| achieved status | Social status that comes through talents, choices, actions, and accomplishments, rather than ascription.
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| ascribed status | Social status (e.g., race or gender) that people have little or no choice about occupying.
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| assimilation | The process of change that a minority group may experience when it moves to a country where another culture dominates; the minority is incorporated into the dominant culture to the point that it no longer exists as a separate cultural unit.
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| colonialism | The political, social, economic, and cultural domination of a territory and its people by a foreign power for an extended time.
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| discrimination | Policies and practices that harm a group and its members.
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| ethnic group | Group distinguished by cultural similarities (shared among members of that group) and differences (between that group and others); ethnic-group members share beliefs, customs, and norms, and, often, a common language, religion, history, geography, and kinship.
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| ethnicity | Identification with, and feeling part of, an ethnic group, and exclusion from certain other groups because of this affiliation.
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| multiculturalism | The view of cultural diversity in a country as something good and desirable; a multicultural society socializes individuals not only into the dominant (national) culture but also into an ethnic culture.
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| nation | Once a synonym for “ethnic group,” designating a single culture sharing a language, religion, history, territory, ancestry, and kinship; now usually a synonym for state or nation-state.
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| nationalities | Ethnic groups that once had, or wish to have or regain, autonomous political status (their own country).
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| nation-state | An autonomous political entity; a country like the United States or Canada.
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| négritude | Black association and identity—an idea developed by dark-skinned intellectuals in Francophone (French-speaking) West Africa and the Caribbean.
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| plural society | A society that combines ethnic contrasts and economic interdependence of the ethnic groups.
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| prejudice | Devaluing (looking down on) a group because of its assumed behavior, values, abilities, or other attributes.
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| state | An independent, centrally organized political unit; a government.
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| status | Any social position that someone occupies; may be ascribed or achieved.
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