Ethnic groups. What is it?

No one will argue that the peoples of different countries differ from each other. Just like people within the same nationality. Such differences are due to the history of the development of the people, the commonality of traditions, cultural values of a particular group. All this is an extremely interesting object for study by sociologists, historians and psychologists. In the general sense of the word, any people, nationality can be called an ethnos. And within virtually any ethnos, ethnic groups function. Let's try to figure out what it is, how they differ.

We can say that ethnic groups are communities of people, similar in their worldview, cultural norms, beliefs. They have individual self-consciousness and separate themselves from other communities. As a rule, all members of the group speak the same language, belong to the same religion, have a similar character store.

Ethnic groups can be formed in several ways:

1. By assimilation by one people of another or relocation to another territory. So, for example, there were Yakutians, Kamchadals, Kolymians - Russian people, who adopted many traditions and life of the Yakuts.
2. Under the influence of certain historical events. To such, for example, can be attributed to the Old Believers that appeared after the split of the Church, or the chalcedony - a community formed after the campaign of Ermak.
3. As a result of combining the above reasons. Here you can name the Cossacks, whose life was largely influenced by their living in territories close to historical military events.

Most states are multinational, everywhere there are ethnic groups that can be ranked among minorities. At the same time, they are by no means always the same in terms of the number of their members. Thus, the national composition of the United States includes not only Native Americans, but also African Americans, Irish, Jews, Arabs, Chinese, Germans - representatives of more than 100 nationalities around the world. Even the indigenous population is heterogeneous and unites about 170 tribes.

The same can be said about Russia. Its territory is home to 180 peoples. It's not only Russians, but also Ukrainians, Finns, Tatars, Azerbaijanis, Moldovans, Buryats, Chechens, etc. The Russian ethnos prevails on the European part of the country, which can not be said about the Trans-Ural region. At the same time, the percentage of the Russian population reaches 80 throughout the country.

And in the US, the share of Native Americans is only 1.3%. But at the same time in both countries examples of discrimination of ethnic minorities are indicative. So, everyone is aware of the hostility of some part of the "primordially" Russian population to those from the Caucasus. And this rejection often leads to bloodshed. In turn, many representatives of the southern people in the same way refer to Russians on their territory. Russia is not an exception to the rules of the world.

You can talk about the oppression of ethnic minorities in the territory of America. For example, let us recall the period when the black population was enslaved by the white race. But the number of African Americans was much higher than the number of representatives of the leading nation. And now in the United States it is extremely difficult to find a decent job, to get a good income for immigrants from Latin America, but in fact their number far exceeds the number of "native" Americans.

Now let's clarify why the word "primordial" was written in inverted commas. The thing is that any ethnic group is not a constant. One way or another, but in it there are changes based on certain historical events. Belonging to this or that community can be based not only on birth, but also on marriage. There are often mixed unions. Therefore, it is extremely difficult to talk about the primordiality of belonging to this or that people. Ethnic groups change over time, leaving behind certain basic features and self-awareness.