Race, Ethnicity, and Culture

Lev Vygotsky, a leader of this approach from early in the twentieth century, pointed out that children in all communities are cultural participants, living in a particular community at a specific time in history. Vygotsky (1987) argued that rather than trying to “reveal the eternal child,” the goal is to discover “the historical child.”

People often view the practices of other communities as barbaric. They assume that their community’s perspective on reality is the only proper or sensible or civilized one (Berger & Luckmann, 1966; Campbell & LeVine, 1961; Jahoda & Krewer, 1997).

Likewise, sexual orientation is another form of social stratification. This is perhaps most poignantly illustrated by continuing discrimination and hate crimes that are directed toward gays and lesbians. Also, homophobic political rhetoric in the ongoing debate on same-sex marriage echoes discriminatory attitudes that fueled the antimiscegenation

To learn from and about communities other than our own, we need to go beyond the ethnocentric assumptions from which we each begin. Often, the first and most difficult step is to recognize that our original views are generally a function of our own cultural experience, rather than the only right or possible way.

Berry (1998) notes that minorities’ disempowerment and discrimination are often determined by the characteristics of the dominant groups, such as their openness to share privilege and status, the nature of relationships between groups (e.g., positive or tension-filled), and levels of tolerance or embracement of difference or diversity. Other

Understanding across cultural groups requires adopting

“Mommy, What Color Are You?” At the end of Sheila’s workday, she left to pick up her two-year-old daughter, Laura, at her day care center. As Sheila positioned Laura into her car seat, she detected a very inquisitive look on her daughter’s face. Once Sheila strapped on her seat belt, she noticed through her rearview mirror that Laura still looked

Rosenblum and Travis (2015) argue that, despite the coexistence of both privilege and oppression within any one person, stigma is so pervasive and strong in our society that oppression can often trump privileges that one’s other statuses might offer. They point to health, housing, economic, hiring, and promotion disparities as evidence that

Ethnic identity is a relatively new construct that grew out of the ethnic-consciousness movements of the early 1970s in reaction to historically oppressive racial typologies. Ethnicity, nonetheless, is similar to race in that both are social constructions. - Organista et al., 2018.