Race/ethnic studies
Race/ethnic studies look deep into the social, cultural and historical forces which are responsible for the development of the America’s varied ethnic peoples. These studies focus on immigration, slavery and confinement. Moreover, these studies examine the languages, rich histories and cultures of America’s racial and ethnic minority groups and their relationships with each other.Race/ethnic studies are also about racialization among the different cultures in America, such as Asian Americans, African Americans, and Native American Indians and so on. Moreover, studies focus on these core groups within national contexts.
Through race/ethnic studies, we can understand how racial and ethnic formations convey with factors of stratification such as gender, class and sexuality. Moreover, race and ethnic studies are important bases of identification, organization, stratification and differentiation.On the other hand, social stratification is how races/ethnic groups were classified today by their age, gender, power, wealth etc. These social strata were seemingly spread out in United States. It is evident that the American society is one of the most diverse societies on earth. Consequently, social scientist/sociologist studies this society for so long.
The studies showed that the relationship between strata of the American society had been a problem ever since. It is more seemingly now because of the growing gap among the poor and rich, which is one of the major strata in United States. The research also shows that there are significantly closer relationships within the strata than with the ones outside the strata (Kosman, 2002).According to Sowell’s (2007) researches on the cultural differences among people, the root of the problem seems to be the huge difference when it comes to income and wealth around the world. He added that income consists of outputs that differ radically because different people from different cultures have different inputs.Race/ethnic studies look into factors which affect social stratification and vice versa.
Results of study regarding these topics will, to some extent, generate results that exhibit a closer relationship.The close relationship between race/ethnic studies and social stratification must be explained by their similarities. Race/ethnic studies delve into factors that also make up social stratification.Lewis (2005) added that the similarity and the differences of social stratification that is very important in any state organization, means that there is a critical connection between ethnocultural factors and class differences that can also be called ‘class-based consciousness.’ This can be explained by some hypothetical considerations that look into the connection between class and the ethnocultural spectrum.
First, the status of one person determines the psycho-social integration and conflicts which characterize the different categories of the spectrum. Second, the profiles of different groups imply that class and class-based consciousness changes between the different groupings. Lastly, class considerations and class-based consciousness trigger ethnocultural values, behaviors and factors of familial relation in the development of complex and stratified realities.This means that although there are ethnic differences between peoples, and in spite of the racial politics in the nation, evidence taken from participant observation and from other indirect sources imply that peoples may share so many things in common with one another, such as values. These values can be observed in different people despite the age, sex or ethnic group.
