Eth125 Week 3

Associate Program Material

Discrimination Worksheet

Write a 100- to 200-word response to each of the following questions. Provide citations for all the sources you use.

• What is discrimination? How is discrimination different from prejudice and stereotyping?

Prejudice refers to negative judgements and/or views about a group formed without knowledge, thought, or reason. A stereotype is a generalization about a group based upon samples that do not represent the group, in which the generalization becomes so well-known, it becomes a “conventional image” for the group in question, often accepted as truth by the illogical bunch. Stereotypes could be a form of prejudice if they are negative generalizations. Discrimination is the act of excluding a group from some right, privilege, or service based upon prejudice and stereotyping.

• What are the causes of discrimination?

Discrimination is defined as prejudicial treatment of a person based on the group or category they belong in. The various causes of discrimination include the race of an individual, ethnicity, age, gender or sex and colour.

• How is discrimination faced by one identity group (race, ethnicity, religious beliefs, gender, sexual orientation, age, or disability) the same as discrimination faced by another? How are they different?

Most discrimination is based on something an individual cannot control, such as race, sexual orientation, or age. However, many of those who discriminate against sexual orientation argue that it's a choice (even though it isn't). Discrimination also seems to mostly be determined by what the majority is - when Christianity was a small, new religion, they were discriminated against, but other groups that had once discriminated against Christians became discriminated against once they became the majority. A big part of discrimination is oppression, and it would be near impossible to oppress a majority.