Model Minority

Examples of Model Minority in the following topics:

• Race and Ethnicity in the U.S.

  • Nevertheless, despite a difficult history, Asian Americans have earned the positive stereotype of the model minority.
  • The model minority stereotype is applied to a minority group that is seen as reaching significant educational, professional, and socioeconomic levels without challenging the existing establishment.
  • By contrast, Cuban Americans are often seen as a model minority group within the larger Hispanic group.
  • As with Asian Americans, however, being a model minority can mask the issue of powerlessness that these minority groups face in U.S. society.
  • Describe the history and current situation of at least three minorities in the U.S.

• Health Disparities

  • Minorities also have higher rates of cardiovascular disease, HIV/AIDS, and infant mortality than whites, which suggests the lack of preventative services and education in predominantly racial minority neighborhoods and schools may play an important role.
  • 2) From the barriers certain minority groups encounter when trying to enter into the health care delivery system.
  • 3) From the quality of health care different minority groups receive.
  • Minority groups in the United States lack insurance coverage at higher rates than members of dominant groups.
  • The differential and unequal treatment of the rich and poor follows the gap between the rich and the poor: From 1966 to 1980, socioeconomic disparities declined in tandem with a decline in mortality rates, but the disparity has since increased as income stratification has, and as our healthcare model has become mostly private, for profit, and insurance based.

• Theories of Culture

  • While there are numerous theoretical approaches employed to understand 'culture', this chapter uses just one model to illustrate how sociologists understand the concept.
  • The model is an integrationist model advocated by Ritzer.
  • If used for understanding a specific cultural phenomenon, like the displaying of abstract art, this model depicts how cultural norms can influence individual behavior.
  • This model also posits that individual level values, beliefs, and behaviors can, in turn, influence the macro-level culture.
  • Following Collins, sociologists thus explore whether or not the shared understandings and meanings maintained via cultural practice resist and / or reproduce the ongoing subordination of minority groups.

• Bibliography

  • Chapter 7 in Burt and Minor (eds.)
  • Minor (eds.) 1983.
  • Structural models New York: Wiley
  • Minor, Michael J. 1983.
  • Minor, Michael J. 1983.

• Education and Health

  • While problems with health literacy are not limited to minority groups, the problem can be more pronounced in these groups than in whites due to socioeconomic and educational factors.
  • The lack of health literacy affects all segments of the population, although it is disproportionate in certain demographic groups, such as the elderly, ethnic minorities, recent immigrants and persons with low general literacy.
  • The eHealth literacy model is also referred to as the Lily model, which incorporates the following literacies, each of which are instrumental to the overall understanding and measurement of eHealth literacy: basic literacy, computer literacy, information literacy, media literacy, science literacy, health literacy.

• Minority Groups

  • The term "minority" is applied to various groups who hold few or no positions of power in a given society.
  • Minority group status is also categorical in nature: an individual who exhibits the physical or behavioral characteristics of a given minority group will be accorded the status of that group and be subject to the same treatment as other members of that minority group.
  • In addition to long-established ethnic minority populations in various nation-states, ethnic minorities may consist of more recent migrant, indigenous, or landless nomadic communities residing within, or between, a particular national territory.
  • The disability rights movement has contributed to an understanding of people with disabilities as a minority or a coalition of minorities who are disadvantaged by society, not just as people who are disadvantaged by their impairments.
  • Illinois Congressman Jesse Jackson discusses minority health research at the National Institute of Health.

• Assimilation

  • Assimilation describes the process of social, cultural, and political integration of a minority into a dominant culture and society.
  • Assimilation describes the process by which a minority integrates socially, culturally, and/or politically into a larger, dominant culture and society.
  • Clark says that immigrant assimilation is "a way of understanding the social dynamics of American society" and defines it as "the process that occurs spontaneously and often unintended in the course of interaction between majority and minority groups. "
  • The spatial residential model states that increasing socioeconomic attainment, longer residence in the U.S, and higher generational status lead to decreasing residential concentration for a particular ethnic group.
  • The three-generation model of language assimilation states that the first generation makes some progress in language assimilation but retains primary fluency in their native tongue, while the second generation is bilingual and the third generation speaks only English.

• Minorities

  • Racism is usually directed against a minority population, but may also be directed against a majority population.
  • There are some who argue that minorities are owed special recognition and rights, while others feel that minorities are unjustified in demanding special rights, as this amounts to preferential discrimination and could hamper the ability of the minority to integrate itself into mainstream society (i.e. they may have difficulty finding work if they do not speak the predominant language for their geographic area).
  • The assimilation of minority groups into majority groups can be seen as a form of racism.
  • In this process, the minority group sheds its distinctive traits and is absorbed into the dominant group.
  • Additional examples of minorities discriminating against majorities include two instances of colonial rule:

• Labor Unions

  • Other forms of unionism include minority unionism, solidarity unionism, and the practices of organizations such as the Industrial Workers of the World, which do not always follow traditional organizational models.

• Religion in the U.S.

  • The framers of the Constitution modeled the provisions concerning religion within the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom and rejected any religious test for office.
  • The decision was mainly influenced by European Rationalist and Protestant ideals, but was also a consequence of the pragmatic concerns of minority religious groups and small states that did not want to be under the power or influence of a national religion that did not represent their beliefs.
  • Wood has argued that the United States is a model for the world in terms of how a separation of church and state—no state-run or state-established church—is good for both the church and the state, allowing a variety of religions to flourish.