Race, Gender, and Educational Advantage in the Inner City

Objective . In this study we examine race differences in the effect of childhood in an urban inner–city community on educational attainment in adulthood. Methods . We examine a cohort of African American and white individuals born in the late 1950s and early 1960s in the same hospital. Our analysis examines a set of individual, family, and community characteristics for the respondents at three time points in their life course, birth, childhood, and adulthood. Results . We find that black men and women are substantially more likely than their white counterparts to graduate from high school, and that black women are more likely than white men, black men, and white women to graduate from high school and college. Conclusions . We conclude that social policy to eradicate urban disadvantage must not shift its focus to the plight of poor whites to the neglect of African Americans. Rather, we urge that inner–city white children be "drawn out of the shadows" of social research and that the uniqueness of race, class, and gender intersections realized in the inner city be brought to bear.     

Implicit Race Attitudes Predicted Vote in the 2008 U.S. Presidential Election

In the week before the 2008 United States presidential election, 1,057 registered voters reported their choice between the principal contenders (John McCain and Barack Obama) and completed several measures that might predict their candidate preference, including two implicit and two self-report measures of racial preference for European Americans (Whites) relative to African Americans (Blacks) and measures of symbolic racism and political conservatism. Greater White preference on each of the four race attitude measures predicted intention to vote for McCain, the White candidate. The implicit race attitude measures (Implicit Association Test and Affect Misattribution Procedure) predicted vote choice independently of the self-report race attitude measures, and also independently of political conservatism and symbolic racism. These findings support construct validity of the implicit measures.     

Perceptions of Racism in Hurricane Katrina: A Liberation Psychology Analysis

Poll data showed that African Americans perceived more racism in the response to Hurricane Katrina than did White Americans. In this article, we consider claims about racism in Katrina-related events in light of (a) our program of experimental research on group differences in perception of racism and (b) the meta-theoretical perspective of Liberation Psychology (LP). First, this analysis suggests that White Americans may perceive less racism in the Katrina disaster because they are less likely than African Americans to know about historically documented acts of past racism (e.g., following the Mississippi flood of 1927). Second, group differences may arise because African Americans and White Americans face divergent motivations regarding perception of racism. Whereas African Americans may have motivations to be vigilant for the possibility of racism, White Americans may be motivated to deny racism because it constitutes a threat to social identity and to the legitimacy of the status quo.     

Racial Differences in Attitudes Toward Professional Mental Health Treatment: The Mediating Effect of Stigma

Stigma associated with mental illness continues to be a pervasive barrier to mental health treatment, leading to negative attitudes about treatment and deterring appropriate care seeking. Empirical research suggests that the stigma of mental illness may exert an adverse influence on attitudes toward mental health treatment and service utilization patterns by individuals with a mental illness, particularly African Americans. However, little research has examined the impact of stigma on racial differences in attitudes toward seeking mental health treatment. This study examined the hypothesis that stigma partially mediates the relationship between race and attitudes towards mental health treatment in a community-based sample of 101 African American and White older adults. Multiple regression analyses and classic path analysis was utilized to test the partial mediation model. Controlling for socio-demographic factors, African American older adults were more likely to have negative attitudes toward mental health treatment, and they also reported more public and internalized stigma than their White counterparts. As hypothesized, the relationship between race and attitudes toward mental health treatment was partially mediated by internalized stigma, suggesting that internalized stigma may cause older adults to develop negative attitudes about mental health treatment. The partial mediation model was not significant for public stigma, however. Implications for social work research and practice are discussed.     

Race, racial resentment, attentiveness to the news media, and public opinion toward the Jena Six

Objective. We outline the role of race, racial resentment, and attentiveness to news in structuring public opinion toward the prosecution of the Jena Six, the name given to six African-American high school students who beat a white student, five of whom were subsequently charged with attempted second-degree murder.Method. We rely on a telephone survey of 428 registered voters collected in the aftermath of the protests in Jena, Louisiana.Results. Public reactions were heavily filtered by race and associated with measures of racial resentment. African Americans followed news about the protests more closely, believed race was the most important consideration in the decision to prosecute, and believed the decision to prosecute was the wrong decision. Racially conservative white respondents were less likely to believe race was the most important consideration in the decision to prosecute and were more likely to believe that the decision to prosecute was the right decision. Consistent with theories of agenda setting and framing, attentiveness to the news influenced perceptions regarding the importance of race in the decision to prosecute but not whether the decision was the right decision.Conclusions. At least within the context of the Deep South, race and racial attitudes continue to be an important predictor of public reactions to racially charged events. Attentiveness to the news influenced the lens through which events were interpreted, but not perceptions of whether the outcome was the right decision.     

Social Policy and the Politics of Hispanic Aging

Abstract

This study examines the contributing factors to job satisfaction and commitment among lower-income, older (age 55 and over), part-time employees (N = 164). Job satisfaction index (JSI) scores were relatively high for all subjects and did not differ significantly for age, gender, or Senior Community Service Employment Program (SCSEP) status. While not particularly low, white employees were significantly less satisfied with their employment experiences than Hispanic or African American workers. The scarcity of fringe benefits was the least satisfying aspect of employment. Older Hispanics, whites, and men reported less interference between job, family, and home life than African Americans and women. Multiple regression analysis revealed that race/ethnicity, skill utilization opportunities, perceived views of elders held by younger workers and supervisors, availability of fringe benefits, and suitable work days explained the majority of variance in JSI scores. Opportunities to interact with others and stay active were more important than financial supplementation in these elders' assessment of the benefits of part-time employment. Findings provide further understanding of those elders likely to be placed successfully in part-time employment.     

Black Voters,Black Candidates,and Social Issues: Does Party Identification Matter?*

Objective. Much is known about voting behavior generally; less is known about voting behavior of African Americans in particular due in part to the overwhelming support of black voters for Democratic candidates. However, some argue that black conservatism on social issues could lead to more Republican voting. Methods. We test this question with a set of data on black voting behavior in a 2004 congressional race where two black candidates ran against each other. We thus hold race of candidate constant and look at the influence of social issues and party identification on black vote choice. Results. We find evidence to suggest that evangelicalism and support for the war in Iraq is related to being Republican, but that Democratic Party identification plays the dominant role in black voter decision making. Conclusions. Black conservatism on at least certain social issues is real and has the potential to influence vote choice, but the influence of Democratic Party allegiance is still a very powerful cue for black voters.     

Disentangling Constituency and Legislator Effects in Legislative Representation: Black Legislators or Black Districts?*

Objective. Does the race of a legislator or does the black population of a district best predict legislative roll‐call voting in the interests of African Americans? Due to methodological limitations, no prior study has found that both the race of the legislator and the black district population are significant predictors of congressional roll‐call voting. Drawing on post Shaw v. Reno/Miller v. Johnson congressional districts (with greater data variance), I examine the effect of these two racial representation variables on roll‐call voting in the 104th–106th Congresses. Methods. Linear regression with random effects is employed in two statistical models. Results. Even when the black district population and party are considered, the presence of an African‐American legislator leads to greater substantive representation of black constituents. Conclusion. Districting plans that maximize the election of black legislators and Democrats are the most important for the aggregate enhancement of liberal voting in Congress, while districting plans that maximize black district populations and Democrats are the most important for the aggregate enhancement of civil rights voting records in Congress.     

Weighing the Costs and Benefits of Mexican Immigration: The Mexican‐American Perspective*

Objective. Survey research posits that Mexican Americans' perceptions of the costs and benefits of immigration drive their opinions about immigration, but this research does not provide a clear picture of how Mexican Americans calculate these costs and benefits. This article aims to understand the processes that explain how Mexican Americans calculate the costs and benefits of Mexican immigration. Methods. The article employs 123 in‐depth interviews and observation with later‐generation Mexican Americans in Garden City, Kansas, and Santa Maria, California. Result. Respondents are ambivalent about how Mexican immigrants affect their lives, and their ambivalence is driven by prevailing ideologies in American society regarding immigration, race, and ethnicity. On the one hand, ardent anti‐Mexican nativism leads Mexican Americans to see substantial costs accruing to Mexican immigration. Mexican Americans fear that anti‐Mexican nativism leads to status degradation for all people of Mexican descent. On the other hand, an ideology of multiculturalism and its accompanying value of diversity lead Mexican Americans to see substantial benefits accruing to the large Mexican‐immigrant population, particularly in politics, the labor market, and popular culture. Conclusions. Mexican Americans' perceptions of the costs and benefits of Mexican immigration are based not only on economic considerations, but on social and cultural considerations structured by prevailing and often paradoxical ideologies. Respondents' structural position increases concerns about status degradation resulting from immigration, but also shapes how they are positioned to benefit from the boost in prominence that immigration provides to the entire Mexican‐origin population.     

From Every Tribe and Nation? Blacks and the Christian Right*

Objectives. The Christian Right is predominantly made up of white evangelicals but in recent years, the movement has attempted to include African Americans in social policy initiatives. This article examines support for the Christian Right from African Americans. Methods. The article is based on an analysis of data from the 1996 and 2000 National Election Studies and data from the Religion and Politics Survey, 2000. Results. The study finds that social conservatism does not predict support for the Christian Right from blacks like it does for whites but that evangelical affiliation predicts support from both groups. Black women are more likely to support the organization than are black men. Conclusions. The insignificant effect of social conservatism on blacks' attitudes toward the Christian Right raises questions as to how the movement can best appeal to this minority group. At the very least, the Christian Right does not appear to have solidified support from African Americans on the basis of shared convictions related to abortion and gay rights. Support for the Christian Right from African Americans remains difficult to measure and largely unpredictable.     

Race, Class and the Dilemmas of Upward Mobility for African Americans

We use the concept of intersectionality to explore the psychological meaning of social class and upward mobility in the lives African Americans. Throughout, we pay special attention to the context of education, a site which many Black Americans feel represents their best hope for upward mobility. Literature related to three themes is reviewed and discussed: (a) the history and significance of class divisions within the Black community, (b) experiences of educational institutions as entryways to upward mobility, and (c) the hidden costs of mobility. It is suggested that future research should address the intersection of gender with class and race, the relevance of class to racial identity, and the experience of downward mobility among Black Americans .     

Teacher‐Student Racial Congruence,Teacher Perceptions,and Test Performance*

Objective. This research explores the seldom‐addressed question of whether teacher‐student racial congruence conditions the impact of teacher perceptions on performance. Methods. Multipopulation LISREL models (utilizing data from the NELS) compare the effect of white teachers' perceptions on African‐American standardized test performance to the corresponding effect among white students. Parallel models compare the impact of African‐American teacher perceptions across races. Preliminary models gauge whether the match/mismatch of teacher's and student's race shapes teacher perceptions of African‐American and white students. Results. The impact of teachers' perceptions on test performance shows signs of being especially pronounced in the racially dissonant white teacher‐black student context—the very context where teacher perceptions seem especially likely to be unfavorable. Conclusions. This research provides new insight on the relevance of teacher perceptions to the black‐white performance gap. Racial congruence seems primarily consequential to African‐American test performance—shaping both teacher perceptions and (somewhat less so) the impact of such perceptions on performance.     

Racial Representation and U.S. Senate Apportionment*

Objectives. This research note explores whether the system of assigning each state equal representation in the U.S. Senate adversely affects racial minorities, groups that often have common political interests. We also project changes in minority representation over the next 20 years using Census data. Methods. We develop a new method of assessing racial bias due to apportionment, which calculates the number of seats lost by groups due to equal representation, a more substantively meaningful statistic than correlational measures. Results. We find that both African Americans and Hispanics are substantially underrepresented due to their greater presence in high‐population states as compared to in low‐population states. Whereas bias against African Americans appears to be falling, the demographic patterns of Hispanics will make them even more underrepresented in coming years. Conclusions. These findings are especially consequential considering that malapportionment has important public policy implications, including greater per‐capita distributive benefits for smaller states. Further, given that the Senate serves as a major veto point in U.S. politics, racial bias due to equal apportionment may have a significant impact on current and future political debates relevant to minority groups.     

Race From the Inside: An Emerging Heterogeneous Race Model

Race matters, influencing life experiences. Race is not a simple concept, and it is not a single category. Racial identity theories, however, typically handle race as a simple Black-White dichotomy that overlooks within-group heterogeneity, substituting a subgroup—young, low socioeconomic status, darker skinned men—for all African Americans. The centrality of this subgroup image reifies what it means to be Black but excludes African Americans who are women, middle class, and so on. We provide an overview of the situation of African Americans, high-lighting within-group diversity in everyday experiences related to gender, socioeconomic status, and physical attributes, including skin tone. Understanding the implications of race from an insider's perspective requires that we view it as a heterogeneous category.     

After the Storm: How Race,Class, and Immigration Concerns Influenced Beliefs About the Katrina Evacuees*

Objective. In September 2005, approximately 150,000 Gulf Coast residents fled to Houston, Texas, seeking shelter following Hurricane Katrina. Since the majority of evacuees were poor African Americans, the political and social consequences of the storm inspired a national dialogue on race and class. However, in Houston, the discourse on Katrina evacuees also involved immigration concerns. The city's distinction as a gateway to new arrivals influenced the dialogue on the evacuees' impact on the local area. This article assesses the extent to which race, class, and immigration concerns influenced Houstonians' beliefs about the Katrina evacuees. Methods. We analyze data from the 2006 and 2008 Houston Area Survey in order to assess attitudes toward these newcomers at two distinct time periods: within six months of their arrival and then again more than two years later. Results. Our findings show that both national and local factors influenced beliefs about the Katrina evacuees. Conclusions. The dynamics of race/ethnicity and apprehension toward immigrants drove largely antagonistic beliefs about the mostly poor, mostly black new arrivals.     

Race,victim precipitated homicide,and the subculture of violence thesis

The subculture of violence thesis suggests that African Americans are disproportionately likely to respond to minor transgressions with lethal force because of a culturally defined need to protect one’s reputation and a normative aversion to legal forms of dispute resolution. Using data on over 950 non-justifiable homicides from police files, the present study tests this hypothesis by examining race-specific patterns of victim precipitation (i.e., the victim’s role in initiating the homicide). If, as the theory suggests, African Americans are more likely to respond to minor affronts with lethal violence than Whites, then African American homicide incidents should have more victim precipitation, particularly in the form of minor acts of provocation. The results of the current analysis do not support this hypothesis and therefore are inconsistent with the notion that a unique subculture of violence among African Americans explains their disproportionately high levels of homicide victimization and offending.     

Young maternal age and low birth weight risk: An exploration of racial/ethnic disparities in the birth outcomes of mothers in the United States

This study considers how low birth weight (LBW) prevalence varies by race/ethnicity and maternal age and explores mechanisms that explain disparities. Results show that maternal age patterns in LBW risk for African Americans differ from Whites and foreign- and U.S.-born Hispanics. Background socioeconomic disadvantage, together with current socioeconomic status and smoking during pregnancy, explain almost all of the LBW disparity between white teenage mothers and their older counterparts. These findings suggest that social disadvantage is a primary driver in unfavorable birth outcomes among white teenage mothers compared to older white mothers. Alternatively, background disadvantage and other social characteristics explain very little of the LBW disparities among African Americans and U.S.- and foreign-born Hispanics. Overall, these results indicate LBW disparities by maternal age are a complex product of socioeconomic disadvantage and current social and behavioral factors, such that LBW risk does not operate uniformly by race/ethnicity or maternal age.     

Racial Disparities in Access to Mortgage Credit: Does Governance Matter?*

Objectives. This article examines the effect of community organizing on the likelihood that minority borrowers pursue home mortgage credit from regulated lenders. Methods. Governance perspectives suggest that community organizations exert significant influence on policy outcomes. We use logistic regression with interaction terms to test the effect of community organizing on the lending outcomes of minority borrowers. We use a matched control sample of cities, drawing on 2004 loan data from two midwestern cities similar in racial and economic composition but with different histories of organizing around the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA). Results. We find differential effects based on an applicant's race or ethnicity. Overall, African‐American applicants are less likely to pursue mortgage credit for home ownership from regulated lenders than their white, non‐Hispanic counterparts. However, African Americans seeking mortgage credit in a city with a history of CRA organizing are more likely to apply to regulated lenders than their racial counterparts in a city without CRA organizing. However, while organizing reduces the disparities between white and African‐American applicants, a gap still remains. Conclusion. African‐American borrowers living in cities with a history of community organizing around CRA appear more likely to pursue mortgage credit from traditional, regulated lenders, suggesting that governance matters.     

Pretrial Predictors of Judgments in the O. J. Simpson Case

Five hundred seventy-eight community college and four-year state university students responded to questionnaires designed to assess judgments regarding O. J. Simpson's guilt, beliefs surrounding the case, general attitudes, and background information. Although African Americans were more likely to perceive Simpson as innocent than non–African Americans, correlation analyses revealed that, for the most part, the same predictors explained African Americans' and non–African American's judgments of guilt. Finally, set-wise hierarchical regression analyses indicated that case-related beliefs that Simpson abused Nicole Brown Simpson and that the system was biased against him accounted for more significant incremental variance than did demographic variables such as age and ethnicity, personal experiences, and general attitudes. The results suggested that the racial polarization emphasized in public polls does not reflect the diversity of beliefs that existed within both African American and European American populations.