Minority group
The term "minority group" has different meanings, depending on the context. According to common usage, it can be defined simply as a group in society with the lowest number of individuals, or less than half of a population. Usually a minority group is disempowered relative to the majority, and that characteristic lends itself to different applications of the term minority.
In terms of sociology, economics, and politics, a demographic that takes up the smallest fraction of the population is not necessarily labelled the "minority" if it wields dominant power. In the academic context, the terms "minority" and "majority" are used in terms of hierarchical power structures. For example, in South Africa, during Apartheid, white Europeans held virtually all social, economic, and political power over black Africans. For this reason, black Africans are the "minority group", despite the fact that they outnumber white Europeans in South Africa. This is why academics more frequently use the term "minority group" to refer to a category of people who experience relative disadvantage, as compared to members of a dominant social group. To address this ambiguity, Harris Mylonas has proposed the term "non-core group", instead of "minority group", to refer to any aggregation of individuals that is perceived as an unassimilated ethnic group by the ruling political elite of a country" and reserves the term 'minority' only for groups that have been granted minority rights by their state of residence.
Minority group membership is typically based on differences in observable characteristics or practices, such as: ethnicity, race, religion, sexual orientation, or disability. The framework of intersectionality can be used to recognize that an individual may simultaneously hold membership in multiple minority groups. Likewise, individuals may also be part of a minority group in regard to some characteristics, but part of a dominant group in regard to others.
The term "minority group" often occurs within the discourse of civil rights and collective rights, as members of minority groups are prone to differential treatment in the countries and societies in which they live. Minority group members often face discrimination in multiple areas of social life, including housing, employment, healthcare, and education, among others. While discrimination may be committed by individuals, it may also occur through structural inequalities, in which rights and opportunities are not equally accessible to all. Those in favour of minority rights often pursue laws designed to protect minority groups from discrimination and afford members of the minority group equal social status and legal protections as held by members of the dominant group.
Definitions
In the 19th century, the term "minority" primarily referred to political parties in national legislatures. The term minority referred to a range of groups, including the better-educated and better-off who were worried of being swamped by broadening franchise. As Jenifer Hart put it, "those who have" felt threatened by "those who want".; the less-popular party in a two-party contest, who should not have control or power but in many electoral systems is able to do so.; and a least-popular "third party" as workers, farmers and socialists enter into electoral politics and receive substantial support, and thereby should have representation but in many electoral systems do not.This changed with the Paris Peace Conference, when the term "minority" was applied to ethnic, national, linguistic and religious groups who made up less than half of the population of a state, "groups of
persons who differ in race, religion or language from the majority of the inhabitants of the country." The Paris Conference has been attributed with coining the concept of minority rights and bringing prominence to it. The League of Nations Minorities Commission in 1919 defined members of a minority as "nationals belonging to racial, religious, or linguistic minorities". Protection of minority groups, such as through careful drawing of boundaries of states and proportional representation, was seen as integral in preventing causes of future wars.
Sociological
defined a minority group as "a group of people who, because of their physical or cultural characteristics, are singled out from the others in the society in which they live for differential and unequal treatment, and who therefore regard themselves as objects of collective discrimination". The definition includes both objective and subjective criteria: membership of a minority group is objectively ascribed by society, based on an individual's physical or behavioral characteristics; it is also subjectively applied by its members, who may use their status as the basis of group identity or solidarity. Thus, minority group status is categorical: an individual who exhibits the physical or behavioral characteristics of a given minority group is accorded the status of that group and is subject to the same treatment as other members of that group.Joe Feagin, states that a minority group has five characteristics: suffering discrimination and subordination, physical and/or cultural traits that set them apart, and which are disapproved by the dominant group, a shared sense of collective identity and common burdens, socially shared rules about who belongs and who does not determine minority status, and tendency to marry within the group.
Criticisms
There is a controversy with the use of the word minority, as it has a generic and an academic usage. Common usage of the term indicates a statistical minority; however, academics refer to power differences among groups rather than differences in population size among groups.Such use of the term minority is based on the idea that a group can be considered a minority even if it includes such a large number of people that it is numerically not a minority in society.
Some sociologists have criticized the concept of "minority/majority", arguing this language excludes or neglects changing or unstable cultural identities, as well as cultural affiliations across national boundaries. As such, the term historically excluded groups is often similarly used to highlight the role of historical oppression and domination, and how this results in the under-representation of particular groups in various areas of social life.
Political
The term national minority is often used to discuss minority groups in international and national politics. All countries contain some degree of racial, ethnic, or linguistic diversity. In addition, minorities may also be immigrant, indigenous or landless nomadic communities. This often results in variations in language, culture, beliefs, practices, that set some groups apart from the dominant group. As these differences are usually perceived negatively, this results in loss of social and political power for members of minority groups.There is no legal definition of national minorities in international law, though protection of minority groups is outlined by the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities. International criminal law can protect the rights of racial or ethnic minorities in several ways. The right to self-determination is a key issue. The Council of Europe regulates minority rights in the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages and the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities.
In some places, subordinate ethnic groups may constitute a numerical majority, such as Blacks in South Africa under apartheid. In the United States, for example, non-Hispanic Whites constitute the majority and all other racial and ethnic groups are classified as "minorities". If the non-Hispanic White population falls below 50% the group will only be the plurality, not the majority.
Examples
Racial and ethnic minorities
Racial minorities, sometimes referred to synonymously as people of color or non-white people, are minority groups that are discriminated against on the basis of race. Though definitions vary cross-culturally, modern racism is primarily based on the European and American classifications of race that developed during the Age of Exploration, as European countries sought to categorize the nations they colonized into pseudo-scientific phenotypical groups. In the United States's system, whiteness is at the top of a hierarchy that automatically classifies mixed-race individuals as their subordinate race.Sometimes, racist policies explicitly codified pseudo-scientific definitions of race: such as the United States' one-drop rule and blood quantum laws, South Africa's apartheid, and Nazi Germany Nuremberg race laws. Other times, race has been a matter of self-identification, with de facto racist policies implemented. In addition to governmental policy, racism may persist as social prejudice and discrimination.
There are also social groups that are usually identified through ethnicity. Like race, ethnicity is largely determined hereditarily. However, it can also be influenced by factors such as adoption, cultural assimilation, religious conversion, and language shift. As race and ethnicity often overlap, many ethnic minorities are also racial minorities. However, this is not always the case, and some people are ethnic minorities while also being classified as white, such as some Jews, Roma, and Sámi. In some cases, their ethnic identities have been seen as negating their whiteness, in both inter- and intra-group identification.
In some countries, such as the United Kingdom, there is a preference to categorise people by ethnicity instead of race. Ethnicity encompasses a mix of "long shared cultural experiences, religious practices, traditions, ancestry, language, dialect or national origins". The United Kingdom considers everyone but white British people to be an ethnic minority, including other white Europeans such as White Irish people.