Minority groups

A minority group refers to a category of people differentiated from the social majority, those who hold the majority of positions of social power in a society, and it may be defined by law. Rather than a relational "social group", as the term would indicate, "minority group" refers to the above-described. The differentiation can be based on one or more observable human characteristics, including: ethnicity, race, religion, caste, gender, wealth, health or sexual orientation. Usage of the term is applied to various situations and civilizations within history despite its popular misassociation with a numerical, statistical minority (Barzilai, 2010). In the social sciences, the term "minority" is sometimes used to describe social power relations between dominant and subordinate groups, rather than simply indicating demographic variation within a population. Furthermore, from an intersectional sociological perspective, any given individual may simultaneously occupy both a majority identity and a minority identity, depending on the intersection of different social categories (e.g. around age, religion, gender, and so on).

The term "minority group" often occurs alongside a discourse of civil rights and collective rights which gained prominence in the 20th century. Members of minority groups are prone to different treatment in the countries and societies in which they live. The discrimination may be directly based on an individual's perceived membership of a minority group, without consideration of that individual's personal achievement. It may also occur indirectly by social structures that are not equally accessible to all. Activists campaigning on a range of issues may use the language of minority rights, including student rights, consumer rights, and animal rights.

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