What is the difference between ethnicity and nationality

Ethnicity can be understood as the inherited status depending on the society in which a person resides. It is the state of belonging to a subgroup of the population, sharing similar physical or social attributes. In other words, Ethnicity is the ethnic identity of a person which is ascertained by descent-based characteristics. Descent-based characteristics connote the traits which are connected to descent, i.

Ethnicity is the category of people, called as an ethnic group, who consider themselves as distinct from others on the basis of ancestral, social and national heritage. People belonging to this group share common traditions, history, language or dialect, culture, behaviour, religion, physical appearance and similar other factors like geographical affiliation to a particular place, dressing style, food, beliefs, etc. For example : In India, the total population of 1.

In other words, nationality means the identity of a large group of people having a legal connection and personal allegiance to a specific place, because of being born there. It indicates the country, where the individual is from and is the legal citizen. Nationality law deals with its provision and sets the conditions for obtaining nationality. These are concepts that can bring people together, but they are also concepts that can tear people apart.

Some believe that these concepts are purely human inventions, while others believe they are as real as the sun and the moon. Regardless of how one sees them, however, the fact of the matter is that they are concepts that have influenced our past, our present, and very likely our future. To complicate matters, there is no universal consensus on how to define each of these concepts individually. In some ideologies, race, ethnicity and nationality are all one and the same.

Other ideologies hold that nationality simply means your country of citizenship and that race and ethnicity have no significance. Here are some of the key differences and similarities between the three concepts:.

But generally speaking, many people today think of a race as a group of people having certain physical characteristics. And the most distinguishing physical characteristic has historically been skin color. As for the science behind the concept, the growing consensus among scientists is that there is no way to divide homo sapiens , the scientific name for our modern human species, into races, and that the physical differences between people are the products of evolution and the adaptation of groups of human beings to the environments in which they lived.

There are, however, still scientists that do believe there is a correlation between physical characteristics and things like intelligence and morality. This is not true at all, if that person becomes a US citizen his nationality changes to US. Nationality pretty much means citizenship. Nationality means a state of origin in one is born. Every ethnicity belongs to a race, the races of the world being, Latin, caucation, African and Asian, which nationality just means where your born.

The reason nationality and ethnicity are synonyms to each other is because the usage of the word nationailty. Latin is a language not a race. Hispanic people derive their names from Spain. Italian, Spanish, french and Portuguese are all derived from Latin. Hispanics can be white, black, yellow or mixed. There are only 3 races arguably. As ethicity is membership of a group then one must be accepted by the group as part of that group.

Therefore an Indian or African can consider himself as English but unless the English group consider him part of the group then he isnt. As for ethnicity being an identity then if non English person meets your Indian and thinks he is Indian then how can your Indian claim to be English?

And in another article for the difference between race and ethnicity they state ethnicity is not race. My ex was born in Panama but parents were black Americans.

He is not Panamanian, neither by ethnicity nor nationality U. Most people here are American. Their data on race is based on self-identification. Some of the terms that were previously used have been considered offensive and removed from the paperwork. The ways the questions are asked have also shifted. Currently, the U. Groups that fall under this category include:. There are individual Asian checkboxes for people who identify as one or more of the following:.

There are individual Pacific Islander checkboxes for people who identify as one or more of the following:. If you do not identify with any of the above groups, you can simply choose the "Some Other Race" category and input how you identify yourself. The U. They recognize that individuals who describe themselves as fitting into this category may be of any race.

The Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish categories refer to people who identify with any of the ethnic groups originating from:. If you do not identify with any of these groups, you would select the option "Not of Hispanic, Spanish, or Latino origin.

Some scholars argue that race is a cultural intervention that reflects specific attitudes and beliefs that were imposed on different populations in the wake of the Western European conquests of the 15th century. So grouping people according to their skin color only shows that their ancestors got similar amounts of sunlight—and they may actually have very little in common genetically.

Many individuals identify with several racial and ethnic backgrounds. They may have been raised by parents from very different groups. And they might not want to pick which group they belong to. According to the human genome project, our DNA is This is why forms are constantly evolving—as is our understanding of both race and ethnicity.

The terms we use, the categories we offer, and our beliefs about genetic make-up will continue to change over time. But for now, government forms are likely to continue asking questions about both race and ethnicity—even though not everyone will agree with the questions or the answer options.