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White Anglo-Saxon Protestant (WASP) is an informal, sometimes disparaging term used to describe a closed circle of high-status and highly influential White Americans of English Protestant ancestry.〔The dictionaries define WASP as "an upper- or middle-class American white Protestant, considered to be a member of the most powerful group in society."((''Oxford Dictionaries'' )); or "an American of Northern European and especially British ancestry and of Protestant background; especially a member of the dominant and the most privileged class of people in the United States." ((''Merriam-Webster Dictionary'' )).〕〔Irving Lewis Allen, "WASP—From Sociological Concept to Epithet," ''Ethnicity'' () 1975, pp. 154〕 The term applies to a group which historically has controlled more social, political, and financial power in the United States than other groups in society. Scholars agree that the group's influence has waned since the end of World War II, with the growing influence of other ethnic groups in the United States.〔Eric P. Kaufmann, "The decline of the WASP in the United States and Canada" in Kaufmann, ed. ''Rethinking ethnicity: Majority groups and dominant minorities'' (Routledge, 2004) .pp 54-73, summarizes the scholarship.〕 The term is also used in Canada and Australia for similar elites.〔Margery Fee and Janice McAlpine, ''Guide to Canadian English Usage'' (2008) pp. 517-8〕〔"WASP" in Frederick Ludowyk and Bruce Moore, eds, ''Australian modern Oxford dictionary'' (2007)〕 The term is occasionally used by sociologists to include all Americans of North European ancestry regardless of their class or power. People rarely call themselves WASPs, except humorously. The acronym is typically used by non-WASPs.〔Allen, "WASP—From Sociological Concept to Epithet," (1975)〕 ==Etymology== Historically, "Anglo-Saxon" referred to the Anglo Saxon language (today called "Old English") of the inhabitants of England and the Scottish lowlands before about 1150. Since the 19th century it has been in common use in the English-speaking world, but not in Britain itself, to refer to Protestants of British descent. The "W" and "P" were added in the 1950s to form a witty epithet with an undertone of "waspishness" (which means a person who is easily irritated and quick to take offense). The first published mention of the term WASP was provided by political scientist Andrew Hacker in 1957, indicating WASP was already used as common terminology among American sociologists, though the "W" stands for "Wealthy" rather than "White": The term was popularized by sociologist and University of Pennsylvania professor E. Digby Baltzell, himself a WASP, in his 1964 book ''The Protestant Establishment: Aristocracy and Caste in America.'' Baltzell stressed the closed or caste-like characteristic of the group, arguing, "There is a crisis in American leadership in the middle of the twentieth century that is partly due, I think, to the declining authority of an establishment which is now based on an increasingly castelike White-Anglo Saxon-Protestant (WASP) upper class." 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「White Anglo-Saxon Protestant」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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