race

Definition of Race

(noun) A socially created and poorly defined categorization of people into groups on basis of real or perceived physical characteristics.

Race Pronunciation

Pronunciation Usage Guide

Syllabification: race

Audio Pronunciation

International Phonetic Alphabet

• American English – /reɪs/
• British English – /reɪs/

Usage Note

• Plural: races

Related Quotations

• “For essentialists, race, sex, sexual orientation, disability, and social class identify significant, empirically verifiable differences among people. From the essentialist perspective, each of the these exist apart from any social processes; they are objective categories of real differences among people” (Rosenblum and Travis 2012:3).
• “‘Race’ was a form of social identification and stratification that was seemingly grounded in the physical differences of populations interacting with one another in the New World, but whose real meaning rested in social and political realities” (Smedley 1998:694).
• “[S]ingling out members of a race or ethnic group for heightened police surveillance—is a way to act on the assumption that whole categories of people are dangerous” (Rosenblum and Travis 2012:199).
• “Today scholars are beginning to realize that ‘race’ is nothing more and nothing less than a social invention. It has nothing to do with the intrinsic, or potential, qualities of the physically differing populations, but much to do with the allocation of power, privilege, and wealth among them” (Smedley 1998:698–99).

Related Video

Additional Information

• Word origin of “race” – Online Etymology Dictionary: etymonline.com
• Alibhai-Brown, Yasmin. 2001. Mixed Feelings: The Complex Lives of Mixed-race Britons. London: Women’s Press.
• Allen, Theodore. 1994. The Invention of the White Race. Vol. 2. London: Verso.
• Almaguer, Tomás. 1994. Racial Fault Lines: The Historical Origins of White Supremacy in California. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
• Ansell, Amy E. 2013. Race and Ethnicity: The Key Concepts. London: Routledge.
• Bachman, John. 1854. A Notice of the “Types of Mankind” with an Examination of the Charges Contained in the Biography of Dr. Morton. Charleston, SC: James, Williams and Gitsinger.
• Back, Les, and John Solomos, eds. 2009. Theories of Race and Racism: A Reader. 2nd ed. London: Routledge.
• Bowling, Benjamin, and Coretta Phillips. 2002. Racism, Crime and Justice. Harlow, England: Longman.
• Braham, Peter, Ali Rattansi, and Richard Skellington, eds. 1992. Racism and Anti-racism: Inequalities, Opportunities and Policies. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
• Cashmore, Ernest, and Barry Troyna. 1990. Introduction to Race Relations. 2nd ed. London: Falmer.
• Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies. 1982. The Empire Strikes Back: Race and Racism in 70s Britain. London: Hutchinson.
• Chiozza, Giacomo. 2002. “Is There a Clash of Civilizations? Evidence from Patterns of International Conflict Involvement, 1946–97.” Journal of Peace Research 39(6):711–34. doi:10.1177/0022343302039006004.
• Cohen, Robin. 1994. Frontiers of Identity: The British and the Others. London: Longman.
• Conrad, Earl. 1966. The Invention of the Negro. New York: P. S. Eriksson.
• Davis, David Brion. 1966. The Problem of Slavery in Western Culture. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
• de Gobineau, Arthur. [1853] 2006. Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races. Sussex, United Kingdom: Historical Review.
• Devlin, Bernie. ed. 1997. Intelligence, Genes, and Success: Scientists Respond to the Bell Curve. New York: Springer.
• Durrheim, Kevin, Xoliswa Mtose, and Lyndsay Brown. 2011. Race Trouble: Race, Identity and Inequality in Post-apartheid South Africa. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.
• Essed, Philomena, and David Theo Goldberg, eds. 2002. Race Critical Theories: Text and Context. Oxford: Blackwell.
• Fraser, Steve. ed. 1995. The Bell Curve Wars: Race, Intelligence, and the Future of America. New York: Basic Books.
• Frederickson, George M. 1988. The Arrogance of Race: Historical Perspectives on Slavery, Racism, and Social Inequality. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press.
• Fryer, Peter. 1984. Staying Power: The History of Black People in Britain. London: Pluto Press.
• Fryer, Peter. 1991. Black People in the British Empire. London: Pluto Press.
• Gilroy, Paul. 1987. There Ain’t No Black in the Union Jack. London: Hutchinson.
• Gilroy, Paul. 2010. Darker than Blue: The W.E.B Du Bois Lectures. London: Harvard University Press.
• Grusky, David B, ed. 2014. Social Stratification: Class, Race and Gender in Sociological Perspective. 4th ed. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
• Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich. 1857. Philosophy of History. 2nd edition. New York: P. F. Collier.
• Herrnstein, Richard, and Charles Murray. 1994. The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure In American Life. New York: Free Press.
• Holdaway, Simon. 1996. The Racialisation of British Policing. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
• Holdaway, Simon, and Anne-Marie Barron. 1997. Resigners? The Experience of Black and Asian Police Officers. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
• Hunte, Joseph A. 1966. Nigger Hunting in England? London: West Indian Standing Conference.
• Huntington, Samuel P. 1996. The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. New York: Simon & Schuster.
• Huxley, Julian, Alexander Morris Carr-Saunders, and Alfred Haddon. 1935. We Europeans. London: Cape.
• Ignatieff, Michael. 1993. Blood and Belonging: Journeys into the New Nationalism. New York: Noonday.
• Marks, Jonathan. 1995. Human Biodiversity: Genes, Race, and History. New York: Aldine de Gruyter.
• Mason, David. 2000. Race and Ethnicity in Modern Britain. 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Miles, Robert. 1993. Racism after ‘Race Relations’. London: Routledge.
• Miles, Robert, and Malcolm Brown. 2003. Racism. 2nd ed. London: Routledge.
• Modood, Tariq, Richard Berthoud, and Jane Lakey. 1997. Ethnic Minorities in Britain: Diversity and Disadvantage. London: Policy Studies Institute.
• Myrdal, Gunnar. 1944. An American Dilemma. London: Harper.
• Nash, Gary B. 2010. Red, White, and Black: The Peoples of Early North America. 6th ed. Boston: Prentice Hall.
• Rattansi, Ali. 2007. Racism: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Rex, John, and David Mason, eds. 1986. Theories of Race and Ethnic Relations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Rosenblum, Karen Elaine, and Toni-Michelle Travis. 2016. The Meaning of Difference: American Constructions of Race, Sex and Gender, Social Class, Sexual Orientation, and Disability. 7th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill.
• Seacole, Mary. 1857. The Wonderful Adventures of Mary Seacole in Many Lands. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Seekings, Jeremy, and Nicoli Nattrass 2005. Class, Race, and Inequality in South Africa. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
• Skellington, Richard, and Paulette Morris. 1996. ‘Race’ in Britain Today. 2nd ed. London: SAGE/Open University Press.
• Snowden, Frank M., Jr. 1983. Before Color Prejudice: The Ancient View of Blacks. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
• Spencer, Steve. 2006. Race and Ethnicity: Identity, Culture and Society. London: Routledge.
• Wieviorka, M. 2010. “Racism in Europe: Unity and Diversity.” Pp. 345–54 in The Ethnicity Reader: Nationalism, Multiculturalism and Migration, edited by M. Guibernau, and J. Rex. Malden, MA: Polity Press.
• Winant, Howard. 2001. The World is a Ghetto: Race and Democracy since World War II. New York: Basic Books.
• Witte, Rob. 1996. Racial Violence and the State: A Comparative Analysis of Britain, France and the Netherlands. London: Longman.
• Wolpe, Harold. 1987. Race, Class and the Apartheid State. London: Currey.

Related Terms

• dominant group
• institution
• institutional discrimination
• minority group
• norm
• power
• scapegoat theory
• social construction of race
• subordinate group

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References

Rosenblum, Karen Elaine, and Toni-Michelle Travis. 2012. The Meaning of Difference: American Constructions of Race, Sex and Gender, Social Class, Sexual Orientation, and Disability. 6th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Smedley, Audrey. 1998. “‘Race’ and the Construction of Human Identity.” American Anthropologist 100(3):690–702. doi:10.1525/aa.1998.100.3.690.

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Cite the Definition of Race

ASA – American Sociological Association (5th edition)

Bell, Kenton, ed. 2013. “race.” In Open Education Sociology Dictionary. Retrieved September 17, 2024 (https://sociologydictionary.org/race/).

APA – American Psychological Association (6th edition)

race. (2013). In K. Bell (Ed.), Open education sociology dictionary. Retrieved from https://sociologydictionary.org/race/

Chicago/Turabian: Author-Date – Chicago Manual of Style (16th edition)

Bell, Kenton, ed. 2013. “race.” In Open Education Sociology Dictionary. Accessed September 17, 2024. https://sociologydictionary.org/race/.

MLA – Modern Language Association (7th edition)

“race.” Open Education Sociology Dictionary. Ed. Kenton Bell. 2013. Web. 17 Sep. 2024. <https://sociologydictionary.org/race/>.