Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Figures
- List of Tables
- Preface
- Prologue
- 1 The Challenge of E Pluribus Unum
- 2 The Political Psychology of Identity Choice
- 3 Contours of American National Identity
- 4 The Ethnic Cauldron and Group Consciousness
- 5 Public Opinion and Multiculturalism’s Guiding Norms
- 6 When Do Ethnic and National Identities Collide?
- 7 Group-Conscious Policies: Ethnic Consensus and Cleavage
- 8 The Dynamics of Group-Conscious Policy Preferences
- 9 Multiculturalism and Party Politics
- 10 Conclusion
- Appendices
- Bibliography
- Index
- References
4 - The Ethnic Cauldron and Group Consciousness
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 September 2014
Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Figures
- List of Tables
- Preface
- Prologue
- 1 The Challenge of E Pluribus Unum
- 2 The Political Psychology of Identity Choice
- 3 Contours of American National Identity
- 4 The Ethnic Cauldron and Group Consciousness
- 5 Public Opinion and Multiculturalism’s Guiding Norms
- 6 When Do Ethnic and National Identities Collide?
- 7 Group-Conscious Policies: Ethnic Consensus and Cleavage
- 8 The Dynamics of Group-Conscious Policy Preferences
- 9 Multiculturalism and Party Politics
- 10 Conclusion
- Appendices
- Bibliography
- Index
- References
Summary
This chapter turns from patriotism to ethnic consciousness, the other side of the dialectic of nationality and ethnicity. Multiculturalism, in the sense of demands for group-conscious policies, was pushed onto the American political agenda by continuing racial inequalities, even after legal discrimination was ended, by the appearance of two new and growing “visible minorities” that had entered the United States because of immigration reform, and by the sense among many minority leaders that whites continued to resist strong government efforts aiming at compensatory redistribution of political and economic resources. Presumably, if the white majority readily accepted minorities’ grievances, then there would be less pressure for group-based rights and other multiculturalist policies.
In Chapter 2 we suggested that the psychological platform or image of human nature embedded in ideological multiculturalism is the set of assumptions we described as a generic politicized group consciousness paradigm, specifying that people possess strong in-group loyalties that dominate political reactions when ethnic interests are engaged. But American public opinion has generally not been closely examined to determine how common those assumed psychological foundations are.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- American Identity and the Politics of Multiculturalism , pp. 88 - 119Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2014
References
, “Identity and Conflict,” in Intergroup Conflicts and Their Resolution: Social Psychological Perspectives, ed. (New York: Psychology Press, 2011)Google Scholar
, “Prejudice as Group Position: Micro-Foundations of a Sociological Approach to Racism and Race Relations,” Journal of Social Issues 55 (1999): 445–72CrossRefGoogle Scholar
and , “Whites’ Opposition to Busing: On Conceptualizing and Operationalizing Group Conflict,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 48 (1985): 1141–47CrossRefGoogle Scholar
and , “The Essential Notion of Race”(cited in Cultural Divides: Understanding and Overcoming Group Conflict, ed. and [New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1999])Google Scholar
, “The Nature of Belief Systems in Mass Publics,” in Ideology and Discontent, ed. (London: Free Press of Glencoe, 1964)Google Scholar
and , “Political Standards in Secondary Groups,” in Group Dynamics, ed. and (New York: Harper Row, 1968)Google Scholar
, “Problems in the Collection of Opinion-Research Data,” American Journal of Sociology 55, no. 4 (1950): 362–70CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
, “Two Functions of Reference Groups,” in Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues, Readings in Social Psychology, ed. , , and (New York: Holt, 1952), 410–14Google Scholar
and , “The Social Identity Theory of Inter-Group Behavior,” in Psychology of Intergroup Relations, ed. and (Chicago: Nelson-Hall, 1986)Google Scholar
and , Ethnocentricism: Theories of Conflict, Ethnic Attitudes and Group Behavior (New York: Wiley, 1972)Google Scholar
, “Race, Public Opinion and the Social Sphere,” Public Opinion Quarterly 61 (1997): 1–15CrossRefGoogle Scholar
and (Legacies: The Story of the Immigrant Second Generation [Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001], 165)Google Scholar
, , and , “Social Identities – A Framework for Studying the Adaptations of Immigrants and Ethnics: Mexicans in the United States,” Social Problems 41, no. 1 (1994): 129–51CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, , and , “Who Chooses to Choose Two?” in The American People: Census 2000, ed. and (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2005)Google Scholar
and , The Diversity Paradox: Immigration and the Color Line in Twenty-First Century America (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2010)Google Scholar
and , Legacies: The Story of the Immigrant Second-Generation (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001)Google Scholar
, “The Concept of ‘Bicultural Families’ and Its Implications for Research on Immigrant and Ethnic Families,” in Immigration and the Family. Research and Policy on U.S. Immigrants, ed. , , and (Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1997)Google Scholar
, “Shifting the Blame: Racial Ideology and Politics in the Post-Civil Rights Era,” Critical Sociology 18, no. 3 (1999): 77–98CrossRefGoogle Scholar
and , “What Shall I Call Myself? Hispanic Identity Formation in the Second Generation,” Ethnic and Racial Studies 19, no. 3 (1996): 523–47CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, et al., Asian American Political Participation: Emerging Constituents and Their Political Identities (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2011), 162Google Scholar
, , and , “The Contours and Sources of Ethnic Identity Choices among Asian Americans,” Social Science Quarterly 84, no. 2 (2003): 461–81CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, Ethnic Options: Choosing Identities in America (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990)Google Scholar
, Black Identities: West Indian Dreams and American Realities (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press) 2001Google Scholar
, “2002 National Survey of Latinos: Summary of Findings” [Washington, DC, December]. Accessed online at
, Changing White Attitudes toward Black Political Leadership (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
and , The End of Race? Obama, 2008, and Racial Politics in America (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2012)Google Scholar
, , and , “Whites’ Opposition to ‘Busing’: Self-Interest or Symbolic Politics?” American Political Science Review 73 (1979): 369–84CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, , , and , “Is It Really Racism?: The Origins of White American Opposition to Race-Targeted Policies,” Public Opinion Quarterly 61 (1997): 16–53CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, “African Americans and the Color Line,” in The American People: Census 2000, ed. and (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2005)Google Scholar