Chapter+11+Race+and+Ethnicity


 * __**Stereotype**__-simplified description applied to every person in some category.
 * There are dozens of stereotypes throughout this movie. Regina and her friends are the stereotypical rich girls. That is just one example, Janice and Damien represent the stereotypical outcasts, the smart people are nerdy, the pretty people are mean and rude. The list goes on and on.


 * __**Prejudice**__-a rigid and unfair generalization about an entire category of people.
 * Throughout the movie, there are many different types of prejudices. One for example is Damien, who is gay. There are many different gay jokes and slurs toward the gay people in the movie. They are considered outcasts by the popular students because they are gay. Both Damien and Janice are treated this way, even though Janice isn’t really gay.


 * __**Segregation**__- the physical and social separation of categories of people.
 * Segregation is a key theme in Mean Girls. One prime example is in the lunch room. The students are segregated between lunch tables. There are the "Art freaks," "Burnouts," "Africans," "Asians," "Plastics," ect.
 * **__Scapegoat__**- a person or catergory of people, typically with little power, whom other people unfairly blame for their own troubles.
 * When Cady blames her teacher, Ms. Norbury, for her bad grades this is an example of scapegoat. Ms. Norbury is being blamed for Cady's bad grade in math because Cady is failing on purpose and figures she has to explain to the Plastics why she is failing when she is actually smart at math. Cady blames Ms. Norbury by claiming that she sells drugs to other students.


 * __**Assimilation**__- the process by which minorities gradually adopt patterns of the dominant culture.
 * In Kevin's family it is probably unusually for someone to rap, but Kevin becomes accustomed to the culture in his school. In the movie he is the only rapping minority that is seen.


 * __**Race**__- a socially constructed category of people who share biologically transmitted traits that members of a society consider important.
 * In Mean Girls people watching the movie are introduced to people of different races in many roles. There is Kevin who is Indian, the principal Mr. Duvall who is African American, and also Asian students.