Native American woman, were married in Washington, DC, in 1958, to avoid Virginia's ban on interracial marriage. Upon returning to Virginia in 1959, the couple was arrested and later convicted of breaking the state's antimiscegenation law. The Lovings' appeal of the conviction reached the Supreme Court, where Virginia's ban on interracial marriage was deemed unconstitutional by a unanimous decision, due to its violation of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Nongovernmental Organizations
Authors: Ramanath Ramya
Published: December 2015

This entry reviews the role and performance of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that seek to serve as key agents in transmitting development to racially and ethnically marginalized populations. It draws on a wide variety of scholarly literature and finds that there are three sets of interrelated global trends that influence NGO responsibility and performance: increasing democratization, globalization and transnationalism, and rising ethnonationalism. The entry describes the three processes and, simultaneously, examines the successes and challenges of NGOs in addressing the interests of the socially excluded. Nongovernmental organizations have undoubtedly played an important role in creating venues for a more just, equitable, and democratic world. However, sustained NGO effectiveness is found to hinge, at least in part, on their ability and willingness to learn from the effects of their programming on the racial and ethnic relations that permeate the daily lives of their intended beneficiaries.
Ethnicity versus Culture
Authors: Bell Eona
Published: December 2015

The opposition between ethnicity and culture is a question of importance for scholars and practitioners, and deserves attention because the two concepts are frequently conflated and confused in both popular and academic discourse, where they are often used interchangeably as markers of distinctive social groups. It has been argued that both terms have come to be used too loosely, as euphemisms for “race.” Culture is often presented as an intrinsic part of ethnicity, one of the uniquely defining features of a self‐ascribed ethnic group. Yet closer attention shows important distinctions between these concepts, which we must acknowledge as cultural constructs in themselves. The differences between ethnicity and culture have important practical consequences in a globalized world, where states and societies have to find ways to live as ever more diverse communities. Both ethnicity and culture raise questions about how we define boundaries between groups and between subgroups within cultures.
Authenticity
Authors: Lindholm Charles
Published: December 2015

Authenticity is valued today as an absolute good. It is sought in art, music, commodities, experiences, and persons. It can also be claimed by nations, ethnicities, religions, and races. All forms of authenticity are validated by reference to shared origins or shared content. Collective authenticity is inculcated by symbolic representations and proven by collective celebrations. Disputes over who has the right to be part of the authentic collective can lead to exclusion and violence, while the affirmation of alternative forms of collective authenticity offers solace for those excluded.
S
tudent
N
onviolent
C
oordinating
C
ommittee (
SNCC
)
Authors: Adam Davies Tom
Published: December 2015

Always at the cutting edge of the black freedom struggle, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee underwent a profound metamorphosis from 1960 until about 1970. Initially dedicated to nonviolent direct action and the pursuit of racial integration, from mid‐1961 the SNCC shifted emphasis toward confronting African American disfranchisement and organizing for independent black political power in the Jim Crow South—an early step on the road to Black Power. SNCC's later rejection of nonviolent and integrationist principles and its turn to Black Power resulted from the stresses of organizing under the threat of white racial terrorism in the Deep South and from SNCC's disillusionment with the limited gains secured by civil rights protests. The SNCC was increasingly radical and outspoken during the 1960s. Its subsequent demise by the end of the decade was precipitated by internal factionalism, the erosion of their funding base, and the deleterious impact of state‐sponsored repression.
Refugee Movements
Authors: Czaika Mathias
Published: December 2015

People fearing persecution, violence, and terror often choose to abandon their property and livelihoods to relocate elsewhere. Beyond violence‐related causes of refugee flights, the relevance and relative importance of other political, economic, or social determinants of involuntary displacements are still unclear. Refugee movements have become increasingly complex as refugees and asylum seekers often travel similar routes to other types of migrants with different migration motivations such as work, family reunion, or study. In many western asylum destinations, this has led to perceptions that many claims for asylum are unfounded, and domestic pressure to restrict asylum immigration has increased. At the same time, many conflict‐neighboring countries perceive that they shoulder a disproportionate burden by hosting large refugee populations. The difficulty of providing durable solutions for people in refugee situations in the region of origin seems to be the root cause of the continuous arrival of asylum seekers in distant western destinations.
Obama,Barack (1961–)
Authors: Jeffries Michael
Published: December 2015

Barack Hussein Obama is the 44th president of the United States of America. He was first elected as the Democratic nominee in 2008, defeating Republican nominee John McCain with 365 electoral college votes and 52.9 percent of the popular vote. In 2012 Obama was reelected with 332 electoral college votes and 51.1 percent of the popular vote, defeating Republican challenger Mitt Romney. Obama is the first African American and person of color to be elected president of the United States. From 2005 to 2008, Obama served in the US Senate as a representative from Illinois. At the time of his election to the Senate, he was only the third black senator to win a seat since the end of Reconstruction.
Gerrymandering
Authors: Holden Richard
Published: December 2015

Gerrymandering refers to the practice of political actors drawing the boundaries of their own electoral districts for partisan or other advantage. It is of particular interest in US politics, where it is widespread. It has implications for the partisan composition of legislatures, the representation of minorities, and the entrenchment of incumbents.