Before Weber, race and ಜನಾಂಗೀಯತೆ were often seen as two aspects of the same thing. Around 1900 and before the essentiaಪಟ್ಟಿ primordiaಪಟ್ಟಿ understanding of ಜನಾಂಗೀಯತೆ was predominant, cultural differences between ಜನರುs were seen as being the result of inherited traits and tendencies. This was the time when "sciences" such as phrenology claimed to be able to correlate cultural and behavioral traits of different populations with their outward physical characteristics, such as the shape of the skull.

With Weber's introduction of ಜನಾಂಗೀಯತೆ as a social construct, race and ಜನಾಂಗೀಯತೆ were divided from each other. A social belief in biologically well-defined races lingered on. In 1950, the UNESCO statement, "The Race Question", signed by some of the interರಾಷ್ಟ್ರೀಯly renowned scholars of the time (including Ashley Montagu, Claude Lévi-Strauss, Gunnar Myrdal, Julian ಹಕ್ಸ್ಲೆ, etc.), suggested that: "ರಾಷ್ಟ್ರೀಯ, religious, geographic, linguistic and cultural ಗುಂಪುಗಳು do not necessarily coincide with racial ಗುಂಪುಗಳು: and the cultural traits of such ಗುಂಪುಗಳು have no demonstrated ತಳಿ connection with racial traits. Because serious errors of this kind are habitually committed when the term 'race' is used in popular parlance, it would be better when speaking of human races to drop the term 'race' altogether and speak of 'ಜನಾಂಗೀಯ ಗುಂಪುಗಳು'."

In 1982, Amಎರಿಕ್‌an cultural anthropologists, summing up forty years of ethnographic research, argued that racial and ಜನಾಂಗೀಯ categories are ಚಿಹ್ನೆic markers for different ways that ಜನರು from different parts of the world have been incorporated into a global economy:
According to ವೊಲ್ಫ್‌, races were constructed and incorporated during the period of European mercantile expansion, and ಜನಾಂಗೀಯ ಗುಂಪುಗಳು during the period of capitaಪಟ್ಟಿ expansion.

Often, ಜನಾಂಗೀಯತೆ also connotes shared cultural, linguistic, behavioural or religious traits. For example, to call oneself Jewish or Arab is to immediately invoke a clutch of linguistic, religious, cultural and racial features that are held to be common within each ಜನಾಂಗೀಯ category. Such broad ಜನಾಂಗೀಯ categories have also been termed "macroಜನಾಂಗೀಯತೆ" . This distinguishes them from smaller, more subjective ಜನಾಂಗೀಯ features, often termed "microಜನಾಂಗೀಯತೆ" .

Conceptual history of ಜನಾಂಗೀಯತೆ
Ethnies and ಜನಾಂಗೀಯ categories
ಜನಾಂಗೀಯತೆ and race
Defining ಜನಾಂಗೀಯತೆ