Ethnic group

A group of people with a common cultural heritage that sets them apart from others in a variety of social relationships. (MSH); A social group characterized by a distinctive social and cultural tradition maintained from generation to generation, a common history and origin and a sense of identification with the group; members of the group have distinctive features in their way of life, shared experiences and often a common genetic heritage; these features may be reflected in their experience of health and disease. (NCI); Ethnicity - an arbitrary classification of the social group a person belongs to, and either identifies with or is identified with by others, as a result of a complex of cultural, biological, geographical and other factors such as linguistic, dietary and religion traditions; ancestry, background, allegiance, or association; and physical characteristics traditionally associated with race. Increasingly the concept is used synonymously with race but this use trend has a pragmatic basis rather than scientific. (NCI); The concept of ethnic origin is an attempt to classify people, not according to their current ethnicity, but according to where their ancestors came from. Ethnic origin has become a popular classification in statistics, where the concept of race has been largely discarded. (from Wikipedia) (NCI); a group of people with a common cultural heritage that sets them apart from others in a variety of social relationships. (CSP)