Deck 16: Ethnicity and Race 

Question 1

According to Fredrik Barth's theories about ethnic identity, ethnic boundaries are most stable when

A) the members of the ethnic groups are highly educated, as in postcolonial states.
B) ethnic groups share a common ancestor.
C) ethnic groups occupy different ecological niches.
D) ethnic groups are culturally very similar and tend to pursue the same goals.
E) ethnic groups share the same nation-state.

Answer 1

ethnic groups occupy different ecological niches.

Question 2

What term refers to an independent, centrally organized political unit, or a government?

A) culture
B) state
C) tribe
D) nationality
E) bureaucracy

Answer 2

state

Question 3

An anthropological understanding of ethnicity and race requires exploring how people and institutions define, negotiate, and even challenge their identities in society. One way anthropologists-and social scientists in general-do this is by studying status, which refers to

A) a mutually exclusive social identity that is set by others and has little to do with an individual's actions.
B) a biologically determined identity within a hierarchical society.
C) an identity determined by the state through census practices.
D) a socially negotiated identity that always changes throughout a person's lifetime.
E) any position, no matter what its prestige, that someone occupies in society.

Answer 3

any position, no matter what its prestige, that someone occupies in society.

Question 4

Depending on the situation, the same man might declare: "I'm Jimmy's father"; "I'm your boss"; "I'm African American"; or "I'm your professor." This phenomenon, whereby a person's claimed or perceived identity varies depending on context, is called

A) rotating core personality traits.
B) ethnicity.
C) situational negotiation of social identity.
D) ethnic tolerance.
E) hypodescent.

Question 5

What term does anthropologist Fredrik Barth use to refer to a society that combines ethnic contrasts, ecological specialization, and the economic interdependence of those groups?

A) plural society
B) broad-spectrum subsistence
C) multicultural
D) assimilation
E) pluralism

Question 6

What does ethnicity mean?

A) identification with and feeling part of a cultural group and exclusion from other cultural groups
B) identification with and feeling part of a biologically racial group
C) identification with the cultural values of the dominant culture
D) identification with and feeling part of two or more groups in a plural society
E) identification with neighbors in a multicultural society

Question 7

An ascribed status is a status that

A) people have little or no choice about occupying.
B) is based on standardized test scores.
C) you earn, as when a successful law student becomes a lawyer.
D) you choose for yourself.
E) has a position of dominance in society; for example, that of a king.

Question 8

Which of the following is NOT a Francophone West African nation where négritude ("black identity") developed?

A) Liberia
B) Ivory Coast
C) Senegal
D) Guinea
E) Mali

Question 9

Which of the following statements about the concept of race in Brazil is FALSE?

A) Racial classification in Brazil is built around the concept of hypodescent.
B) The perception of biological races is influenced not just by the physical phenotype but by how one dresses and behaves.
C) The large number of racial categories does not lend itself easily to socioeconomic discrimination based on race.
D) A person's race can change from day to day.
E) There are more than 500 different terms used to describe phenotypes.

Question 10

In the United States, organizations such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the National Council of La Raza, a Hispanic advocacy group, have opposed adding a "multiracial" census category. This suggests that

A) racial classification matters only to Hispanic minorities in the United States.
B) both organizations need to hire anthropologists.
C) racial classification can become more scientifically accurate despite people's ignorance to the contrary.
D) racial classification is a political issue, in that these groups fear their political clout will decline if their numbers go down.
E) racial classification is all about cultural pride.

Question 11

What is the term for the arbitrary rule that automatically places the children of a union between members of different socioeconomic groups in the less-privileged group?

A) hypogamy
B) hypodescent
C) polyandry
D) hypervitaminosis
E) polygyny

Question 12

In which of the following categories should the concept of race be placed?

A) cultural
B) genetic
C) imaginary
D) biological
E) scientific

Question 13

What is the term for ethnic groups that once had, or wish to have or regain, autonomous political status?

A) ethnic avengers
B) captive nations
C) nations
D) nationalities
E) ethnicities

Question 14

Which of the following is a major difference between Brazilian and American racial taxonomies?

A) Brazilian racial categories are based on genotype, whereas U.S. categories are based on phenotype.
B) Brazilians do not recognize racial differences.
C) In the United States, social race is determined at birth and does not change, but in Brazil race can change from day to day.
D) There are no important differences between the two taxonomies.
E) American categories are purer than Brazilian categories.

Question 15

In Japan, the burakumin

A) are perceived as pure Japanese, even if one of their parents is not Japanese.
B) are the cream of Japan's racial categories, having the purest blood.
C) are stigmatized despite being genetically indistinguishable from other Japanese.
D) constitute a numerical majority in Japan.
E) no longer face discrimination.

Question 16

What term formerly referred to a culture that shared a single language, religion, history, territory, ancestry, and kinship?

A) homeland
B) monoculture
C) country
D) nation
E) society

Question 17

Which of the following statements about U.S. racial categories is true?

A) U.S. racial categories are biologically valid, as demonstrated by the Phipps case in the 1970s in Louisiana.
B) U.S. racial categories are culturally arbitrary, even though most people assume them to be based in biology.
C) U.S. racial categories are applied to endogamous breeding populations.
D) U.S. racial categories are based on global racial categories that vary little among societies.
E) U.S. racial categories are based on genetics, whereas Japan's are based upon undemonstrated descent.

Question 18

Which of the following statements about ethnicity is true?

A) Ethnicity and race are synonyms.
B) Ethnicity is based on common biological features.
C) Americans maintain a clear distinction between ethnicity and race.
D) Ethnicity is the politically correct term for race.
E) Ethnicity is one's identification with a group that shares a common set of beliefs, values, customs, and norms.

Question 19

Nation-states are

A) parts of other states.
B) defined by their lack of ethnic identity.
C) the same as tribes and ethnic groups.
D) otherwise known as countries.
E) ethnically homogeneous.

Question 20

Race, like ethnicity in general, is

A) a meaningless concept to people living day to day.
B) a cultural category rather than a biological reality.
C) poorly understood by geneticists and therefore considered a cultural category.
D) a biological reality as much as a cultural one.
E) used by social scientists to classify humans based on genes and shared blood.

Question 21

The U.S. and Canadian governments use the same racial categories in their censuses.

Question 22

When one's ethnic identity is flexible and situational, it can become an achieved status.

Question 23

Interracial, biracial, and multiracial identities are becoming more and more common in the United States.

Question 24

In Japan, the burakumin represent an isolated breeding population that is genetically distinct from the rest of the country.

Question 25

What is the term for the use of force by a dominant group to compel a minority to adopt the prevailing culture?

A) forced assimilation
B) attitudinal discrimination
C) genocide
D) environmental racism
E) ethnocentrism

Question 26

What is the term for policies and practices that harm a group and its members?

A) ethnocentrism
B) prejudice
C) racism
D) colonialism
E) discrimination

Question 27

What term refers to the destruction of the culture of an ethnic group?

A) genocide
B) diaspora
C) prejudice
D) ethnocide
E) discrimination

Question 28

The presence of ethnic neighborhoods may indicate what kind of coexistence?

A) acculturation
B) multiculturalism
C) assimilation
D) enculturation
E) colonialism

Question 29

The neofascist parties of contemporary Western Europe advocate repatriation of immigrant workers. What is one of the potential consequences of such policies?

A) the creation of refugees-people who have been forced (involuntary refugees) or who have chosen (voluntary refugees) to flee a country in order to escape persecution or war
B) the creation of class consciousness
C) the breakup of imaginary communes
D) state-mandated forced assimilation
E) gender stratification

Question 30

Most Americans are not very precise in distinguishing between the terms race and ethnicity.

Question 31

Hypodescent refers to individuals who are racially pure.

Question 32

Racial categories in Brazil are not rigid; rather, they often change depending on the social setting.

Question 33

Racial categories in Japan are more rigid than they are in Brazil.

Question 34

An achieved status is not automatic. It comes through choices, actions, efforts, talents, or accomplishments, and as such is always perceived as positive by a society.

Question 35

In cultural terms, a race is an ethnic group that has a biological basis.

Question 36

Hypodescent in the United States automatically determines the race of a child whose parents belong to different racial groups.

Question 37

Prominent in the 2016 presidential campaign of Donald Trump was the idea of an association between ethnicity (traditionally European derived and Christian) and the right to rule the United States, otherwise known as

A) cultural colonialism.
B) ethno-nationalism.
C) pluralism.
D) assimilation.
E) ethnocide.

Question 38

Ascribed statuses are based on an individual's talents, abilities, and actions.

Question 39

The disproportionate likelihood of arrest, incarceration, and mistreatment by police faced by African Americans is an example of

A) ethnonationalism.
B) de jure discrimination.
C) de facto discrimination.
D) cultural colonialism.
E) ethnocide.

Question 40

Brazilian racial classification is based exclusively on an individual's phenotype.

Question 41

Refugees are those who flee a country to escape persecution or war.

Question 42

Ethnic/racial diversity is decreasing in the United States.

Question 43

Migration and rapid population growth are fueling multiculturalism in countries like the United States and Canada.

Question 44

Nation-state refers to an ethnic group that is not politically autonomous.

Question 45

Ethnocide refers to the deliberate elimination of a cultural tradition through aggressive policies forcing assimilation.

Question 46

The 2014 poverty rates for different minority groups in the U.S. are an example of stratification.

Question 47

Host countries that emphasize assimilation tend to encourage minority ethnic groups to retain their identities.

Question 48

Genocide refers to the physical destruction of an ethnic or religious group through mass murder.

Question 49

Only dominant or majority groups can have prejudiced views; minority groups are not capable of being prejudiced.

Question 50

It is the norm in Africa for countries to have no ethnic majority.

Question 51

De facto discrimination occurs when laws exist that harm a specific group and its members.

Question 52

Multiculturalism emphasizes the need for a series of cultures to abandon their old ethnic identities and join together to forge a new and unique cultural identity.

Question 53

A common technique in cultural colonialism is to flood ethnic areas with members of the dominant ethnic group to diminish the cohesion and clout of the local people.

Question 54

Most countries of the world have a single ethnic group accounting for 90 percent or more of the population.

Question 55

A key element of multiculturalism is a respect for ethnic diversity.

Question 56

One of the definitions of state is a centrally organized political unit; a government.

Question 57

The term nation formerly referred to an ethnic group that shared a religion, language, history, territory, ancestry, and kinship.

Question 58

A plural society is the opposite of a society that forces groups to assimilate.

Question 59

Colonialism often erected boundaries that corresponded poorly with preexisting cultural divisions.