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The dictionary's definition of race

Each of the major groupings into which humankind is considered (in various theories or contexts) to be divided on the basis of physical characteristics or shared ancestry.

The notion of race is a social construct designed to divide people into groups ranked as superior and inferior. The scientific consensus is that race, in this sense, has no biological basis – we are all one race, the human race. Racial identity , however, is very real. And, in a racialized society like the United States, everyone is assigned a racial identity whether they are aware of it or not.

Race as Social Construction

​The dictionary’s definition of race is incomplete and misses the complexity of impact on lived experiences. It is important to acknowledge race is a social fabrication, created to classify people on the arbitrary basis of skin color and other physical features. Although race has no genetic or scientific basis, the concept of race is important and consequential. Societies use race to establish and justify systems of power, privilege, disenfranchisement, and oppression.

American Anthropological Association  states that "the 'racial' worldview was invented to assign some groups to perpetual low status, while others were permitted access to privilege, power, and wealth. The tragedy in the United States has been that the policies and practices stemming from this worldview succeeded all too well in constructing unequal populations among Europeans, Native Americans, and peoples of African descent." To understand more about race as a social construct in the United States, read the AAPA  statement on race and racism .

Learn more about race as it relates to human genetics In the Teaching Tolerance report, “Race Does Not Equal DNA” 

What is Racial identity?

• Racial identity is externally imposed: “ How do others perceive me? ”
• Racial identity is also internally constructed: “ How do I identify myself? ”

Understanding how our identities and experiences have been shaped by race is vital. We are all awarded certain privileges and or disadvantages because of our race whether or not we are conscious of it.

Race matters. Race matters … because of persistent racial inequality in society - inequality that cannot be ignored. Justice Sonya Sotomayor United States Supreme Court

Developmental models of racial identity

Many sociologists and psychologists have identified that there are similar patterns every individual goes through when recognizing their racial identity. While these patterns help us understand the link between race and identity, creating one’s racial identity is a fluid and nonlinear process that varies for every person and group.

Think of these categories of Racial Identity Development [PDF] as stations along a journey of the continual evolution of your racial identity. Your personal experiences, family, community, workplaces, the aging process, and political and social events – all play a role in understanding our own racial identity. During this process, people move between a desire to "fit in" to dominant norms, to a questioning of one's own identity and that of others. It includes feelings of confusion and often introspection, as well as moments of celebration of self and others. You may begin at any point on this chart and move in any direction – sometimes on the same day! Recognizing the station you are in helps you understand who you are.

What is ideology?

Ideology is a system of ideas, ideals, and manner of thinking that form the basis for decision making, often regarding economic or political theory and policy

No One is Colorblind to Race

The concept of race is intimately connected to our lives and has serious implications. It operates in real and definitive ways that confer benefits and privileges to some and withholds them from others.  Ignoring race means ignoring the establishment of racial hierarchies in society and the injustices these hierarchies have created and continue to reinforce.

• READ: “ Children Are Not Colorblind: How Young Children Learn Race ,” by Erin N. Winkler, Ph.D.

Understand More About the Dangers of Ignoring Race

Read this article, “ When you say you 'don't see race,' you’re ignoring racism, not helping to solve it. ”

Reflection:

• What are some experiences or identities that are central to who you are? How do you feel when they are ignored or “not seen”?

• The author in this article points out how people often use nonvisual cues to determine race. What does this reveal to us about the validity of pretending not to see race?

Either America will destroy ignorance, or ignorance will destroy the United States W.E.B. DuBois

RACISM = Racial Prejudice (Unfounded Beliefs + Irrational Fear) + Institutional Power 

Racism, like smog, swirls around us and permeates American society. It can be intentional, clear and direct or it can be expressed in more subtle ways that the perpetrator might not even be aware of.

Racism is a system of advantage based on race that involves systems and institutions, not just individual mindsets and actions. The critical variable in racism is the impact (outcomes) not the intent and operates at multiple levels including individual racism, interpersonal racism, institutional racism, and structural racism. 

• Interpersonal racism ​ occurs between individuals and includes public expressions of racism, often involving slurs, biases, hateful words or actions, or exclusion.

Source: Adapted from Terry Keleher, Applied Research Center, and Racial Equity Tools by OneTILT

Breaking the Silence Silence on issues of race hurts everyone. Reluctance to directly address the impact of race can result in a lack of connection between people, a loss of our society’s potential and progress, and an escalation of fear and violence. Silence around other issues of identity can also have the same negative impact on society. Silence on race keeps us all from understanding and learning. We can break the silence by being proactive - by learning, reflecting and having courageous conversations with ourselves and others.

VIDEO: Watch below as Franchesca Ramsey discusses racism on MTV’s Decoded (warning: adult language):

Take a moment to reflect

Let's Think

• How are you thinking about your own racialized identity after learning more about race?

• Ask a friend who has a different racial identity than yours to discuss how cultivating a positive sense of racial identity about yourself and others can interrupt racism at every level (personally, socially, and institutionally)?

For concerned citizens:

• Try this exercise to recognize the everyday opportunities you may have that can promote racial equity: Exercise on Choice Points .
• Activity: Try this group activity for talking about race effectively

For Families and Educators: Here are some ways to address race and racism in your classroom:

• Teaching young children about race: a guide for families and teachers
• Tipsfor talking to children about race

Why Us, Why Now?

Subtitle here for the credits modal.

Our Favorite Essays by Black Writers About Race and Identity

Books & Culture

A personal and critical lens to blackness in america from our archives.

It’s fitting that two of the first three essays in this roundup are centered on examining the Black American experience as one of horror. In a year when radical right-wing activists are truly leaning in, we’ve already seen record numbers of anti-LGBTQ legislation, the very real possibility of the end of Roe v. Wade, and more fervent redlining measures to keep Black people (and other marginalized communities) from voting. Gun violence is at an all time high, in particular mass shootings.

Since the success of Jordan Peele’s runaway hit film Get Out , there has been a steady rise in films depicting the Black American experience for the fraught, nuanced, dangerous life that it can be. This narrative isn’t entirely new, but this is the first time these films have gained critical acclaim and commercial attention. The reason is simple. Whatever the cause—social media, an increasingly diverse population—America can’t run from itself anymore. Our entertainment is finally asking the question that Black people have been asking for generations: In America, who is the real boogeyman?

Naturally, the discourse and critical analyses must follow suit. But it doesn’t stop there: the essays on this list span far and wide when it comes to subject matter, critical lens, and personal narrative. There are essays about Black friendship, the radical nature of Black people taking rest, and the affirmation of Black women writing for themselves, telling their own stories. Icons like Michelle Obama, Toni Morrison, and Gayle Jones get a deep dive, and we learn that we should always have been listening to Octavia Butler. This Juneteenth, I hope you’re taking a moment to reflect, on America’s troubled legacy, and to celebrate the ways that Black people continue to thrive.

Modern Horror Is the Perfect Genre for Capturing the Black Experience

Cree Myles writes about the contemporary Black creators rewriting the horror genre and growing the canon:

“Racism is a horror and should be explored as such. White folks have made it clear that they don’t think that’s true. Someone else needs to tell the story.”

Modern Narratives of Black Love and Friendship Are Centering Iconic Trios

Darise Jeanbaptiste writes about how Insecure and Nobody’s Magic illustrate the intricacy of evolving Black relationships:

“The power of the triptych is that it offers three experiences in addition to the fourth, which emerges when all three are viewed or read together.”

I Was Surrounded by “Final Girls” in School, Knowing I’d Never Be One

Whitney Washington writes that the erasure of Black women in slasher films has larger implications about race in America:

“Long before the realities of American life, it was slasher movies that taught me how invisible, ignored, and ultimately expendable Black women are. There was no list of rules long enough to keep me safe from the insidiousness of white supremacy… More than anything, slasher movies showed me that my role was to always be a supporting character, risking my life to be the voice of reason ensuring that the white girl makes it to the finish line.”

“Palmares” Is An Example of What Grows When Black Women Choose Silence

Deesha Philyaw, author of The Secret Lives of Church Ladies , writes that Gayl Jones’ decades-long absence from public life illuminates the power of restorative quiet:

“These women’s silences should not be interpreted as a lack of understanding or awareness, but rather as an abundance of both, most especially the knowledge of what to keep close to the vest, and the implications for failing to do so. They know better than to explain themselves, their powers and their origins, their beliefs and reasons, their magic. These women are silent not because they don’t know anything. They are silent because they know better.”

Toni Morrison’s “The Bluest Eye” Showed Me How Race and Gender Are Intertwined

For the 50th anniversary of Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye , Koritha Mitchell writes how the novel taught her that being a Black woman is more than just Blackness or womanhood:

“I didn’t have the gift of Kimberlé Crenshaw’s concept of ‘intersectionality,’ but The Bluest Eye revealed how, in my presence, racism and sexism would always collide to produce negative experiences that others could dodge. It was not simply being Black or being dark-skinned that mattered; it was being those things while also being female.”

The Delicate Balancing Act of Black Women’s Memoir

Koritha Mitchell writes about how Michelle Obama’s Becoming illustrates larger tensions for Black women writing about themselves:

“In other words, when Black women remain enigmas while seeming to share so much, they create proxies at a distance from their psychic and spiritual realities because they are so rarely safe in public. Despite the release of her memoir, audiences will never be privy to who Michelle Obama actually knows herself to be, and that is more than appropriate.”

50 Years Later, the Demands of “The Black Manifesto” Are Still Unmet

Carla Bell writes about James Forman’s famous 1969 address, The Black Manifesto , and its contemporary resonances:

“But the Manifesto is as vital a roadmap in our marches and protests today as the day it was first delivered. We, black people in America, remain compelled by the power and purpose of The Black Manifesto, and we continue to demand our full rights as a people of this decadent society.”

You Should Have Been Listening to Octavia Butler This Whole Time

Alicia A. Wallace writes that Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower isn’t just a prescient dystopia—it’s a monument to the wisdom of Black women and girls:

Through her protagonist Lauren Olamina, Butler has been telling the world for decades that it was not going to last in its capitalist, racist, sexist, homophobic form for much longer. She showed us the way injustice would cause the earth to burn, and the importance of community building for survival and revolution. Through Parable of the Sowe r, we had a better future in our hands, but we did not listen.

The Book You Need to Fully Understand How Racism Operates in America

Darryl Robertson writes about Ibram X. Kendi’s Stamped from the Beginning and its examination of the history of overt and covert bigotry:

“While How to Be an Antiracist is an informative and necessary read, it is his National Book Award-winning, Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America that deserves extra attention. If we want to uproot the current racist system, it’s mandatory that we understand how racism was constructed. Stamped does just that.”

I Reject the Imaginary White Man Judging My Work

Tracey Michae’l Lewis-Giggetts turns to Black writers as inspiration for resisting white expectations:

“…it doesn’t only matter that I’m a Black woman telling my story. What matters is the lens through which I’m telling it. And sometimes, many times, that lens, if we’re not careful, can be tainted by the ever-present consciousness of Whiteness as the default.”

Toni Morrison Gave My Own Story Back to Me

The incomparable literary powerhouse showed Brandon Taylor how to stop letting white people dictate the shape of his narrative:

“That’s the magic of Toni Morrison. Once you read her, the world is never the same. It’s deeper, brighter, darker, more beautiful and terrible than you could ever imagine. Her work opens the world and ushers you out into it. She resurfaced the very texture and nature of my imagination and what I could conceive of as possible for writing and for art, for life.”

Art Must Engage With Black Vitality, Not Just Black Pain

Jennifer Baker writes that books like The Fire This Time give depth and nuance to a reflection of Blackness in America:

“These essays provided a deeper connection because Black pain was part of the story; Black identity, self-recognition, our own awareness brokered every page. Black pain was not the sole criterion for the anthology’s existence.”

When Black Characters Wear White Masks

Jennifer Baker writes that whiteface in literature isn’t a disavowal of Blackness, but a commentary on privilege:

“Whiteface stories interrogate the mentality that it’s better to be white while examining how societal gains as well as societal “norms” inflict this way of thinking on Black people. Being white isn’t better, but, for some of these characters, it seems a hell of a lot easier, or at least preferable to dealing with racism.”

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• College essay
• How to Write a Diversity Essay | Tips & Examples

How to Write a Diversity Essay | Tips & Examples

Published on November 1, 2021 by Kirsten Courault . Revised on May 31, 2023.

Table of contents

What is a diversity essay, identify how you will enrich the campus community, share stories about your lived experience, explain how your background or identity has affected your life, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about college application essays.

Diversity essays ask students to highlight an important aspect of their identity, background, culture, experience, viewpoints, beliefs, skills, passions, goals, etc.

Diversity essays can come in many forms. Some scholarships are offered specifically for students who come from an underrepresented background or identity in higher education. At highly competitive schools, supplemental diversity essays require students to address how they will enhance the student body with a unique perspective, identity, or background.

In the Common Application and applications for several other colleges, some main essay prompts ask about how your background, identity, or experience has affected you.

Why schools want a diversity essay

Many universities believe a student body representing different perspectives, beliefs, identities, and backgrounds will enhance the campus learning and community experience.

Admissions officers are interested in hearing about how your unique background, identity, beliefs, culture, or characteristics will enrich the campus community.

Through the diversity essay, admissions officers want students to articulate the following:

• What makes them different from other applicants
• Stories related to their background, identity, or experience
• How their unique lived experience has affected their outlook, activities, and goals

Prevent plagiarism. Run a free check.

Think about what aspects of your identity or background make you unique, and choose one that has significantly impacted your life.

For some students, it may be easy to identify what sets them apart from their peers. But if you’re having trouble identifying what makes you different from other applicants, consider your life from an outsider’s perspective. Don’t presume your lived experiences are normal or boring just because you’re used to them.

Some examples of identities or experiences that you might write about include the following:

• Race/ethnicity
• Gender identity
• Sexual orientation
• Nationality
• Socioeconomic status
• Immigration background
• Religion/belief system
• Place of residence
• Family circumstances
• Extracurricular activities related to diversity

Include vulnerable, authentic stories about your lived experiences. Maintain focus on your experience rather than going into too much detail comparing yourself to others or describing their experiences.

Keep the focus on you

Tell a story about how your background, identity, or experience has impacted you. While you can briefly mention another person’s experience to provide context, be sure to keep the essay focused on you. Admissions officers are mostly interested in learning about your lived experience, not anyone else’s.

When I was a baby, my grandmother took me in, even though that meant postponing her retirement and continuing to work full-time at the local hairdresser. Even working every shift she could, she never missed a single school play or soccer game.

She and I had a really special bond, even creating our own special language to leave each other secret notes and messages. She always pushed me to succeed in school, and celebrated every academic achievement like it was worthy of a Nobel Prize. Every month, any leftover tip money she received at work went to a special 509 savings plan for my college education.

When I was in the 10th grade, my grandmother was diagnosed with ALS. We didn’t have health insurance, and what began with quitting soccer eventually led to dropping out of school as her condition worsened. In between her doctor’s appointments, keeping the house tidy, and keeping her comfortable, I took advantage of those few free moments to study for the GED.

In school pictures at Raleigh Elementary School, you could immediately spot me as “that Asian girl.” At lunch, I used to bring leftover fun see noodles, but after my classmates remarked how they smelled disgusting, I begged my mom to make a “regular” lunch of sliced bread, mayonnaise, and deli meat.

Although born and raised in North Carolina, I felt a cultural obligation to learn my “mother tongue” and reconnect with my “homeland.” After two years of all-day Saturday Chinese school, I finally visited Beijing for the first time, expecting I would finally belong. While my face initially assured locals of my Chinese identity, the moment I spoke, my cover was blown. My Chinese was littered with tonal errors, and I was instantly labeled as an “ABC,” American-born Chinese.

I felt culturally homeless.

Speak from your own experience

Highlight your actions, difficulties, and feelings rather than comparing yourself to others. While it may be tempting to write about how you have been more or less fortunate than those around you, keep the focus on you and your unique experiences, as shown below.

I began to despair when the FAFSA website once again filled with red error messages.

I had been at the local library for hours and hadn’t even been able to finish the form, much less the other to-do items for my application.

I am the first person in my family to even consider going to college. My parents work two jobs each, but even then, it’s sometimes very hard to make ends meet. Rather than playing soccer or competing in speech and debate, I help my family by taking care of my younger siblings after school and on the weekends.

“We only speak one language here. Speak proper English!” roared a store owner when I had attempted to buy bread and accidentally used the wrong preposition.

In middle school, I had relentlessly studied English grammar textbooks and received the highest marks.

Leaving Seoul was hard, but living in West Orange, New Jersey was much harder一especially navigating everyday communication with Americans.

After sharing relevant personal stories, make sure to provide insight into how your lived experience has influenced your perspective, activities, and goals. You should also explain how your background led you to apply to this university and why you’re a good fit.

Include your outlook, actions, and goals

Conclude your essay with an insight about how your background or identity has affected your outlook, actions, and goals. You should include specific actions and activities that you have done as a result of your insight.

One night, before the midnight premiere of Avengers: Endgame , I stopped by my best friend Maria’s house. Her mother prepared tamales, churros, and Mexican hot chocolate, packing them all neatly in an Igloo lunch box. As we sat in the line snaking around the AMC theater, I thought back to when Maria and I took salsa classes together and when we belted out Selena’s “Bidi Bidi Bom Bom” at karaoke. In that moment, as I munched on a chicken tamale, I realized how much I admired the beauty, complexity, and joy in Maria’s culture but had suppressed and devalued my own.

The following semester, I joined Model UN. Since then, I have learned how to proudly represent other countries and have gained cultural perspectives other than my own. I now understand that all cultures, including my own, are equal. I still struggle with small triggers, like when I go through airport security and feel a suspicious glance toward me, or when I feel self-conscious for bringing kabsa to school lunch. But in the future, I hope to study and work in international relations to continue learning about other cultures and impart a positive impression of Saudi culture to the world.

The smell of the early morning dew and the welcoming whinnies of my family’s horses are some of my most treasured childhood memories. To this day, our farm remains so rural that we do not have broadband access, and we’re too far away from the closest town for the postal service to reach us.

Going to school regularly was always a struggle: between the unceasing demands of the farm and our lack of connectivity, it was hard to keep up with my studies. Despite being a voracious reader, avid amateur chemist, and active participant in the classroom, emergencies and unforeseen events at the farm meant that I had a lot of unexcused absences.

Although it had challenges, my upbringing taught me resilience, the value of hard work, and the importance of family. Staying up all night to watch a foal being born, successfully saving the animals from a minor fire, and finding ways to soothe a nervous mare afraid of thunder have led to an unbreakable family bond.

Our farm is my family’s birthright and our livelihood, and I am eager to learn how to ensure the farm’s financial and technological success for future generations. In college, I am looking forward to joining a chapter of Future Farmers of America and studying agricultural business to carry my family’s legacy forward.

Tailor your answer to the university

After explaining how your identity or background will enrich the university’s existing student body, you can mention the university organizations, groups, or courses in which you’re interested.

Maybe a larger public school setting will allow you to broaden your community, or a small liberal arts college has a specialized program that will give you space to discover your voice and identity. Perhaps this particular university has an active affinity group you’d like to join.

Demonstrating how a university’s specific programs or clubs are relevant to you can show that you’ve done your research and would be a great addition to the university.

At the University of Michigan Engineering, I want to study engineering not only to emulate my mother’s achievements and strength, but also to forge my own path as an engineer with disabilities. I appreciate the University of Michigan’s long-standing dedication to supporting students with disabilities in ways ranging from accessible housing to assistive technology. At the University of Michigan Engineering, I want to receive a top-notch education and use it to inspire others to strive for their best, regardless of their circumstances.

If you want to know more about academic writing , effective communication , or parts of speech , make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples.

Academic writing

• Writing process
• Transition words
• Passive voice
• Paraphrasing

 Communication

• How to end an email
• Ms, mrs, miss
• How to start an email
• I hope this email finds you well
• Hope you are doing well

 Parts of speech

• Personal pronouns
• Conjunctions

In addition to your main college essay , some schools and scholarships may ask for a supplementary essay focused on an aspect of your identity or background. This is sometimes called a diversity essay .

Many universities believe a student body composed of different perspectives, beliefs, identities, and backgrounds will enhance the campus learning and community experience.

Admissions officers are interested in hearing about how your unique background, identity, beliefs, culture, or characteristics will enrich the campus community, which is why they assign a diversity essay .

To write an effective diversity essay , include vulnerable, authentic stories about your unique identity, background, or perspective. Provide insight into how your lived experience has influenced your outlook, activities, and goals. If relevant, you should also mention how your background has led you to apply for this university and why you’re a good fit.

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• Malik, Sanam. 'Asian Immigrants In The United States Today. Center For American Progress, 2015,https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/immigration/news/2015/05/21/113690/asian-immigrants-in-the-unites-states-today/. Accessed 18 Apr 2019.

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Article contents

Race, ethnicity, and nation.

• Polly Rizova Polly Rizova Center for Governance and Public Policy Research, Willamette University
•  and  John Stone John Stone Department of Sociology, Boston University
• https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190846626.013.470
• Published in print: 01 March 2010
• Published online: 11 January 2018
• This version: 26 April 2021
• Previous version

The term “race” refers to groups of people who have differences and similarities in biological traits deemed by society to be socially significant, meaning that people treat other people differently because of them. Meanwhile, ethnicity refers to shared cultural practices, perspectives, and distinctions that set apart one group of people from another. Ethnic differences are not inherited; they are learned. When racial or ethnic groups merge in a political movement as a form of establishing a distinct political unit, then such groups can be termed nations that may be seen as representing beliefs in nationalism. Race and ethnicity are linked with nationality particularly in cases involving transnational migration or colonial expansion. Anthropologists and historians, following the modernist understanding of ethnicity, see nations and nationalism as developing with the rise of the modern state system. This culminated in the rise of “nation-states,” in which the presumptive boundaries of the nation coincided with state borders. Thus, the notion of ethnicity, like race and nation, developed in the context of European colonial expansion, when mercantilism and capitalism were promoting global movements of populations at the same time that state boundaries were being more clearly and rigidly defined. Theories about the relation between race, ethnicity, and nationality are also linked to more general ideas concerning globalization and populist nationalism.

• nationalism
• transnational migration
• colonial expansion
• globalization
• populist nationalism

Updated in this version

Updated references, enhanced discussions of globalization and populist nationalism.

Introduction: Three Variations on a Theme

The three terms—race, ethnicity, and nation—represent forms of group identification that may be the result of internal choice, external categorization, or some combination of the two perspectives. “Race” is the most controversial term since it is based on a false biological premise that there are distinct groups of genetically similar human populations and that these “races” share unique social and cultural characteristics. This assumption was common among many thinkers during the 19th and much of the 20th centuries and still has a considerable following in folk theories and everyday discourse, but it has been completely discredited by scientific knowledge in biology and genetics. The popularity of such racist thinking is linked to its utility in justifying all types of group oppression and exploitation, exemplified by slavery, imperialism, genocide, apartheid, and other systems of stratification and segregation. Ethnicity, or the sense of belonging to a community based on a common history, language, religion, and other cultural characteristics, is a central concept that has been used to understand an important basis of identity in most societies around the world and throughout human history. When ethnic or “racial” groups combine in a political movement in order to create or maintain a distinct political unit, or state, then such groups can be termed nations and such movements may be seen as embodying ideologies or beliefs in nationalism.

In reality, there is a considerable overlap between racism, ethnicity, and nationalism. Extreme forms of nationalism often have a racial ideology associated with them, as was the case with German nationalism during the Nazi period ( 1933–1945 ) or Afrikaner nationalism in the era of apartheid ( 1948–1990 ). While some scholars use the term “ethnonationalism” (Connor, 1993 ) to merge the forces of ethnicity and nationalism, others draw a distinction between ethnic and civic forms of nationalism. The former comprises a sense of belonging based on common ancestry, while the latter focuses on membership in a shared political unit that can include citizens from diverse ethnic origins. However, the types of identity associated with these two variants of nationalism are rarely clear-cut and empirical cases usually consist of a mixture of features drawn from both phenomena (Brubaker, 2004 , pp. 132–146). Academic studies of racism, ethnicity, and nationalism reveal the same imprecise boundaries between them, which suggests they should be treated as variations on similar social and political themes.

Historians have argued at length concerning the legitimate application of the terms to different forms of social relationships and intergroup attitudes. While slavery has existed in many societies throughout human history, a question remains as to whether it is reasonable to regard the position of Greek slaves in the Roman Empire as on a par with that of African slaves in North America, the Caribbean, or Latin America. If the specific form of “racism” in the United States was a product of a particularly vicious system of chattel slavery, to what extent then can we make generalizations about this term m to cover other historical cases of group domination? Many of the same problems arise in the case of nationalism, but here the arguments have centered on the issue of the origins of the phenomenon. When can we say that a sense of national identity first arose: in the Ancient World, during the 16th century in England (Greenfeld, 1992 ), or as an outcome of the American and French revolutions? Was nationalism a deeply rooted and continuous force in human history, or a relatively recent “invention” that acts as a convenient cover for other, more fundamental changes (Gellner, 1983 ; Hobsbawm & Ranger, 1983 ; Smith, 1986 , 2008 )? Volumes have been written attempting to date the origins of nationalism and the types of forces that can be seen as central to its emergence as a major factor in the modern world. Like so many academic debates, much depends on one’s definition of nationalism—whether, for example, it is viewed as a mass or an elite phenomenon—and what combination of causal variables one chooses to include in its formation.

It is partly the association with difficult-to-change biological properties that has made racism so controversial and yet so attractive for dominant groups. In the middle of the 19th century , Gobineau’s ( 1853–1855 ) Essay on the Inequality of Human Races set out an analysis of human society and history using a racist model, and its popularity and widespread adoption by other thinkers served to reinforce the political realities of group domination for almost a century. It was cited approvingly by several influential American sociologists and historians in order to justify Southern slavery in the United States and acted as a precursor to the influential theory of an “Aryan” master race destined to rule or exterminate “inferior” racial groups, which underpinned the cultural and political thinking of such figures as Richard Wagner, Houston Stewart Chamberlain, and Adolf Hitler. Similar conclusions developed along parallel tracks in Anglo-American intellectual circles that employed a distortion of Darwin’s ideas of natural selection introduced by an influential group of thinkers, the Social Darwinists. Perhaps the best refutation of Gobineau’s assumptions was found in the critique by his friend and colleague Alexis de Tocqueville, the author of Democracy in America ( 1835–1840 ) and The Ancien Regime and the Revolution ( 1856 ). Tocqueville pointed to the historical tendency of all-powerful groups to assume the permanent nature of their superiority over those whom they had conquered and continued to dominate. A simple understanding of the rise and fall of empires and nations showed how improbable the assumption was that any particular system of group domination would last indefinitely. This implicit power model of race relations, while by no means the only system of thought designed to account for racial hierarchies in nonracial terms found among scholars, nevertheless recurred in the writings of social scientists and historians during the latter half of the 19th and the first decades of the 20th centuries . Despite their often less than progressive ideas on many issues affecting the society of their day, prominent thinkers such as Herbert Spencer and Vilfredo Pareto understood the political basis of imperialism and colonialism and were very much opposed to both of them. Thus, the former referred to European imperialist policies as “social cannibalism,” and the latter attacked the hypocrisy of the so-called civilizing mission of the colonial powers as nothing more than an excuse for exploiting their superior force (Stone & Rizova, 2014 ).

One of the clearest developments of this type of explanation of race, ethnicity, and nation can be seen in the writings of the influential German sociologist Max Weber (see Stone & Dennis, 2003 ). In keeping with his general framework that stressed the analogies between economic and social life, Weber conceived of these three types of group formation as another manifestation of the general tendency toward monopolization frequently found in economic life as well as in society as a whole. Such a formulation helped to explain the variety and often quite arbitrary nature of group boundaries—in one situation it would be religion, in another it would be language, or in a third it could be “race”—which happened to be used as the markers defining membership or exclusion from the group. Sometimes all three factors might be superimposed on each other to create the boundaries separating the dominant from the subordinate groups; on other occasions these characteristics appeared to cut across group membership in one or another combination. Nevertheless, the defining feature of this historical process was to establish increasingly strict criteria for membership and exclusion that, once set in motion, became a self-reinforcing process. Just as economic competition in the long run often results in monopolies under market capitalism, so too do groups seek to monopolize the life chances and other benefits of social hierarchy within multiethnic and multiracial states, or between states in the international arena.

In the middle of the 20th century , the defeat of the Axis powers of Germany and Japan, and the unraveling of colonialism, combined with powerful protest movements such as the civil rights struggle in the United States and the antiapartheid campaign in South Africa, were some of the forces diminishing the crude divisions between racially defined groups on a global scale. That said, the importance of ethnicity and the persistence of nationalism have proved to be surprisingly resilient. Premature declarations that modernity and globalization would inevitably undermine peoples’ allegiance to ethnic attachments, or spell the end of national sentiment, have turned out to be unfounded. This is not to claim that in certain spheres the influence of ethnicity and nationalism has become relatively less powerful, or indeed that racism has been abolished, but rather to point to the protean character of these basic types of identity and their ability to adapt, mutate, and reemerge as historical conditions unfold. Thus, the end of the Cold War reduced the ability of ideological rivalries to mask and submerge all manner of ethnic and national divisions in a wider global struggle. As a result, toward the final decades of the 20th century , a Pandora’s box of previously muted national sentiments burst open in the Balkans (Rizova, 2007 ) to provide a counterexample to the surprisingly peaceful transition from apartheid to nonracial democracy in South Africa.

Race: Biology as Destiny

In spite of the intellectual demolition of the genetic basis of racial theorizing since the second half of the 20th century , the legacy of racism lives on. This is hardly surprising given the coalescence of European colonialism, the slave trade, and the imbalances of global power over the past 500 years. All of this began to unravel during the 20th century in a way that first questioned and then started to undermine the customary hierarchies of half a millennium. The intellectual evolution of human biology initially provided what appeared to be a simple explanation for the apparent correlation between power and race. In the 19th century , biology rivaled theology as the perfect way to legitimize group domination. Subordinate groups no longer had to be damned by the Almighty to perpetual inferiority when they could be damned by their genes. In some ways the utility of biological excommunication was rather less than that justified by faith since the former was always subject to empirical refutation. As knowledge in the biological sciences progressed, greater evidence supported the view that all human population groups shared an overwhelmingly common genetic heritage and what was even more compelling was the fact that variations within so-called races were far more significant than any variations between these categories. As biological explanations seemed harder to sustain, a new consensus started to emerge in academic circles that races were social constructions and therefore that differences were the product of cultural traditions and historical circumstance that could, and no doubt would, change with time. The biological explanations of racial differences were thus false and so other factors needed to be used to explain the social reality behind group differences.

What Alexis de Tocqueville understood as a result of his historical perspective, and Max Weber appreciated by his comparative research, was increasingly supported by the scientific advances in the field of human biology. Not that this was a smooth transition from a paradigm of racial theorizing to an understanding of human difference in terms of resources and power. The elegance of justifying inequality as a consequence of scientific inevitability continually reoccurred in one form after another. Often the proponents were not “racist” in a direct sense of the term, and some had strongly antiracist credentials, but the result of this form of theorizing was almost indistinguishable from earlier biological arguments. Thus sociobiology, based on the twin concepts of kin selection and inclusive fitness, might be seen as entirely divorced from vulgar racial thinking. However, by elevating the “selfish gene” to the master explanation of all human activity and creation, this argument had the potential to offer an approach uncomfortably close in its implications to the theory that Gobineau had proposed a hundred years earlier. It is no surprise that the experience of biological theorizing and its consequences throughout the 20th century have subjected such ideas to a far more skeptical appraisal and caused their proponents to be rather more cautious in linking genetic characteristics to cultural and social outcomes.

Nevertheless, racism has been a persistent and powerful influence on social life for much of the 20th century . The frequently quoted prediction of W. E. B. Du Bois ( 1903 ) in The Souls of Black Folk , that the color line would be a defining division in human society for the following hundred years and that it would be not merely an American conflict but global in its reach, has been more than fulfilled by the passage of time. Against the backdrop of the history of the 20th century , which witnessed the decline of European domination over much of Africa, Asia, and Latin America, the struggle for civil rights in the United States and South Africa, and a succession of genocidal massacres that stretched from the gas chambers of Auschwitz to the killing fields of Rwanda and Darfur, it is often hard to imagine why racist ideas have not been totally discredited. Although some people, perhaps those coming from societies less conscious of the civil rights and liberation struggles of the 20th century , may still believe in the fallacy of racial difference, among the educated populations of the world these beliefs appear to be of diminishing significance. That said, it would be completely wrong to regard racism, and antagonism based on racial divisions, to be no longer a significant element in the conflicts that continue to tear apart much of the fabric of contemporary global society. This paradox, of greater understanding of the nature of “racial” conflict on the one hand, and yet the continuing persistence of race on the other hand, requires a careful dissection of the meaning of “race” in contemporary society. The complexity of the topic and the manner in which such thinking has subtly shifted has led some social scientists to write about “racism without racists” (Bonilla-Silva, 2006 ) and still others to devote much scrutiny to a related, counterintuitive phenomenon, “ethnicity without groups” (Brubaker, 2004 ) and the “slippery nature” of contemporary racisms (Solomos, 2020 ).

It is already generally accepted that race is a social construct, an idea—in this case a scientifically erroneous one—that is in the minds of people. The enormous variability of racial systems from one society to another, and in different historical periods, demonstrates that racial background has little intrinsic importance, and that racial identity is rather a powerful legacy of cultural tradition and social inertia. Nevertheless, the changes that still need to take place in order for all white Americans to accept their black fellow citizens not only as governors, leading officials, and even as their President, but also as residential neighbors, remain to be realized. Despite the two-term Obama presidency ( 2008–2016 ) and the premature use of the term “post-racialism” to describe it, such unexpected progress has been quickly put to rest by the arrival of the explicitly racist language and actions of the Trump administration (Stone & Rizova, 2020 ). The Black Lives Matter movement (Dennis & Dennis, 2020 ), along with the rise of white nationalism, part of a global trend toward populist nationalism, provide widespread evidence of the continuing significance of race throughout the world.

The long-term difficulty in overcoming this legacy can be explained in part by what Charles Tilly and Thomas Shapiro have termed “opportunity hoarding,” the passing on of assets between generations that favors whites over blacks at a ratio of 10 to one (Shapiro, 2004 ; Tilly, 1998 ). Another historical perspective that helps to explain the entrenchment of racial privilege is the manner in which the discussion about “affirmative action” has been framed. Increasingly, scholars are linking dominant “affirmative action” to the New Deal and to those policies designed to assist white veterans, notably the GI Bill, after World War II (Katznelson, 2006 ). A parallel discussion is to view the implementation of apartheid in South Africa, between 1948 and 1990 , as another type of affirmative action for the benefit of the dominant (white) political group. Its demonstrated effectiveness in raising the lower class of Afrikaners—the bywoners —out of poverty helps to explain some of the subsequent levels of racial inequality in postapartheid South Africa.

Returning to the American case, one only needs to drive through the heart of major, or for that matter minor, American cities, examine the student populations of so many of the worst American public schools, or simply consider the statistics describing the inmates of the American penal system (Alexander, 2010 ), and the reality of the continuing significance of race is hard to deny. Furthermore, the health disparities exposed by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 revealed the heavily disproportionate numbers of black and brown casualties among the infection and death rates in America. These figures, together with the often lethal police violence exposed, yet again, by the George Floyd killing in Minneapolis, show how black and white lives are by no means subject to the same opportunities and risks in contemporary America.

To focus on the American case is to survey only part of the problem. However, because of its high ideals—crafted by the slave-owning proponents of democracy for a “civilized” elite that did not include either women or minorities—the United States has been at the center of a storm of ethical debates about who should be granted full membership of, and who should be excluded from, the rights and privileges of freedom. The problematic nature of this debate can be seen in the preference of so many black slaves to join and fight with the British colonial forces in the 1770s against the advocates of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Given the bias toward white property-owning males, this decision was based on a rational calculation that London was more likely to end the “peculiar institution” than the slave-owning “democrats” meeting in Philadelphia (Schama, 2006 ). This is not to glamorize the motives of the British who, no sooner had they lost the fight in North America, went on to pillage Africa, Asia, and other exploitable parts of the globe as they scrambled to “civilize” the rest of humanity.

But racism is certainly not confined to the Anglo-American world. The evolution of rather different patterns of racial hierarchy and group conflicts can be seen in Latin America, Africa, and Europe. As Edward Telles ( 2004 ) has argued in Race in Another America , Brazil has been plagued by powerful traditions of racial distinction, but the dynamics of race relations follow a different logic from that underlying the pattern found in the United States. Despite the ideology of “racial democracy,” formulated in its classical manner by Gilberto Freyre’s ( 1933 ) The Masters and the Slaves , few social scientists or historians would seriously deny that Brazilian society is permeated by considerations of color (Bailey, 2020 ; Fritz, 2011 ). The fundamental difference is, in some cruel paradox, that individuals, under the rules of the Brazilian system, can, so to speak, “change their race,” while blacks in America, conforming to the pressures of the one drop rule, cannot.

Individualism in the United States may be characterized the philosophy of social mobility, but it does not breach the color line. The very fluidity of the Brazilian system has made it in the past a more subtle and complex problem to solve, although the election of President Jair Bolsonaro in 2018 —the “Trump of the Tropics”—revealed a new, and hardly nuanced, slant on racial democracy. The Brazilian case can be seen as a cautionary tale concerning the strengths and weaknesses of a comparative perspective. On the one hand, viewing the patterns in one society in isolation from a wider lens invites a form of myopia that greatly diminishes the value of the exercise; on the other hand, embarking on elaborate comparative analyses without a close understanding of the complexities of each situation invites another type of bias. Nevertheless, trying to place rather different systems within a wider framework has become increasingly necessary as the forces of globalization continue to foster closer links between virtually all societies as they are bound together by the ties of an interlinked global system. The exercise becomes even more challenging when one recognizes that there are “many globalizations” (Berger & Huntington, 2003 ) and that no society is ever static as far as its intergroup relationships, or indeed most other aspects of its structure and culture, are concerned. In many of the classic attempts to formulate such broadly comparative models of racial conflict—Pierre van den Berghe ( 1967 ) and Anthony Marx ( 1998 ), for example—the United States, Brazil, and South Africa are often the key reference points. But the shifting nature of race relations in all three of these societies reveals how difficult it is to predict the future direction of multiracial societies.

From being the bastion of racial oppression under the apartheid regime, South Africa has been regenerated as a society where nonracial democracy is the dominant political consensus.

The full implications of this profound and, in many respects, surprising transformation of a rigid racial hierarchy raised enormous hopes for the future direction of the country. However, understanding the nature of social change and how far it has affected the lives of most citizens of the new South Africa is an important illustration of the dynamic nature of most racial systems over time. It is also an excellent way to develop insights into the generation of racial conflict by analyzing those situations where, despite the presence of so many of the characteristics that are often associated with violence, it simply did not take place on anything like the scale that most experts, politicians, and ordinary people predicted. Nevertheless, a quarter of a century later, we have a more realistic assessment of the degree to which “Mandela’s miracle” has transformed South African society or rather has replaced one elite, which was racially defined, with another system of privilege, but one less loosely linked to racial divisions. A succession of disastrous political leaders following Mandela, from Thabo Mbeki, with his tragic refusal to address the AIDS crisis, to the rampant corruption of Jacob Zuma, has squandered much of the promise of a democratic South Africa (Moodley & Adam, 2020 ).

Ethnicity: Group Divisions Rooted in Culture

The power of race as a boundary marker has been continuously demonstrated for the past two centuries in many societies throughout the globe. Its persistence, despite the intellectual bankruptcy of its genetic rationalization, cannot be attributed solely to ignorance, and this explains why education alone is often an insufficient antidote to racial thinking and hierarchies built on racial divisions. Economic, social, and political changes are all part of the process by which racial stratification is challenged, modified, and in some cases overturned. Claims about the relative significance of race or class, and whether strategies emphasizing political mobilization or economic self-sufficiency and advancement hold the key to transforming racial disadvantage and oppression, have been at the core of racial debates throughout the 20th century . Another complication is the overlap between racial markers and ethnic boundaries that often exacerbates such conflicts. Ethnic divisions can be just as deep-seated and ethnic conflicts just as violent as those linked to a racial divide. Language, religion, history, and culture merge and intersect in varying degrees in many of these conflicts. Which factors prove to be salient in any one situation largely depends on the particular historical circumstances that frame the subsequent patterns of ethnic relations.

Among the critical events that influence ethnogenesis and ethnic conflict are patterns of global migration and the related forces of conquest, genocide, settlement, and types of assimilation, integration, and pluralism. Migration has been an endemic force in most societies and in recent centuries has even been incorporated into the founding myths of states that view themselves as based on migration, rather than being derived from some claim of indigenous ownership of a specific land. Such migrant societies include not simply the United States—a self-proclaimed “Society of Immigrants”—but also Australia, New Zealand, Argentina, and Canada. In reality, most societies over time have experienced considerable influxes of new peoples and large outflows of population groups motivated by a variety of factors including the search for economic opportunities, flight from political persecution or military destruction, and the quest for freedom of religious practice and expression, to mention just a few. Some societies encounter inflows and outflows simultaneously, while others include migrants and settlers of varying lengths of time—seasonal migrants, “guest workers” ( gastarbeiter ), transnational communities, nomadic peoples, diasporas, “global cosmopolitans,” undocumented workers, and refugees—and most change the composition and scale of migrant flows and influence over time. Thus, Italy and Ireland were major sources of global migration, particularly the transatlantic movements to North and South America, for much of the 19th and most of the 20th centuries . However, by the turn of the 21st century , it was the impact of migrants trying to enter these two parts of the prosperous European Union (EU), as opposed to the previous tradition of sympathizing with poor migrants escaping famine and rural poverty, that became the salient issue in both societies (O’Dowd, 2005 ). A similar dramatic reversal in perception could be seen in the opposition and violence directed at refugees and economic migrants from Zimbabwe, Mozambique, and other sub-Saharan African states living in urban townships around Johannesburg in 2008 .

Different societies have different mechanisms for accommodating ethnic diversity. Some seek to assimilate newcomers as rapidly as possible, while others have more fluid systems of differential incorporation—segmented assimilation, to use one of the common terms employed in the North American literature—with a variety of possible forms. Not all migrant groups wish to become completely integrated into the mainstream of the dominant society; many do but are not accepted without a long period of acculturation and a fierce struggle for structural inclusion. The constant interaction between racism and ethnicity can also be seen in the manner in which some ethnic groups are more readily accepted than others and, in certain cases, migrant groups of one ethnic background may receive advantages denied to oppressed indigenous minorities. In the United States, many of the white ethnic groups, in order to achieve greater acceptance by the core society, quite specifically distanced themselves from blacks and Native Americans, who had been living as stigmatized sectors in the society for centuries prior to their arrival. How the Irish “became white” (Ignatiev, 1995 ; Roediger, 2007 ) was a pattern repeated by many other immigrants, such as the Italians, Poles, and Eastern European Jews, who arrived toward the end of the 19th and in the first two decades of the 20th centuries . Other ethnic groups were also assimilated in patterns that reflected the particular set of characteristics that they possessed, in terms of human and social capital, as well as the economic, social, and political conditions prevailing during the period of their arrival. Thus, Cubans fleeing the Castro revolution in 1959 , and for the duration of the Cold War, benefited greatly from the ideological struggles of the period. Haitians, arriving in Florida at much the same time and escaping the murderous regimes of the Duvaliers, received far less support. Although color may have been part of the equation, the political advantage of being fervent anticommunists was probably an even more important factor.

While North America and Western Europe shared many similar patterns of migration and assimilation during the first two decades of the 21st century —unlikely parallels between Mexican and Muslims having been raised by social scientists on both continents (Huntington, 2004 ; Zolberg & Woon, 1999 )—even societies with a strong ideology of ethnic homogeneity were forced to confront their actual diversity. Germany’s powerful ethnic nationalist tradition (Alba & Foner, 2015 ; Alba et al., 2003 ) has had to be modified by the increasing integration of the European Union, so that second- and third-generation Germans of Turkish ethnic background could no longer be regarded as permanent aliens. Much the same is true of Japan, and not only Ainu and Burakumin, but also Koreans, Chinese, and Okinawans are increasingly self-conscious minorities that have started to challenge the monoethnic ideology of post-World War II Japan (Lie & Weng, 2020 ; Tarumoto, 2020 ). In China, with its enormous population of 1.3 billion, relatively small numbers of ethnic and religious minorities nevertheless constitute a group of approximately 100 million people, and the situation of the Uighurs, Tibetans, and Hui have started to receive greater scholarly and political attention (Hou & Stone, 2008 ). This is hardly surprising given the monumental transformation of Chinese society as the workshop of the modern world, and the types of pressures that such an economic transition creates for all peoples involved in this historic process. Not only are there massive internal migratory movements linked to rapid industrialization and urbanization (Luo, 2020 ), but the adaptation of minorities to these forces almost inevitably results in language change and perceived threats to traditional ways of life. As for the Tibetan case, China’s vast population has allowed a pattern of outside migration of Han Chinese that for the nationalist critics is seen as tantamount to “ethnic swamping,” a variant on ethnic cleansing with a veneer of democratic legitimacy. Contemporary China is facing yet another policy dilemma between playing an increasing global role on the one hand, and using the forces of rising nationalism on the other hand (Hou, 2020 ).

In Africa, ethnic divisions have been a continuing legacy of imperialism that has followed on into the postcolonial era and resulted in much conflict and bloodshed. Even decades after independence, many African states are still permeated by political systems closely linked to ethnic (tribal) loyalties, making a winner-takes-all electoral system unsuited to resolving the problems of state-building and economic development. Nigeria’s war to prevent the Biafran secession ( 1967–1970 ), the genocidal massacres in Rwanda ( 1994 ), and the killings in the Darfur region of Sudan ( 2003 –) are some prominent examples of independent Africa’s struggles with the impact of ethnic conflict. The South African situation was another case where a society that was deeply divided by racial and ethnic boundaries managed to resolve these conflicts in a remarkably peaceful form of negotiation. The society simply redefined the racial and ethnic boundaries to include all groups on the basis of full citizenship for everyone. Whether the South African model, with its distinctive use of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission and many other unique features, can be a successful long-term experiment in nonracialism remains to be seen. However, some of the lessons learned from the South African case have been applied to other conflict-torn areas of the world, such as Northern Ireland and the Basque region of Spain.

The last two cases illustrate the diverse boundary markers that can be found in regions plagued by ethnic conflicts. In Northern Ireland, “religion” was the ostensible ground for group solidarity and division, the centuries-old difference between the Protestant ruling group and the Catholic minority being the manner in which the conflict was framed. However, the underlying struggle appeared to most analysts to have little or nothing to do with doctrinal matters and much more to be based on those who regarded themselves as part of Britain (the “Protestants”) and those who identified with Ireland and being Irish (the “Catholics”). In the Basque case, language and cultural divisions, closely tied in with feelings of historical separation, represented the ethnic glue behind a strong sense of Basque identity and the movement for separation from Spain (Conversi, 1997 ). For both situations, however, many social scientists interpret the struggle as one between groups divided on the basis of nationalism. Once an ethnic group moves toward mobilization with the goal of creating a separate state, or joining a different state from the one that it is currently a part, then ethnicity is transformed into nationalism.

The nature of these movements has been explored by scholars who emphasize a variety of different factors to account for the changing salience of ethnic and national struggles over time (Fearson & Laitin, 2003 , 2005 ). Most of these factors are related to the relative power of ethnonationalist movements compared with the state structures they are fighting against. The components of the power equation can include many influences, including the legitimacy of the groups’ claims for national independence; whether such movements are united or consist of a coalition of conflicting parties; the extent to which ethnic groups and nationalist movements are spread across multiple state boundaries and are geographically concentrated or dispersed; the strength and resilience of the states that oppose them; and the geopolitical context in which the conflict is taking place. The situation of the Kurds illustrates several of these elements, such as the opposition to statehood from Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey, and the opportunities for greater autonomy presented by the collapse of centralized political control that emerged as a consequence of the 2003 Iraq war (O’Leary et al., 2005 ). While the Kurds played a significant military role in the defeat of ISIS during the Syrian civil war ( 2011 –) after the Russian support for President Bashar al-Assad proved decisive, the Kurdish forces were rapidly abandoned by their former allies, reflecting the number of states opposed to any idea of an independent Kurdish state.

The Continuing Significance of the Nation

Thus, ethnicity and nationalism form different stages along a continuum. Some ethnic groups, particularly those living in explicitly multinational states, are content to remain as part of a wider political unit. In certain cases, such as Switzerland, the state is fundamentally based on these separate group components, coexisting in various types of federal structures. The Swiss canton system is a long-established version of federalism that has been able to contain at least three major linguistic groups—German, French, and Italian speakers—in a united state structure.

However, the Swiss example is in many respects exceptional. The clear recognition that these types of arrangements may combine a high degree of autonomy for each national group while retaining the cohesiveness of the overarching political unit is but one way to manage ethnic diversity. Much depends on the perceptions of equal treatment and a just division of power and resources, which explains why these federal solutions are often difficult to maintain. Conflicts between Canada and Quebec, between Flemings and Walloons in Belgium, between Muslims and Christians in Lebanon, and between Shiites, Sunnis, and Kurds in post-Saddam Iraq all point to the complexities of trying to contain the aspirations of diverse ethnonational groups within a single political structure. Lebanon was once regarded as the “Switzerland of the Middle East” before it descended into religious divisions amid corruption and outside interference.

Europe in the postcommunist period provides some interesting examples of failed federalism and federalist expansion taking place simultaneously. The collapse of Yugoslavia, which under Josip Broz Tito had been one of the most genuinely devolved, ethnically diverse states in Soviet-dominated Eastern Europe, demonstrates how rapidly such arrangements can disintegrate in the aftermath of political change (Sekulic, 2020 ). With the initial breakaway of Slovenia, followed by the wars between Serbia, Croatia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina, what had once been a unified power-sharing arrangement rapidly degenerated into a power struggle articulated in nationalist terms. The split with Montenegro, and the declaration of independence by Kosovo in 2008 , finally left Serbia on its own, thus completing the total disintegration of what had been a unified state since 1918 . While Yugoslavia was falling apart, much of the rest of Eastern Europe, having emerged from the political control of the Soviet system, was involved in a scramble to join the European Union. Just as one part of the continent was fragmenting into an increasing number of units defined by their dominant ethnic population, other parts, comprising firmly established states, were voluntarily surrendering some of their sovereignty in order to enjoy the benefits of an enlarged economic and political community. Thus, a continuing dialectic of national fission and fusion demonstrates that there is nothing inevitable about the strength and direction of nationalist sentiment, which can wax and wane depending on a range of economic, social, and political factors. The component parts of the former Yugoslavia would also join the scramble for EU membership in the early decades of the 21st century .

While European consolidation during and after the 1990s was a remarkable transition from centuries of rivalry and warfare, even this has to be seen as an ever-changing development. After having narrowly defeated the Scottish independence referendum in September 2014 , the United Kingdom was locked in a struggle to leave the EU in June 2016 , after almost half a century of membership. While this was in part a political miscalculation by Prime Minister David Cameron designed to silence critics within his party, the surprising outcome and the protracted negotiations to work out an exit from the EU—Brexit—came to a head with the electoral victory of Boris Johnson in 2019 . This outcome resonated with other global trends, including the unexpected electoral victory of Donald Trump in the 2016 American presidential election together with a string of parallel political movements from Turkey to Brazil, from India to Indonesia, and including Russia and China. This revival of populist nationalism can be seen in part as a massive reaction to the uneven outcome of accelerated globalization (Brubaker, 2017 ; Stone & Rizova, 2020 ).

Furthermore, the expansion and internal dynamics of Europe were also influencing the types of internal “national” conflicts taking place between member states. Thus, the gradual solution of the centuries-old Northern Ireland struggle can in part be attributed to the lower salience of national boundaries resulting from the increasing influence of Brussels and Strasbourg. While many Unionists (Protestants) and Nationalists (Catholics) had a visceral dislike of dealing with Dublin and London respectively, the prospect of a fundamental shift in the European political center of gravity meant that both groups could increasingly bargain with a third party. This was the politically neutral European Parliament and Commission (bureaucracy), which rendered their traditional foes much less important and prevented compromise from looking like capitulation. No one would suggest that this was the only factor involved in the lessening of tensions and facilitating the historic power-sharing arrangement. The phenomenal growth of the Irish economy—the emergence of the Celtic Tiger—and the changed attitude of the American public toward “terrorism” (and hence financial support for the Irish Republican Army) in the wake of the 9/11 attacks on New York and the Pentagon were also critical developments pushing the parties in Northern Ireland toward completing the negotiations. However, given the earlier emphasis on the ever-changing nature of these group relationships, the arrival of Brexit raised a totally new obstacle to sustained peace in Northern Ireland. Whether peaceful cooperation can withstand the complex border issues resulting from the United Kingdom’s exit from the EU remains to be seen.

The academic scholarship on nationalism has involved a series of debates about the fundamental nature of the phenomenon that is being analyzed. Proponents of primordialism, ethnosymbolism, and modernism, the three most influential perspectives in the literature, have argued extensively about the content and origin of nationalism. Some maintain that this form of identity is rooted in a long and continuous association of specific peoples, whether it is tied to a perceived cultural history often stretching back over centuries, if not millennia, or whether it is, in fact, a relatively recent form of identity. Others date nationalism to the Industrial Revolution and/or the political revolutions in America and France in the late 18th century and claim it was largely “invented” by modernizing elites in an attempt to unify political structures. There are a large number of permutations and combinations of these basic perspectives. Most primordialists avoid the genetic mechanisms associated with sociobiological arguments—Pierre van den Berghe being a notable exception—for the same reason that the overwhelming majority of scholars analyzing “race” are careful to emphasize that they are describing a fictitious construction based on a poor understanding of biological processes. Thus, sociologists such as Edward Shils and Steven Grosby stress cultural and social mechanisms that bond human groups together on the basis of family, culture, and territory. While not biologically programmed, these cultural affiliations are deeply felt and are often experienced with great intensity, which helps to explain the power and resilience of nationalist sentiments. A related emphasis on the strong psychological basis of much nationalism can be found in Walker Connor’s analysis of what he calls ethnonationalism (Connor, 1993 ). Connor draws a firm distinction between two closely related, but he would insist distinct, sources of identification: nationalism, which refers to loyalty to an ethnic group or nation; and patriotism, which is defined as political identification with the state.

The fact that the nation-state, a perfect overlap between one specific ethnic group and a given political unit, only exists in a few cases, and even then is only an approximation to reality, explains the nature of so many types of nationalist conflict. States often seek to incorporate minority ethnic groups into the structures and culture of the dominant group, and this can often result in reactive resistance by the minority group(s): subordinate nationalism to counter dominant nationalism. A related distinction that is frequently made is between ethnic and civic nationalism, a difference between those states that explicitly attempt to fuse the nation and the state and those that try to maintain an ethnically neutral political organization. In practice, this too is an analytical dichotomy that was initially developed to contrast the types of nationalism found in Eastern Europe and those typically prevailing in the Western states of the continent. Once again, no matter how much the civic ideal-type is professed, it is rarely pure in form, and many of the cultural characteristics of the dominant group are subtly, or often less than subtly, incorporated into the basic assumptions of the state.

Other theorists of nationalism tend to emphasize the modern nature of the phenomenon, insisting that none of the forms of identity that characterized society for long periods of human history share the vital ingredients of the modern understanding of the term. There are several variations on this perspective, some coming out of the Marxist tradition that dismisses nationalism, like religion, as yet another form of false consciousness, and others that view the emergence of nationalism as an integral element of modernity. The former perspective regards nationalism as an ideological smokescreen hiding the “true” interests of the working classes so that the owners of the means of capitalist production can better exploit them. It is a variant on the divide and rule strategy that promotes ideological confusion and pits worker against worker on the basis of a totally irrelevant set of distinctions. Modernity theorists, meanwhile, do not link the rise of nationalism with the growth of capitalism alone but see it as stemming from a combination of political, social, and economic forces generated by the Enlightenment. One result of the economic and political revolutions of the 18th and early 19th centuries , and the scientific and technological advances associated with these historical transformations, is the need for mass education to build a culturally homogeneous platform to sustain these developments (Gellner, 1983 ). Central to these changes, and resulting as an unintended consequence of the functional requirements of a modern lifestyle, are conditions that encourage and sustain nationalism.

The ethnosymbolists, exemplified by the writings of Anthony Smith ( 1986 , 2008 ) and John Hutchinson ( 2005 , 2017 ), take a middle position between modernist social construction and the sense of historical continuity. While Smith and his colleagues are fully aware of the cultural foundations of nations, they are also equally cognizant of the role of myths, symbols, and the frequently distorted collective memory that underpins all the major forms of nationalist movements. This middle path between the extremes of construction and continuity provides a valuable balance that helps us to understand a wider range of nationalist movements, from those with a pedigree stretching back millennia to the nationalisms of the postimperial era during the 19th and 20th centuries . With the emergence of a variety of interpretations of how and when nationalism developed in modern society, much of the current debate concerns an assessment of the impact of such forces as globalization, religious fundamentalism, and international nonstate terrorism as factors that may shape the continuing importance, growing salience, or declining significance of nationalism in the future.

Globalization and Populist Nationalism

Is it possible that racism, ethnicity, and nationalism will become much less salient in the coming decades? If so, what would be the explanation for such trends? Social scientists do not have a particularly good record in predicting far into the future. While W. E. B. DuBois was remarkably prescient in seeing the power of the color line throughout the 20th century , other predictions have proved to be far less accurate. For example, a claim that the advance of science and technology, as a crucial component of the “rationality” of modernization, would make religion obsolete in the latter half of the 20th century has not turned out to be correct. The particular forms of identity that are likely to be salient or, in contradistinction, may quite probably diminish in significance in the decades to come remains an enduring question.

Of the three elements, racism seemed, until the arrival of Trump, to be the least likely candidate for a rapid revival as a basis of group categorization. There are several forces that could strengthen a general antiracist trend in modern global society. Olzak ( 2006 ) has stressed the need to integrate the changing nature of international organizations and processes into the analysis, particularly the complex ramifications of globalization with its impact on migration, transnational communities, suprastate institutions, and transnational corporations. Increased diversity in all the major societies as a result of the global transformation of the world economy, and the interconnections of capital and labor, can be expected to increase during the successive decades of the century. This will apply not only to the postindustrial societies of the First World, but also to the intermediate developing economies and to the Third World. The sheer diversity of migration patterns, internal flows within regional free trade areas, transnational communities whose dynamics will be enhanced by accelerated innovations in communication technologies and transportation, growing groups of highly skilled global migrants, and the unpredictable flows of refugees from political persecution, famines, and genocidal massacres, will all combine to increase the multiracial complexion of states and federations throughout the world. No one would expect these trends to be entirely in one direction, or to be without the potential for strong backlashes or reactive political movements against the type of social changes that such developments represent.

Ethnicity and nationalism, meanwhile, will probably be rather more persistent markers of group boundaries. There are several reasons for this conclusion. While the United Nations, as a global organization for political governance, has a role to play in trying to respond to crises and catastrophes that cut across state boundaries or involve multiple state conflicts, its structure is fundamentally state-bound. The Security Council’s veto power means that a coordinated response is extremely difficult when a particular state, or power bloc, deems such action to be a threat to their “national interests” or to set a precedent that can be viewed as “interference in the internal affairs of a member state.” Thus, on issues such as genocide, torture, brutal ethnic repression, and the blatant disregard for human rights, UN conventions are invariably ignored when geopolitical interests are involved.

If one overarching political structure is unlikely to reduce ethnic and nationalist sentiments, what about the impact of intermediate-scale organizations that bunch together clusters of states in regional groupings? What will be the net effect of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, the African Union, the EU, NAFTA, and related supranational, but not global, institutions and treaties? Will they, on balance, help to diminish the types of ethnic and national mobilization as increased cooperation and mutual dependency in economic, social, and political ties start to extend the traditional boundaries of group interaction? Or will they lead to strong opposition, with political parties appealing to xenophobic solidarity, to setting up “Fortress Europe,” or building fences to try to curtail the increasing flows of illegal economic migrants that are a direct outcome of the trade and economic policies forcing capital and labor to seek out a new equilibrium? If we add the factors of international terrorism, environmental pressure resulting from global climate change, the worldwide implications of drug policies, and the competitive rivalries of major religious faiths, a volatile mix of influences will undoubtedly be unleashed.

Some sociologists such as Richard Alba ( 2008 ) point to demographic factors that could exert pressure on societies such as the United States to move toward greater economic and social justice for ethnic minorities. Given the differential fertility rates of dominant whites and those of minorities, particularly minorities of color, Alba suggests these trends will have a tendency toward minority inclusion in the upper levels of the U.S. stratification system. While in the past immigration from Europe was one mechanism that provided an alternative reservoir of talent to fill a range of positions in the economic hierarchy, since the 1960s the shortfall in the supply of scientific, technical, and managerial talent has often been filled by foreigners, either those directly recruited by U.S. corporations or American-trained aliens who choose to remain in the country and work after completing their higher education. Alba argues that this pool of talented individuals will be subject to increasing competition from many other growing economies and that, combined with the domestic demographic shortfall, the result will be the incorporation of more American minorities into professional, managerial, and technical positions. What is true of the United States is likely to be repeated in Europe with its even lower demographic rates of reproduction and similar patterns of migration both within the enlarged economic community and from the peripheral regions surrounding it.

None of these macro sociopolitical trends necessarily diminish the tensions that arise from increasing globalization that can be channeled along ethnic and nationalist grooves. In fact, the very success of the integrative economic forces may exacerbate ethnonational mobilization as a way to maintain meaningful identity in a world subject to mounting anomic strains associated with rapid and discontinuous social change. What Mann ( 2005 ) has characterized as “the dark side of democracy” is simply a further elaboration of the argument about the dual-edged sword of modernity, which has its intellectual roots in Weber’s pessimistic analysis of “rationality.” From the “banality of evil,” to cite Hannah Arendt’s classic formulation, genocide and ethnic cleansing are not so much a reversion to primitive violence as a logical outcome of many of the forces inherent in modern society. While it is true that there may also be a “banality of good” that can, on occasions, help to counter such threats (Casiro, 2006 ), it is unlikely that this will be the dominant outcome. “Rational” bureaucratic techniques tend to be harnessed to the goals of modern states, multistate alliances, and nonstate global actors such as multinational corporations. These modern methods can combine the destructiveness of scientific means with the tenacity of group identity to attain highly particularistic ends. Regrettably, there is nothing intrinsically benign in the forces underpinning the societal changes that have taken place during the first two decades of the 21st century . The precise balance between racism, ethnicity, and nationalism remains unclear but their possible eradication from future social, economic, and political conflicts seems highly unlikely.

Further Reading

• Acosta, D. (2018). The national versus the foreigner in South America: Two hundred years of migration and citizenship law . Cambridge University Press.
• Boucher, A. , & Gest, J. (2018). Crossroads: Comparative immigration regimes in a world of demographic change . Cambridge University Press.
• Cramer, K. (2016). The politics of resentment . University of Chicago Press.
• Elias, S. , & Feagin, J. (2016). Racial theories in social science: A systemic racism critique . Routledge.
• Esch, El. (2018). The color line and the assembly line: Managing race in the Ford empire . University of California Press.
• Favell, A. (2015). Immigration, integration and mobility: New agendas in migration . ECPR Press.
• Hanchard, M. (2018). The spectre of race: How discrimination haunts Western democracy . Princeton University Press.
• Noble, S. (2018). Algorithms of oppression: How search engines reinforce RACISM . New York University Press.
• Stone, J. , Rutledge, D. , Rizova, P. , & Hou, X. (Eds.). (2020). The Wiley-Blackwell companion to race, ethnicity and nationalism . Wiley-Blackwell.
• Suarez-Orozco, M. (2019). Humanitarianism and mass migration : Confronting the world crisis . University of California Press.
• Tesler, M. (2016). Post-racial or most racial? Race and politics in the Obama era . University of Chicago Press.
• Alba, R. (2008). Blurring the color line: Possibilities for ethno-racial change in early 21st century America . Harvard: The Nathan I. Huggins Lectures.
• Alba, R. , et al. (Eds.). (2003). Germans or foreigners ? Attitudes toward ethnic minorities in post-reunification Germany . Palgrave Macmillan.
• Alba, R. , & Foner, N. (2015). Strangers No More: Immigration and the Challenges of Integration in North America and Western Europe . Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
• Alexander, M. (2010). The new Jim Crow: Mass incarceration in the age of colorblindness . The New Press.
• Bailey, S. (2020). Latin America. In J. Stone , D. Rutledge , P. Rizova , & X. Hou (Eds.), The Wiley-Blackwell companion to race, ethnicity and nationalism (pp. 183–201). Wiley-Blackwell.
• Berger, P. , & Huntington, S. (Eds.). (2003). Many globalizations: Cultural diversity in the contemporary world . Oxford University Press.
• Bonilla-Silva, E. (2006). Racism without racists : Color-blind racism and the persistence of racial inequality in the United States . Rowman & Littlefield.
• Brubaker, R. (2004). Ethnicity without groups . Harvard University Press.
• Brubaker, R. (2017). Why populism? Theory and Society , 46 , 357–385.
• Casiro, J. (2006). Argentine rescuers: A study in the “banality of good.” Journal of Genocide Research , 8 (4), 437–454.
• Connor, W. (1993). Ethnonationalism : The quest for understanding . Princeton University Press.
• Conversi, D. (1997). The Basques, the Catalans, and Spain: Alternative routes to nationalist mobilization . University of Nevada Press.
• Dennis, R. , & Dennis, K. (2020). Confrontational politics: The Black Lives Matter movement. In J. Stone , D. Rutledge , P. Rizova , & X. Hou (Eds.), The Wiley-Blackwell companion to race, ethnicity and nationalism (pp. 11–27). Wiley-Blackwell.
• Du Bois , William E. B. (1903) The Souls of Black Folk . A.C. McClurg & Co.
• Fearson, J. , & Laitin, D. (2003). Ethnicity, insurgency and war. American Political Science Review , 97 , 75–90.
• Fearson, J. , & Laitin, D. (2005). Primary commodity exports and civil war. Journal of Conflict Resolution , 49 , 483–507.
• Fritz, C. (2011). Brazilian immigration and the quest for identity . LFB Scholarly Publishing.
• Freyre, G. [1933] (1986). The Masters and the Slaves: A Study in the Development of the Brazilian Civilization . University of California Press.
• Gellner, E. (1983). Nations and nationalism . Cornell University Press.
• Gobineau, Arthur de [1853–1855] (1915). [ An Essay on] The Inequality of Human Races . G.P. Putnam’s Sons.
• Gordon, M. (1964). Assimilation in American life . Oxford University Press.
• Greenfeld, L. (1992). Nationalism: Five roads to modernity . Harvard University Press.
• Hobsbawm, E. , & Ranger, T. (Eds.). (1983). The invention of tradition . Cambridge University Press.
• Hou, X. (2020). The paradox of nationalism and globalism: China’s participation in global capitalism. In J. Stone , D. Rutledge , P. Rizova , & X. Hou (Eds.), The Wiley-Blackwell companion to race, ethnicity and nationalism (pp. 119–128). Wiley-Blackwell.
• Hou, X. , & Stone, J. (2008). The ethnic dilemma in China’s industrial revolution. Ethnic and Racial Studies , 31 (4), 812–817.
• Huntington, S. (2004). Who are we? The challenges to America’s national identity . Simon & Schuster.
• Hutchinson, J. (2005). Nations as zones of conflict . SAGE.
• Hutchinson, J. (2017). War and nationalism . Oxford University Press.
• Ignatiev, N. (1995). How the Irish became white . Routledge.
• Katznelson, I. (2006). When affirmative action was white: An untold history of racial inequality in the twentieth century . Norton.
• Lie, J. , & Weng, J. (2020). East Asia. In J. Stone , D. Rutledge , P. Rizova , & X. Hou (Eds.), The Wiley-Blackwell companion to race, ethnicity and nationalism (pp. 129–146). Wiley-Blackwell.
• Luo, X. (2020). New patterns of internal migration: Movement with Chinese characteristics. In J. Stone , D. Rutledge , P. Rizova , & X. Hou (Eds.), The Wiley-Blackwell companion to race, ethnicity and nationalism (pp. 307–320). Wiley-Blackwell.
• Mann, M. (2005). The dark side of democracy : Explaining ethnic cleansing . Cambridge University Press.
• Marx, A. (1998). Making race and nation: A comparison of the United States, South Africa, and Brazil . Cambridge University Press.
• Moodley, K. , & Adam, H. (2020). Transforming settler colonialism in South Africa. In J. Stone , D. Rutledge , P. Rizova , & X. Hou (Eds.), The Wiley-Blackwell companion to race, ethnicity and nationalism (pp. 211–226). Wiley-Blackwell.
• O’Dowd, A. (2005). Establishing boundaries : A comparative analysis of immigrants as outsiders in Ireland and Italy . [Ph. D. Dissertation, University College, Dublin.]
• O’Leary, B. , McGarry, J. , & Salih, J. (Eds.). (2005) The Future of Kurdistan in Iraq . Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
• Olzak, S. (2006). The global dynamics of race and ethnic mobilization . Stanford University Press.
• Rizova, P. (2007). Balkanization. In G. Ritzer (Ed.), Blackwell encyclopedia of sociology (Vol. 1) (pp. 239–240). Blackwell.
• Roediger, D. (2007). The wages of whiteness: Race and the making of the American working class . Verso.
• Schama, S. (2006). Rough crossings : Britain, the slaves and the American Revolution . HarperCollins.
• Sekulic, D. (2020). The creation and dissolution of multi-national states. In J. Stone , D. Rutledge , P. Rizova , & X. Hou (Eds.), The Wiley-Blackwell companion to race, ethnicity and nationalism (pp. 457–468). Wiley-Blackwell.
• Shapiro, T. (2004). The hidden cost of being African American . Oxford University Press.
• Smith, A. (1986). The ethnic origins of nations . Blackwell.
• Smith, A. (2008). The cultural foundations of nations: Hierarchy, covenant, and republic . Blackwell.
• Solomos, J. (2020). The changing nature of global racial and ethnic relations. In J. Stone , D. Rutledge , P. Rizova , & X. Hou (Eds.), The Wiley-Blackwell companion to race, ethnicity and nationalism (pp. 61–76). Wiley-Blackwell.
• Dennis, R. (Eds.). (2003). Race and ethnicity : Comparative and theoretical approaches . Blackwell.
• Stone, J. , & Rizova, P. (2020). From Obama to Trump: The dialectics of race and nationalism in contemporary America. In J. Stone , D. Rutledge , P. Rizova , & X. Hou (Eds.), The Wiley-Blackwell companion to race, ethnicity and nationalism (pp. 29–42). Wiley-Blackwell.
• Stone, J. , … Rizova, P. (2014). Racial Conflict in Global Society . Cambridge: Polity Press.
• Tarumoto, H. (2020). Immigrant acceptance in an ethnic country. In J. Stone , D. Rutledge , P. Rizova , & X. Hou (Eds.), The Wiley-Blackwell companion to race, ethnicity and nationalism (pp. 379–401). Wiley-Blackwell.
• Telles, E. (2004). Race in another America : The significance of skin color in Brazil . Princeton University Press.
• Tilly, C. (1998). Durable inequality . University of California Press.
• Tocqueville, Alexis de [1835–1840] (1956) Democracy in America (ed. Richard Heffner ) New York, NY: Mentor Booksn & Co.
• Tocqueville, Alexis de [1856] (1966) The Ancien Regime and the Revolution . Fontana
• van den Berghe, P. (1965). South Africa : A study in conflict . Wesleyan University Press.
• van den Berghe, P. (1967). Race and racism: A comparative perspective . John Wiley.
• Zolberg, A. , & Woon, L. (1999). Why Islam is like Spanish: Cultural incorporation in Europe and the United States. Politics and Society , 27 (1), 5–38.

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Project READY: Reimagining Equity & Access for Diverse Youth

A free online professional development curriculum

Module 9: Racial and Ethnic Identity Development

After working through this module, you will be able to:

• Describe the various racial and ethnic identity development models and frameworks.
• Explain the connection between positive racial and ethnic identity development and resiliency, academic achievement, and engagement of youth of color and Native youth.
• Act in your library or classroom to integrate racial and racial identity development frameworks and models to increase the engagement and learning of youth of color and Indigenous youth.

Introduction

In her groundbreaking work, Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?: and Other Conversations about Race, Dr. Beverly Tatum argues that youth of color and Indigenous youth develop their racial and ethnic identity through socialization. In other words, their lived experiences shape how they come to understand what it means to be Black, African American, Latinx, Asian American, Native, or biracial in the United States, and to interrogate how their racial identity impacts their current and future lives. Their lived experiences are informed by their experiences at home, in their communities, and in school, but also by the messages and images sent by the media, books, curriculum, social institutions, and political leaders.

Tatum contends that many BIYOC, unless they grow up in homes and communities (including schools), that are race-conscious – “that is, actively seeking to encourage positive racial identity by providing their children with positive cultural images and messages about what it means to be a [BIPOC]” – often absorb the beliefs and values of the dominant Eurocentric culture (134). This includes that whites are the preferred group. This leads some young children of color to value the beliefs, lifestyles, and images of beauty held by the white dominant group more highly than those of their own racial and ethnic group.

Who is…

Dr. Beverly Tatum

To learn more about Dr. Tatum and her work:

• Watch this video , Is My Skin Brown Because I Drank Chocolate Milk?
• Read one of Dr. Tatum’s texts (we recommend starting with Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?: and Other Conversations about Race) .

During adolescence, youth of color and Indigenous youth begin to develop a new understanding of their race and ethnicity as they are confronted by the personal and collective impact of racism on people of color and Native people.  They begin to reject the beliefs, lifestyles, and images of beauty held by the dominant white culture, turning to members of their own ethnic and racial group to find the answer to questions like: “What does it mean to be a [Black, Latinx, Asian, Native, or biracial] person? How do I act? What should I do?” (143). During this period some adolescents of color or Indigenous teens will adopt an oppositional stance, rejecting school activities associated with academic success that they perceive as “acting white.”  This is most often true for those who attend schools “where only whites (usually wealthy whites), or disproportionately few [youth of color] have the opportunities to participate in higher-level programs and courses” (Tyson, 2006, 41). Some BIYOC will adopt a resistance stance, making a conscious decision to challenge the dominant school culture as a way of safeguarding themselves from potentially painful or damaging interactions (Kinloch, 2017). This might include behaviors such as eye-rolling, silence, sharp verbal responses, absence, and disinterest. There are other BIYOC who will embrace academic success. They know that education is their right and they see it as a way for them to create change in their communities.

It is also important for educators and librarians to consider an additional concept related to racial and ethnic identity formation – essentialism.  Essentialism is “the belief that all people perceived to be in a single group [in this case racial, ethnic, or tribal group] think, act, and believe the same things in the same way” (Ladson-Billings, 2013, p. 40).  BIPOC do not relinquish their individual perspectives, lifestyles, likes/dislikes, etc. just because they belong to the same racial or ethnic group. Librarians and educators need to guard against essentializing the perspectives and experiences of BIYOC and to instead view them as individuals whose identity formation is impacted by a plethora of factors, not just their race or ethnicity. We will develop this concept further in the Intersectionality module.

As this short introduction to racial and ethnic identity shows, understanding how educators and librarians can support the positive racial identity of BIYOC is critical to helping them achieve their full potential.

• Read this interview with Dr. Beverly Tatum in which she discusses how racial and ethnic identity impacts youth in the classroom.
• Read these essays in which four youth of color discuss their lasting memories of a first encounter with racism.

Watch this video, created by WNYC , of a diverse group of 12-year-olds from New York City schools talking about their racial and ethnic identity.

Next, watch the documentary When Your Hands Are Tied , which explores the unique ways in which Native youth are finding to express themselves in the contemporary world while maintaining strong traditional lives. If you don’t have time to watch the entire film, watch as much as you can.

In your journal , write a short autobiography exploring your own racial, ethnic, or tribal identity. Consider these questions:

• When and how did you become aware of your racial, ethnic, or tribal identity?
• Describe a moment when your racial, ethnic, or tribal identity was important to, or took on particular meaning for, you.
• Describe a moment when your racial, ethnic, or tribal identity was important to, or took on particular meaning for, others.
• How do you benefit from your racial, ethnic, or tribal identity?
• How do you suffer or “miss out” because of your racial, ethnic, or tribal identity?
• How did your racial, ethnic, or tribal identity impact your experiences at school? In the library?
• How does your racial, ethnic, or tribal identity continue to impact your life today?

Read the transcript of the EmbraceRace webinar ,  Understanding Racial-Ethnic Identity Development, in which Dr. Sandra “Chap” Chapman provides an overview of racial-ethnic identity models — how and why they were developed, and how to use them to understand our own racial-ethnic identity journeys and to support the happy, healthy and just development of the children or teens in our lives.

Read this summary [PDF] of racial and ethnic identity models and frameworks.

Read this research study [PDF] which discusses the connection between positive racial identity, resiliency, and student achievement for youth of color. As you read the study, think about the students you see every day in your classroom or library. How do their experiences mirror those described in the study?

Read this article which provides specific advice about what teachers can do to help their students of color not just survive, but thrive in the classroom, with a fully developed, strong sense of pride in who they are, where they came from, and what they’re capable of.

Click on this link to watch a short animated video of Clint Smith’s poem “Ode to the Only Black Kid in the Class.” At the end of the poem, the creators interview Smith. Reflect on how the poem and Smith’s words connect to the research you’ve learned about in this module.

Images of Practice

Multnomah County Library (MCL), headquartered in Portland, Oregon, is committed to the goals of equity, inclusion, and sustaining a workforce that reflects the community it serves. As one strategy for recruiting diverse library staff to engage with the many communities served by the MCL, the library administration created a designation called Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities (KSA) that allows them to focus on hiring staff that have specific knowledge, skills, and a passion for providing linguistically and culturally specific services. This strategy has allowed them to recruit for a Bilingual Chinese Regional Librarian, a Youth Librarian with African American cultural competency, Library Assistants with African American cultural competency, and Bilingual Library Assistants with Spanish, Vietnamese, Chinese and Russian cultural competencies, among others.

Kirby McCurtis, who has an African American KSA designation, was recruited and hired to provide outreach to the Black and African American community served by MCL. As one form of outreach, Kirby started Black Storytime, a way for families to experience and celebrate Black and African American culture at the library. Listen as Kirby describes the program in this short video.

 “Black Story Time is our Saturday morning ritual. We plan our day around it. We’ve been going since Davide was two. Now, every time I see my 4 and a 1/2 year old point to the little boy in one of his books he got to take home from Black Story Time and say, “Mommy, is that me? He looks like me!” I smile as big as he does. I think to myself, finally, maybe he won’t have to constantly convince himself that being Black and at a mostly White school, White neighborhood, and White city is ‘OK.’ Instead, he will know as innately as he knows how to run or play, that he is valuable, he is beautiful, and he is worthy of being seen and heard. Just like the kids his books. I just love it. And for my 2-year old who is the only black child in his daycare, Black Story Time is huge for us. It’s his time to connect with people little and big who come in all shades and all hair types. For once he is not the different one. He’s just his perfect little self. And he LOVES books.”

-Raina Croff Mbaye (Parent)

Note: To read more about Black Storytime and its inception, check out “Black Storytime: Empowering Children, Growing Communities” by Kirby McCurtis in Libraries, Literacy, and African American Youth: Research and Practice (Libraries Unlimited, 2017).

In your journal , reflect on these questions:

• Are you providing resources and programs that support the positive racial identity development of BIYOC? Are you including stories of resistance, not just stories of victimization?
• If you are in a school, are the positive contributions of communities of color and Indigenous Peoples included in the curriculum in meaningful ways that promote positive racial and ethnic identity and counter stereotypes?
• Are youth of color in your school or library learning about the intellectual and activist heritage of communities of color and Indigenous Peoples?
• Are classroom norms set that are representative of racial and ethnic identity development?
• Are images of BIPOC prevalent in the library, the school, and the community?

In your journal , brainstorm what you can do in your library or classroom to build the positive racial identity development of youth of color and indigenous youth.

When you’re done, click here to see our ideas.

• Be intentional in providing resources that provide positive cultural images of BIYOC.
• Offer programs like Black Storytime that incorporate stories, music, movement, rhymes, and activities to promote positive cultural images in order to affirm the self-esteem and positive identity development of BIYOC.
• Conduct an audit of the curriculum to ensure that it includes the contributions of BIPOC communities across all content areas.
• Make sure when discussing historical events such as slavery, the Trail of Tears, Jim Crow, or the Civil Rights movement, as well as current events such as Black Lives Matter, the Dakota Access Pipeline, and DACA, do so in ways that highlight the resistance and activism of BIPOC communities and provide youth with a vision that things can change.
• Invite BIPOC from the community to share with BIYOC how they have successfully navigated a racially-biased system to pursue their strengths and interests.
• Provide opportunities for BIYOC to explore their culture and develop a clearer sense of what their ethnicity-race means to them.

In this section, we address common questions and concerns related to the material presented in each module. You may have these questions yourself, or someone you’re sharing this information with might raise them. We recommend that for each question below, you spend a few minutes thinking about your own response before clicking the arrow to the left of the question to see our response.

Isn't it an oversimplification to say that all people of a particular race share a common identity? Doesn't that go against the idea of seeing people as individuals? Race is one part of a person’s culture, and for many people, it is a central piece. Certain racial groups have formed a shared way of viewing and interacting with the world based on their shared histories and similar life experiences. But race is never the only element of a person’s culture. And, cultural groups based on race, like other types of cultural groups, are not monolithic. “Black culture,” for example, is not just one thing, but a rich tapestry of subcultures connected only by the shared experience of being identified as Black. We can recognize and validate cultural groups without assuming that every individual BIPOC must have certain cultural values because of their race.

I like to celebrate all of the cultural months in my library, but now I have heard that we shouldn’t do this. Why? The problem with Black History Month and similar cultural months is not that they are celebrated at all, but rather that they are the only time during the year these identities are mentioned and honored. You can continue to celebrate cultural months in your library; however, it is critical that you also celebrate racial and ethnic diversity and identity all year round and not just during a certain month. For an additional perspective on this issue, see the article “ Let’s Get Rid of Black History Month ” by Joel Christian Gill.

• If you have another question you'd like us to address in this section, suggest it here.

Additional Resources

Tatum, B. D. (2017). Why are all the Black kids sitting together in the cafeteria?”: And other conversations about race .   Revised and Updated. New York: Basic Books.

Irizarry, J. (2011). The Latinization of U.S. schools: Successful teaching and learning in shifting cultural Ccntexts. New York: Routledge.

Majors, R. and Billson, J. M. (1993). Cool pose: The dilemmas of Black manhood in America . New York: Touchstone.

Bernal, M. E. & G. P. Knight (eds.) (1993). Ethnic identity: Formation and transmission among Hispanics and other minorities . New York: State University of New York Press.

References and Image Credits

Crenshaw, K. (1989). “Demarginalizing the intersection of race and sex: A Black feminist critique of antidiscrimination doctrine, feminist theory and antiracist politics.” University of Chicago Legal Forum : Vol. 1989: Iss. 1, Article 8. Available at http://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/uclf/vol1989/iss1/8

Kinloch, V. (2017). “You ain’t making me write”: Culturally sustaining pedagogies and Black youth’s performances of resistance. In D. Paris & H. S. Alim, (Eds.), Culturally Sustaining Pedagogies: Teaching and Learning for Justice in a Changing World (pp. 25-42). New York: Teachers College Press.

Ladson-Billings, G. (2013). “Critical race theory-What it is not!” In Marvin Lynn and Adrienne D. Dixson, Handbook of Critical Race Theory in Education (pp. 34-47). New York: Routledge.

Tatum, B. D. (2017). Why are all the Black kids sitting together in the cafeteria?: And other conversations about race .   Revised and Updated. New York: Basic Books.

Tyson, K. (2006). “The making of a ‘burden’: Tracing the development of a ‘burden of acting white’ in schools.” In Erin McNamara Horvat and Carla O’Connor, Beyond Acting White: Reassessments and New Directions in Research on Black Students and School Success (pp. 57-88). New York: Rowman & Littlefield.

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Essay Samples on Race and Ethnicity

How does race affect social class.

How does race affect social class? Race and social class are intricate aspects of identity that intersect and influence one another in complex ways. While social class refers to the economic and societal position an individual holds, race encompasses a person's racial or ethnic background....

• Race and Ethnicity
• Social Class

How Does Race Affect Everyday Life

How does race affect everyday life? Race is an integral yet often invisible aspect of our identities, influencing the dynamics of our everyday experiences. The impact of race reaches beyond individual interactions, touching various aspects of life, including relationships, opportunities, perceptions, and systemic structures. This...

Race and Ethnicity's Impact on US Employment and Criminal Justice

Since the beginning of colonialism, raced based hindrances have soiled the satisfaction of the shared and common principles in society. While racial and ethnic prejudice has diminished over the past half-century, it is still prevalent in society today. In my opinion, racial and ethnic inequity...

• American Criminal Justice System
• Criminal Justice

Why Race and Ethnicity Matter in the Social World

Not everyone is interested in educating themselves about their own roots. There are people who lack the curiosity to know the huge background that encompasses their ancestry. But if you are one of those who would like to know the diverse colors of your race...

• Ethnic Identity

The Correlation Between Race and Ethnicity and Education in the US

In-between the years 1997 and 2017, the population of the United States of America has changed a lot; especially in terms of ethnic and educational background. It grew by over 50 million people, most of which were persons of colour. Although white European Americans still make...

• Inequality in Education

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Damaging Effects of Social World on People of Color

Even though many are unsure or aware of what it really means to have a culture, we make claims about it everyday. The fact that culture is learned through daily experience and also learned through interactions with others, people never seem to think about it,...

• Racial Profiling
• Racial Segregation

An Eternal Conflict of Race and Ethnicity: a History of Mankind

Ethnicity is a modern concept. However, its roots go back to a long time ago. This concept took on a political aspect from the early modern period with the Peace of Westphalia law and the growth of the Protestant movement in Western Europe and the...

• Social Conflicts

Complicated Connection Between Identity, Race and Ethnicity

Different groups of people are classified based on their race and ethnicity. Race is concerned with physical characteristics, whereas ethnicity is concerned with cultural recognition. Race, on the other hand, is something you inherit, whereas ethnicity is something you learn. The connection of race, ethnicity,...

• Cultural Identity

Best topics on Race and Ethnicity

1. How Does Race Affect Social Class

2. How Does Race Affect Everyday Life

3. Race and Ethnicity’s Impact on US Employment and Criminal Justice

4. Why Race and Ethnicity Matter in the Social World

5. The Correlation Between Race and Ethnicity and Education in the US

6. Damaging Effects of Social World on People of Color

7. An Eternal Conflict of Race and Ethnicity: a History of Mankind

8. Complicated Connection Between Identity, Race and Ethnicity

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A year after affirmative action ban, how students are pitching themselves to colleges

• Deep Read ( 13 Min. )
• By Olivia Sanchez, Nirvi Shah, and Meredith Kolodner The Hechinger Report

June 28, 2024

In the year since the U.S. Supreme Court banned the consideration of race in college admissions, students have had to give more thought to how they present themselves in their application essays – to what they will disclose.

Data from the Common Application shows that in this admissions cycle, about 12% of students from underrepresented racial and ethnic groups used at least one of 38 identity-related phrases in their essays, a decrease of roughly 1% from the previous year. The data shows that about 20% of American Indian and Alaskan Native applicants used one of these phrases; meanwhile 15% of Asian students, 14% of Black students, 11% of Latinx students, and fewer than 3% of white students did so.

Why We Wrote This

A year ago, the U.S. Supreme Court barred affirmative action in college admissions. Students have since used their application essays as a place to explore identity.

To better understand how students were deciding what to include, The Hechinger Report asked newly accepted students from across the United States to share their application essays and to describe how they thought their writing choices ultimately influenced their admissions outcomes. Among them was Jaleel Gomes Cardoso from Boston, who wrote about being Black. 

“If you’re not going to see what my race is in my application, then I’m definitely putting it in my writing,” he says, “because you have to know that this is the person who I am.”   

In the year since the Supreme Court banned  the consideration of race in college admissions last June, students have had to give more thought to how they present themselves in their application essays .

Previously, they could write about their racial or ethnic identity if they wanted to, but colleges would usually know it either way and could use it as a factor in admissions. Now, it’s entirely up to students to disclose their identity or not.

Data from the Common Application shows that in this admissions cycle about 12% of students from underrepresented racial and ethnic groups used at least one of 38 identity-related phrases in their essays, a decrease of roughly 1% from the previous year. The data shows that about 20% of American Indian and Alaskan Native applicants used one of these phrases; meanwhile 15% of Asian students, 14% of Black students, 11% of Latinx students, and fewer than 3% of white students did so.

To better understand how students were making this decision and introducing themselves to colleges, The Hechinger Report asked newly accepted students from across the country to share their college application essays. The Hechinger staff read more than 50 essays and talked to many students about their writing process, who gave them advice, and how they think their choices ultimately influenced their admissions outcomes.

Here are thoughts from a sampling of those students, with excerpts from their essays. 

Jaleel Gomes Cardoso of Boston: A risky decision

As Jaleel Gomes Cardoso sat looking at the essay prompt for Yale University, he wasn’t sure how honest he should be. “Reflect on your membership in a community to which you feel connected,” it read. “Why is this community meaningful to you?” He wanted to write about being part of the Black community – it was the obvious choice – but the Supreme Court’s decision to ban the consideration of a student’s race in admissions gave him pause.

“Ever since the decision about affirmative action, it kind of worried me about talking about race,” says Mr. Cardoso, who grew up in Boston. “That entire topic felt like a risky decision.” 

In the past, he had always felt that taking a risk produced some of his best writing, but he thought that an entire essay about being Black might be going too far. 

“The risk was just so heavy on the topic of race when the Court’s decision was to not take race into account,” he says. “It was as if I was disregarding that decision. It felt very controversial, just to make it so out in the open.” 

In the end, he did write an essay that put his racial identity front and center. He wasn’t accepted to Yale, but he has no regrets about his choice.

“If you’re not going to see what my race is in my application, then I’m definitely putting it in my writing,” says Mr. Cardoso, who will attend Dartmouth College this fall, “because you have to know that this is the person who I am.”                       

 – Meredith Kolodner

Essay excerpt:

I was thrust into a narrative of indifference and insignificance from the moment I entered this world. I was labeled as black, which placed me in the margins of society. It seemed that my destiny had been predetermined; to be part of a minority group constantly oppressed under the weight of a social construct called race. Blackness became my life, an identity I initially battled against. I knew others viewed it as a flaw that tainted their perception of me. As I matured, I realized that being different was not easy, but it was what I loved most about myself.  

Klaryssa Cobian of Los Angeles: A seminomadic mattress life

Klaryssa Cobian is Latina – a first-generation Mexican American – and so was nearly everyone else in the Southeast Los Angeles community where she grew up. Because that world was so homogenous, she really didn’t notice her race until she was a teenager.

Then she earned a scholarship to a prestigious private high school in Pasadena. For the first time, she was meaningfully interacting with people of other races and ethnicities, but she felt the greatest gulf between her and her peers came from her socioeconomic status, not the color of her skin. 

Although Ms. Cobian has generally tried to keep her home life private, she felt that colleges needed to understand the way her family’s severe economic disadvantages had affected her. She wrote about how she’d long been “desperate to feel at home.”

She was 16 years old before she had a mattress of her own. Her essay cataloged all the places she lay her head before that. She wrote about her first bed, a queen-sized mattress shared with her parents and younger sister. She wrote about sleeping in the backseat of her mother’s red Mustang, before they lost the car. She wrote about moving into her grandparents’ home and sharing a mattress on the floor with her sister, in the same room as two uncles. She wrote about the great independence she felt when she “moved out” into the living room and onto the couch.  

“Which mattress I sleep on has defined my life, my independence, my dependence,” Ms. Cobian wrote. 

She’d initially considered writing about the ways she felt she’d had to sacrifice her Latino culture and identity to pursue her education, but said she hesitated after the Supreme Court ruled on the use of affirmative action in admissions. Ultimately, she decided that her experience of poverty was more pertinent. 

“If I’m in a room of people, it’s like, I can talk to other Latinos, and I can talk to other brown people, but that does not mean I’m going to connect with them. Because, I learned, brown people can be rich,” Ms. Cobian says.  She’s headed to the University of California, Berkeley, in the fall.

– Olivia Sanchez

Essay excerpt: 

With the only income, my mom automatically assumed custody of me and my younger sister, Alyssa. With no mattress and no home, the backseat of my mom’s red mustang became my new mattress. Bob Marley blasted from her red convertible as we sang out “could you be loved” every day on our ride back from elementary school. Eventually, we lost the mustang too and would take the bus home from Downtown Los Angeles, still singing “could you be loved” to each other.  

Oluwademilade Egunjobi of Providence, Rhode Island: The perfect introduction

Oluwademilade Egunjobi worked on her college essay from June until November. Not every single day, and not on only one version, but for five months she was writing and editing and asking anyone who would listen for advice.

She considered submitting essays about the value of sex education, or the philosophical theory of solipsism (in which the only thing that is guaranteed to exist is your own mind). 

But most of the advice she got was to write about her identity. So, to introduce herself to colleges, Oluwademilade Egunjobi wrote about her name.

Ms. Egunjobi is the daughter of Nigerian immigrants who, she wrote, chose her first name because it means she’s been crowned by God. In naming her, she said, her parents prioritized pride in their heritage over ease of pronunciation for people outside their culture. 

And although Ms. Egunjobi loves that she will always be connected to her culture, this choice has put her in a lifelong loop of exasperating introductions and questions from non-Nigerians about her name. 

The loop often ends when the person asks if they can call her by her nickname, Demi. “I smile through my irritation and say I prefer it anyways, and then the situation repeats time and time again,” Egunjobi wrote. 

She was nervous when she learned about the Supreme Court’s affirmative action decision, wondering what it might mean for where she would get into college. Her teachers and college advisors from a program called Matriculate told her she didn’t have to write a sob story, but that she should write about her identity, how it affects the way she moves through the world and the resilience it’s taught her. 

She heeded their advice, and it worked out. In the fall, she will enter the University of Pennsylvania to study philosophy, politics, and economics. 

I don’t think I’ve ever had to fight so hard to love something as hard as I’ve fought to love my name. I’m grateful for it because it’ll never allow me to reject my culture and my identity, but I get frustrated by this daily performance. I’ve learned that this performance is an inescapable fate, but the best way to deal with fate is to show up with joy. I am Nigerian, but specifically from the ethnic group, Yoruba. In Yoruba culture, most names are manifestations. Oluwademilade means God has crowned me, and my middle name is Favor, so my parents have manifested that I’ll be favored above others and have good success in life. No matter where I go, people familiar with the language will recognize my name and understand its meaning. I love that I’ll always carry a piece of my culture with me.  

Francisco Garcia of Fort Worth, Texas: Accepted to college and by his community

In the opening paragraph of his college application essay, Francisco Garcia quotes his mother, speaking to him in Spanish, expressing disappointment that her son was failing to live up to her Catholic ideals. It was her reaction to Mr. Garcia revealing his bisexuality. 

Mr. Garcia said those nine Spanish words were “the most intentional thing I did to share my background” with colleges. The rest of his essay delves into how his Catholic upbringing, at least for a time, squelched his ability to be honest with friends about his sexual identity, and how his relationship with the church changed. He said he had striven, however, to avoid coming across as pessimistic or sad, aiming instead to share “what I’ve been through [and] how I’ve become a better person because of it.” 

He worked on his essay throughout July, August, and September, with guidance from college officials he met during campus visits and from an adviser he was paired with by Matriculate, which works with students who are high achievers from low-income families. Be very personal, they told Mr. Garcia, but within limits. 

“I am fortunate to have support from all my friends, who encourage me to explore complexities within myself,” he wrote. “My friends give me what my mother denied me: acceptance.”

He was accepted by Dartmouth, one of the eight schools to which he applied, after graduating from Saginaw High School near Fort Worth, Texas, this spring.

– Nirvi Shah

Essay excerpt:  

By the time I got to high school, I had made new friends who I felt safe around. While I felt I was more authentic with them, I was still unsure whether they would judge me for who I liked. It became increasingly difficult for me to keep hiding this part of myself, so I vented to both my mom and my closest friend, Yoana ... When I confessed that I was bisexual to Yoana, they were shocked, and I almost lost hope. However, after the initial shock, they texted back, “I’m really chill with this. Nothing has changed Francisco:)”. The smiley face, even if it took 2 characters, was enough to bring me to tears. 

Hafsa Sheikh of Pearland, Texas: Family focus above all 

Hafsa Sheikh felt her applications would be incomplete without the important context of her home life: She became a primary financial contributor to her household when she was just 15, because her father, once the family’s sole breadwinner, could not work due to his major depressive disorder. Her work in a pizza parlor on the weekends and as a tutor after school helped pay the bills. 

She found it challenging to open up this way, but felt she needed to tell colleges that, although working two jobs throughout high school made her feel like crying from exhaustion every night, she would do anything for her family. 

“It’s definitely not easy sharing some of the things that you’ve been through with, like really a stranger,” she says, “because you don’t know who’s reading it.”

And especially after the Supreme Court ruled against affirmative action, Ms. Sheikh felt she needed to write about her cultural identity. It’s a core part of who she is, but it’s also a major part of why her father’s mental illness affected her life so profoundly. 

Ms. Sheikh, the daughter of Pakistani immigrants, said her family became isolated because of the negative stigma surrounding mental health in their South Asian culture. She said they became the point of gossip in the community and even among extended family members, and they were excluded from many social gatherings. This was happening as she was watching the typical high school experiences pass her by, she wrote. Because of the long hours she had to work, she had to forgo the opportunity to try out for the girls’ basketball team and debate club, and often couldn’t justify cutting back her hours to spend time with her friends.  

She wrote that reflecting on one of her favorite passages in the Holy Quran gave her hope:

“One of my favorite ayahs, ‘verily, with every hardship comes ease,’ serves as a timeless reminder that adversity is not the end; rather, there is always light on the other side,” Ms. Sheikh wrote.

Her perseverance paid off, with admission to Princeton University.

-- Olivia Sanchez

Besides the financial responsibility on my mother and I, we had to deal with the stigma surrounding mental health in South Asian culture and the importance of upholding traditional gender roles. My family became a point of great gossip within the local Pakistani community and even extended family. Slowly, the invitations to social gatherings diminished, and I bailed on plans with friends because I couldn’t afford to miss even a single hour of earnings.

David Arturo Munoz-Matta of McAllen, Texas: Weighing the risks of being honest

It was Nov. 30 and David Arturo Munoz-Matta had eight college essays due the next day. He had spent the prior weeks slammed with homework while also grieving the loss of his uncle who had just died. He knew the essays were going to require all the mental energy he could muster – not to mention whatever hours were left in the day. But he got home from school to discover he had no electricity. 

“I was like, ‘What am I gonna do?’” says Mr. Munoz-Matta, who graduated from Lamar Academy in McAllen, Texas. “I was panicking for a while, and my mom was like, ‘You know what? I’m just gonna drop you off at Starbucks and then just call me when you finish with all your essays.’ And so I was there at Starbucks from 4 until 12 in the morning.” 

The personal statement he agonized over most was the one he submitted to Georgetown University.  

“I don’t want to be mean or anything, but I feel like a lot of these institutions are very elitist, and that my story might not resonate with the admissions officers,” Mr. Munoz-Matta says. “It was a very big risk, especially when I said I was born in Mexico, when I said I grew up in an abusive environment. I believed at the time that would not be good for universities, that they might feel like, ‘I don’t want this kid, he won’t be a good fit with the student body.’”

He didn’t have an adult to help him with his essay, but another student encouraged him to be honest. It worked. He got into his dream school, Georgetown University, with a full ride. Many of his peers were not as fortunate. 

“I know because of the affirmative action decision, a lot of my friends did not even apply to these universities, like the Ivies, because they felt like they were not going to get in,” he says. “That was a very big sentiment in my school.”                       

– Meredith Kolodner  

While many others in my grade level had lawyers and doctors for parents and came from exemplary middle schools at the top of their classes, I was the opposite. I came into Lamar without middle school recognition, recalling my 8th-grade science teacher’s claim that I would never make it. At Lamar, freshman year was a significant challenge as I constantly struggled, feeling like I had reached my wit’s end. By the middle of Freshman year, I was the only kid left from my middle school, since everyone else had dropped out. Rather than following suit, I kept going. I felt like I had something to prove to myself because I knew I could make it.

Kendall Martin of Austin, Texas: From frustration to love

Kendall Martin wanted to be clear with college admissions officers about one thing: She is a young Black woman, and her race is central to who she is. Ms. Martin was ranked 15th in her graduating class from KIPP Austin Collegiate. She was a key figure on her high school basketball team. She wanted colleges to know she had overcome adversity. But most importantly, Ms. Martin says, she wanted to be sure, when her application was reviewed, “Y’all know who you are accepting.”

It wouldn’t be as simple as checking a box, though, which led Ms. Martin, of Kyle, Texas, to the topic she chose for her college admissions essay, the year after the Supreme Court said race could not be a factor in college admissions. Instead, she looked at the hair framing her face, hair still scarred from being straightened time and again. 

Ms. Martin wrote about the struggles she faced growing up with hair that she says required extensive time to tame so she could simply run her fingers through it. Now headed to Rice University in Houston – her first choice from a half-dozen options – she included a photo of her braids as part of her application. Her essay described her journey from hating her hair to embracing it, from heat damage to learning to braid, from frustration to love, a feeling she now hopes to inspire in her sister.  

“That’s what I wanted to get across: my growing up, my experiences, everything that made me who I am,” she says.

–  Nirvi Shah

I’m still recovering from the heat damage I caused by straightening my hair every day, because I was so determined to prove that I had length. When I was younger, a lot of my self worth was based on how long my hair was, so when kids made fun of my “short hair,” I despised my curls more and more. I begged my mom to let me get a relaxer, but she continued to deny my wish. This would make me so angry, because who was she to tell me what I could and couldn’t do with my hair? But looking back, I’m so glad she never let me. I see now that a relaxer wasn’t the key to making me prettier, and my love for my curls has reached an all-time high. 

This story about  college admission essays  was produced by  The Hechinger Report , a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Hechinger’s  higher education newsletter . Listen to Hechinger’s  higher education podcast .

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Race and LGBTQ Issues in K-12 Schools

What teachers, teens and the u.s. public say about current curriculum debates, table of contents.

• What do teachers think students should learn about slavery and gender identity?
• Should parents be able to opt their children out of learning about certain topics?
• How often do topics related to race and LGBTQ issues come up in the classroom?
• How do teachers’ views differ by party?
• What teachers think students should learn about slavery and gender identity
• Should parents be able to opt their children out of learning about race and LGBTQ issues?
• Influence over curriculum
• What teens want to learn about slavery
• What teens want to learn about gender identity
• 4. Public views on parents opting their children out of learning about race and LGBTQ issues
• Acknowledgments
• Teacher survey methodology
• Teen survey methodology
• General public survey methodology

Pew Research Center conducted this study to better understand how public K-12 teachers, teens and the American public see topics related to race, sexual orientation and gender identity playing out in the classroom.

The bulk of the analysis in this report is based on an online survey of 2,531 U.S. public K-12 teachers conducted from Oct. 17 to Nov. 14, 2023. The teachers surveyed are members of RAND’s American Teacher Panel, a nationally representative panel of public school K-12 teachers recruited through MDR Education. Survey data is weighted to state and national teacher characteristics to account for differences in sampling and response to ensure they are representative of the target population.

For the questions for the general public, we surveyed 5,029 U.S. adults from Nov. 9 to Nov. 16, 2023. The adults surveyed are members of the Ipsos KnowledgePanel, a nationally representative online survey panel. Panel members are randomly recruited through probability-based sampling, and households are provided with access to the Internet and hardware if needed. To ensure that the results of this survey reflect a balanced cross section of the nation, the data is weighted to match the U.S. adult population by gender, age, education, race and ethnicity and other categories.

For questions for teens, we conducted an online survey of 1,453 U.S. teens from Sept. 26 to Oct. 23, 2023, through Ipsos. Ipsos recruited the teens via their parents, who were part of its KnowledgePanel. The survey was weighted to be representative of U.S. teens ages 13 to 17 who live with their parents by age, gender, race and ethnicity, household income, and other categories. The survey on teens was reviewed and approved by an external institutional review board (IRB), Advarra, an independent committee of experts specializing in helping to protect the rights of research participants.

Here are the questions used for this report , along with responses, and the survey methodology .

Throughout the report, references to White, Black and Asian adults include those who are not Hispanic and identify as only one race. Hispanics are of any race. The views and experiences of teachers and teens who are Asian American or part of other racial and ethnic groups are not analyzed separately in this report due to sample limitations. Data for these groups is incorporated into the general population figures throughout the report.

All references to party affiliation include those who lean toward that party. Republicans include those who identify as Republicans and those who say they lean toward the Republican Party. Democrats include those who identify as Democrats and those who say they lean toward the Democratic Party.

Political leaning of school districts is based on whether the majority of those residing in the school district voted for Republican Donald Trump or Democrat Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election.

Amid national debates about what schools are teaching , we asked public K-12 teachers, teens and the American public how they see topics related to race, sexual orientation and gender identity playing out in the classroom.

A sizeable share of teachers (41%) say these debates have had a negative impact on their ability to do their job. Just 4% say these debates have had a positive impact, while 53% say the impact has been neither positive nor negative or that these debates have had no impact.

And 71% of teachers say teachers themselves don’t have enough influence over what’s taught in public schools in their area.

In turn, a majority of teachers (58%) say their state government has too much influence over this. And more say the federal government, the local school board and parents have too much influence than say they don’t have enough.

Most of the findings in this report come from a survey of 2,531 U.S. public K-12 teachers conducted Oct. 17-Nov. 14, 2023, using the RAND American Teacher Panel. 1 The survey looks at teachers’ views on:

• Race and LGBTQ issues in the classroom ( Chapter 1 )
• Current debates over what schools should be teaching and the role of key groups ( Chapter 2 )

It follows a fall 2022 survey of K-12 parents that explored similar topics.

This report also includes some findings from a survey of U.S. teens ages 13 to 17 ( Chapter 3 ) and a survey of U.S. adults ( Chapter 4 ). For details about these surveys, refer to the Methodology section of this report. Among the key findings:

• 38% of teens say they feel comfortable when topics related to racism or racial inequality come up in class (among those who say these topics have come up). A smaller share (29%) say they feel comfortable when topics related to sexual orientation or gender identity come up.
• Among the American public , more say parents should be able to opt their children out of learning about LGBTQ issues than say the same about topics related to race (54% vs. 34%).

We asked public K-12 teachers what they think students should learn in school about two topics in particular:

• Whether the legacy of slavery still affects the position of Black people in American society today.
• Whether a person’s gender can be different from or is determined by their sex at birth.

For these questions, elementary, middle and high school teachers were asked about elementary, middle and high school students, respectively.

The legacy of slavery

Most teachers (64%) say students should learn that the legacy of slavery still affects the position of Black people in American society today.

About a quarter (23%) say students should learn that slavery is part of American history but no longer affects the position of Black people in American society. Just 8% say students shouldn’t learn about this topic in school at all.

Majorities of elementary, middle and high school teachers say students should learn that the legacy of slavery still has an impact on the lives of Black Americans.

Gender identity

When it comes to teaching about gender identity – specifically whether a person’s gender can be different from or is determined by their sex assigned at birth – half of public K-12 teachers say students shouldn’t learn about this in school.

A third of teachers think students should learn that someone can be a boy or a girl even if that is different from the sex they were assigned at birth.

A smaller share (14%) say students should learn that whether someone is a boy or a girl is determined by their sex at birth.

Views differ among elementary, middle and high school teachers. But teachers across the three levels are more likely to say students should learn that a person’s gender can be different from their sex at birth than to say students should learn gender is determined by sex at birth.

Most elementary school teachers (62%) say students shouldn’t learn about gender identity in school. This is much larger than the shares of middle and high school teachers who say the same (45% and 35%).

What parents and teens say

Parents of K-12 students are more divided on what their children should learn in school about these topics.

In the 2022 survey , 49% of parents said they’d rather their children learn that the legacy of slavery still affects the position of Black people in American society today, while 42% said they’d rather their children learn that slavery no longer affects Black Americans.

When it comes to gender identity, 31% of parents said they’d rather their children learn that gender can be different from sex at birth. An identical share said they would rather their children learn gender is determined by sex at birth. Another 37% of parents said their children shouldn’t learn about gender identity in school.

Teens, like parents, are more divided than teachers on these questions. About half of teens (48%) say they’d rather learn that the legacy of slavery still affects the position of Black Americans today. Four-in-ten would prefer to learn that slavery no longer affects Black Americans.

And teens are about evenly divided when it comes to what they prefer to learn about gender identity. A quarter say they’d rather learn that a person’s gender can be different from their sex at birth; 26% would prefer to learn that gender is determined by sex at birth. About half (48%) say they shouldn’t learn about gender identity in school.

For more on teens’ views about what they prefer to learn in school about each of these topics, read Chapter 3 of this report.

Most public K-12 teachers (60%) say parents should not be able to opt their children out of learning about racism or racial inequality in school, even if the way these topics are taught conflicts with the parents’ beliefs. A quarter say parents should be able to opt their children out of learning about these topics.

In contrast, more say parents should be able to opt their children out of learning about sexual orientation or gender identity (48%) than say parents should not be able to do this (33%).

On topics related to both race and LGBTQ issues, elementary and middle school teachers are more likely than high school teachers to say parents should be able to opt their children out.

How teachers’ views compare with the public’s views

Like teachers, Americans overall are more likely to say parents should be able to opt their children out of learning about sexual orientation or gender identity (54%) than to say they should be able to opt their children out of learning about racism or racial inequality (34%).

Across both issues, Americans overall are somewhat more likely than teachers to say parents should be able to opt their children out.

For more on the public’s views, read Chapter 4 of this report.

Most teachers who’ve been teaching for more than a year (68%) say the topics of sexual orientation and gender identity rarely or never came up in their classroom in the 2022-23 school year. About one-in-five (21%) say these topics came up sometimes, and 8% say they came up often or extremely often.

Topics related to racism or racial inequality come up more frequently. A majority of teachers (56%) say these topics came up at least sometimes in their classroom, with 21% saying they came up often or extremely often.

These topics are more likely to come up in secondary school than in elementary school classrooms.

As is the case among parents of K-12 students and the general public, teachers’ views on how topics related to race and LGBTQ issues should play out in the classroom differ by political affiliation.

• What students should learn about slavery: 85% of Democratic and Democratic-leaning teachers say students should learn that the legacy of slavery still affects the position of Black people in American society today. This compares with 35% of Republican and Republican-leaning teachers who say the same.

• What students should learn about gender identity: Democratic teachers are far more likely than Republican teachers to say students should learn that a person’s gender can be different from the sex they were assigned at birth (53% vs. 5%). Most Republican teachers (69%) say students shouldn’t learn about gender identity in school.
• Parents opting their children out of learning about these topics: 80% of Republican teachers say parents should be able to opt their children out of learning about LGBTQ issues, compared with 30% of Democratic teachers. And while 47% of Republican teachers say parents should be able to opt their children out of learning about racism and racial inequality, just 11% of Democratic teachers say this.

A majority of public K-12 teachers (58%) identify with or lean toward the Democratic Party. About a third (35%) identify with or lean toward the GOP. Americans overall are more evenly divided: 47% are Democrats or Democratic leaners, and 45% are Republicans or Republican leaners .

• For details, refer to the Methodology section of the report. ↩

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He never saw himself as disadvantaged. Then the government had him write an essay.

It had never occurred to Curtis Joachim to blame racism for his professional setbacks until an SBA application forced him to think differently about his life.

Curtis Joachim sat at his computer, searching for the words to prove his disadvantage.

It was summer 2023, and a federal judge had just ruled that a government program for minority contractors could no longer automatically accept participants like Joachim. For the first time in the program’s 45-year history, simply being Black was not enough to qualify as “socially disadvantaged” — a key requirement to receive set-asides for lucrative government contracts. Now Joachim, an accountant, had to document his struggles.

He had to write an essay.

So Joachim began examining his life through the prism of disadvantage. It was new terrain for the 56-year-old Marine Corps veteran and longtime entrepreneur, a man who had instinctively equated success with merit.

As he sat down to write, he thought about his many setbacks: the missed promotions, the bankruptcies, the second jobs he took to make ends meet. No matter how hard he had worked, he now realized, there had always been some resistance, almost like an “invisible force” holding him back.

And then it struck him: “It could have been different if I was not a Black man.”

Joachim was writing the essay because of a decision several weeks earlier by a federal judge in Tennessee. A White woman had challenged the Small Business Administration’s 8(a) Business Development program , one of the government’s defining affirmative action programs, which certifies businesses as “disadvantaged” so they can pursue federal contracts set aside for minority-owned businesses. Last year, more than a dozen agencies disbursed $24.4 billion through the 8(a) pipeline.

Joachim said the program changed the course of his life, allowing him to win more than $32 million in accounting and auditing contracts over the past decade from the departments of Housing and Urban Development, and Transportation, among others. The experience gave him the foundation to pursue other government work and increase his staff to 15.

But now, the judge said, the program could no longer admit applicants based solely on their racial identity. Instead, every applicant would have to offer a narrative of disadvantage, one that demonstrated how their identity set them back.

Since last June, when the U.S. Supreme Court struck down race-based college admissions at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina, the nation’s most selective universities have been forced to undergo a similar transformation. Applicants can no longer expect special consideration on the basis of their race, though they can use their personal essays to discuss how race has shaped their experiences .

The Harvard-UNC decision touched off a broader shift in the way institutions approach diversity . In the corporate world and government contracting, as well as higher education, explicit preferences for people of certain races or ethnicities are giving way to processes that focus on the totality of an applicant’s character, said David Glasgow, executive director of the Meltzer Center for Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging at New York University.

Glasgow said he expects to “see more of that kind of individualized essay-based assessment, in part because the Supreme Court has foreclosed the more direct demographic approaches.”

For the 4,800 businesses that participate in the 8(a) program, the court ruling last July touched off a frenzy. The SBA trained additional staff to review the essays that were now pouring in from participants. Lawyers hired by applicants to help complete their narratives said the process sowed confusion — and dredged up past trauma.

Nicole Pottroff, a partner at the law firm Koprince McCall Pottroff, said many applicants drew upon such severe experiences as “sexual harassment, blatant racism — things that were very hurtful to the individual telling the story.”

“Most of this is painful,” Pottroff said. “They’re hoping to repress a lot of these memories.”

In his essay, Joachim needed to describe two episodes when he experienced discrimination to establish what the SBA called “chronic and substantial social disadvantage.” Pottroff worked with Joachim to identify the incidents, which could have taken place during his education, his employment or in his business history.

He chose to write about his time in the military.

Joachim wrote that he had been a “Poster Marine” who spit shined his boots every night, kept his hair “high and tight,” and earned his sergeant’s stripes in just under three years — it typically takes four to five — while attending college at night and competing as a power weightlifter. He had been named Marine of the Month, then Service Member of the Year, the essay said.

None of it was enough to qualify him for the officers training program, which would have provided him with a college education and propelled him into the commissioned officer ranks. Instead, he wrote, a White Marine had been selected.

“It was my lifelong dream to be a Marine Officer,” he wrote, “but that dream was crushed because of the color of my skin.”

For his second incident, Joachim wrote about how, about a decade later after discharge, he repeatedly had been passed over for promotions while working as a civilian with the U.S. Army Audit Agency in Germany. White peers moved to bigger roles, he wrote, even though he was sure he performed better.

“Given my success and incredibly (nearly excessive) hard work — race again was the only ‘advantage’ they all had over me at that time,” he wrote. “And apparently that was a significant enough ‘advantage’ to promote them three years before me.”

Joachim had not always seen things this way. It had not occurred to him to blame racism when he was rejected for the officers training program or missed out on promotions.

“I never saw myself as disadvantaged,” he said. “To me, it was America. You roll your sleeves up and you work hard, and you get there.”

But writing the essay forced him to examine his life through a different lens. He found the idea that his skin color may have contributed to his many setbacks upsetting. It upended his belief that success was just a matter of hard work and perseverance.

The anecdotes in his essay, he wrote, “are just the tip of the iceberg as to the racism and social disadvantage I have faced in this country from the early days of my youth, through my education and career, and through my business history.”

A hard charger

Joachim was 15 when he first landed in the United States in 1984, traveling from Dominica with five siblings to reunite with their father in Brooklyn. Any fears he had about his new country were quickly overtaken by excitement, and the sense of limitless possibility it could bring. Because he wasn’t yet a U.S. citizen and college was out of reach, Joachim enlisted in the Marine Corps.

Friends who served with Joachim at Camp Lejeune, N.C., described him as a “hard charger” and a “Marine’s Marine.”

“He was always number one,” said Wayne Jackson, one of Joachim’s roommates. “He was the rabbit that everybody chased.”

Jackson, who is Black, said racism was a “reality” in the Marines when he served, though he believes the branch has since made progress. Another roommate, Jimmy Tran, agreed, noting that his peers often ribbed him about his Vietnamese heritage.

Still, both said making the leap from enlisted man to officer would have been difficult for anyone, no matter how talented. And Joachim faced an especially big hurdle, they said, because he did not have a college degree at the time.

By 1995, having received his U.S. citizenship in the military, Joachim decided to return to civilian life. He sold perfume, first in Virginia Beach and then in Mobile, Ala., for a multilevel marketing company, but went bankrupt after his operation collapsed. He worked at a fast-food chain while also loading trucks at a Coca-Cola warehouse.

In all of his endeavors, Joachim was intent on becoming “financially free” and going into business for himself, said his ex-wife, April Joachim.

He got a step closer to that goal in 1998, when he earned a business administration degree from the University of Dubuque in Iowa and went straight to work for the Army Audit Agency in Germany. Though he eventually was made a supervisor and led teams that audited the efficiency of military supply routes during conflicts in Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq, his career plateaued.

In 2004, his work with the audit agency took him to Fort Monroe, Va., where he began selling homes on the side. Taking his cues from Robert Kiyosaki, the real estate guru known for his get-rich-quick seminars , Joachim decided it was time to work for himself. He resigned from the Army Audit Agency and started his own accounting firm, as well as a mortgage company.

Then in 2008, the housing market crashed, ushering in the Great Recession. With his business underwater, Joachim filed for bankruptcy. He managed to find some accounting work for struggling small businesses, while also stocking shelves overnight at Walmart.

As the economy began to recover, Joachim found work for a contractor serving the U.S. Coast Guard, which eventually awarded him a subcontract. It was the break he needed, the launchpad to qualify for the 8(a) program, which “put me in a position to compete” by giving him access to the initial contracts he would need to build credibility with government agencies and fellow contractors, he said.

Suddenly contracts were easier to come by. His accounting firm, the Joachim Group, flourished. He settled on 10 acres in Southern Virginia and sent his son and daughter to college.

In his essay, Joachim reflected on that turnaround.

“The 8(a) Program is one of the only things in my life that has even remotely worked to begin to level the playing field for me as a man in a historically white man’s business world,” he wrote.

Affirmative action programs like 8(a) were designed to recognize past discrimination and “try to make up for that in some ways — without sticking it in your face,” he said. But the process of writing the essay — of having to relive those painful experiences — “forces you to focus on that and think of yourself as a second-class citizen.”

Five days after submitting his essay last August, the SBA accepted it, allowing Joachim to remain in the program for a 10th and final year.

Last month, he “graduated” from 8(a). From now on, the government will no longer classify him as “disadvantaged.”

Now, it’s “sink or swim,” he said. “And, by golly, we’re going to swim.”

How the development of my racial/ethnic identity has been impacted Essay

• To find inspiration for your paper and overcome writer’s block
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The understanding of my beliefs attitudes and values have changed tremendously under the influence of text readings and getting to understand the applicability of several concepts relating to the topic of individual and group differences. The changes have been particularly notable in the aspects of racial and ethnic identity.

Unlike in the earlier days, I have been able to substantially relate with people of different races and I have been able to get rid of some racially inclined prejudices that I may have had before taking this unit. In the past I used to hold the belief that the United States is a country that lays its foundation on the basis of white supremacy but in the time I have spent in America I have been able to prove myself wrong.

This is because racism as I have come to find out is a vice that is sneered on in the U.S like in the rest of the world. I have been able to shake the ideology that the white Americans are at an advantage to make successful individuals of themselves by virtue of advantages accorded to them due to their skin color.

I have been able to understand the causes of racism and prejudice in general and am currently in a position to identify how individuals, institutions and cultural systems contribute to the propagation of these two vices. When it comes to institutional racism, I have been able to confirm that it does not have to emanate from the individual.

Though I agree that there are manifestations of racism in the American society, I can now confirm that most of the racist tendencies I have always assumed were intentional actually present without the persons involved realizing their racist attitudes. Initially I held the belief that the color of an individual’s skin influenced whether or not they would end up on welfare.

I used to believe that there are very few white people on welfare because the color of their skin could not permit them to live on handouts. I have realized that it would be ridiculous for me to hold on to the belief that white people are bound to benefit from their skin color when they have to compete with people from other races.

There are some beliefs I held before taking the unit and was able to stick to such principles after going through several items of literature on the topic of individual and group differences. One of these beliefs is the fact that the minority races in the United States have the same chances for success as their white counterparts.

I am also not of the view that employers should give people of minority racial backgrounds priority over the white citizens should be upheld. On the contrary, I believe that the professional qualifications of an individual should be the ones to speak for him or her. From the kind of information I have been able to gain so far I can now competently disagree with members of my race should they happen to elicit racist tendencies.

I am also in a position to convince most of the people I associate with provide them with not to judge people by the color of their skin or ethnic background. The aspect of culture has for a long time been a scapegoat for explaining unwarranted racist and tribalistic actions. Through taking this course, I am now able to understand that cultural affiliations are but creations of human beings and as such should not be used to support vices in society.

How my understanding of human values has changed

Society is as diverse as the solar system. This is because of the human differences that arise both in terms of physical aspects and in behavioral characteristics. It is these differences that make any given society operate appropriately. The United States as country is particularly a concomitant of human differences.

This is particularly because it is a liberalist society where individuals are accorded the rights to do most things as they wish. Initially, because of my cultural background, I was not in a position to understand some of the lifestyle choices that were legal in the country.

This is particularly in regards to same sex relationships. Based on my community of origin, this is considered one of the vices and it is bound to receive the toughest of punishments-death. However, coming to the United States, I have been able to understand that homosexuality is not a choice that individuals make but rather an inherent characteristic.

I have been able to get rid of my anti-gay tendencies including the belief I used to hold that landlords should reserve the right to kick out of their houses individuals that practiced this alternative lifestyle. I still maintain my belief that many cultures in the world support homosexuality.

This has been effectively reinforced by going through various forms of literature including publications in the form of books and websites. Various news programs have also served to enlighten me on the issue of homosexuality and its prevalence even in societies considered strict.

Though I did not think that a substantial number of homosexuals are involved in criminal activities, I can now comfortably change my viewpoint because I have come to the realization that homosexuals are fully functional human beings and are prone to the vices that heterosexuals are predisposed to. I have come to accept that in whatever circumstance that homosexuals are forced to disclose their status, they should be regarded as different individuals and not deviants of cultural conventions.

In my parent culture, sexism manifests the most severe of forms. This is the kind of culture that still maintains that women have their own place in society and that their role is to act as servants to the man. Residence in the United States coupled with the academic knowledge gained by taking the course on individual and group differences have served to broaden my perspective on the role of women in society.

I have come to realize that gender need not be an inhibiting factor to the personal development of a human being. i actually now understand that when individuals confirm to gender roles in lieu of societal expectations they are bound to not achieve their full potential. I am now a key supporter of gender equality in the employment sectors. This is because I have come to realize that if women are given the same chances that their male counterparts are given, they can perform equally as good, if not better.

I also hold the viewpoint that violence against women is a serious issue in today’s society and should be appropriately dealt with. Though I did not initially understand the full implications of the term ‘feminists’ I can now tell that these are not women who hate men for the sake of it. This is an enlightenment I have been able to receive by taking this particular course. I now strongly support the idea of sexism being taught in schools as this will serve to get other people out of the dark.

Initially, I was undecided on whether legislation should be passed to demand that organizations recruit women into traditionally male jobs. I have now made up my mind and I believe that it will be in the interest of everybody to make the jobs market a level playing field. this will serve to make sure that professionalism is maintained occasioned by companies hiring competent individuals and not those who meet the gender criterion.

Steps in becoming more tolerant and aware of human differences

In order to become more aware and tolerant to human differences, I intend to make sure that I abandon the culturally-imposed views as regards different people. I will respect all people the same regardless of their gender and I will try to the best of my ability to understand people who choose to drift away from the heterosexual way of life.

I will respect people of all races and I will make an effort to ensure that people from my culture also see things from my perspective. I will not follow blindly any discriminatory actions that will be demanded of me and if I see a certain action as intolerant to human differences, I will speak against it.

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IvyPanda. (2018, July 9). How the development of my racial/ethnic identity has been impacted. https://ivypanda.com/essays/how-the-development-of-my-racial-ethnic-identity-has-been-impacted/

"How the development of my racial/ethnic identity has been impacted." IvyPanda , 9 July 2018, ivypanda.com/essays/how-the-development-of-my-racial-ethnic-identity-has-been-impacted/.

IvyPanda . (2018) 'How the development of my racial/ethnic identity has been impacted'. 9 July.

IvyPanda . 2018. "How the development of my racial/ethnic identity has been impacted." July 9, 2018. https://ivypanda.com/essays/how-the-development-of-my-racial-ethnic-identity-has-been-impacted/.

1. IvyPanda . "How the development of my racial/ethnic identity has been impacted." July 9, 2018. https://ivypanda.com/essays/how-the-development-of-my-racial-ethnic-identity-has-been-impacted/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "How the development of my racial/ethnic identity has been impacted." July 9, 2018. https://ivypanda.com/essays/how-the-development-of-my-racial-ethnic-identity-has-been-impacted/.

Top Democrats rule out replacing Biden amid calls for him to quit 2024 race

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To Serve His Country, President Biden Should Leave the Race

By The Editorial Board

The editorial board is a group of opinion journalists whose views are informed by expertise, research, debate and certain longstanding values . It is separate from the newsroom.

President Biden has repeatedly and rightfully described the stakes in this November’s presidential election as nothing less than the future of American democracy.

Donald Trump has proved himself to be a significant jeopardy to that democracy — an erratic and self-interested figure unworthy of the public trust. He systematically attempted to undermine the integrity of elections. His supporters have described, publicly, a 2025 agenda that would give him the power to carry out the most extreme of his promises and threats. If he is returned to office, he has vowed to be a different kind of president, unrestrained by the checks on power built into the American political system.

Mr. Biden has said that he is the candidate with the best chance of taking on this threat of tyranny and defeating it. His argument rests largely on the fact that he beat Mr. Trump in 2020. That is no longer a sufficient rationale for why Mr. Biden should be the Democratic nominee this year.

At Thursday’s debate, the president needed to convince the American public that he was equal to the formidable demands of the office he is seeking to hold for another term. Voters, however, cannot be expected to ignore what was instead plain to see: Mr. Biden is not the man he was four years ago.

The president appeared on Thursday night as the shadow of a great public servant. He struggled to explain what he would accomplish in a second term. He struggled to respond to Mr. Trump’s provocations. He struggled to hold Mr. Trump accountable for his lies, his failures and his chilling plans. More than once, he struggled to make it to the end of a sentence.

Mr. Biden has been an admirable president. Under his leadership, the nation has prospered and begun to address a range of long-term challenges, and the wounds ripped open by Mr. Trump have begun to heal. But the greatest public service Mr. Biden can now perform is to announce that he will not continue to run for re-election.

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