ABSTRACT
Ethnicity is expressed in the language of a group as well as in the orientation towards the nation or national identity. Race may also enter as a dimension of ethnicity, although with some very serious reservations. The debate about the scientific status of the concept of race has not decreased in intensity despite the forceful rejection of all forms of racism. One may reference the debate pro et contra the book Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life (Herrnstein and Murray 1994) as well as the debate on the research of Arthur Jensen in psychology. For the social sciences, race remains a relevant category insofar as it is culturally embedded and surfaces in the distribution of power, privilege and resources. Interestingly, a few countries still employ race as an official specification for groups of people, although modern biology denies any substantial genetic differences between such groups (in fact, the between-group variation is smaller than the within-group variation).
