PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE Feature Review THE ESSENTIAL NOTION OF RACE

1994) treat raaal meaning as absolutely central to their scholar-ship Most do not view race essentialistically—as objective, stable, and natural Instead, these scholars are beginning to recognize race as soaally constructed—as contested, unstable and inextri-cably bound by sociohistorical context Although biologists and social scientists take vastly different approaches to understanding the world, these scholars are coming to agree that a simple and essentialist notion of race is no longer tenable Not only are the biological correlates of race less clear-cut than previously imagined (Lewontm. Rose. & Kanun. 1984). but category bound-aries (between white and black, for instance) are ambiguous and shift with the social context (Davis, 1991. Omi & Wmant. 1994) There is no obvious and straightforward technique to employ in distinguishing different racial groupings Whether to treat race as essential or socially constructed ha