Ethnocentrism

Ethnocentrism

Introduction

Ethnocentrism is the tendency to judge others in terms of the norms of one's own group, culture, or class and to assert the alleged superiority of one's own group (Robert, 2011). Ethnocentric beliefs can predispose one ethnic group or social class to derogate, segregate, or commit violence against other people.

Brief Historical Overview and Associated Factors

Ethnocentrism intensified in the 17th-century Atlantic world as immigrants and Natives both confronted other groups of people and often reshaped their own ethnic identities. Indians, Africans, and Europeans initially understood strangers through cultural categories and caricatures arising both from their sense of their own superiority ...