Reviews for Ethnicity and Race: Making Identities in a Changing World (Sociology for a New Century Series)

The average rating for Ethnicity and Race: Making Identities in a Changing World (Sociology for a New Century Series) based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2021-01-16 00:00:00 Amber Demeter One if my favorite theoretical constructions of race and ethnicity. Based on constructionist viewpoints, the authors expertly theorize how race and ethnicity are formed, changed, and maintained throughout peace and conflict.

Review # 2 was written on 2012-01-25 00:00:00 Robert Hartwood I read this book this semester as required by my Ethnicity and Nationalism course. This is a basic look at identities and the construction of those identities, how they're shaped and how it affects not only the group but the society and world around them with the ever-growing presence of globalization. Race and ethnicity are, of course, the focal point. As a social construct (and therefore fake in any biological test), it briefly discussed how certain groups dealt with the change of their identities through migration and colonization and so forth--how new identities were assigned and then asserted. I enjoyed this book. As an introductory text, it served it's purpose. I would have liked a bit more depth, but this is for an upper-level general ed class. I know it had me thinking, and I could tell how it began to shape the views of my fellow classmates. The most interesting part for me was learning that prominent early 20th century sociologists such as Robert Park predicted the end of the concepts of race and ethnicity as the world began to globalize and modernize, but this did not happen. Even with intermarriage and global migration, boundaries are still enforced. We don't melt, the authors assert, but our need for compartmentalization and an identity all our own (which by definition creates an "other," a "them"), serves to reinforce boundaries as well. Some have melted, but not enough. The question is whether these sociologists' predictions will simply take more time to materialize, or if they never will. I tend to think there is a strong argument for both answers.