Ethnicity

“From your reading, give an account of your understanding of notions of “ethnicity” and discuss how (in literature) they are applied to the study of social policy and social issues.”

“The human species is genetically diverse. We are all born with an observable set of characteristics that

we share-albeit in different measures-with our immediate forebears, but which may differentiate us from other members of our species.” (Baldock, J. 2003: 204)

When we talk of ethnicity, we indicate that groups and identities have developed in mutual contact rather than in isolation. But what is the nature of such groups? And how has ethnicity been applied to social policy and social issues?

This essay will outline certain social issues which I believe are of most importance at the moment in UK and other countries too. They will be part of my three chosen topics from the list of topics I have studied so far in my lecture, they are: Multiculturalism, Education and Law. I believe that the term “ethnicity” is widely used and contradictive debates have surrounded these three topics. I will first begin with a brief history on the term “ethnicity”.

History Of The Term “Ethnicity”

The term “ethnicity” first appeared in the Oxford English Dictionary in 1972. An American Sociologist named David Riesman was the first to use this term back in 1953. When it first appeared in the Oxford English Dictionary, Glazer and Moynihan stated that, “Ethnicity seems to be a new term” (Glazer, N. and Moynihan, D. 1975: 1) However, the word “ethnic” is much older as it derived from the Greek ethnos, which originally meant pagan (William, R. 1976: 119). It was used in this way in English from the mid-14th century until the mid-19th century, when it gradually began to refer to “racial” characteristics.

During the 1980s and early 1990s, there are many academic publications on ethnicity, especially in political science, history, sociology and social anthropology. Words like “ethnic groups”, “ethnicity” and “ethnic conflict” have started to become common in the English language, and they keep cropping up in the press, in TV news, in political programs and in casual conversations. However, many of us admit that the meaning of these terms frequently seems ambiguous and vague.

In the early 20th century, many social theorists had predicted and believed that ethnicity would decrease in importance and would eventually disappear as a result of modernization, industrialization and individualism. This never happened. In fact, ethnicity still holds some importance and has grown in political importance in the world, especially since the Second World War (Eriksen (1993)). I will refer back to this later on in my essay.