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Ethnicity

Ethnicity refers to a social group category defined by the shared historical, national, social, political, and cultural heritage of a people. Ethnicity includes a reference to shared ancestry, language, customs, traditions, and similar physical characteristics among a group of people. In addition, ethnicity tends to be informed by the social group's particular geographic area. For example, in the United States, an individual may be racially classified as Black because he or she is associated with the social, political, and economic experiences, in addition to similar physical characteristics, of that social group, but be ethnically classified as Jamaican because he or she shares the historical, national, social, political, and cultural heritage with others from the Caribbean country of Jamaica. Ethnicity is assumed to have broad implications for how individuals understand themselves and experience the world around them. Therefore, ethnicity is thought to shape individuals' experiences of psychological well-being.

Given the connection between ethnicity, culture, and psychological well-being, ethnicity is a significant variable to explore in cross-cultural counseling situations. Social group categories provide reservoirs for meaning and context for individual and shared group experiences. Therefore, knowing an individual's ethnicity can provide a counselor with a framework for understanding the individual from a particular cultural perspective.

Race versus Ethnicity

Race and ethnicity are often, erroneously, used interchangeably in public discourse and in scholarly and research literature. Oftentimes in the United States, ethnicity is used as a euphemism for race because the former tends to connote a more positive conception than race, which tends to be a politically charged construct. However, to be precise, race and ethnicity, though interrelated, are distinct constructs. Ethnicity is informed by an individual's race but represents a specific aspect of his or her cultural experience. Whereas race represents a limited number of social groups (e.g., Black, White, or Asian) based upon the varying social, political, and economic needs of society, ethnicity represents a larger number of specific and unique social groups (e.g., Haitian, Irish, or Japanese) based upon the historical culture of a people.

When considering culture, one must take into account the values, customs, traditions, attitudes, social norms, and patterns of interaction of a people. Given the complexity and array of the components of culture, considering broad racial categories only restricts the nuanced experiences of said culture. Therefore, ethnicity allows for greater distinction within broad racial categories such that significant but subtle differences between various subgroups are recognized. Consider the racial group Asian, which encompasses individuals representing more than 25 different ethnic groups with distinct social, political, and economic histories. With this vast array of ethnicities, knowing that someone is Asian provides very little information when compared with knowing that someone is Vietnamese, Cambodian, Chinese, or Pakistani.

Identity

Even though ethnicity allows for greater distinction among groups of people, counselors must also remain aware of within-group differences among members of ethnicities. Counselors consider how the individual understands his or her own ethnicity in relation to his or her sense of self. Ethnic identity is one way to think about those within-group differences. Whereas ethnicity refers to the social group category, ethnic identity refers to an individual's sense of belongingness or connection to his or her ethnic group. In this sense, ethnic identity includes the degree to which an individual adheres to the attitudes and values, upholds the customs and traditions, and perceives the world from a perspective that is consistent with his or her ethnicity. This means that a Jamaican person who espouses attitudes and values, participates in cultural activities, and experiences the world in a manner that is consistent with other Jamaicans is said to have a positive ethnic identity as Jamaican. This may be contrasted against a Jamaican individual who does not participate in Jamaican cultural activities, perhaps espouses attitudes and values that differ from those of other Jamaicans, and experiences the world in a manner that is inconsistent with other Jamaicans—this individual can be described as having a less positive ethnic identity.

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