Minority

Discussion thus far has focused on groups because minority or majority status is defined on the basis of belonging to an identifiable group in society. An individual may be black, or Muslim, or female, or gay, or a non-English speaker, or have a disability. In each case, such an identity or social characteristic will identify that individual as belonging to a group with a collective disadvantage or a group that is the object of collective discrimination, exploitation, or stigma. However, although minorities are defined on the basis of groups, the consequences are very real for individuals (Goldman, 2001). It is individual human beings who are denied employment, schooling, or housing because of their race, disability, or sexual orientation, persecuted because of their religious beliefs, ridiculed because of their language, or underpaid because of their sex.

In the early twenty-first century, there has been some criticism of the term minority (Wilkinson, 2002). A number of objections have been raised, including the following: (1) since such status is not defined on the basis of numbers, minority is not a correct term; (2) the term minority can be a negative label and defines the groups so labeled from the standpoint of the dominant group; (3) groups with little in common, such as African-Americans and white women, are lumped together under one rather meaningless label; (4) the criteria used to define minorities are ambiguous and inconsistent; (5) the statuses that form the basis of defining minority groups include both true ascribed statuses and statuses that involve an element of choice (e.g., religious belief); and (6) the term minority obscures the very real impacts of racial, gender, and other forms of discrimination, using an ill-defined term to focus on groups rather than on systemic discrimination. Despite these genuine difficulties with the term, it continues to be used widely, both in social science and in popular terminology. A search of the EBSCO Academic Search Elite database in May 2003 yielded 11,822 hits on the term minorities. One reason for this common use (though also a point of objection from critics of its scientific validity) is that it has been reified through governmental protections for a wide range of groups labeled as "minorities." In addition—at least in the social sciences—there is general agreement on the experiences that lead a group to be considered a minority group. These experiences include victimization, discrimination, exploitation, and political and economic disadvantage. While each group considered a minority experiences these processes in a unique way, all such groups experience them to a greater or lesser degree. Moreover, possible alternative terms also pose problems: it is not clear, for example, that subordinate conveys a more positive image than minority. The purpose, if not always the consequence, in using such terms in social science is not to convey negative connotations, but rather to describe a similar situation—minority or subordinate status—that is experienced by a number of different groups.