Sociological Perspectives on Race and Ethnicity: Personal Experiences and Theories

Running Head: BUSINESS AND CORPORATION LAW 0
SOCIOLOGY

Sociology
1
Sociology is a subject by the study of which one can understand the reasoning behind
human behavior (Lohumi, 2015). People can be different from each other based on gender, sex,
literacy level, race, religion, sexuality and on many other factors. The globalization and
immigration of people among countries give birth to the issue of race (People-press.org, 2018).
Race can be referred to as a grouping of humans based on the physical qualities or the same can
be understood as a physical difference between and among groups, that society considers
significant. Sociology criticizes the concept of ethnicity and race by connecting the same with
social inequality (Asanet.org, 2018). In Canada, the issue is being serious day by day as many of
the people from southern, northern, western, and eastern European countries are shifting to
Canada (Boyd, 2015). In Canada, there are many people who are Indians, Irish, frence and
Scottish and they create a different ethnic group (Worldatlas.com, 2018). People in this country
are facing many issues related to race such as discrimination. Stereotypes prejudice and the same
are collectively known as a team “Racism”. Racism is a situation where there is discrimination
between white and black-brown people based on the color of their skin (Humanrights.gov.au,
2018). Now the question is that who make such discrimination? In order to answer the query, this
is to be stated that it is the society who do so. I have also faced this issue many of the times.
In the subject of sociology, many of the theories are there which are closely related to
race. Similarly, different perspectives are there which develop the understandings of one of the
selected issue i.e. race. In this assignment, the focus will be made on various theories,
approaches, and perspectives of race and ethnicity. Further, I will share my personal life
experience where I have faced the issue of Racism and will try to connect them with the studied
sociological theories and perspective.

Sociology
2
A social perspective can be understood as a way to look at the world or as an approach to
understand the behavior of a human by placing the same within it is a broader social context.
Sociology has some major perspectives that I will explain in the context of the issue of race.
Functionalist is the lead sociological perspective. The same believes that every aspect of a
society is independent in itself and make a contribution to the overall functioning of society
(thehistoricalnerds.com, 2018). For instance, the state provides education to children and later
on, these children after being eligible for their ways to serve to society in their adulthood
(Courses.lumenlearning.com, 2018). If to connect these perspectives to racism, the same believes
this issue also contributes to society and that too in a positive mode. This is somewhere hard to
understand. Like how Racism can affect the function of society in a positive mode. If to talk
about my personal experience, I also find this perspective true. I have faced the issue of
discrimination while taking part in a football match of my local community. The selectors have
only selected the girls with fair skin color. I have prepared a lot for the trial and also played well
but had to face the issue of Racism. I was not the only person who felt the same, but in addition
to me, one of my friends also faced a similar issue. However, the incident brought some positive
results to me later on and the bond of me and my friend who faced the issue became even
stronger than the earlier. Therefore, to say that this perspective is for real and in my case it
worked so well.
Another sociological perspective is Conflict perspective. The perspective leads out the
negative views of the society. As the name implies, the perspective believes that there is always a
conflict between two or more groups of society based on many factors such as race, religion, sex,
religion and so on (Crossman, 2018). To discuss this perspective from the point of view of race,
this is to be stated that this creates a huge conflict between the two groups of society such as