Race & Ethnicity as Social Constructs

Genetic research has conclusively demonstrated that race has no biological basis — there is more genetic variation within so-called racial groups than between them. The Human Genome Project found that all humans share 99.9 percent of their DNA. Yet race remains one of the most powerful social forces in the world because societies have organized themselves around racial categories for centuries, creating real consequences through law, custom, and institutional practice. Sociologists study race not as a biological fact but as a social construction — a category created by human societies that carries enormous real-world consequences for those classified by it.