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“Ethnic group” gets used loosely enough that it has come to mean roughly “any group of people who are somehow different.” That’s not useful, and it isn’t how the term works in either sociology or law. An ethnic group is a named human population that shares a myth of common descent, historical memories, elements of…

Religion is a system of belief and practice you can adopt or abandon. Ethnicity is a form of group membership grounded in a belief in shared descent. One is, in principle, open to anyone. The other is inherited, and access to it is controlled by the group. Most cases are easy. Catholicism is a religion,…

Nationality is a legal relationship between a person and a state. Ethnicity is a social relationship between a person and a people. One is issued by a government and can be granted, renounced, or revoked. The other is claimed, inherited, and negotiated within a community — no ministry involved. That is the clean version. The…

The textbook answer is quick: race refers to perceived physical characteristics; ethnicity refers to shared culture, language, ancestry, and heritage. Race is about how you look. Ethnicity is about where you come from and how you live. That answer is correct enough to pass an exam and too shallow to be useful. The interesting part…

Ask ten people to define ethnicity and you will get ten answers that all sound reasonable and none of which agree. That is not a failure of general knowledge. It reflects a genuine, century-old disagreement among the people who study this for a living. Here is the definition that holds up best: ethnicity is a…