Race And Ethnicity In Sociology Essay

In this essay, the aim is to explore how race and ethnicity is perceived in Singapore, and specifically what social significance entails when race and ethnicity interchange or manifests itself to become the other and provide social definitions to form social reality. It is argued that the extent of the interchangeability of race and ethnicity simply rest on state discretion whenever there is a need to combine the Malay/Muslim community into a single entity. By analysing the interchangeability of race and ethnicity in the Malay/Muslim community, the importance of deconstructing the notions of race and ethnicity will explored as a solution in understanding the rationale of the extent of interchangeability.

Race and Ethnicity Defined in Singapore
Race is popularly defined in relation to the biological characteristics of a particular group of individuals. However, recent sociological texts have asserted that race is a socially accepted perspective of categorising individuals based on the collective …show more content…
As such, these concepts are commonly mixed up and jumbled of its meaning. This is problematic in the sense that when the production of these concepts are of the same source (social construction), it could lead to misrepresentation of meanings and in turn create a singularity in providing generalisation in the context of the Malay/Muslim community. This argument is not only relevant in the Singaporean context but also applicable to country beyond. One recent study based in Houston, Texas by (Zhao et. al. 2015) suggests the use of race and ethnicity as a single entity in researching racially biased policing. It is important to note that this method of stereotyping elements of ethnicity with race can be efficient in producing clean and neat racial classification, it is also however a limitation as it generalises the population of labelling all individuals who possess such variables of ethnicity or race in this