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Dec 5, 2016 · How is race socially constructed? This article explores the cultural and psychological factors that shape racial categorization and perception, using examples from the US and South Africa. It argues that race is not a biological fact, but a social construct that varies across time and place.
- How Is Race A Social Construct?
- Social Construction of Race Examples
- How Race Is Socially Constructed
- Criticisms of The Social Construction of Race
- Why Study The Social Construction of Race?
- Conclusion
- References
- GeneratedCaptionsTabForHeroSec
A social construct is a category that is primarily defined socially. Often, we consider gender, social class, and beauty to be ideas that are constructed by society. The simplest way to understand this idea is to compare current ideas about categories to past ideas about the same things. For example, 150 years ago, the idea of ideal beauty was diff...
Italians as whites – Interesting historical research by Dewhurst (2008) has demonstrated how Italians were not seen as white people in early colonial Australia. As a result, they faced increased di...African Americans – Whereas in the 18th and early 19th Centuries, African Americans were considered in parts of the USA as the property of whites, lacking legal rights, and being seen as lesser hum...Orientalism – Famous postcolonial scholar Edward Said wrote in Orientalism that Westerners socially construct people Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and the Pacific in simplistic and stereotypical w...According to poststructural theorists, race is socially constructed whenever it is spoken about. It is through speaking about a race category – repeatedly by many people – that the category is defined and re-defined. Key ways in which we speak about, and therefore construct, race, include: 1. Language – The words we use, the phrases, and the metaph...
1. Race is a Biological Reality
If we took a purely biological perspective on the issue of race, it becomes clear that there are clear biological differences between people that can be categorized under scientific categories of race. Examples of biological differences include skin pigmentation, facial features, height, and susceptibility to certain diseases. These features are hereditary and biological fact (Burr, 2015). As a result, many people – particularly in the hard sciences – contest the notion of social construction...
2. The Social Constructionist Perspective Detracts from Individual Experiences of Racialized People
Many racialized groups believe that their race is a fixed and essential feature of how they self-identify. For example, the unique experience of being Black in America is something many people choose to celebrate. For these people, a claim that their race is socially constructed may detract from their experience of identity, much in the same way that claiming homosexuality is socially constructed might undermine an LGBTQI+ person’s claim that their sexuality is an inherent part of who they ar...
If we were to proceed from the premise that race is socially constructed, several lines of academic inquiry are opened up that have important implications. Most importantly, the knowledge that race is socially constructed opens up opportunities to explore ways to re-construct race in more socially equitable ways. For example, scholars will often ex...
The idea that race is socially constructed is based on the premise that the definitions of all social categories – including race, gender, and even disability – are socially and culturally mediated. Moving from this premise, scholars can explore how the way we define people can marginalize, normalize, include, or exclude people within society. Neve...
Burr, V. (2015). Social constructionism. New York: Routledge. Butler, J. (2004). Undoing gender. Cambridge: Routledge. Dewhirst, C. (2008). Collaborating on whiteness: representing Italians in early White Australia. Journal of Australian Studies, 32(1), 33-49. doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/14443050801993800 Feldman, H. M., Blum, N. J., Elias, E. R.,...
Learn how race is a social construct that is defined by language and culture, not biological fact. Explore how race has changed over time and across societies, and how it affects social hierarchies and prejudices.
Jun 16, 2015 · Unlike race and racial identity, the social, political and economic meanings of race, or rather belonging to particular racial groups, have not been fluid. Like race, racial identity can be fluid.
Race as a Social Construction. The reasons for doubting the biological basis for racial categories suggest that race is more of a social category than a biological one. Another way to say this is that race is a social construction, a concept that has no objective reality but rather is what people decide it is (Berger & Luckmann, 1963). In this ...
Jul 27, 2016 · Race is a human classification system that is socially constructed to distinguish between groups of people who share phenotypical characteristics. This article reviews theoretical frameworks and approaches to investigate the complexities of the social construction of race and ethnicity, and the dynamics of racialization, racism, and inequality.
Demonstrating how race is socially constructed has been a core sociological objective, yet many individuals continue to hold essentialist and other concepts of what races are and how to account for group differences. These conceptualizations have crucial consequences for intergroup attitudes, support for social policies, and structures of inequality, all of which are key sociological concerns ...
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Race as a Social Construct. Based on the information above, sociologists assert that race is a social construction, a concept that has no objective reality but rather is what people decide it is (Berger & Luckmann, 1963). In this view, race has no real existence other than what and how people think of it; what matters then are the ideas we have ...
