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Race And Ethnicity In Australia Essay

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Race and Ethnicity: Comparing Classifications in South Africa, Sweden, and the United States One of the most controversial topics of culture over the years has been that of Race and Ethnicity. Due to the diversity of humans and the ability for different cultures to categorize themselves in different ways, the topic race and ethnicity continues to expand and grow. Anthropologists have studied the question of race and ethnicity throughout time in order to better understand how cultures and societies have come to classify themselves. According to the anthropological understanding of race, “race is not a scientific biological categorical system and does not explain human biological differences” (Gonzalez Lecture 29). What is interesting to observe …show more content…

is Australia because it is a developed country with a strong economy and a large population for its size. Australia has thought very thoroughly about the idea of race and ethnicity, and has created three tiers of depth due to the wide variety of people living there. In its most basic sense the Australian census includes, Australian/Australian Peoples (natives), European, Asian, Black/African, and Other. These are the most basic categories of race and ethnicity but in the highest and most detailed tier, “The classification consists of 275 cultural and ethnic groups. Some groups are residual categories, or 'not elsewhere classified' (nec) categories, which contain entities not listed separately in the classification” (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2011). This shows that Australia’s perception of race, ethnicity, and culture is very important and very detailed because they have taken the time to incorporate every possibility they can think of. This is similar to the U.S. because race and ethnicity is such an important topic because diversity is all around us. Developed countries like the U.S. and Australia see the importance in defining race, ethnicity, and culture because it gives their citizens the ability to identify with the culture they choose, and shows the diversity of such

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