Sociology 103 Take Home Questions
1. Ethnic stratification is a rank order of groups, each made up of people with
presumed common cultural or physical characteristics interacting in patterns of dominance
and subordination. To begin with, all systems of ethnic stratification are products of the
contact of previously separated groups. initial contact may be in the form of conquest,
annexation, voluntary immigration, or involuntary immigration. Following contact, groups
engage in competition, view one another ethnocentrically, and, ultimately, one imposes its
superior power over the others, emerging as the dominant group. Ethnic stratification
systems are created by the movement of people across national boundaries, usually
bringing with them different languages and cultural systems, or by the establishment of
new political boundaries. Multiethnic societies are formed through one or a combination
of several contact patterns. The first factor critical to the emergence of ethnic
stratification or inequality is Conquest. Conquest is a form of contact in which people of
one society subdue all or part of another society and take on the role of the dominant
group. European colonialism of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries best exemplifies
this pattern. The next factor to the emergence of ethnic stratification is Annexation. It is
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a political occurrence in which a part or possibly all of one society is incorporated into
another. If a gathered society has a dominant group, then the ethnic groups within that
society become subordinate at the point that sovereignty is transferred. Such annexation
may occur in a peaceful or a violent manner. Following annexation, the most common
patterns by which ethnic groups come into contact involve immigration. The immigration
of peoples from one society to another may be either voluntary or involuntary. The chief
source of ethnic heterogeneity in the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand
has been voluntary immigration. The chief objective of people who emigrate from their
home society is ordinarily economic betterment though sometimes political or religious
considerations play an important role. Demographers who study migration patterns refer
to factors of “push and pull” that motivate people to leave their original society and
migrate to one that promises improved conditions of life. The “pull” happens in times of
economic hardship, people will be encouraged to emigrate if they perceive more favorable
economic opportunities in another society. Depressed economic conditions, involving
minimal job opportunities and low wages, along with a low expectation of betterment of
such conditions, constitute the “push”. Additional push factors were the increase in
evictions by landlords and the unlikelihood of any major political changes that would have
improved the economic situation. On the pull side, the most appealing societies were
those in need of unskilled labor, like the United States and Canada, which were then in the
primary stages of industrialization. Finally, Involuntary immigration involves the forced
transfer of peoples from one society to another. Such forced movements are best
exemplified by the slave trade of the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries,
which brought millions of blacks from Africa to work the cotton and sugar plantations of
the United States, Brazil, and the West Indies.
Lieberson’s theory is that the nature by which diverse ethnic groups initially meet
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has been shown to be a critical factor in explaining the emergence of ethnic inequality and
the specific patterns it subsequently takes. He distinguishes two major types of contact
situations. The first type, migrant superordination, is illustrated by various colonial
conquests in which a technologically and organizationally more powerful migrant group
subdues the native population. The second, indigenous superordination, is characteristic
of most voluntary and involuntary immigrations such as those to North America; in these
cases, the arriving groups are initially made subordinate to a resident dominant group.
Lieberson maintains that long-term conflict is more likely in societies where the indigenous
population at initial contact is subordinate. Native groups less powerful than the arriving
colonials are left with few options other than resistance to the new social order imposed
on them. This hostility is further strengthened when the conquering group, over time,
becomes itself an indigenous group. It is the relative power of the migrant and indigenous
groups that determines the eventual nature of ethnic stratification in each of these
situations. Where an invading group is successful in dominating the native population, the
political and economic systems of the new group are imposed, and warfare and general
conflict are likely to result quickly. Situations in which the native group wields greater
power and immigrant groups enter as subordinates produce less overt conflict initially.
The indigenous group retains control over the size and character of immigration and may
encourage quick assimilation, as in the case of most European immigrants to the United
States. Furthermore, conflict is diminished by the fact that if the immigration is voluntary,
dissatisfied immigrants may return to their society of origin.
Although the nature of initial group contact my be important in giving rise to and
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shaping the eventual system of ethnic stratification, Donald Noel has pointed three
additional factors in 1968. They are ethnocentrism, competition for scarce societal
resources, and an unequal distribution of power. On initial contact, divergent groups will
judge each other in terms of their own culture, ethnocentrically. Given the nature of
ethnocentrism, these evaluations will usually be negative. The negative judgments will
depend on the degree of difference between the groups: The more dissimilar they are, the
more negative the judgment. When culturally dissimilar groups meet, then, ethnocentrism
can be expected to typify intergroup attitudes. However, ethnocentrism alone is not
sufficient to produce ethnic stratification. Groups may view one another negatively
without the necessary emergence of dominant-subordinate relations among them. An
additional prerequisite is competition, structured along ethnic lines. Noel poses that the
more intense the competition, the greater the likelihood of the emergence of ethnic
stratification. When groups strive for the same scarce resources, their interrelations take
on the characteristics of competition and conflict. Within the competitive arena, those
groups with the greatest capacity to adapt to the social and physical environment will end
up higher in the ethnic hierarchy. Differential power among the various groups is the final
prerequisite for the development of ethnic stratification. Unless one can overpower
another, there is no basis for a stable rank order of ethnic groups, even if there is
competition and ethnocentrism among them. When there is a particularly wide power gap
between competing and ethnocentric groups, the emergent stratification system is likely to
be quite durable. Power breeds more power and once established, the dominant group
uses its power to obstruct the competition of other groups and to solidify dominance. In
the end, differential power among the various groups is the most critical of the
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requirements for the emergence of ethnic stratification. Noel’s theory postulates that
competition for scarce resources provides the motivation for stratification, ethnocentrism
channels this competition along ethnic lines, and differential power determines whether
one group will be able to subordinate others.
