Race

How it is used

Sociologists stress that racial categories have changed over time and between countries, and that their effects, such as discrimination, are real even though the categories are not biologically fixed. Related terms are racism, racialisation and race relations.

Example sentences

1. The categories for race in the United States census have changed many times.

2. The course examines how race, class and gender shape access to housing.

Common collocations

• race and ethnicity
• race relations
• racial inequality
• social construction of race

Related terms

• ethnicityA shared cultural identity based on things such as common ancestry, language, religion, traditions or a sense of shared history.
• discriminationTreating people unfairly or differently because they belong to a particular group, for example on the basis of gender, ethnicity, age, religion or disability.
• social constructionThe idea that many things we take as natural or obvious, such as gender roles, childhood or race, are created and maintained by people through shared meanings and practices.
• intersectionalityThe idea that social categories such as gender, race, class and disability overlap, so that people experience combined and distinct forms of advantage or disadvantage.
• minority groupA group that has less power, status or access to resources than the dominant group in a society, often because of its ethnicity, religion, language or another shared characteristic.

More terms: Migration, Race and Ethnicity

• migration
• stereotype
• assimilation
• multiculturalism
• diaspora