Joseph HealeyÆs (2003) first chapter in Race, Ethnicity, Gender, and Class is devoted to explaining minority groups, their distinctions, and the impact of such status on resource allocation and upward mobility in American society. As Healey (2003) maintains, ôWe are a nation of immigrants, and we have been arguing, often passionately, about exclusion and inclusion and unity and diversity since the infancy of American societyö (3). We are a nation of groups as well as individuals. However, our membership in various minority groups or social classes have a direct impact on how others perceive us, the opportunities we have access to, and the way we view ourselves and American society in general.
Over the past half a century there has been a significant increase in the variety of American minority groups. When we use the term ôminority groupö, it is often perceived to mean a statistical number but this is most often misleading because many minority groups labeled as such (like women) are actually a statistical majority of the U.S. population. Conflict theories of sociology explain social issues as various social groups competing for similar resources. While minority status used to be associated with numbers or biology, Wagley and Harris propose five characteristics that define minority groups:
The members of the group experience a pattern of disadvantages or inequality.
The members of the group share a visible trait or characteristic that differentiates them from other groups.
The minority group is a self-conscious social unit.
Membership in the group is usually determined at birth.
Members tend to marry within the group.
Minority group status is most often linked to patterns of inequality in society, where such groups are stratified in a manner that provides them with less access to goods and services than other groups, like income opportunities or education. Such social stratificat
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