Race and Ethnicity: The Basics

Citation

Kivisto, P., & Croll, P. R. (2012). Race and Ethnicity: The Basics. Routledge.

Chapter Summary

The book is a first edition in Routledge's The Basics series, about 200 pages long, and has six chapters. The publisher says it covers the forms and dynamics of racial and ethnic relations, the dynamics of inequality, the relationship between prejudice and discrimination, ethnic conflict and models of inclusion, and that it includes plenty of examples, chapter summaries and a glossary. The six chapter titles track that list closely, moving from definitions to the experience of prejudice, to inequality, to conflict, to the ways societies incorporate groups, and finally to efforts against oppression.

Chapter 1: Defining the Subject: What is Meant by Race and Ethnicity?

The opening chapter fixes the vocabulary. Its title poses the question of what is meant by race and ethnicity, and the publisher's list of topics begins with the forms and dynamics of racial and ethnic relations, which is the territory this chapter introduces.

Chapter 2: Prejudice and Discrimination

The second chapter takes up the relationship between prejudice and discrimination, a topic the publisher names explicitly.

Chapter 3: Intersecting Inequalities

This chapter turns to the dynamics of inequality. Its title echoes the authors' earlier edited volume, Intersecting Inequalities: Class, Race, Sex and Sexualities, which suggests that race and ethnicity are considered alongside other dimensions of inequality rather than on their own.

Chapter 4: The Varieties of Ethnic Conflict

The chapter on ethnic conflict covers the topic the publisher lists as ethnic conflict. The word "varieties" in the title signals that it distinguishes different forms of conflict rather than offering a single model.

Chapter 5: Modes of Incorporation

Here the book considers the models of inclusion named in the publisher's description: the different ways in which a society can incorporate minority groups. One of the authors has also edited Incorporating Diversity: Rethinking Assimilation in a Multicultural Age, a connected theme.

Chapter 6: Combating Oppression and Exclusion

The final chapter turns from analysis to responses, looking at efforts to counter oppression and exclusion.

Key Concepts

Chapters 1–2: Definitions, prejudice and discrimination

• Race and ethnicity: the two central categories, and the question of how each is defined.
• Prejudice: attitudes toward groups.
• Discrimination: unequal treatment, treated in relation to prejudice.

Chapters 3–4: Inequality and conflict

• Intersecting inequalities: the way race and ethnicity combine with other bases of inequality.
• Ethnic conflict: the several forms conflict between groups can take.

Chapters 5–6: Inclusion and resistance

• Incorporation: the models by which societies include minority groups.
• Oppression and exclusion: the processes that keep groups out, and the responses to them.

Critical Analysis

Strengths

• Compact and sequenced. Six chapters in about 200 pages lead from definitions to inequality and conflict to inclusion and responses, a sequence that a short course can follow in order.
• Student aids. The publisher highlights chapter summaries and a glossary, and says the book includes plenty of examples.
• Authors with relevant research. Kivisto's earlier work includes edited volumes on intersecting inequalities and on incorporating diversity, and his book Multiculturalism in Global Society; Croll has published in Social Forces, Social Problems and The American Sociologist. These interests line up with Chapters 3 and 5.
• Range of topics for its size. The publisher lists forms of racial and ethnic relations, inequality, prejudice and discrimination, conflict and inclusion models, giving a wider range than a book on prejudice alone.

Limitations

• Brief treatment. Averaging roughly 30 pages per chapter, the book can summarise debates but not develop them. Readers who want sustained argument on one theme need a longer text.
• Dated by now. The book appeared in 2012 as a first edition; material on later developments in race, migration and politics must come from other sources.
• Contents detail is thin. Beyond the six titles and the publisher's topic list, no section headings are published, so the choice of examples and countries has to be checked in the book itself.

Where It Fits in the Course

In the race and ethnicity course, Kivisto and Croll is a general overview of how sociologists study the field, in the same brief format as Rattansi's Racism: A Very Short Introduction, which is shorter and focused on racism, its history and its debates. Garner's Racisms: An Introduction is an undergraduate textbook that treats racism as plural and historically changing, with case studies from many countries, and is a fuller next step.

Omi and Winant's Racial Formation in the United States develops a theory of race as a social and political construction and is a more theoretical, advanced book. Elliott-Cooper's Black Resistance to British Policing and Bhattacharyya and colleagues' Empire's Endgame: Racism and the British State are focused studies of the British context, suited to readers who already know the basic concepts that Kivisto and Croll introduce.

How to Use This Book

The book assumes no previous sociology. It suits first-year students, readers from neighbouring disciplines and anyone who wants an orientation to the vocabulary before a more demanding text.

A practical plan:

• Read the six chapters in order. They are short and each builds on the definitions in Chapter 1.
• Core for most courses: Chapters 1–3 on definitions, prejudice and discrimination, and intersecting inequalities.
• Choose by interest: Chapter 4 for ethnic conflict, Chapter 5 for incorporation, Chapter 6 for responses to oppression.
• Use the summaries and glossary after each chapter, then follow up with one of the longer course books on the theme that interested you most.