Dominant group/Ethnicity

Dominant group is a term at the semantic level of entity regarding generalness. Within the subject area of ethnicity, a dominant group is an ethnic entity like a sociologist, psychologist, or the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies.

The dominant ethnic group is of Tibetan / Tibeto-Burman ancestry. Credit: Babasteve.

From the perspective of ethnicity, any dominant group is often portrayed as the bad group that engages in discrimination, abuse, punishment, and additional criminal activity against other demographic groups.

A dominant group often has an unfair advantage such as numbers, military power, and assets or money, which it uses to express monopolistic practices.

Even in regions where principles of egalitarianism, fairness, and equity exist, there is often a group that seeks to exploit and control other groups and individuals to better only its own situation. In short, any dominant group is often portrayed as a group that does not believe that all groups are in it together.

Dominant group

Main resource: Dominant group

Examples from primary sources are to be used to prove or disprove each hypothesis. These can be collected per subject or in general.

1. Accident hypothesis: dominant group is an accident of whatever processes are operating.
2. Artifact hypothesis: dominant group may be an artifact of human endeavor or may have preceded humanity.
3. Association hypothesis: dominant group is associated in some way with the original research.
4. Bad group hypothesis: dominant group is the group that engages in discrimination, abuse, punishment, and additional criminal activity against other groups. It often has an unfair advantage and uses it to express monopolistic practices.
5. Control group hypothesis: there is a control group that can be used to study dominant group.
6. Entity hypothesis: dominant group is an entity within each field where a primary author of original research uses the term.
7. Evolution hypothesis: dominant group is a product of evolutionary processes, such groups are the evolutionary process, produce evolutionary processes, or are independent of evolutionary processes.
8. Identifier hypothesis: dominant group is an identifier used by primary source authors of original research to identify an observation in the process of analysis.
9. Importance hypothesis: dominant group signifies original research results that usually need to be explained by theory and interpretation of experiments.
10. Indicator hypothesis: dominant group may be an indicator of something as yet not understood by the primary author of original research.
11. Influence hypothesis: dominant group is included in a primary source article containing original research to indicate influence or an influential phenomenon.
12. Interest hypothesis: dominant group is a theoretical entity used by scholarly authors of primary sources for phenomena of interest.
13. Metadefinition hypothesis: all uses of dominant group by all primary source authors of original research are included in the metadefinition for dominant group.
14. Null hypothesis: there is no significant or special meaning of dominant group in any sentence or figure caption in any refereed journal article.
15. Object hypothesis: dominant group is an object within each field where a primary author of original research uses the term.
16. Obvious hypothesis: the only meaning of dominant group is the one found in Mosby's Medical Dictionary.
17. Original research hypothesis: dominant group is included in a primary source article by the author to indicate that the article contains original research.
18. Primordial hypothesis: dominant group is a primordial concept inherent to humans such that every language or other form of communication no matter how old or whether extinct, on the verge of extinction, or not, has at least a synonym for dominant group.
19. Purpose hypothesis: dominant group is written into articles by authors for a purpose.
20. Regional hypothesis: dominant group, when it occurs, is only a manifestation of the limitations within a region. Variation of those limitations may result in the loss of a dominant group with the eventual appearance of a new one or none at all.
21. Source hypothesis: dominant group is a source within each field where a primary author of original research uses the term.
22. Term hypothesis: dominant group is a significant term that may require a 'rigorous definition' or application and verification of an empirical definition.

Experimentation

Main resources: Dominant group/experimentation and Experimentation

To gather data, use "dominant group" in quotes and ethnicity or ethnic group as additional search terms to explore the internet using search engines listed under External links.

Humanities

"The term 'humanities' includes, but is not limited to, the study and interpretation of the following: language, both modern and classical; linguistics; literature; history; jurisprudence; philosophy; archaeology; comparative religion; ethics; the history, criticism and theory of the arts; those aspects of social sciences which have humanistic content and employ humanistic methods; and the study and application of the humanities to the human environment with particular attention to reflecting our diverse heritage, traditions, and history and to the relevance of the humanities to the current conditions of national life." --National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act, 1965, as amended.

The Division of Research Programs for the National Endowment for the Humanities encourages research and writing in all areas of the humanities, including the study of history, literature, philosophy, religion, and foreign cultures. Through grants to individual scholars and institutions, the division fosters work that enables Americans to understand the world.

What aspects of ethnicity are considered to be part of the humanities?

Humanism

Main resource: Humanism

"Humanism is a group of philosophies and ethical perspectives which emphasize the value and agency of human beings, individually and collectively, and generally prefers individual thought and evidence (rationalism, empiricism), over established doctrine or faith (fideism). The term humanism can be ambiguously diverse, and there has been a persistent confusion between several related uses of the term because different intellectual movements have identified with it over time. [An account of the evolution of the meaning of the word humanism from the point of view of a modern secular humanist can be found in Nicolas Walter's Humanism – What's in the Word. From the same perspective, but somewhat less polemical, can be found in Richard Norman's On Humanism (Thinking in Action). For a historical and philologically oriented view, see Vito Giustiniani, "Homo, Humanus, and the Meanings of Humanism" (1985)]. In philosophy and social science, humanism refers to a perspective that affirms some notion of a "human nature" (contrasted with anti-humanism). In modern times, many humanist movements have become strongly aligned with secularism, with the term Humanism often used as a byword for non-theistic beliefs about ideas such as meaning and purpose."

Humanistic methods

"Assisting participants to take responsibility for their own lives and choices (Perls et al., 1951), to deepen authenticity (Bugental, 1989; Yalom, 1980), and to increase interpersonal awareness through dialogical therapy (Friedman, 1985) are all humanistic methods."

"The emergence of humanistic methods in the seventies reflected another dimension to a focus on the learner. Humanistic methods were those in which the following principles were considered important:

• the development of human values
• growth in self-awareness and the understanding of others
• sensitivity to human feelings and emotions
• active student involvement in learning and the way learning takes place."

"[O]ver the last 30 years [1970s to 2000s] ... [each issue has changed to] what current beliefs and practices ... are. In the process we will also see hints of the transition from modernism (the rejection of prescription, authority, untested claims and assertions in favor [of] reason, empirical investigation and objectivity closely associated with the scientific method) to postmodernism (the rejection of modernism for failing to recognize the cultural relativity of all forms of knowledge, an emphasis on the autonomous individual, and the adoption of amoral stance against all forms of injustice)."

"Now:"

• a practical tool
• a world commodity

Humanistic terminology

"Buzzwords"

• action research
• alternative assessment
• aptitude
• authentic assessment
• authentic texts
• automatic processing
• cognitive style
• coherence
• cohesion
• competency-based assessment
• composing processes
• composition studies
• conferences
• connectionism
• constructivism
• contrastive rhetoric
• creative construction hypothesis
• critical friendship
• critical theory
• critical thinking
• criterion referenced test
• developmental sequence
• discourse community
• diversity
• drafting
• editing
• empowerment
• error analysis
• explanations
• extrinsic motivation
• genre
• genre approach
• good learner
• humanistic methods
• ideology
• indigenization
• individual differences
• individualization
• individualized instruction
• instrumental motivation
• integrative motivation
• interactional competence
• interaction hypothesis
• interlanguage
• intrinsic motivation
• journals
• learner autonomy
• learner-centeredness
• learner diaries
• learner strategies
• learner training
• learning strategies
• long term memory
• mentoring portfolios
• metacognitive awareness
• multiple intelligences
• needs analysis
• negotiation of meaning
• norm-referenced
• paragraph pattern approach
• parameters
• peer assessment
• peer feed-back planning
• performance assessment
• political correctness
• portfolio assessment
• principles
• prior knowledge
• process
• processing skills
• proficiency
• qualitative assessment
• quantitative assessment
• reflective teaching
• schema
• scripts
• second language teacher education
• self-access learning
• self-assessment
• self directed learning
• short term memory
• stakeholder
• standard
• strategy training
• teacher decision-making
• teacher development
• teacher networks
• teacher training
• technical reading skills
• text structure
• text types
• threshold microskills
• topic sentence
• transitions
• writing supporting sentence
• zone of proximal development

Communication

Main resources: Humanistic methods/Communication and Communication

• communicative approaches
• communicative competence the goal of learning

Individualization

Main resource: Individualization

• diversity a strength
• emphasis on individual difference
• role of universalism

Learning

Main resource: Learning

• interactionist model of learning
• learning controlled by the learner
• learning occurs inside and outside the classroom
• learning is learner driven
• learning through scaffolding
• probabilistic models of learning proposed

Performance evaluations

Main resource: Performance evaluations

• accuracy and fluency of equal status
• comprehensibility the target
• comprehension is a creative and interactive process
• fluency-based methodology
• tests serve to assess progress in meeting goals
• tests serve to improve instruction
• criterion-referenced testing
• greater use of alternative assessment
• assessment strategies seek to integrate skills in meaningful contexts
• tests involve real-world tasks
• self-assessment by learners
• stronger links between teaching and testing
• use of peer feedback

Reading

Main resource: Reading

• reading based not just on print materials but on hypertext and other source of information
• reading viewed as a mix of bottom-up and top-down processing
• successful reading depends on strategy use
• reading skills developed through the use of authentic texts
• technical reading skills and information processing skills the focus at higher levels

Reasoning

Main resource: Reasoning

• critical reasoning skills a priority for learners to be able to apply their understanding to solving real world problems
• focus on organizational systems and processes
• meaningful context

Resources

Main resource: Resources

• a multimedia center
• authentic texts
• classrooms are connected to one another and to the world
• discourse and texts
• educational software is an integral part of the curriculum
• e-mail connects students with other students anywhere in the world
• video and computers a common teaching and learning resource
• teachers and students use the World Wide Web as a teaching/learning resource

Teaching

Main resource: Teaching

• bottom-up approaches to teaching
• exploratory and reflective approaches to teaching
• focus on composing processes
• focus on genres
• focus on text types and text organization
• focus on effective writing strategies
• learner-centered teaching
• teaching through tasks
• training of learner strategies
• teachers trained in a variety of methods or approaches
• both "training" and "development" emphasized
• constructivist philosophy of teacher development
• teachers encouraged to develop their own personal approaches to teaching
• broad knowledge base in language teaching
• teachers learn through collaboration and self-reflection

Undifferentiated

• new versions of humanistic approaches

Values

Main resource: Values

• learning not necessarily linked to US or British cultural values
• teaching linked to national values

Ethnicity

Main resources: Dominant group/Ethnicity and Ethnicity

Def. "[t]he common characteristics of a group of people" is called ethnicity.

Def. a fact or state of being a member of a social group with common characteristics such as national or cultural tradition is called ethnicity.

Ethnic group

Main resources: Dominant group/Ethnicity and Ethnic group

Def. a "group of people who identify with one another, especially on the basis of national, cultural, or religious grounds" is called an ethnic group.

An ethnic group (or ethnicity) is a group of people whose members identify with each other, through a common heritage, often consisting of a common language, a common culture (often including a shared religion) and/or an ideology that stresses common ancestry or endogamy.

Another definition is "...a highly biologically self-perpetuating group sharing an interest in a homeland connected with a specific geographical area, a common language and traditions, including food preferences, and a common religious faith".

"Members of an ethnic group are conscious of belonging to an ethnic group; moreover ethnic identity is further marked by the recognition from others of a group's distinctiveness."

Ethnics

Main resources: Dominant group/Ethnics and Ethnics

As an adjective,

Def. of or relating to a population subgroup (within a larger or dominant national or cultural group) with a common national or cultural tradition is called ethnic.

"Ethnic identity among members of a dominant group in society, although it can be conceptualized (Helms, 1985), has apparently not been studied empirically."

"There is also considerable evidence that by 6 to 7-years children from the ethnically dominant group can identify their own ethnic group, that they reveal increasingly strong ingroup preferences, and that they display ingroup positivity and outgroup negativity in their trait attributions (Aboud, 1988; Nesdale 2001)."

"There is also extensive evidence that, from 4 years onwards, children from the ethnically dominant group can accurately identify their own ethnic group membership and that, when required to make choices or indicate preferences or allocate rewards, they reveal increasingly strong bias towards their ethnic in-group."

"To the extent possible, we assigned one member from each ethnic group, including Anglo, to the diverse groups to minimize pressure to conform to the norms of a dominant group."

Dominant minority

Main resources: Dominant group/Dominant minority and Dominant minority

"A dominant minority, also known as alien elites if they are recent immigrants, is a group that has overwhelming political, economic or cultural dominance in a country or region despite representing a small fraction of the overall population (a demographic minority). The term is most commonly used to refer to an ethnic group which is defined along racial, national, religious or cultural lines and that holds a disproportionate amount of power."

"The rule of dominant minorities often contradicts the mandate of the country's majority; such situations are widely criticized as undemocratic (as during the global movement against apartheid in South Africa). However, there are also some cases of powerful dominant minorities in countries that are at least nominally democratic (such as Colombia or Jamaica). The persistence of dominant elites in a democratic context may entail undemocratic means of sustaining power (such as political violence against third-party candidates in Colombia, or death squad violence against the legal left in El Salvador during the 1980s). Political exclusion of the majority often leads to widespread popular resentment towards the dominant elite. Absent the ability to effect change by democratic means, this resentment can be a primary factor in causing rebellion and civil war (by driving the disenfranchised to guerrilla activity)."

Countries

Main resources: Dominant group/Countries and Countries

It is commonly supposed in the media and by politicians that civil war is more likely in more ethnically diverse countries. "In a nationalist age, plurality groups that are excluded from power may feel especially aggrieved." Although there is a tendency for states with a dominant minority to have higher risks of civil war, the tendency is weak, neither statistically significant nor substantively strong. "The magnitude of the impact of minority dominance probably depends on the level of “background” ethnic antagonism." It is not likely that ethnic minority dominance "explains much variance in civil war propensities."

Canada

Main resources: Dominant group/Canada and Canada

"[W]hite elites and minorities in Canada are clearly defined".

"[T]he category of "dominant group" has unclear limits and varies from one geographical region to another."

"Traces the evolution of the dominant group in Canada since 1931 by examining criteria for dominance that have evolved over time."

Guatemala

Main resources: Dominant group/Guatemala and Guatemala

Local Guatemalan communities have been "divided into a dominant group of Spanish-speaking Ladinos (who constituted 56.7 percent of the total in 1964), and various subordinate Indian groups speaking related Maya languages."

"[C]ensus data show a steady and relatively rapid decline in the Indian proportion of the total population which must be largely accounted for in terms of Indians “passing” into the Ladino group."

Indonesia

Main resources: Dominant group/Indonesia and Indonesia

"Indigenous peoples were compelled to work or produce for the dominant group; the "culture system" of Java and the "peonage" system of the Spanish colonies form the outstanding instances of this."

Mexico

Main resources: Dominant group/Mexico and Mexico

"The locally dominant group is better connected to the global village and possesses the cultural capital useful in managing, and marketing the tourist touree encounter."

"The mestizos, the economically and politically dominant group, refer to themselves as gente de razon ("people of reason") to the exclusion of the words ladino and mestizo, which are wide-spread elsewhere in Mesoamerica.

United States

Main resources: Dominant group/United States and United States

"Dominant Group Ethnic Identity in the United States: The Role of “Hidden" Ethnicity in Intergroup Relations", is an example of "dominant group" used in an article title.

"Where there is a subordination-domination relationship between two groups, a member of the subordinate group may identify himself with the dominant group, having taken over its culture, but he is not accepted by the latter and instead is categorized within the subordinate".

“Racial boundaries reflect relations of power, in particular the ability of the dominant group to construct and impose definitions upon others.”

"[D]ominant groups may belong to marked categories (as perceived by marginalized groups) ... [T]o the extent that stereotypes address groups’ global competence, they may be especially damaging—but stereotypes of incompetence are not typically attached to dominant groups ... [T]he pervasive focus on Whites’ attitudes toward people of color may have emerged as a well-meaning attempt to put the responsibility for prejudice on the major perpetrators of prejudice (i.e., the dominant group; Shelton, 2000). The study of stereotypes of dominant groups is very new, and hence much is left to be done."

Regions

Main resources: Dominant group/Regions and Regions

Def. "[a]ny considerable and connected part of a space or surface; specifically, a tract of land or sea of considerable but indefinite extent; a country; a district; in a broad sense, a place without special reference to location or extent but viewed as an entity for geographical, social or cultural reasons" is called a region.

Latin America

Main resources: Dominant group/Latin America and Latin America

"Four years later, in October 1938, the Radicals became the dominant group in the Popular Front".

Manchuria

Main resources: Dominant group/Manchuria and Manchuria

This is a CIA [The World Factbook] map of Manchuria. Credit: USA Central Intelligence Agency.

"Previously [before 1851], the term "Chinese Tartary" had been commonly applied in the West to Manchuria and Mongolia."

In the map at right, a region north of Korea is indicated in three shades of red.

  Inner Manchuria.

  North region of Inner Mongolia.

  Outer Manchuria.

"Manchuria is a historical name given to a large geographic region in northeast Asia. Depending on the definition of its extent, Manchuria usually falls entirely within the People's Republic of China, or is sometimes divided between China and Russia. The region is commonly referred to as Northeast China (東北, 东北, Dōngběi). This region is the traditional homeland of the Xianbei, Khitan, and Jurchen peoples, who built several states historically. The region is also the home of the Manchus, after whom Manchuria is named."

"Manchuria can refer to any one of several regions of various size. These are, from smallest to largest:"

1. Northeast China (Dongbei): consisting of Heilongjiang, Jilin and Liaoning provinces.
2. Inner Manchuria: the above, plus parts of modern Inner Mongolia (Hulunbuir, Hinggan, Tongliao, and Chifeng divisions);
3. The above, plus Outer Manchuria (Russian Manchuria): the area from the Amur and Ussuri rivers to the Stanovoy Mountains and the Sea of Japan. In Russian administrative terms, Primorsky Krai, southern Khabarovsk Krai, the Jewish Autonomous Oblast and Amur Oblast. These were part of Manchu China according to the Treaty of Nerchinsk of 1689, but were ceded to Russia by the Treaty of Aigun (1858).
4. The above, plus Sakhalin Island, which is generally included on Chinese maps as part of Outer Manchuria, even though it is not explicitly mentioned in the Treaty of Nerchinsk.

"Third, whereas in Russian (and later, Soviet) Central Asia and Far East the Slavs were the dominant group in terms of the authority wielded, the reverse was truer in Manchuria, where the Slav population was ultimately subjected to Chinese (and later, Japanese) central control."

Turkestan

This is a map from Mahmud al-Kashgari's Diwanu Lughat at-Turk, showing the 11th century distribution of Turkic tribes. Credit: Dbachmann.

Map of Turkestan shows modern state borders. Credit: MicBy67.

"Today the term [Turkestan] is used to describe a region which is inhabited mainly by Turkic peoples in Central Asia. It includes present-day Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Xinjiang. Many would also include Turkic regions of Russia (Tatarstan & parts of Siberia) as well."

"Today the dominant group controlling Eastern Turkestan is officially called Chinese administration. A little more than half a century ago, Eastern Turkestan was a Turkic land heavily populated by the Turkic race, namely the Uygur, Kazak, Tatar, Kirgiz, etc."

Hypotheses

Main resource: Hypotheses

1. A dominant group that uses fairness produces egalitarianism.

What are the common characteristics of a group of people?

Is ethnicity the field of the two-word term dominant group?

What ethnic group originated the first use of a term that has been translated into English as dominant group?

Is there some fundamental ethnographic concept associated with dominant group?

What is the origin and first use of the term or its primordial concept and usage?

See also

• Anthropology
• Dominant group/Anthropology
• Dominant group/Psychology
• Dominant group/Sociology
• Psychology
• Sociology

Further reading

• Jean S. Phinney (November 1990). "Ethnic identity in adolescents and adults: Review of research". Psychological Bulletin 108 (3): 499-514. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.108.3.499. http://www.psych.umn.edu/courses/spring05/yoob/psy3301/reading%20packet/ethnic%20identity%20in%20adolescents%20and%20adults%20review%20of%20research.pdf. Retrieved 2012-01-05. 

External links

• African Journals Online
• Bing Advanced search
• Google Books
• Google scholar Advanced Scholar Search
• JSTOR
• Lycos search
• NCBI All Databases Search
• PsycNET
• Questia - The Online Library of Books and Journals
• SAGE journals online
• Scirus for scientific information only advanced search
• SpringerLink
• Taylor & Francis Online
• Wiley Online Library Advanced Search
• Yahoo Advanced Web Search

{{Humanities resources}}{{Linguistics resources}}{{Semantics resources}}{{Terminology resources}}