| A | B |
|---|
| Assimilation | (251) The process of change that a minority group may experience when it moves to a country where another culture dominates; the minority is incorporated into the dominant culture to the point that it no longer exists as a separate cultural unit. |
| Cultural Colonialism | (257) Within a nation or empire, domination by one ethnic group or nationality and its culture/ ideology over others—e.g., the dominance of Russian people, language, and culture in the former Soviet Union. |
| Descent | (243) Rule assigning social identity on the basis of some aspect of one's ancestry. |
| Discrimination | (255) Policies and practices that harm a group and its members. |
| Ethnic Group | (230) Group distinguished by cultural similarities (shared among members of that group) and differences (between that group and others); ethnic group members share beliefs, values, habits, customs, and norms, and a common language, religion, history, geography, kinship, and/or race. |
| Ethnicity | (231) Identification with, and feeling part of, an ethnic group, and exclusion from certain other groups because of this affiliation. |
| Ethnocide | (257) Destruction by a dominant group of the culture of an ethnic group. |
| Genocide | (257) Policies aimed at, and/or resulting in, the physical extinction (through mass murder) of a people perceived as a racial group, that is, as sharing defining physical, genetic, or other biological characteristics. |
| Hypodescent | (243) A rule that automatically places the children of a union or mating between members of different socioeconomic groups in the less privileged group. |
| Majority Groups | (232) Superordinate, dominant, or controlling groups in a social-political hierarchy. |
| Minority Groups | (232) Subordinate groups in a social–political hierarchy, with inferior power and less secure access to resources than majority groups have. |
| Multiculturalism | (252) The view of cultural diversity in a country as something good and desirable; a multicultural society socializes individuals not only into the dominant (national) culture, but also into an ethnic culture. |
| Nation | (249) Once a synonym for "ethnic group," designating a single culture sharing a language, religion, history, territory, ancestry, and kinship; now usually a synonym for "state" or "nation-state." |
| Nationalities | (250) Ethnic groups that once had, or wish to have or regain, autonomous political status (their own country). |
| Nation-State | (249) An autonomous political entity, a country like the United States or Canada. |
| Natural Selection | (237) Originally formulated by Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace; The process by which nature selects the forms most fit to survive and reproduce in a given environment, such as the tropics |
| Phenotype | (234) An organism's evident traits, its "manifest biology"—anatomy and physiology. |
| Plural Society | (251) A society that combines ethnic contrasts, ecological specialization (i.e., use of different environmental resources by each ethnic group), and the economic interdependence of those groups. |
| Prejudice | (255) Devaluing (looking down on) a group because of its assumed behavior, values, capabilities, or attributes. |
| Race | (233) An ethnic group assumed to have a biological basis. |
| Racial Classification | (234) The attempt to assign humans to discrete categories (purportedly) based on common ancestry |
| Racism | (233) Discrimination against an ethnic group assumed to have a biological basis. |
| Refugees | (257) People who have been forced (involuntary refugees) or who have chosen (voluntary refugees) to flee a country, to escape persecution or war. |
| Sterotypes | (255) Fixed ideas—often unfavorable—about what members of a group are like. |
| Tropics | (238) Geographic belt extending about 23º north and south of the equator, between the Tropic of Cancer (north) and the Tropic of Capricorn (south) |
