What do ethnicity mean

Some of the differences between participants that we initially ascribed to ethnicity , such as self-rated health, were strongly influenced by sample selection. As a result, many rulers turned to parochial and exclusive identity groups, such as ethnicity , for support.

A single ethnicity cannot govern effectively in a multi-ethnic country. Relative risks adjusted for gender, age in , socio-economic status, self-reported ethnicity and marital status in Relative risks adjusted for gender, age in , socio-economic status, self-reported ethnicity and marital status in What does ethnicity have to do with adolescents' psychosocial functioning? See all examples of ethnicity. These examples are from corpora and from sources on the web.

Any opinions in the examples do not represent the opinion of the Cambridge Dictionary editors or of Cambridge University Press or its licensors.

Translations of ethnicity in Spanish. See more. Need a translator? Translator tool. What is the pronunciation of ethnicity? Browse ethnic cleansing. What about the language you speak, your religion, your cultural traditions or your family's ancestry? This bewildering question often pushes people to separate their identities into two parts: race versus ethnicity. But what do these two terms actually mean, and what's the difference between race and ethnicity in the first place? These words are often used interchangeably, but technically, they're defined as separate things.

Ethnicity recognizes differences between people mostly on the basis of language and shared culture. Related: Why did some people become white? In other words, race is often perceived as something that's inherent in our biology, and therefore inherited across generations.

Ethnicity, on the other hand, is typically understood as something we acquire, or self-ascribe, based on factors like where we live or the culture we share with others. But just as soon as we've outlined these definitions, we're going to dismantle the very foundations on which they're built. That's because the question of race versus ethnicity actually exposes major and persistent flaws in how we define these two traits, flaws that — especially when it comes to race — have given them an outsized social impact on human history.

The idea of "race" originated from anthropologists and philosophers in the 18th century, who used geographical location and phenotypic traits like skin color to place people into different racial groupings. That not only formed the notion that there are separate racial "types" but also fueled the idea that these differences had a biological basis. That flawed principle laid the groundwork for the belief that some races were superior to others — creating global power imbalances that benefited white Europeans over other groups, in the form of the slave trade and colonialism.

Because the driver of the triangular trade [which included slavery] was capitalism, and the accumulation of wealth," said Jayne O. The center is part of a movement across the United States whose members lead events and discussions with the public to challenge historic and present-day racism.

The effects of this history prevail today — even in current definitions of race , where there's still an underlying assumption that traits like skin color or hair texture have biological, genetic underpinnings that are completely unique to different racial groups.

Yet, the scientific basis for that premise simply isn't there. But, she explained, "the amount of genetic variation within any of these groups is greater than the average difference between any two [racial] groups. Related: What are genes? In other words, if you compare the genomes of people from different parts of the world, there are no genetic variants that occur in all members of one racial group but not in another.

This conclusion has been reached in many different studies. Europeans and Asians, for instance, share almost the same set of genetic variations. As Jablonski described earlier, the racial groupings we have invented are actually genetically more similar to each other than they are different — meaning there's no way to definitively separate people into races according to their biology.

Jablonski's own work on skin color demonstrates this. Subscribe to America's largest dictionary and get thousands more definitions and advanced search—ad free!

Log in Sign Up. What to Know Today, race refers to a group sharing outward physical characteristics and some commonalities of culture and history. More Words At Play. Merriam-Webster's Words of the Week - Oct.

Time Traveler. Love words? Need even more definitions? Ask the Editors 'Everyday' vs. See synonyms for ethnicity on Thesaurus. We could talk until we're blue in the face about this quiz on words for the color "blue," but we think you should take the quiz and find out if you're a whiz at these colorful terms. Words nearby ethnicity ethnarch , ethnarchy , ethnic , ethnical , ethnic cleansing , ethnicity , ethnic minority , ethno- , ethnoarchaeology , ethnoastronomy , ethnobiology. Words related to ethnicity nationality , race , background , identity , origin.

How to use ethnicity in a sentence Racial disparities also increased or decreased depending on how dark it was outside, which the report suggested could be because some people were stopped more often when officers could more easily perceive their race or ethnicity.