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Ethnic Group

The ideas of ethnicity and ethnic group have a long history, often related to “otherness.” In the 20th century and beyond, the idea of what constitutes an ethnic group has changed; once associated with minority status and later with cultural characteristics, ethnicity is most recently viewed as the outcome of a social process. This entry discusses the history of the term, traces the evolution of thinking about ethnicity, and summarizes the current scholarly discussion.

A Historical Review

Etymology and Ethnicity

The origin of the word ethnicity is Greek. In Homeric writing, it meant a swarm or flock of animals like bees or sheep, a biologically defined grouping. Eventually the term was applied to humans, and it meant the unity of persons of common blood or descent. The adjectival form, ethnikos (it entered Latin as ethnicus), referred to heathen, pagan, or those “others” who did not share the dominant faith. The same meaning of the word could be found in 15th-century England referring to someone who was neither Christian nor Jew—a pagan or heathen.

By the 20th century, the meaning of the word changed again and became closer to the original Greek conception. Ethnic started to refer to “others,” to those who were not “us.” The term was not in wide circulation. The terms ethnic group and ethnicity did not appear in standard English dictionaries until 1961, when they could be found in Webster's Third New International. In the 1972 Supplement to the Oxford English Dictionary, the first usage was attributed to David Riesman in 1953.

Ethnicity and the Other

The emergence of ethnic studies can be connected with the Chicago school of sociology and especially with Robert E. Park. He did not use the word ethnicity but, rather words such as race, nationality, or simply a group—for instance, in his famous formulation of the “race relations cycle.” By the time Park began his career at the University of Chicago in 1914, immigration from Europe had just peaked, the Mexican Revolution was forcing many to flee northward to the United States, Asian migrants had already arrived in substantial numbers, the massive migration of southern Blacks to the northern cities had begun, and vast numbers of Whites from small towns and farms across America were moving to the cities. Park and his students did some of the first studies of the settlement patterns of racial (ethnic) groups in cities and looked at conditions in their crowded enclaves and ghettos.

The return of the word ethnic to describe the special characteristics of the social life of these groups in big cities was impregnated by the “otherness” and minority status of these groups. Park's use of the term was based on certain sets of assumptions and judgments about the nature of ethnicity and ethnic relations. His assimilationist model implied that in the long run, the “ethnic” would assimilate into the “non-ethnic” core. That meant that the “majority” was not perceived as “ethnic,” and “ethnicity” was the characteristic of a “minority.”

A Broader Definition

It took some time before ethnicity was used in terms of a “majority” group or, in a more general way, to describe “ourselves,” rather than just “minorities” or “others.” This evolution culminated in several publications edited by Nathan Glazer and Daniel P. Moynihan. In 1975, they proclaimed that the importance of ethnic groups had extended beyond minorities to all the groups of a society characterized by a distinct sense of difference because of culture and descent. According to Glazer and Moynihan, the new meaning of the term ethnic group is based on the expansion of its scope from minority and marginal subgroups at the edges of society—groups expected to assimilate, to disappear, to continue as survivals, exotic or troublesome—to dominant elements of society.

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