The purposes of this essay are (1) to categorize briefly current approaches to the study of ethnicity in the social sciences, and (2) to suggest for discussion a distinctive perspective on ethnicity. Perspectives of accomodation and assimilation, minorities, cultural contact, social problems, conflict, and power can be used, it is asserted, to represent and explain various aspects of the social realities of history. Ethnicity is defined, here, as: (1) involving a past-oriented group identification emphasizing origins; (2) involving some conception of cultural and social distinctiveness; and, (3) relating to a component unit in a broader system of social relations. The latter includes internal relationships within nation-states, international relations, and interregional organizations extending beyond the limits of nation-states; this may involve some nation states acting in some capacity beyond their own borders. It is proposed that ethnic and racial groups exist and change because certain individuals and groups have decided that something can be achieved by way of having them exist or change in particular ways. It is held that the relative advantages of scale, inequality, and equality provide incentives, as does accurate comprehension of social realities. (Author/JM)