race
Summary
Race is a socially constructed category that groups people by perceived physical traits such as skin color. The MCAT stresses that its boundaries and meanings are set by society and change across time and place, rather than reflecting distinct biological groups.
Detail
Meaning: Race is a category society creates by sorting people according to perceived physical traits, such as skin color, and attaching social meaning to them. Because the boundaries come from social rules rather than sharp genetic divisions, they differ between societies and change over time. Racialization is the process of assigning racial meaning to a group. Race is linked to power, since categories have been used to justify unequal treatment (racism, discrimination, segregation).
On the MCAT: Passages may show different countries or eras classifying the same person differently, such as the historical one-drop rule in the United States. Others give data on income, education, or health by racial group and ask you to explain the gaps with social factors like discrimination, segregation, and unequal access to resources.
Common confusion: Race is not ethnicity. Ethnicity rests on shared culture, ancestry, language, or traditions; race rests on perceived physical traits. Also, race is not a biological classification: human genetic variation is largely continuous and does not sort into discrete races. Yet being socially constructed does not make race unreal, because the categories still shape people's experiences and outcomes.
Sources
- Sociology (Macionis)
- Introduction to Sociology (Giddens et al.)
Written for the MCAT and checked before it was published. For study reference only. Spotted an error? Let us know.