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Race is a categorization of humans based on shared physical or social qualities into groups generally viewed as distinct within a given society. [1] The term came into common usage during the 16th century, when it was used to refer to groups of various kinds, including those characterized by close kinship relations. [2]
Some believe race and ethnicity are encoded by the "living-kinds" scheme, [15] others argue it is by the "social grouping" scheme, [16] and still others assert that race and ethnicity are encoded by a separate scheme evolved for the specific purpose of identifying race/ethnicity.
The word "race", interpreted to mean an identifiable group of people who share a common descent, was introduced into English in the 16th century from the Old French rasse (1512), from Italian razza: the Oxford English Dictionary cites the earliest example around the mid-16th century and defines its early meaning as a "group of people belonging to the same family and descended from a common ...
The United States has a racially and ethnically diverse population. [1] At the federal level, race and ethnicity have been categorized separately. The most recent United States census recognized five racial categories (White, Black, Native American/Alaska Native, Asian, and Native Hawaiian/Other Pacific Islander), as well as people who belong to two or more of the racial categories.
Measuring Race and Ethnicity Across the Decades: 1790-2010 United States Censuses. The exact terminology of racial groups changes over time. In the United States census, the US Census Bureau and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) define a set of self-identified categories of race and ethnicity chosen by residents, with which they most closely identify.
The definition actually does vary and is also published as "a light skinned race", which avoids inclusion of any sort of nationality or ethnicity. [ 8 ] The 1990 US census ' Public Use Microdata Sample (PUMS) listed " Caucasian " or " Aryan " among other terms as subgroups of "white" in their ancestry code listing, [ 9 ] but 2005 and proceeding ...
knowing someone's "race" does not provide comprehensive predictive information about biological characteristics, and only absolutely predicts those traits that have been selected to define the racial categories, e.g. knowing a person's skin color, which is generally acknowledged to be one of the markers of race (or taken as a defining ...
Two historical anthropologists favored a binary racial classification system that divided people into a light skin and dark skin categories. 18th-century anthropologist Christoph Meiners, who first defined the Caucasian race, posited a "binary racial scheme" of two races with the Caucasian whose racial purity was exemplified by the "venerated ...