News
JANUARY 2006
Following the
last decision of the MIC Academic Consul, all
Online students, once registered, can join in MIC Paris School, in MIC
School in Almaty or MIC Canada for an Onsite Program.
NOVEMBER 2005
The First MBA group started in November 2005 at IFCM in Paris.
The second session will start in February 2006.
Students would travel to Canada for the last
semester. The program is held at MIC in Montreal or Ottawa, where
students combine one semester of intensive study with an
internship program within a Canadian company.
MAY 2005
The
First MIC MBA Program in Paris, France, is planned to start in
October 2005. The
MIC registered Students from all units in the world can be
transfered and study in our school in Paris.
For
more information, please contact MIC main office in Montreal.
FEBRUARY 2005
MIC created a school of management in Paris, France, in partnership with
Group COGEFI, a well known French
Business School.
FRANCO-CANADIAN
INSTITUTE (IFC)
(Institut Franco-Canadien
- IFC)
represents this partnership.
IFC offers MBA (Master in business Administration)’ and ‘Master
Européen
de Management’.
The MBA program in Paris is now offered in English and in French.
To visit the
MIC Paris School, please click here.
-
The MBA Program in Almaty, Kazakhstan is supposed to be started in June 2005. All
Central Asian and Eastern European applicants can apply at Turan University:
www.turan.kz
(http://www.turan.kz/canada/canada.html)
-MIC in Durban, South Africa, is offering
only Online MBA Program.
NOVEMBER 2004
-
MIC has signed an agreement with the Turan University in Almaty,
Kazakhstan, to offer an MBA On-Campus Program in Almaty and in Astana (Capital
of Kazakhstan).
Starting date: June 2005.
-
Following the last decision of the Academic Consul, MIC is restructuring the
teaching system for the Online EMBA and MPA programs.
The new system would start from the beginning of the New Year.
OCTOBER 2004
- Another
partnership with a university in the North of Russia is the processes of
negotiation. This partnership is based on
offering a joint MBA On Campus Program.
Starting date is supposed to be in
September 2005.
More details will be published soon.
SEPTEMBER 2004
- Till
September 2004, all students at MIC for the Overseas Program were from Eastern
Europe and Central Asia. MIC has admitted for the first time new applicants from
Saudi Arabia. The Management welcomes to the new students.
The current MIC Online Students
from Overseas are from these coutries:
Albania
Ukraine
Uzbekistan
Bulgaria
Kyrgyzstan
Kazakhstan
Azerbaijan
Saudi Arabia
-MIC is finalizing an important
partnership with one of the largest universities in Central Asia,
Kazakhstan.
This partnership is based on
offering an MBA Program On Campus Program.
Starting date is supposed to be in
January 2005. More details will be published soon.
AUGUST 2004
- MIC has developed a VIRTUAL- CLASS system. Professors from Canada will be in
direct connection with students from all over the world and will teach them
directly through Internet. The V-Class system will be implemented from
January 2005.
-
Starting from June 2004, MIC has increased the tuition fee for eMBA and MPA
programs. All students who have applied online before this date, having received
a pre-admission letter, will benefit from the previous rate upon request.
Montreal
World Education System
This
page edited from MIT webpage
Bachelor of Science
A Bachelor of Science (B.S., B.Sc. or less commonly, S.B. or
Sc.B. from the
Latin
Scientiae Baccalaureus) is an
undergraduate
academic degree
awarded for courses taken that generally last three years in
England,
Wales,
Northern Ireland,
Germany,
India,
Quebec,
Singapore,
Australia,
New Zealand,
Hong Kong
and
South Africa
or four years in the rest of
North America
and
Scotland.
In
North America,
a Bachelor of Science degree usually requires students to take a
majority of their courses (usually one half or three quarters)
in the
sciences,
namely
life sciences,
physical sciences,
or the
mathematical sciences.
Most universities plan the Science Bachelor degree as a
liberal arts
course schedule. In the UK, which subjects are considered
science subjects varies, e.g.
economics
degrees may be
B.A.
in one university but B.Sc. in another. A Bachelor of Science
receives the designation B.Sc. or B.S. for a major/pass degree
and B.Sc. (Hons) or B.S. (Hon) for an
honours degree.
Formerly, in the
University of Oxford
the degree of B.Sc. was a postgraduate degree. This former
degree, still actively granted, has since been renamed M.Sc.
"Tagged" or specified degrees
Many colleges of engineering, business, education, etc. also
offer the
Bachelor of Science
as a tagged degree. A tagged degree incorporates the name
of the major into the degree title, and generally requires more
specialized course work than a degree with an untagged major.
Some examples of tagged degrees include, but are not limited to:
- Bachelor of Science in Agriculture
- Bachelor of Science in Architecture
- Bachelor of Science in Business
- Bachelor of Science in Chemistry
- Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering
- Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering
- Bachelor of Science in Computer Science
- Bachelor of Science in Education
- Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering
- Bachelor of Science in Foreign Service (BSFS)
- Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering
-
Bachelor of Science in Nursing
(BSN)
- Bachelor of Science in Pharmacy The Bachelor of Science in
Foreign service, a degree granted by only a small number of
institutions, can be found at schools (colleges) of foreign
service or foreign affairs, including the
School of Foreign Service
at
Georgetown University,
Washington, DC.
See
also
-
Bachelor of Arts
-
Bachelor's degree
-
Bachelor of Mathematics
-
British undergraduate degree classification
-
British degree abbreviations
Science, Bachelor
Master's degree
:For other degrees, see
Academic degree
or
Degree (disambiguation)
A master's degree is an
academic degree
usually awarded for completion of a
postgraduate
or
graduate
course of one to three
years
in duration. In the
United Kingdom
it is sometimes awarded for an
undergraduate
student whose final year consists of higher-level courses and a
major research project. In the recent standardized
European
system of higher education
diplomas,
it corresponds to a two-year graduate program to be entered
after three years of undergraduate studies and in preparation
for either high-qualification
employment
or for
doctoral
studies.
MA,
MS, MSc, MSE, AM, SM
The Master of Arts (Magister Artium) and Master of
Science (Magister Scientiæ) degrees are the basic type in
most subjects and may be entirely course-based, entirely
research-based or (more typically) a mixture. Admission to a
masters program is normally contingent upon holding a
bachelors degree,
and progressing to a
doctoral
program usually requires a master's degree. In some fields or
graduate programs, work on a doctorate begins immediately after
the bachelors degree. Some programs provide for a joint
bachelors and masters degree after about five years. Some
universities use the Latin degree names, and due to the
flexibility of
Latin word order,
Artium Magister (AM) or Scientiæ Magister (SM) may
be used at some schools. For example, Harvard University uses
the degree abbreviations A.M., S.M. and Ed.M. for its master's
degrees.
MASc,
MEng
The
Master of Engineering
degree is awarded to students who have done graduate work at the
masters level in the field of
engineering.
While in the United States, candidates in engineering are
typically awarded MS degrees, in the U.K. and Canada, they are
generally given MSc, MASc or MEng degrees. (An example of an
MEng-awarding U.S. university is the
University of California, Berkeley,
of which the Civil & Environmental Engineering department offers
both MS and MEng degrees.) In
Canada,
the Master of Applied Science (MASc) is awarded to masters
students with a research focus (having completed work leading to
a
thesis),
while an MEng is awarded to masters students with a coursework
focus and the completion of a research paper. The distinction
between MASc and MEng is not definite since some universities
grant only an MEng and some universities grant only an MASc,
either research or coursework-focused.
MAT
Coursework and practica leading to a
Master of Arts in Teaching
(MAT) degree is intended to prepare individuals for a teaching
career in a specific subject of middle and/or secondary-level
curricula (i.e., middle or high school). The MAT differs from
the MEd degree in that the course requirements are dominated by
classes in the subject area to be taught (e.g., foreign
language, math, science, etc.) rather than educational theory.
Work toward most MAT degrees will, however, necessarily include
classes on educational theory in order to meet program and state
requirements. Work toward the MAT degree may also include
practica (i.e., student teaching).
MBA,
MHA, MPA, MAL
Master of Business Administration
(MBA),
Master of Health Administration
(MHA) and
Master of Public Administration
(MPA), are
professional degrees
focusing on management for the private and public sector.
MAcc
or MAc
Master of Accountancy
(MAcc or MAc) is typically a one-year, non-thesis graduate
program designed to prepare graduates for public accounting and
to provide them with the 150 credit hours required by most
states before taking the
CPA
exam.
MArchHist
The two-year
Master of Architectural History
(M.Arch.Hist.) is the first
professional degree
in architectural history or historic preservation and often is
awarded for progress toward a Ph.D.
MDiv,
MTh, STM
The
Master of Divinity
(M.Div.) is the first
professional degree
in
ministry
and is a common
academic degree
among
theological
seminaries.
It is typically three years in length. Other theology degree
titles used are Master of Theology and Master of Sacred
Theology.
MEd
Master of Education
degrees are similar to MA, MS, and MSc where the subject studied
is
education.
In the
United States
some states license
teachers
with a bachelors degree but require a masters within a set
number of years as continuing education. Other Education related
master's degrees conferred in the United States are Master of
Science in Education (M.S.Ed. or M.S.E.), Master of Arts in
Education (M.A.Ed.) and Master of Adult Education (M.Ad.Ed.).
MMus
Master of Music
is a three or four year degree in the field of music.
MFA
The
Master of Fine Arts
(MFA) is a two to three year terminal degree in a creative field
of study such as
theatre arts,
creative writing,
filmmaking
or
studio art.
M.A.L.S., MLA, MLS
The
Master of Arts in Liberal Studies
(M.A.L.S.),
Master of Liberal Arts
(MLA),
Master of Arts in Liberal Arts
(M.A.L.A.) and
Master of Liberal Studies
(MLS) are interdisciplinary master's degrees, occasionally
awarded in specific subjects. Regardless of the title, these
degrees are essentially similar, often requiring the completion
of a liberal arts curriculum and a master's thesis or capstone
project. In the
1950s,
Wesleyan University
initiated the first master's program of this sort, to refresh
the educations of local secondary school teachers. Today, these
degrees are often undertaken for personal enrichment, or to
explore an interdisciplinary subject that does not conform to
the scope of traditional master's degree programs.
MLS,
MLIS, MSIS
A Master of
Library Science
(MLS) degree is the culmination of an interdisciplinary program
encompassing
information science,
information management,
librarianship,
and/or related topics. Modern variants include
Master of Library and Information Studies (MLIS),
Master of Science in Information Studies (MSIS), Master of
Librarianship, et al. While some universities use standard
degree titles such as
Master of Arts
(University
of Iowa)
and
Master of Science
(University
of Illinois)
for their Library Science master's degrees.
MPH
The Master of Public Health degree is awarded to students who
have completed a post-graduate course of study in Public Health.
MPhil
In the United States and Canada, a
Master of Philosophy
or Magister Philosophiae (MPhil) degree is sometimes
awarded to ABD (all but dissertation) doctoral candidates
who have completed all coursework, passed their written and oral
examinations, and met any other special requirements before
beginning work on the doctoral
dissertation.
Assuming all requirements are met, the MPhil degree is generally
awarded after about one year of full time study towards a
doctorate. The MPhil is considered equivalent to the former
French
DEA
Diplôme d'études approfondies.
MSN,
M.Nur.
The Master of Science in Nursing is the most common title for a
graduate professional degree in nursing. A few schools also use
the titles Master of Nursing or Master of Arts.
MSW
The
Master of Social Work
(MSW) is a semi-professional degree preparing students to become
social workers.
United
Kingdom
Undergraduate Masters
(MSci,
MChem,
MComp,
MEng,
MMath,
MPhys, etc.)
In the
UK,
many universities now have a four year (five years in
Scotland)
undergraduate
programmes in
science
courses, with a project in the final year. The awards for these
are named after the subject, so a course in
mathematics
would earn a Master in Mathematics degree, (abbreviated
to MMath), or have a general title such as MSci (Master
in Science at most universities but
Master of Natural Sciences
at
Cambridge).
Although these degrees reflect a higher level of achievement
than the traditional
bachelor's degree,
some are generally considered less prestigious than postgraduate
masters degrees such as
MSc
and
MA.
In content the first three years are generally identical to
those of the equivalent bachelor's degree while the fourth year
is a combination of higher-level taught courses and a research
project.
Postgraduate Masters
Postgraduate masters in the United Kingdom can either be
"taught" degrees, involving lectures, examination and a short
dissertation, or "research" degrees (though the latter have
largely been replaced by MPhil and MRes programmes, see below).
Taught masters programmes involve 1 or 2 years of full-time
study. The programmes are often very intensive and demanding,
and concentrate on one very specialised area of knowledge. Some
universities also offer a
Masters by Learning Contract
scheme, where a candidate can specify his or her own learning
objectives; these are submitted to supervising academics for
approval, and are assessed by means of written reports,
practical demonstrations and presentations.
Taught
Postgraduate Masters
(MSc,
MA,
LL.M.,
MLitt,
MSSc,
etc) The most common types of postgraduate taught Masters
degrees are the
Master of Arts
(MA) awarded in
Arts,
Humanities,
Theology
and
Social Sciences
and the
Master of Science
(MSc) awarded in
pure
and
applied
Science.
However, some universities - particularly those in
Scotland
- award the
Master of Letters
(MLitt) Master of Letters to students in the
Arts,
Humanities,
Divinity
and
Social Sciences.
[It should be noted that the MLitt is a research degree at the
University of Cambridge,
where the
Master of Philosphy
(MPhil) is the stanadard one-year taught degree.] In
Law
the standard taught degree is the
Master of Laws,
but certain courses may lead to the award of MA or MLitt. Until
recently, both the undergraduate and postgraduate masters
degrees were awarded without grade or class (like the class of
an
honours degree).
Nowadays however, masters degrees are normally classified into
the categories of Pass or Distinction, which tend to require
marks of 50% and 70% respectively.
Research Postgraduate Masters
(MPhil
and
MRes)
The Master of Philosophy (MPhil)
is a research degree awarded for the completion of a thesis. It
is a shorter version of the
Ph.D.
and some universities routinely enter potential PhD students
into the MPhil programme and allow them to upgrade to the full
PhD programme a year or two into the course. The Master of
Research (MRes)
degree is a more structured and organised version of the MPhil,
usually designed to prepare a student for a career in research.
For example, an MRes may combine individual research with
periods of work placement in research establisments. Like the
PhD, the MPhil and MRes degrees are awarded without class or
grade.
MAs in
Oxford, Cambridge and Dublin
The universities of
Oxford,
Cambridge
and
Dublin
award masters degrees to BAs without further examination, when a
certain number of years after
matriculation
(7 in the case of Oxford and Cambridge) have passed, and (in
some but not all cases) upon payment of a nominal fee. It is
commonplace for recipients of the degree to have graduated
several years previously and to have had little official contact
with the university or academic life since then. The only real
significance of these degrees is that they historically
conferred voting rights in University elections, and certain
other privileges e.g. the right to dine at the holder's
college's high table. They still do confer some restricted and
rarely used voting rights. The MAs awarded by Oxford and
Cambridge are colloquially known as the Oxbridge MA. The
University of Cambridge also offers an MA to certain senior
staff - both academic and non-academic - after three years'
employment with the university. Until the advent of the modern
research university in the mid 19th century, several other
British and American universities also gave such degrees "in
course".
Scottish MA
In
Scotland
the first degree in
Arts,
Fine Art,
Humanities
and
Social Sciences
awarded by many universities is the
Master of Arts
It should be noted the
Science
and
Law
faculties of Scottish universities award the
BSc
and
LLB
degrees respectively and the
New Universities
generally award the BA. The Scottish MA is roughly equivalent to
a BA from a University elsewhere in the United Kingdom.
In order to facilitate the movement of students between European
Union countries, a standardized schedule of higher education
diplomas, also known as the
Bologna process,
was proposed: a 3-year undergraduate degree called licence
or bachelors degree, then a two-year diploma called
master, then a
doctorate,
meant to be obtained in 3 years. Because of these indicated
schedules, the reform is also referred to as 3-5-3.
The traditional Austrian equivalent to the Master degree is the
Diplomstudium, (At an university, only.) leading to the
title Diplom-Ingenieur (female title:
Diplom-Ingenieurin) in engineering or Magister
(female: Magistra) in almost every other discipline. This
is a first degree after 5 years of study. (The fields of
Medicine, Dentistry, and Veterinary Medicine pose an exception.
The first degree in these disciplines is a
professional
doctorate.)
Due the
Bologna process
these first degrees are replaced by postgraduate degrees (2
years) leading to the same titles . The admission to these new
degrees require a Bakkalaureus degree (female:
Bakkalaura - the Austrian title for a Bachelor degree after
3 years of study) in the same or a related field or an
equivalent Bachelor from other countries. The continuing use of
the traditional titles for the new degrees reflects the
relatively high social prestige of these titles in the Austrian
society. The traditional degrees at an Austrian
Fachhochschule
(University of Applied Science), the Magister(FH)/Magistra(FH)
and the Diplom-Ingenieur(FH)/Diplom-Ingenieurin(FH)
(first degrees after 4 years of study, and not equivalent to the
Master degree) are also replaced by undergraduate
Bakkalaureus(FH)/Bakkalaura(FH) degrees (3 years) and
postgraduate degrees (2 years, and equivalent to a Master
degree) with the traditional titels. However, in some
disciplines existing also postgraduate degrees with the English
title Master. (e.g. the
MBA
in business administration or the Master of Advanced Studies,
the
Master of Arts,
and the
Master of Science
in various fields of study) The admission to these new degrees
also require an undergraduate degree, but not always in the same
or a related discipline.
In Belgium, owning a masters degree means that you have
completed a higher education (usually university) programme of 4
or 5 years. Before the
Bologna process
most university degrees required 4 years of studies (leading to
a licence), but some programmes required 5 years of study. An
example in the field of education in business/management was the
5-year programme of "Ingénieur de Gestion" (Dutch "Handelsingenieur"
- English' "Management Engineer") with an important amount
of mathematics and sciences, and which corresponds to a M.Sc. in
Management. This degree co-existed with an undergraduate degree
in business (4 years) named "Licence en sciences économiques
appliquées (Dutch. "Licentiaat in toegepaste economische
wetenschappen" - English. "Licence in applied economics").
In Germany the Magister or Diplom (first degree
after 5 years, from either an University or a Technische
Hochschule and NOT from a Fachhochschule (University
of Applied Science)) has traditionally been the equivalent to
the Master degree. Due the
Bologna process
these academic titles are mostly being replaced by the
(postgraduate) Master degree, which has caused widespread
scepticism among many
faculty
and
student
body members who prefer the traditional title and
curriculum.
The traditional degree at a German
Fachhochschule
(University of Applied Science), the Diplom(FH) (first
degree after 4 years of study) is also replaced by undergraduate
Bachelor's degrees (3 years) and postgraduate Master's (2
years).
In Finland, the introduction of Bologna Process has standardized
most of the degrees into the European model. The higher degree
is called Master (of respective field) in all fields of study
and takes two yeas after the Bachelor's degree. Medicine-related
fields of Medicine, Dentistry, and Veterinary Medicine pose an
exception. In medical fields, the licenciate (In
Finnish,
lisensiaatti) is an equivalent degree, the completion of
which takes five (dentistry) or six years (medicine and
veterinary), while the Bachelor degree is gained after second
year of studies. In Engineering, the higher degree is either
diplomi-insinööri (literally: "Engineer with diploma") or
arkkitehti (Architect) although in international use MSc is
used. In
Pharmacy,
the degree is proviisori. All such degrees retaining
their historical name are classified as Masters. Some other
Masters degrees give the right to use the traditional title of
the degree-holder. E.g. the Masters of Science in Agriculture
and Forestry may use the titles of metsänhoitaja or
agronomi depending on their field of study.
In France, a traditional diploma was the maîtrise (which
translates literally as "master's qualification") after 4 years
of studies. This diploma becomes the first year of the Masters
program, often referred to as M1. Because of this change, legal
texts specifying a maîtrise (for instance, those defining
the conditions for the external
agrégation)
had to be amended. The Masters programs subsume the former
DEA
(research-oriented 1-year degree), and
DESS
(industry-oriented 1-year degree), which become the second year
of the Master (M2).
The old university system (Vecchio ordinamento) consisted in a
unique five year course program, followed by a variable period
(6-12 months usually) for the thesis work. This system has been
reformed in 1999/2000 to adapt it to the Bologna process. Now (Nuovo
Ordinamento) you have a three year course program called Laurea
Breve, and after two years of specialisation, called Laurea
Specialistica. Both have a final study work. Then, one can start
a phd program. Medicine universities have not changed the
system, and consist in six year of study followed, eventually,
by the specialisation (3-6 years more).
In the Netherlands, the traditional acadamic degrees were
doctorandus (drs.) (after 4 years; 5 years for some natural
sciences, 6 years for medicine), ingenieur (ir.) (after 5
years) and for Law meester in de rechten (mr.) (after 4
years). Even though universities have adopted the masters and
bachelors degree system, the old titles drs., ir. and mr. are
still used (and the use of them is protected by law). The
doctorandus (literally meaning "he who has to become
doctor") degree is comparable with the MA degree (sometimes MSc).
The ingenieur (engineer) degree is comparable with an
M.Eng. or MSc degree. Finally, the mr. degree is comparable with
the LL.M degree. In the Netherlands a suffix degree (MA / MSc /
MEng / LL.M) can be used for holders of a prefix degree (drs.,
ir., mr.) instead of the prefix degree (e.g. 'ir.
Jansen' or 'Jansen MSc'). A pre- and postfix can not be used at
the same time (e.g. 'drs. Jansen MSc').
Currently there are two models of higher education in Poland. In
the traditional model, a masters degree is awarded after
completion of a university curriculum—a 5 year programme in
science courses at a university or other similar institution,
with a project in the final year called magisterium (it
can be translated as a Master of Arts or a Master of Science
thesis) that often requires carrying out research in a given
field. An MA degree is called a magister (abbreviated
mgr) except for medical education where it is called a
lekarz medycyny (this gives the holder the right to use the
title of physician) or a lekarz weterynarii in the
veterinary field. Technical universities usually give the title
of magister inżynier (abbreviated mgr inż.)
corrseponding to an MSc Eng degree. More and more institutions
introduce another model, which as of 2005 is still less popular.
In this model, following the
Bologna process
directives, higher education is split into a 3-year bachelor
programme ending with a title of licencjat
(non-technical) or inżynier (technical fields), and a
2-year programme (uzupełniające studia magisterskie)
giving the title of magister or magister inżynier.
Nevertheless, even in these institutions, it is often possible
to bridge the bachelor education directly into the master
programme, without formally obtaining the licencjat
degree, thus shortening the time needed for completing the
education slightly. Depending on field and school, the timing
may be slightly different.
MA, MSc,
MSocSc, MSW, MEng, LLM
Hong Kong requires two years of full-time coursework to achieve
a masters degree. For part-time study, three years of study are
normally required to achieve a postgraduate degree.
MPhil
As in the United Kingdom, MPhil or Master of Philosophy
is a research degree awarded for the completion of a thesis, and
is a shorter version of the PhD.
In Taiwan, bachelor degrees are basically four years (with
honors). There is an entrance examination required for people
who want to study in Master and PhD degrees. The course offered
for Master and PhD normally is research-based.
See
also
-
Bachelor's degree
-
Professional Master's degree
-
Master of Business Administration
-
Master of Engineering
-
Master of Fine Arts
-
Master of Theology
-
Licentiate
-
Engineer's degree
-
Doctorate
-
British degree abbreviations
-
Degrees of Oxford University
-
Degrees of Cambridge University
External links
- [http://www.ericdigests.org/pre-9210/degree.htm The Masters
Degree]
- [http://www.collegeart.org/caa/ethics/mfa_standards.html
College Art Association Visual Arts MFA Guidelines]
Normal
school
A normal school is an institution for training
teachers.
Its purpose is to establishing teaching standards or norms,
hence its name. According to the
Oxford English Dictionary
normal schools in the
United States
and
Canada
trained primary school teachers, while in
Europe,
normal schools educated primary, secondary and tertiary-level
teachers. Many famous universities (including the
University of California, Los Angeles)
originated as normal schools. The first normal schools in the
United States
were founded in
Massachusetts
beginning in the late
1830s,
thanks largely to the efforts of education reformers like
Horace Mann.
The first, now called
Framingham State College
(FSC), opened in
1839,
in
Lexington, Massachusetts
(it later moved). Influenced by similar such academies in
Prussia
and elsewhere in
Europe,
they were intended to improve the quality of the burgeoning
common school
system by producing more qualified teachers. The first normal
school to open west of the
Appalachian Mountains
in the United States was the institution now known as
Illinois State University,
which opened in
1857.
The first to open west of the Mississippi River was the school
now called
Sam Houston State University,
opening in
1879.
The term is now archaic in many countries, and in the United
States the function of normal schools has been taken up by
undergraduate
and
graduate
Schools of Education. In Canada, such institutes are usually
parts of universities as the Faculty of Education offering a
one- or two-year Bachelor of Education program. It requires at
least three (usually four) years of prior undergraduate studies.
Among countries to still use the term Normal School is
New Zealand,
in which normal schools are affiliated with Teachers' colleges,
particularly in the cities of
Christchurch
and
Dunedin.
The term originated in the early nineteenth century from the
French école normale, because the first such schools were
established as standard models to be emulated by other schools.
The terminology is preserved in the official translations of
such schools in both the
Republic of China
and the
People's Republic of China
since the early 20th century. A Chinese normal university (,
abbreviated
師大;
shīdà) is usually controlled by the national or
provincial government. A teachers' college (師範學院;
shīfàn xuéyuàn, abbreviated
師院;
shīyuàn) has lower entrance requirements.
Category:Education by subject
Category:History of education
Category:Education in New Zealand
Race
A race is a
population
of
humans
distinguished from other populations. The most widely used
racial categories
are based on visible
traits
(especially
skin color
and
facial features).
Conceptions of race, as well as specific
racial groupings,
vary by culture and time and are often
controversial
due to their impact on
social identity
hence
identity politics.
Since the
1940s,
evolutionary
scientists have rejected the view of race according to which a
number of finite lists of
essential
characteristics could be used to determine a like number of
races. By the
1960s,
data and models from
population genetics
called into question
taxonomic
understandings of race, and many have turned from
conceptualizing and analyzing human variation in terms of race
to doing so in terms of
populations
and
clines
instead. However, many scientists believe that race is a valid
and useful concept. Moreover, since the
1990s,
data and models from
genomics
and
cladistics
have resulted in a revolution in our understanding of human
evolution, which has led some to propose a new "lineage"
definition of race. These scientists have made related arguments
that races are valid when understood as
fuzzy sets,
clusters,
or
extended families.
Currently, opinions differ substantially within and among
academic disciplines.
Many evolutionary and social scientists, drawing on such
biological research, think common race definitions, or any race
definitions pertaining to humans, lack
taxonomic
rigour and
validity.
They argue that race definitions are imprecise, arbitrary,
derived from custom, and that the races observed vary according
to the culture examined. They further maintain that race is best
understood as a
social construct.
Other scientists, however, have argued that this shift is
motivated more by political than scientific reasons.
Historical origins of "race"
social construct.]]
History of the term
Given our visual acuity and complex social relationships, humans
presumably have always observed and speculated about the
physical differences among individuals and groups. But different
societies have attributed markedly different meanings to these
distinctions. The division of humanity into distinct "races" can
be traced as far back as the
Ancient Egyptian
sacred text the
Book of Gates,
which identifies four categories that are now conventionally
labelled "Egyptians", "Asiatics", "Libyans", and "Nubians".
However, such distinctions tended to merge differences defined
by features such as skin color, with
tribal
and
national
identity. Classical civilizations from Rome to China tended to
invest much more importance in family or tribal affiliations
than in physical appearance (Dikötter 1992; Goldenberg 2003).
Ancient Greek
and
Roman
authors also attempted to explain and categorize visible
biological differences between peoples known to them. Such
categories often also included fantastical human-like beings
that were supposed to exist in far-away lands. Some Roman
writers adhered to an environmental determinism in which climate
could affect the appearance and character of groups (Isaac
2004). But in many ancient civilizations, individuals with
widely varying physical appearances could become full members of
a society by growing up within that society or by adopting the
society's cultural norms (Snowden 1983; Lewis 1990).
Medieval
models of race mixed
Classical
ideas with the notion that humanity as a whole was descended
from
Shem,
Ham
and
Japheth,
the three
sons of Noah,
producing distinct
Semitic
(Asian),
Hamitic
(African), and
Japhetic
(European) peoples. The word race entered the
English language
in the
16th century,
from
French
race
"race, breed, lineage" (which in turn was probably a loan from
Italian
razza).
Meanings of the term in the 16th century included "wines
with a characteristic flavour", "people with common occupation",
and "generation".
The meaning "tribe"
or "nation"
emerged in the
17th century.
The modern meaning, "one of the major divisions of mankind",
dates to the late
18th century,
but it never became exclusive (cf. continued use of "the human
race"). The ultimate origin of the word is unknown; suggestions
include
Arabic
ra'is
meaning "head", but also "beginning" or "origin". The English
word "race", along with many of the ideas now associated with
the term, were products of the European era of exploration (Smedley
1999). As Europeans encountered people from different parts of
the world, they speculated about the physical, social, and
cultural differences between human groups. The rise of the
African slave trade, which gradually displaced an earlier trade
in slaves from throughout the world, created a further incentive
to categorize human groups to justify the barbarous treatment of
African slaves (Meltzer 1993). Drawing on classical sources and
on their own internal interactions—for example, the hostility
between the English and Irish was a powerful influence on early
thinking about the differences between people (Takaki
1993)—Europeans began to sort themselves and others into groups
associated with physical appearance and with deeply ingrained
behaviors and capacities. A set of "folk beliefs" took hold that
linked inherited physical differences between groups to
inherited intellectual, behavioral, and moral qualities (Banton
1977). Although similar ideas can be found in other cultures
(Lewis 1990; Dikötter 1992), they appear not to have had as much
influence on social structures as they did in Europe and the
parts of the world colonized by Europeans.
History of race research
The first scientific attempts to categorize race date from the
17th century, along with the development of European imperialism
and colonization around the world. The first post-Classical
published classification of humans into distinct races seems to
be
François Bernier's
Nouvelle division de la terre par les différents espèces ou
races qui l'habitent ("New division of Earth by the
different species or races which inhabit it"), published in
1684.
In the 18th century, the differences between human groups became
a focus of scientific investigation (Todorov 1993). Initially,
scholars focused on cataloging and describing "The Natural
Varieties of Mankind," as
Johann Friedrich Blumenbach
entitled his 1775 text (which established the five major
divisions of humans still reflected in some racial
classifications). But as the science of anthropology took shape
in the 19th century, European and American scientists
increasingly sought explanations for the behavioral and cultural
differences they attributed to groups (Stanton 1960). For
example, they measured the shapes and sizes of skulls and
related the results to group differences in intelligence or
other attributes (Lieberman 2001). Both before and after the
1859 publication of
On the Origin of Species,
a debate raged in Europe over whether different human groups had
the same origin or were the product of separate creations or
evolutionary lineages (Wolpoff and Caspari 1997). From the 17th
through the 19th centuries, the merging of folk beliefs about
group differences with scientific explanations of those
differences produced what one scholar has called an "ideology of
race" (Smedley 1999). According to this ideology, races are
primordial, natural, enduring, and distinct. Some groups might
be the result of mixture between formerly distinct populations,
but careful study can distinguish the ancestral races that had
combined to produce admixed groups. In the
19th century
a number of
natural scientists
wrote on race:
Georges Cuvier,
James Cowles Pritchard,
Louis Agassiz,
Charles Pickering,
and
Johann Friedrich Blumenbach.
These scientists made three claims about race: first, that races
are objective, naturally occurring divisions of humanity;
second, that there is a strong relationship between biological
races and other human phenomena (such as
forms of activity and interpersonal relations
and culture, and by extension the relative
material success
of cultures); third, that race is therefore a valid scientific
category that can be used to explain and predict individual and
group behavior. Races were distinguished by
skin color,
facial
type,
cranial
profile and size, texture and color of
hair.
Moreover, races were almost universally considered to reflect
group differences in
moral
character and
intelligence.
Their understanding of race was usually both
essentialist
(defining a race by a list of characteristics) and
taxonomic
(hierarchical). The advent of
Darwinian
models of
evolution
and
Mendelian
genetics,
however, called into question the scientific validity of both
characteristics, and required a radical reconsideration of race.
The concept of race found wide application in many societies.
The eugenics movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries
asserted as self-evident the biological inferiority of
particular groups (Kevles 1985). In many parts of the world, the
idea of race became a way of rigidly dividing groups by use of
culture as well as physical appearances (Hannaford 1996).
Campaigns of oppression and genocide often used supposed racial
differences to motivate inhuman acts against others (Horowitz
2001).
20th-
and 21st-century debates over race
Scale
of race research
Discussions of race are complicated because race research has
taken place on at least two scales (global and national) and
from the point of view of different research aims. Evolutionary
scientists are typically interested in humanity as a whole; and
taxonomic racial classifications are often either unhelpful to,
or refuted by, studies that focus on the question of
global human diversity.
Policy-makers and applied professions (such as law-enforcement
or medicine), however, are typically concerned only with genetic
variation at the national or sub-national scale, and find
taxonomic racial categories useful. These distinctions of
research aims and scale can be seen by the example of three
major research papers published since
2002:
Rosenberg
et al. (2002),
Serre & Pääbo
(2004), and
Tang
et al. (2005). Both Rosenberg et al. and Serre & Pääbo study
global genetic variation,
but they arrive at different conclusions. Serre & Pääbo
attribute their differing conclusions to
experimental design.
While Rosenberg et al. studied individuals from populations
across the globe without respect to geography, Serre & Pääbo
sampled individuals with respect to geography. By sampling
individuals from major populations on each continent, Rosenberg
et al. find evidence for genetic "clusters" (i.e., races). In
contrast, Serre & Pääbo find that with respect to geography
human genetic variation is continuous and "clinal". The research
interest of Rosenberg et al. is medicine (i.e.,
epidemiology),
whereas the research interest of Serre & Pääbo is human
evolution. Tang et al. studied genetic variation within the
United States
with an interest in whether race/ethnicity or geography is of
greater importance to epidemiological research. In contrast to
Serre & Pääbo, Tang et al. find that race/ethnicity is of
greater importance within the United States. Further [http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/AJHG/journal/issues/v77n3/42406/brief/42406.abstract.html
recent research] correlating self-identified race with [http://pritch.bsd.uchicago.edu/software/structure2_1.html
population genetic structure] echoed the conculsions in Tang.
Indeed, the contrasting conclusions between global and national
levels of analysis were predicted by Serre & Pääbo: :It is worth
noting that the
colonization
history of the United States has resulted in a "sampling" of the
human population made up largely of people from
western Europe,
western Africa,
and
Southeast Asia.
Thus, studies in which individuals from Europe, sub-Saharan
Africa, and Southeast Asia are used... might be an adequate
description of the major components of the U.S. population.
Race
as subspecies
With the advent of the
modern synthesis
in the early 20th century, biologists developed a new, more
rigorous model of race as subspecies. For these biologists, a
race is a recognizable group forming all or part of a
species.
A
monotypic
species has no races, or rather one race comprising the whole
species. Monotypic species can occur in several ways:
- All members of the species are very similar and cannot be
sensibly divided into biologically significant subcategories.
- The individuals vary considerably but the variation is
essentially random and largely meaningless so far as genetic
transmission of these variations is concerned (many plant
species fit into this category, which is why horticulturists
interested in preserving, say, a particular flower color avoid
propagation from seed, and instead use vegetative methods like
propagation from cuttings).
- The variation between individuals is noticeable and follows a
pattern, but there are no clear dividing lines between separate
groups: they fade imperceptibly into one another. Such
clinal
variation always indicates substantial
gene flow
between the apparently separate groups that make up the
population(s). Populations that have a steady, substantial gene
flow between them are likely to represent a monotypic species
even when a fair degree of genetic variation is obvious. A
polytypic
species has two or more races (or, in current
parlance,
two or more sub-types). These are separate groups that
are clearly distinct from one another and do not generally
interbreed
(although there may be a relatively narrow
hybridization zone),
but which would interbreed freely if given the chance to
do so. Note that groups which would not interbreed
freely, even if brought together such that they had the
opportunity to do so, are not races: they are separate species.
Although this attempt at conceptual precision gained currency
with many biologists, especially
zoologists,
evolutionary scientists have criticized it on a number of
fronts.
The
rejection of race and the rise of "population"
and "cline"
At the beginning of the 20th century,
anthropologists
questioned, and subsequently abandoned, the claim that
biologically distinct races are
isomorphic
with distinct linguistic, cultural, and social groups. Then, the
rise of
population genetics
led some mainstream evolutionary scientists in
anthropology
and
biology
to question the very validity of race as scientific concept
describing an objectively real phenomenon. Those who came to
reject the validity of the concept, race, did so for four
reasons: empirical, definitional, the availability of
alternative concepts, and ethical (Lieberman and Byrne 1993).
The first to challenge the concept of race on empirical grounds
were
anthropologists
Franz Boas,
who demonstrated phenotypic plasticity due to environmental
factors (Boas 1912), and
Ashley Montagu
(1941, 1942), who relied on evidence from genetics.
Zoologists
Edward O. Wilson and W. Brown then challenged the concept from
the perspective of general
animal systematics,
and further rejected the claim that "races" were equivalent to
"subspecies" (Wilson and Brown 1953). One of the crucial
innovations in reconceptualizing
genotypic
and
phenotypic
variation was anthropologist
C. Loring Brace's
observation that such variations, insofar as they are affected
by
natural selection,
migration,
or
genetic drift,
are distributed along
geographic gradations;
these gradations are called "clines"
(Brace 1964). This point called attention to a problem common to
phenotypic-based descriptions of races (for example, those based
on hair texture and skin color): they ignore a host of other
similarities and difference (for example, blood type) that do
not correlate highly with the markers for race. Thus,
anthropologist
Frank Livingstone's
conclusion that, since clines cross racial boundaries, "there
are no races, only clines" (Livingstone 1962: 279). In 1964,
biologists
Paul Ehrlich
and Holm pointed out cases where two or more clines are
distributed discordantly—for example,
melanin
is distributed in a decreasing pattern from the equator north
and south; frequencies for the
haplotype
for
beta-S
hemoglobin,
on the other hand, radiate out of specific geographical points
in Africa (Ehrlich and Holm 1964). As anthropologists
Leonard Lieberman
and
Fatimah Linda Jackson
observe, "Discordant patterns of heterogeneity falsify any
description of a population as if it were genotypically or even
phenotypically homogeneous" (Lieverman and Jackson 1995).
Finally, geneticist
Richard Lewontin,
observing that 85 percent of human variation occurs within
populations, and not between populations, argued that neither
"race" nor "subspecies" was an appropriate or useful way to
describe populations (Lewontin 1973). This view is purportedly
debunked as
Lewontin's Fallacy.
Some researchers report the variation between racial groups
(measured by
Sewall Wright's
population structure statistic FST) accounts for as
little as 5% of human genetic variation2. However,
because of technical limitations of FST, many
geneticists now believe that low FST values do not
invalidate the suggestion that there might be different human
races (Edwards, 2003). Meanwhile,
neo-Marxists
such as
David Harvey
(1982, 1984, 1992) believe that race is a social construct that
in reality does not exist, used instead to extenuate class
differences. These empirical challenges to the concept of race
forced evolutionary sciences to reconsider their definition of
race. Mid-century, anthropologist
William Boyd
defined race as: :A population which differs significantly from
other populations in regard to the frequency of one or more of
the genes it possesses. It is an arbitrary matter which, and how
many,
gene loci
we choose to consider as a significant "constellation" (Boyd
1950). Lieberman and Jackson (1994) have pointed out that "the
weakness of this statement is that if one gene can distinguish
races then the number of races is as numerous as the number of
human couples reproducing." Moreover, anthropologist
Stephen Molnar
has suggested that the discordance of clines inevitably results
in a multiplication of races that renders the concept itself
useless (Molnar 1992). Alongside empirical and conceptual
problems with "race" following the
Second World War,
evolutionary and social scientists were acutely aware of how
beliefs about race had been used to justify
discrimination,
apartheid,
slavery,
and
genocide.
This questioning gained momentum in the
1960s
during the U.S.
civil rights movement
and the emergence of numerous
anti-colonial movements
worldwide. In the face of these issues, some evolutionary
scientists have simply abandoned the concept of race in favor of
"population."
What distinguishes population from previous groupings of humans
by race is that it refers to a breeding population (essential to
genetic calculations) and not to a biological
taxon.
Other evolutionary scientists have abandoned the concept of race
in favor of
cline
(meaning, how the frequency of a trait changes along a
geographic gradient). The concepts of population and cline are
not, however, mutually exclusive and both are used by many
evolutionary scientists. In the face of this rejection of race
by evolutionary scientists, many social scientists have replaced
the word race with the word "ethnicity"
to refer to self-identifying groups based on beliefs in shared
religion,
nationality,
or race. Moreover, they understood these shared beliefs to mean
that religion, nationality, and race itself are
social constructs
and have no objective basis in the supernatural or natural realm
(Gordon 1964). See also the American Anthropological
Association's Statement on Race [http://www.aaanet.org/stmts/racepp.htm].
Summary of different definitions of race
The
United States
government has provided definitions regarding race (see for
example
Race (U.S. Census)).
Racial classification in the U.S. 2000 census was based solely
on
self-identification,
did not pre-suppose
disjointedness,
and did not include a category "Hispanic," which is considered
an
ethnicity,
rather than a race, by the U.S. Census.
The
origins, patterns, and physical manifestations of human genetic
variation
Origins of modern humans
:see also
single-origin hypothesis,
multiregional hypothesis.
multiregional hypothesis
Any biological model for race must account for the development
of racial differences during human evolution. For much of the
20th century, however, anthropologists relied on an incomplete
fossil
record for reconstructing human evolution. Their models seldom
provided a firm basis for drawing inferences about the origin of
races. Modern research in
molecular biology,
however, has provided evolutionary scientists with a whole new
kind of data, which adds considerably to the knowledge of our
past. There has been considerable debate among anthropologists
as to the origins of Homo sapiens. About a million years
ago
Homo erectus
migrated out of Africa and into Europe and Asia. The debate
hinges on whether Homo erectus evolved into Homo
sapiens more or less simultaneously in Africa, Europe, and
Asia, or whether Homo sapiens evolved only in Africa, and
eventually supplanted Homo erectus in Europe and Asia.
Each model suggests different possible scenarios for the
evolution of distinct races.
Multiregional hypothesis
Advocates of the first scenario (see Frayer et al. 1993), the
multiregional continuity evolution model,
cite as evidence
anatomical
continuity in the fossil record in South Central Europe (Smith
1982), East Asia and Australia (Wolpoff 1993) (anatomical
affinity is taken to suggest genetic affinity). They argue that
very strong genetic similarities among all humans do not prove
recent common ancestry, but rather reflect the
interconnectedness of human populations around the world,
resulting in relatively constant gene flow (Thorne and Wolpoff
1992). They further argue that this model is consistent with
clinal patterns (Wolpoff 1993). The most important element of
this model for theories of race is that it allows a million
years for the evolution of Homo sapiens around the world;
this is more than enough time for the evolution of different
races. Leiberman and Jackson (1995), however, have noted that
this model depends on several findings relevant to race: (1)
that marked
morphological
contrasts exist between individuals found at the center and at
the perimeter of
Middle Pleistocene
range of the genus Homo; (2) that many features can be
shown to emerge at the edge of that range before they develop at
the center; and (3) that these features exhibit great tenacity
through time. Regional variations in these features can thus be
taken as evidence for long term differences among genus Homo
individuals that prefigure different races among present-day
Homo sapiens individuals.
Out of
Africa
Middle Pleistocene
(numbers are
millennia
before present).]] Information about the history of our species
comes from two main sources: the paleoanthropological record and
historical inferences based on current genetic differences
observed in humans. Although both sources of information are
fragmentary, they have been converging in recent years on the
same general story. Since the
1990s,
it has become common to use
multilocus
genotypes to distinguish different human groups and to allocate
individuals to groups (Bamshad et al. 2004). These data have led
to an examination of the biological validity of races as
evolutionary lineages
and the description of races in
cladistic
terms. The technique of multilocus genotyping has been used to
determine patterns of
human demographic history.
Thus, the concept of "race" afforded by these techniques is
synonymous with
ancestry,
broadly understood. Studies of human genetic variation imply
that
Africa
was the ancestral source of all modern humans, and that Homo
sapiens migrated out of Africa and displaced Homo erectus
between 140,000 and 290,000 years ago (Cann et al. 1987).
Indigenous Australians
are believed to be an early out-group that remained isolated.
Most other groups, including
Europeans,
Asians,
and
Native Americans,
were found to be a single related (monophyletic)
group resulting from a later out-migration from Africa, which
could reasonably be divided into West and East Eurasian groups.
The existing fossil evidence suggests that anatomically modern
humans evolved in Africa, within the last ∼200,000 years, from a
pre-existing population of humans (Klein 1999). Although it is
not easy to define "anatomically modern" in a way that
encompasses all living humans and excludes all archaic humans
(Lieberman et al. 2002), the generally agreed-upon physical
characteristics of anatomical modernity include a high rounded
skull, facial retraction, and a light and gracile, as opposed to
heavy and robust, skeleton (Lahr 1996). Early fossils with these
characteristics have been found in eastern Africa and have been
dated to ∼160,000–200,000 years ago (White et al. 2003;
McDougall et al. 2005). At that time, the population of
anatomically modern humans appears to have been small and
localized (Harpending et al. 1998). Much larger populations of
archaic humans lived elsewhere in the Old World, including the
Neandertals in Europe and an earlier species of humans, Homo
erectus, in Asia (Swisher et al. 1994). Fossils of the earliest
anatomically modern humans found outside Africa are from two
sites in the Middle East and date to a period of relative global
warmth, ∼100,000 years ago, though this region was reinhabited
by Neandertals in later millennia as the climate in the northern
hemisphere again cooled (Lahr and Foley 1998). Groups of
anatomically modern humans appear to have moved outside Africa
permanently sometime >60,000 years ago. One of the earliest
modern skeletons found outside Africa is
Mungo Man,
from Australia, and has been dated to ∼42,000 years ago (Bowler
et al. 2003), although studies of environmental changes in
Australia argue for the presence of modern humans in Australia
>55,000 years ago (Miller et al. 1999). To date, the earliest
anatomically modern skeleton discovered from Europe comes from
the Carpathian Mountains of Romania and is dated to
34,000–36,000 years ago (Trinkaus et al. 2003). Existing data on
human genetic variation support and extend conclusions based on
the fossil evidence. African populations exhibit greater genetic
diversity than do populations in the rest of the world, implying
that humans appeared first in Africa and later colonized Eurasia
and the Americas (Tishkoff and Williams 2002; Yu et al. 2002;
Tishkoff and Verrelli 2003). The genetic variation seen outside
Africa is generally a subset of the variation within Africa, a
pattern that would be produced if the migrants from Africa were
limited in number and carried just part of African genetic
variability with them (Cavalli-Sforza and Feldman 2003).
Patterns of genetic variation suggest an earlier population
expansion in Africa followed by a subsequent expansion in
non-African populations, and the dates calculated for the
expansions generally coincide with the archaeological record (Jorde
et al. 1998). Aspects of the relationship between anatomically
modern and archaic humans remain contentious. Studies of mtDNA (Ingman
et al. 2000), the Y chromosome (Underhill et al. 2000), portions
of the X chromosome (Kaessmann et al. 1999), and many (though
not all) autosomal regions (Harpending and Rogers 2000) support
the "Out of Africa" account of human history, in which
anatomically modern humans appeared first in eastern Africa and
then migrated throughout Africa and into the rest of the world,
with little or no interbreeding between modern humans and the
archaic populations they gradually replaced (Tishkoff et al.
2000; Stringer 2002). However, several groups of researchers
cite fossil and genetic evidence to argue for a more complex
account. They contend that humans bearing modern traits emerged
several times from Africa, over an extended period, and mixed
with archaic humans in various parts of the world (Hawks et al.
2000; Eswaran 2002; Templeton 2002; Ziętkiewicz et al. 2003). As
a result, they say, autosomal DNA from archaic human populations
living outside Africa persists in modern populations, and modern
populations in various parts of the world still bear some
physical resemblance to the archaic populations that inhabited
those regions (Wolpoff et al. 2001). However, distinguishing
possible contributions to the gene pool of modern humans from
archaic humans outside Africa is difficult, especially since
many autosomal loci coalesce at times preceding the separation
of archaic human populations (Pääbo 2003). In addition, studies
of mtDNA from archaic and modern humans and extant Y chromosomes
suggest that any surviving genetic contributions of archaic
humans outside Africa must be small, if they exist at all (Krings
et al. 1997; Nordborg 1998; Takahata et al. 2001; Serre et al.
2004). The observation that most genes studied to date coalesce
in African populations points toward the importance of Africa as
the source of most modern genetic variation, perhaps with some
subdivision in the ancestral African population (Satta and
Takahata 2002). Sequence data for hundreds of loci from widely
distributed worldwide populations eventually may clarify the
population processes associated with the appearance of
anatomically modern humans (Wall 2000), as well as the amount of
gene flow among modern humans since then.
Cladistics
Mungo Man
A
phylogenetic tree
like the one shown above is usually derived from
DNA
or
protein
sequences
from populations. Often
mitochondrial DNA
or
Y chromosome
sequences are used to study ancient human demographics. These
single-locus
sources of DNA do not
recombine
and are inherited from a single parent. Individuals from the
various continental groups tend to be more similar to one
another than to people from other continents. The tree is rooted
in the common ancestor of
chimpanzees
and humans, which is believed to have originated in
Africa.
Horizontal distance corresponds to two things: #Genetic
distance. Given below the diagram, the genetic difference
between humans and
chimps
is roughly 2%, or 20 times larger than the variation among
modern humans. #Temporal remoteness of the most recent common
ancestor. Rough estimates are given above the diagram, in
millions of years. The
mitochondrial
most recent common ancestor of modern humans lived roughly
200,000 years ago, latest common ancestors of humans and chimps
between four and seven million years ago. Chimpanzees and humans
belong to different
genera,
indicated in red. Formation of
species
and
subspecies
is also indicated, and the formation of "races" is indicated in
the green rectangle to the right (note that only a very rough
representation of human
phylogeny
is given). Note that vertical distances are not meaningful in
this representation.
Distribution of variation
A thorough description of the differences in patterns of genetic
variation between humans and other species awaits additional
genetic studies of human populations and nonhuman species. But
the data gathered to date suggest that human variation exhibits
several distinctive characteristics. First, compared with many
other mammalian species, humans are genetically less diverse—a
counterintuitive finding, given our large population and
worldwide distribution (Li and Sadler 1991; Kaessmann et al.
2001). For example, the chimpanzee subspecies living just in
central and western Africa have higher levels of diversity than
do humans (Ebersberger et al. 2002; Yu et al. 2003; Fischer et
al. 2004). Two random humans are expected to differ at
approximately 1 in 1000
nucleotide pairs,
whereas two random chimpanzees differ at 1 in 500 nucleotide
pairs. However, with a genome of approximate 3 billion
nucleotides, on average two humans differ at approximately 3
million nucleotides. Most of these
single nucleotide polymorphisms
(SNPs) are
neutral,
but some are functional and influence the phenotypic differences
between humans. It is estimated that about 10 million SNPs exist
in human populations, where the rarer SNP allele has a frequency
of at least 1% (see
International HapMap Project).
The distribution of variants within and among human populations
also differs from that of many other species. The details of
this distribution are impossible to describe succinctly because
of the difficulty of defining a "population," the clinal nature
of variation, and heterogeneity across the genome (Long and
Kittles 2003). In general, however, 5%–15% of genetic variation
occurs between large groups living on different continents, with
the remaining majority of the variation occurring within such
groups (Lewontin 1972; Jorde et al. 2000a; Hinds et al. 2005).
This distribution of genetic variation differs from the pattern
seen in many other mammalian species, for which existing data
suggest greater differentiation between groups (Templeton 1998;
Kittles and Weiss 2003). In the field of
population genetics,
it is believed that the distribution of
neutral polymorphisms
among contemporary humans reflects human demographic history.
Our history as a species also has left genetic signals in
regional populations. For example, in addition to having higher
levels of genetic diversity, populations in Africa tend to have
lower amounts of
linkage disequilibrium
than do populations outside Africa, partly because of the larger
size of human populations in Africa over the course of human
history and partly because the number of modern humans who left
Africa to colonize the rest of the world appears to have been
relatively low (Gabriel et al. 2002). In contrast, populations
that have undergone dramatic size reductions or rapid expansions
in the past and populations formed by the mixture of previously
separate ancestral groups can have unusually high levels of
linkage disequilibrium (Nordborg and Tavare 2002). In the field
of
population genetics,
it is believed that the distribution of
neutral polymorphisms
among contemporary humans reflects human demographic history. It
is believed that humans passed through a
population bottleneck
before a rapid expansion coinciding with migrations
out of Africa
leading to an African-Eurasian divergence around 100,000 years
ago (ca. 5,000 generations), followed by a European-Asian
divergence about 40,000 years ago (ca. 2,000 generations). The
rapid expansion of a previously
small population
has two important effects on the distribution of genetic
variation. First, the so-called
founder effect
occurs when founder populations bring only a subset of the
genetic variation from their ancestral population. Second, as
founders become more geographically separated, the probability
that two individuals from different founder populations will
mate becomes smaller. The effect of this
assortative mating
is to reduce gene flow between geographical groups, and to
increase the genetic distance between groups. The expansion of
humans from Africa affected the distribution of genetic
variation in two other ways. First, smaller (founder)
populations experience greater
genetic drift
because of increased fluctuations in neutral polymorphisms.
Second, new polymorphisms that arose in one group were less
likely to be transmitted to other groups as gene flow was
restricted. Many other geographic, climatic, and historical
factors have contributed to the patterns of human genetic
variation seen in the world today. For example, population
processes associated with colonization, periods of geographic
isolation, socially reinforced endogamy, and natural selection
all have affected allele frequencies in certain populations (Jorde
et al. 2000b; Bamshad and Wooding 2003). In general, however,
the recency of our common ancestry and continual gene flow among
human groups have limited genetic differentiation in our
species.
Substructure in the human population
genetic drift
New data on human genetic variation has reignited the debate
surrounding race. Most of the controversy surrounds the question
of how to interpret these new data, and whether conclusions
based on existing data are sound (see
validity of human races).
A large majority of researchers endorse the view that
continental groups do not constitute different subspecies.
However, other researchers still debate whether evolutionary
lineages should rightly be called "races". These questions are
particularly pressing for
biomedicine,
where self-described race is often used as an indicator of
ancestry (see
race in biomedicine
below). Although the genetic differences among human groups are
relatively small, these differences nevertheless can be used to
situate many individuals within broad, geographically based
groupings. For example, computer analyses of hundreds of
polymorphic loci sampled in globally distributed populations
have revealed the existence of genetic clustering that roughly
is associated with groups that historically have occupied large
continental and subcontinental regions (Rosenberg et al. 2002;
Bamshad et al. 2003). Some commentators have argued that these
patterns of variation provide a biological justification for the
use of traditional racial categories. They argue that the
continental clusterings correspond roughly with the division of
human beings into sub-Saharan Africans; Europeans, western
Asians, and northern Africans; eastern Asians; Polynesians and
other inhabitants of Oceania; and Native Americans (Risch et al.
2002). Other observers disagree, saying that the same data
undercut traditional notions of racial groups (King and Motulsky
2002; Calafell 2003; Tishkoff and Kidd 2004). They point out,
for example, that major populations considered races or
subgroups within races do not necessarily form their own
clusters. Thus, samples taken from India and Pakistan affiliate
with Europeans or eastern Asians rather than separating into a
distinct cluster. However, samples from the Kalash, a small
population living in northwestern Pakistan, form their own
cluster on a level comparable with those of the major
continental regions (Rosenberg et al. 2002). Sampling design can
have a critical influence on the results of such studies.
Studies of genetic clustering often have relied on samples taken
from widely separated and socially defined populations. When
samples were analyzed from individuals who were more evenly
distributed geographically, clustering was far less evident (Serre
and Pääbo 2004). Furthermore, because human genetic variation is
clinal, many individuals affiliate with two or more continental
groups. Thus, the genetically based "biogeographical ancestry"
assigned to any given person generally will be broadly
distributed and will be accompanied by sizable uncertainties
(Pfaff et al. 2004). In many parts of the world, groups have
mixed in such a way that many individuals have relatively recent
ancestors from widely separated regions. Although genetic
analyses of large numbers of loci can produce estimates of the
percentage of a person's ancestors coming from various
continental populations (Shriver et al. 2003; Bamshad et al.
2004), these estimates may assume a false distinctiveness of the
parental populations, since human groups have exchanged mates
from local to continental scales throughout history (Cavalli-Sforza
et al. 1994; Hoerder 2002). Even with large numbers of markers,
information for estimating admixture proportions of individuals
or groups is limited, and estimates typically will have wide CIs
(Pfaff et al. 2004).
Physical variation in humans
The distribution of many physical traits resembles the
distribution of genetic variation within and between human
populations (American Association of Physical Anthropologists
1996; Keita and Kittles 1997). For example, ∼90% of the
variation in human head shapes occurs within every human group,
and ∼10% separates groups, with a greater variability of head
shape among individuals with recent African ancestors (Relethford
2002). A prominent exception to the common distribution of
physical characteristics within and among groups is skin color.
Approximately 10% of the variance in skin color occurs within
groups, and ~90% occurs between groups (Relethford 2002). This
distribution of skin color and its geographic patterning—with
people whose ancestors lived predominantly near the equator
having darker skin than those with ancestors who lived
predominantly in higher latitudes—indicate that this attribute
has been under strong selective pressure. Darker skin appears to
be strongly selected for in equatorial regions to prevent
sunburn, skin cancer, the photolysis of folate, and damage to
sweat glands (Sturm et al. 2001; Rees 2003). A leading
hypothesis for the selection of lighter skin in higher latitudes
is that it enables the body to form greater amounts of vitamin
D, which helps prevent rickets (Jablonski 2004). However, the
vitamin D hypothesis is not universally accepted (Aoki 2002),
and lighter skin in high latitudes may correspond simply to an
absence of selection for dark skin (Harding et al. 2000).
Because skin color has been under strong selective pressure,
similar skin colors can result from convergent adaptation rather
than from genetic relatedness. Sub-Saharan Africans, tribal
populations from southern India, and Indigenous Australians have
similar skin pigmentation, but genetically they are no more
similar than are other widely separated groups. Furthermore, in
some parts of the world in which people from different regions
have mixed extensively, the connection between skin color and
ancestry has been substantially weakened (Parra et al. 2004). In
Brazil, for example, skin color is not closely associated with
the percentage of recent African ancestors a person has, as
estimated from an analysis of genetic variants differing in
frequency among continent groups (Parra et al. 2003).
Considerable speculation has surrounded the possible adaptive
value of other physical features characteristic of groups, such
as the constellation of facial features observed in many eastern
and northeastern Asians (Guthrie 1996). However, any given
physical characteristic generally is found in multiple groups
(Lahr 1996), and demonstrating that environmental selective
pressures shaped specific physical features will be difficult,
since such features may have resulted from sexual selection for
individuals with certain appearances or from genetic drift (Roseman
2004).
Social
interpretation of physical variation
Incongruities of racial classifications
Even as the idea of "race" was becoming a powerful organizing
principle in many societies, the shortcomings of the concept
were apparent. In the Old World, the gradual transition in
appearances from one group to adjacent groups emphasized that
"one variety of mankind does so sensibly pass into the other,
that you cannot mark out the limits between them," as Blumenbach
observed in his writings on human variation (Marks 1995, p. 54).
In parts of the Americas, the situation was somewhat different.
The immigrants to the New World came largely from widely
separated regions of the Old World—western and northern Europe,
western Africa, and, later, eastern Asia and southern Europe. In
the Americas, the immigrant populations began to mix among
themselves and with the indigenous inhabitants of the continent.
In the United States, for example, most people who self-identify
as African American have some European ancestors—in one analysis
of genetic markers that have differing frequencies between
continents, European ancestry ranged from an estimated 7% for a
sample of Jamaicans to ∼23% for a sample of African Americans
from New Orleans (Parra et al. 1998). Similarly, many people who
identify as European American have some African or Native
American ancestors, either through openly interracial marriages
or through the gradual inclusion of people with mixed ancestry
into the majority population. In a survey of college students
who self-identified as "white" in a northeastern U.S.
university, ∼30% were estimated to have <90% European ancestry
(Shriver et al. 2003). In the United States, social and legal
conventions developed over time that forced individuals of mixed
ancestry into simplified racial categories (Gossett 1997). An
example is the "one-drop rule" implemented in some state laws
that treated anyone with a single known African American
ancestor as black (Davis 2001). The decennial censuses conducted
since 1790 in the United States also created an incentive to
establish racial categories and fit people into those categories
(Nobles 2000). In other countries in the Americas where mixing
among groups was more extensive, social categories have tended
to be more numerous and fluid, with people moving into or out of
categories on the basis of a combination of socioeconomic
status, social class, ancestry, and appearance (Mörner 1967).
Efforts to sort the increasingly mixed population of the United
States into discrete categories generated many difficulties (Spickard
1992). By the standards used in past censuses, many millions of
children born in the United States have belonged to a different
race than have one of their biological parents. Efforts to track
mixing between groups led to a proliferation of categories (such
as "mulatto" and "octoroon") and "blood quantum" distinctions
that became increasingly untethered from self-reported ancestry.
A person's racial identity can change over time, and
self-ascribed race can differ from assigned race (Kressin et al.
2003). Until the 2000 census, Latinos were required to identify
with a single race despite the long history of mixing in Latin
America; partly as a result of the confusion generated by the
distinction, 42% of Latino respondents in the 2000 census
ignored the specified racial categories and checked "some other
race" (Mays et al. 2003).
Ethnicity as a way of categorizing people
As the problems surrounding the word "race" became increasingly
apparent during the 20th century, the word "ethnicity" was
promoted as a way of characterizing the differences between
groups (Huxley and Haddon 1936; Hutchinson and Smith 1996).
Ethnicity typically emphasizes the cultural, socioeconomic,
religious, and political qualities of human groups rather than
their genetic ancestry. It may encompass language, diet,
religion, dress, customs, kinship systems, or historical or
territorial identity (Cornell and Hartmann 1998). However, as a
way of understanding human groups, ethnicity also suffers from
several shortcomings. First, ascribing an ethnic identity to a
group can imply a much greater degree of uniformity than is
actually the case. In the United States, the ethnic group
"Hispanic or Latino" contains such subgroups as Cuban Americans,
Mexican Americans, Puerto Ricans, and recent immigrants from
Central America (Hayes-Bautista and Chapa 1987). Combining these
groups into a single category may serve useful bureaucratic or
political ends but does not necessarily result in a better
understanding of these groups. Also, ethnicity, like race, is a
malleable concept that can change dramatically in different
times or circumstances (Waters 1990; Smelser et al. 2001).
Ethnic groups may come into existence and then dissipate as a
result of broad historical or social trends. Individuals might
change ethnic groups over the course of their lives or identify
with more than one group. A researcher, clinician, or government
official might assign an ethnicity to an individual quite
different from the one that person would acknowledge (Kressin et
al. 2003). Finally, despite attempts to distinguish "ethnicity"
from "race," the two terms often are used interchangeably
(Oppenheimer 2001). Ethnic groups can share a belief in a common
ancestral origin (Cornell and Hartmann 1998), which also can be
a defining characteristic of a racial group. Furthermore, ethnic
groups tend to promote marriage within the group, which creates
an expectation of biological cohesion regardless of whether that
cohesion existed in the past.
Ancestry as a way of categorizing people
An alternative to the use of racial or ethnic categories is to
categorize individuals in terms of ancestry. Ancestry may be
defined geographically (e.g., Asian, sub-Saharan African, or
northern European), geopolitically (e.g., Vietnamese, Zambian,
or Norwegian), or culturally (e.g., Brahmin, Lemba, or Apache).
The definition of ancestry may recognize a single predominant
source or multiple sources. Ancestry can be ascribed to an
individual by an observer, as was the case with the U.S. census
prior to 1960; it can be identified by an individual from a list
of possibilities or with use of terms drawn from that person's
experience; or it can be calculated from genetic data by use of
loci with allele frequencies that differ geographically, as
described above. At least among those individuals who
participate in biomedical research, genetic estimates of
biogeographical ancestry generally agree with self-assessed
ancestry (Tang et al. 2005), but in an unknown percentage of
cases, they do not (Brodwin 2002; Kaplan 2003).
race in biomedicine
Genetic data can be used to infer population structure and
assign individuals to groups that often correspond with their
self-identified geographical ancestry. The inference of
population structure from multilocus genotyping depends on the
selection of a large number of informative genetic markers.
These studies usually find that groups of humans living on the
same continent are more similar to one another than to groups
living on different continents. Many such studies are criticized
for assigning group identity
a priori.
However, even if group identity is stripped and group identity
assigned
a posteriori
using only genetic data, population structure can still be
inferred. For example, using 377 markers, Rosenberg et al.
(2002) were able to assign 1,056 individuals from 52 populations
around the globe to one of six genetic clusters, of which five
correspond to major geographic regions. However, in analyses
that assign individuals to group it becomes less apparent that
self-described racial groups are reliable indicators of
ancestry. One cause of the reduced power of the assignment of
individuals to groups is
admixture.
Some racial or ethnic groups, especially
Hispanic
groups, do not have homogenous ancestry. For example,
self-described
African Americans
tend to have a mix of West African and European ancestry.
Shriver et al.
(2003) found that on average African Americans have ~80% African
ancestry. Likewise, many white Americans have mixed European and
African ancestry, where ~30% of whites have less than 90%
European ancestry. In this context, it is becoming more common
place to describe "race" as fractional ancestry. Without the use
of genotyping, this has been approximated by the self-described
ancestry of an individual's grand-parents. Nevertheless, recent
research indicates that self-described race is a near-perfect
indicator of an individual's genetic profile, at least in the
United States. Using 326 genetic markers, Tang et al. (2005)
identified 4 genetic clusters among 3,636 individuals sampled
from 15 locations in the United States, and were able to
correctly assign individuals to groups that correspond with
their self-described race (white, African American, East Asian,
or Hispanic) for all but 5 individuals (an error rate of 0.14%).
They conclude that ancient ancestry, which correlates tightly
with self-described race and not current residence, is the major
determinant of genetic structure in the U.S. population. Genetic
techniques that distinguish ancestry between continents can also
be used to describe ancestry within continents. However, the
study of intra-continental ancestry may require a greater number
of informative markers. Populations from neighboring geographic
regions typically share more recent common ancestors. As a
result,
allele frequencies
will be correlated between these groups. This phenomenon is
often seen as a cline of allele frequencies. The existence of
allelic
clines has been offered as evidence that individuals cannot be
allocated into
genetic clusters
(Kittles & Weiss 2003). However, others argue that low levels of
differentiation between groups merely make the assignment to
groups more difficult, not impossible (Bamshad et al. 2004).
Despite its seemingly objective nature, ancestry also has
limitations as a way of categorizing people (Elliott and Brodwin
2002).
When asked
