Compare and contrast what is meant by the social construction of race with what is meant by the social construction of ethnicity and what is meant by the social construction of gender. How or why is it beneficial to view these as social constructs?
Race, Ethnicity, Gender, and Identity
Social construction assumes that people construct (that is create, make, invent) their understandings of the world and the meanings they give to encounters with others, or various products they or others create. Science has unequivocally demonstrated that race is not biologically real. That is why we say race is a social construct: it`s a human-invented classification system. It was invented as a way to define physical differences between people, but has more often been used as a tool for oppression and violence. The social construction of ethnic, on the other hand, categories influences identity formation as well as personal and social understandings about group differences and similarities (Park 2008). The social construction of gender stipulates that gender roles are an achieved “status” in a social environment, which implicitly and explicitly categorize people and therefore motivate social behaviors.