Ethnicity Paradigm and Civil Rights Movement
Student’s Name
Course
Institutional Affiliation
Professor’s Name
Date
, ETHNICITY PARADIGM AND CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT 2
The ethnicity paradigm characterizes the conventional modern race sociology. This
paradigm has undergone three main phases, which include: a pre-1930 phase where the views of
the ethnic group was an insurgent tactic, challenging the biologist race perception prevailing at
that era; a 1930-65 phase where the paradigm operated as a profuse/progressive realistic way of
the understanding race where to recurrent themes, cultural pluralism and assimilationism, were
explained and a phase after 1965 where the paradigm defended the conservative egalitarianism
towards what most people believed to be the drastic attack on group rights. A paradigm based on
ethnicity was initiated between 1920 and 1930 with the primary aim of challenging different
perceptions on race during that era (Allport, Clark, & Pettigrew, 1954). Before that era, the
biologistic paradigm had been established since the collapse of racial slavery to elaborate more
on racial inferiority as a section and part of human norms and the natural order. White people
were considered superior, and other races were perceived to be mutations that needed to be
explained.
Differences in races were understood to be as a result of different hereditary traits, which
included intelligence, sexuality, and temperament. Most people believed that the intermixture of
races was a sin towards the natural norm, which would bring about biological throwbacks. The
ethnicity paradigm was considered to be a revolutionary theory that considered that race is a
social category. Ethnicity theories came to life in the 20th century in sociology and anthropology
but also in other fields. In the U.S., the rise of ethnicity concepts was mostly motivated by the
migration of white people on the approach of the 20th century (Allport, Clark, & Pettigrew,
1954). These migrants were all white people from different places who needed their social status
and identity to be allotted. The upsurges by different races happened to be the most rampant
issues during the 1950s and 1960s in America's history. Some of the issues where racial