Week 12 Assignment

Yousif Ahmed

SOC100.83

April 18, 2026

Prejudice is defined as a predetermined attitude, judgment or emotional inclination

towards an individual or group, one that has not been based on justifiable evidence or direct

experience. Mostly it entails negative assumptions, stereotyping or fear, lack of trust or hostility.

On the other hand, discrimination is the behavioural manifestation of such attitudes. It arises

where individuals are treated differently, ignored, disadvantaged, or abused due to being

members of a certain social group like race, ethnicity, religions, gender and disability. In simple

terms, prejudice exists in thought and feeling, whereas discrimination appears in action and

institutional practice. According to Hudson et al. (2024), prejudice and discrimination both are

directly related to stereotyping, as fixed concepts about groups tend to determine the emotional

response and further affect behaviour. Equally, Görzig and Ryan (2022) demonstrate that

stereotypes have the ability to instigate negative social responses which culminate into the

discriminatory treatment.

The two ideas can collaborate to establish a vicious circle. Prejudice promotes

discriminatory behaviour, and discrimination in turn promotes prejudice by creating social

consequences which seem to affirm the initial biased beliefs. In case, one employer withholds the

right to hire the qualified people of a minority group because he thinks that the group is weaker

than others, then he/she might not hire them. The fact that a smaller number of that group is now

seen in professional jobs will lead people to the fallacy of assuming that the group is incapable or

uninterested in being in such jobs. By doing so, discrimination brings about unequal

opportunities and the discrepancies are subsequently misinterpreted as evidence on why the

prejudice was justified. This cycle is reinforced with time. It may have an impact on education,

housing, work, health and criminal justice. It then follows that prejudice is not merely a thought
in someone’s mind, coupled with discrimination, it may establish entire structures of inequality

over the course of generations.

Pluralism in the United States

Pluralism is a social structure where various cultural, racial, religious or ethnic groups

carry on with their different identities and are allowed to share equally in a common society.

Diversity in a pluralist society is not a concern to be wiped off. It is rather accepted as something

legitimate and useful in the life of nations. Butera (2001) attributes pluralism to the concept that

the minority groups need not forget their culture in order to fit. Instead of the sameness,

pluralism embraces coexistence with respect. The formation of numerous immigrant

communities preserving language, religion, and traditions and becoming members of the

American society is an example of pluralism in the history of the United States. Examples of

such cultural institutions) including religious centres, neighbourhood networks, festivals, and

schools) have been maintained by the Jewish, Italian, Chinese and Latino communities. Pluralist

thinking is also evident in present day multicultural policies of education and the wider life of the

community, most notably in schools and institutes that do not assume that cultural homogeneity,

but where recognition and celebration of cultural diversity is actively promoted. Though of

course not always realized in its full scope in practice, pluralism has established itself as a

significant element of a democratic debate in the United States.

Assimilation in the United States

Assimilation is the process where the minority groups are supposed to adopt the

language, values, customs and norms of the dominant culture usually to the detriment of their

original identity. Through an assimilationist model, the success of a group is usually measured
through how well a certain group becomes integrated into the mainstream society. According to

Butera (2001), assimilation has had much influence on the American racial and ethnic policy

particularly during the times when compliance was considered a national virtue.

An excellent illustration in history is the mistreatment of Native American children in

boarding schools in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. They were schools that were

meant to deprive the Indigenous children of their identities, language and culture and approve the

white American culture. Children were constantly compelled to shave their heads, dress in

western fashion, only speak English and be Christians. It was not a cultural exchange but rather

forced assimilation. One may look at another instance in the pressure mounted on most

immigrant groups in the early twentieth century to forget their native languages and customs to

become fully Americanized. In these situations, assimilation was not a question of being

included on equal terms but rather a question of forced cultural submission.

Segregation in the United States

Segregation refers to the separation of groups (usually by virtue of race or ethnicity) in

normal life. It may be legal, institutional or informal, but in any case it denies the equal access to

resources and the opportunity. Writing on the issue of educational segregation, Hadžić (2022)

demonstrates the way in which schooling segregation can perpetuate larger scale discrimination

and inequality. This understanding is very applicable in the United States where segregation has

a long destructive history.

The most famous illustration is of Jim Crow laws in the American South following

Reconstruction of racial segregation. The blacks in America were segregated by law in schools,

buses, housing, restaurants and in shared facilities. It was argued by the doctrine of separate but
equal that this was a just state of affairs, and in the reality the Black communities got inferior

services, less resources as well as less security under the laws. Segregation in school has

particularly had a long term impact as it partitioned access to quality education and social

movement. In spite of the find of the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education that announced the

school segregation as unconstitutional, most societies opposed the integration, and even

residential patterns recreated the practice of segregation. Therefore, segregation was not

liquidated by mere space but it was a mechanism of ensuring that racial stratification persisted.

Genocide in the United States

Genocide refers to the intentional attempt to kill a national, ethnic, racial or religious

group. This annihilation can be made by mass murder, deportation, starvation or policies of

destroying the existence of the group as a people. The most severe type of group oppression is

genocide as it is aimed at not only conquest or marginalization but extermination. One key

historical moment in the United States is the massacre of the Indigenous peoples in the westward

expansion. Although historians might argue over language in certain situations, numerous

historians insist that the mass extermination, coercive exile, purposeful devastation of foodstuffs,

violent military operations against Native American tribes constituted genocide. One of the best

examples of state destruction is the Trail of Tears of the 1830s when Celts and other Native

Americans were forcibly displaced on their ancestral lands. During the removals, thousands

perished due to hunger, disease, and being exposed. Subsequent massacres and crusades against

tribes of the Plains also evidence the treatment of the Indigenous peoples as an impediment to the

Western expansion instead of human individuals with rights. Genocide in this context was

associated with settler colonialism and land grabbing.

Conclusion
 Prejudice and discrimination are two different but closely related concepts. Prejudice

creates antagonistic assumptions and attitudes, and discrimination transforms the conception into

actions and unbalanced systems that cause harm. The combination of them forms a vicious circle

of inequality that perpetrates it. The theories of pluralism, assimilation, segregation and genocide

refer to extremely different patterns of how societies address the difference between groups. The

four have come into strong, even disturbing forms in the United States history. Pluralism is the

most all-inclusive ideal as it acknowledges diversity in a common citizenship. Assimilation

requires conformity, segregation causes isolation and genocide following hunger for destruction.

This knowledge would be very crucial to understand how inequality has been created in the past

and how fairer social relations can be constructed in the future.

Butera, A. C. (2001). Assimilation, pluralism and multiculturalism: The policy of racial/ethnic

identity in America. Buffalo Human Rights Law Review, 7, 1–31.

Görzig, A., & Ryan, L. N. (2022). The different faces of mental illness stigma: Systematic

variation of stereotypes, prejudice and discrimination by type of illness. Scandinavian

Journal of Psychology, 63(5), 545–554.

Hadžić, F. (2022). Educational segregation and discrimination in Bosnia and Herzegovina and

critical peace; transgression of ethnic-ideological utilization of youth. Psychology

Research on Education and Social Sciences, 3(2), 25–42.

Hudson, S. K. T. J., Myer, A., & Berney, E. C. (2024). Stereotyping, prejudice, and

discrimination at the intersection of race and gender: An intersectional theory primer.

Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 18(2), e12939.