Minority Groups

• A subordinate group whose members have significantly less control or power over their lives than members of a dominant or majority group

• Not limited to mathematical minority: example women, Blacks in South Africa, Blacks in Mississippi and South Carolina in the 1920's

• Interchangeable with subordinate group

• A group that experiences a narrowing of opportunities (success, education, wealth, etc) that is disproportionately low compared to their numbers in the society

Members of a minority group share some physical and cultural characteristics that distinguish them from the dominant (majority) group.

Members of a minority group experience unequal treatment. They are usually physically and socially isolated from the dominant (majority) community.

Membership in a dominant (or minority) group is not voluntary. People are born into the group.

Members of a minority group generally marry within their own group in order to keep alive their cultural distinctiveness and to maintain group solidarity.

Minority group members have a strong sense of group solidarity. This sense of solidarity is the outcome of prejudice and discrimination experienced by the minority group members.

The minority is subordinate to the dominant (majority) in the distribution of power and privileges in a society. This is the key characteristic of a minority group. The members of minority groups have relatively low power, prestige and economic position in a society’s system of social stratification.

Prayer

Share with your table members how your one day of tracking went. What did you find/hear? Do you have any similarities?

Tracking Incompetent Speech

1. Physical and Cultural Traits

2. Unequal Treatment

3. Ascribed Status

4. Solidarity

5. In-Group Marriage

6. Subordination

6 Basic Characteristics of Minority Groups

Agenda

What Is A Minority Group Exactly?

Types of Minority Groups

Racial

Gender

Groups who are classified according to obvious physical characteristics, e.g. skin color

US Racial Minority Groups: Blacks, American Indian, Asian Americans, Hawaiians

Tracking Incompetent Speech

Minority Group(s)

What Is A Minority Group Exactly?

Characteristics of a Minority Group

6 Basic Characteristics of Minority Groups

Types of Minority Groups

Males are a social majority; women demonstrate four out of five characteristics of minority status.

There are no in-group marriages

Based on Richard T. Schaefer, Racial and Ethnic Groups 5 - 10 (1993).

EDU 230 Cultural Diversity in the

Classroom

• Distinguishing physical or cultural traits, e.g. skin color or language

• Unequal Treatment and Less Power over their lives

• Involuntary membership in the group (no personal choice)

• Awareness of subordination and strong sense of group solidarity

• High In-group Marriage

noun

1. minority

a culturally, ethnically, or racially distinct group that coexists with but is subordinate to a more dominant group. As the term is used in the social sciences, this subordinancy is the chief defining characteristic of a minority group. As such, minority status does not necessarily correlate to population. In some cases one or more so-called minority groups may have a population many times the size of the dominating group, as was the case in South Africa under apartheid

minority group. (n.d.). Dictionary.com Unabridged. Retrieved March 04, 2015, from

Dictionary.com website: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/minority group

Groups who have a religion other than the dominant faith.

US Religious minorities - Muslims, Amish, Mormons, Roman Catholics

Groups who are differentiated on the basis of culture such as language, food

US Ethnic Minority Groups: Hispanics or Latinos such as Chicanos, Puerto Ricans, Cuban; Jews are also consider cultural minorities instead of religious minorities.

Racial groups can also so have distinctive cultural traditions

Note: Ethnic minority can be either black or white or Asian American or Native American. So that a person can be both Black and Hispanic