hypodescentPosted in Definitions, Social Science on 2009-06-16 21:17Z by Steven |
Hypodescent is the practice of determining the classification of a child of mixed-race ancestry by assigning the child the race of his or her more socially subordinate parent. Because Caucasians were historically socially dominant in the Western world, mixed-race children in slave societies were most frequently assigned the status of their non-Caucasian parent. This was also to keep them classified as property, which slaves were. In some colonial societies, however, especially the Catholic Portuguese, Spanish and French, a third class of “people of color” developed.