ABSTRACT
The term minority’ suggests a group of people which is numerically small within a particular society. As will be evident in this chapter, it is difficult to find terms which are not contested and minority or minority group is no exception. It has been applied, for example, in situations where the group actually forms a majority, as in earlier references to the place of women in society, and is often used where it has added meanings which may be racial, ethnic or subordinate. The literature on minority groups is permeated by added meanings in which racial connotations are the most pervasive. A central point is that terms like minority, race and ethnic are socially constructed and are ‘the product of specific historical and geographical forces, rather than biologically given ideas whose meaning is dictated by nature’ (Jackson and Penrose 1993: 1).
