Race and Ethnicity: Inequalities and Identities

Abstract

This chapter introduces the sociological analysis of racial and ethnic divisions. It takes an avowedly ‘constructivist’ position throughout, arguing that these divisions should be studied as ongoing, social and political constructions rather than fixed, naturally occurring phenomena. Understanding something as a socially construction is not, however, to imply that it is of no importance. On the contrary, as the chapter shows, racial and ethnic divisions are highly influential. The chapter considers this influence under two broad headings:

• Inequality: there is a clear, although sometimes complex, relationship between differences of wealth, income, status, power and other life chances on the one hand and racial and ethnic divisions on the other.

• Social identity: racial and ethnic differences are an important element of our sense of sameness and difference.