Underrepresented Groups

The designation underrepresented groups is a term used to describe those who lack political, social, and economic equity compared with the dominant group in the society. While other countries have similar groups, such as the First Nations in Canada or minorities in China, this entry will confine itself to the United States of America. The entry provides a context for understanding underrepresented groups, including a discussion of the psychosocial variables that affect the individuals in those groups and the concept of intercultural competence.

Underrepresented groups in the United States have traditionally been identified as racial and ethnic minorities, namely, American Indians and Alaska Natives, African Americans, Asian Americans, Hispanic and Latino Americans, and Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders. These groups have been actively disenfranchised from having influence in the various sectors that make life progressively better for their particular group. Although these groups are growing in numbers in many states, they have inappropriately limited power.

Although the concept of underrepresented groups has been discussed for some time, there is no universal agreement about its definition. A case could be made for any number of groups to be classified as underrepresented. Some would argue that individuals who participate in some religious practices, particularly those that are not based on a Christian tradition, are members of underrepresented groups. Some would postulate that people with a gay or lesbian sexual orientation are members of under-represented groups. Others would surmise that people with physical or mental challenges are underrepresented groups.

However, drawing on a synthesis of intercultural knowledge and examining underrepresented groups from a developmental perspective, what designates a group as having underrepresented status is the extent to which the group has been exposed to an exclusionary ideology that, tactically and legally, resulted in practices that over the generations were designed to reduce the group to an inferior status. Thus, to achieve an underrepresented group status, some of the following must have occurred during the group’s history in the United States.

[Page 830]Overall, these actions were intentionally designed to result in restrictions, limit their ability to accumulate wealth, dissolve families, produce high unemployment, and dehumanize the object population. Within this context, the U.S. government has designated these demographic categories of racial and ethnic minorities for underrepresented group status.