White Flight and the Presence of Neighborhood Nonprofit Organizations: Ethno-racial Transition,Poverty, and Organizational Resources

A growing body of evidence suggests that urban neighborhoods of color experience a dearth of institutional resources, including parks and social services. Yet, little is known of how a key process in the creation and maintenance of racially and ethnically segregated neighborhoods—the flight of whites from integrating neighborhoods—influences the availability of nonprofit human services. Drawing insights from the place stratification perspective and the sociological study of residential segregation by race and ethnicity, we develop hypotheses on the relationship between white flight and nonprofit presence, and test them with a dataset that combines census tract data with data on all nonprofit human service organizations in Los Angeles County in 2001 and 2011. Consistent with the place stratification perspective, we find that white flight is negatively associated with the presence of nonprofit human services after controlling for neighborhood structural characteristics. However, the expectation that the negative effect of white flight on organizational numbers is stronger in poor neighborhoods than in nonpoor neighborhoods is not supported. The negative association between white flight and the presence of nonprofits is equally as pronounced in neighborhoods with low and high levels of poverty.     

Race and Unemployment Amidst the New Diversity: More Evidence of a Black/Non-Black Divide

The fact that the United States is more racially and ethnically diverse now than in the past has led scholars to dismiss dichotomous—black/white—conceptions of race as antiquated. However, some others have noted the emergence of a black/non-black divide that is manifest in patterns of residential segregation and intermarriage. This study attempts to determine whether such a dichotomous conception is sufficient to capture the effects of race and ethnicity on unemployment patterns among entry-level workers in the United States. Findings suggest that more than 80% of the effects of race and ethnicity on unemployment can be captured simply by knowing who is black and who is not. The most elaborate conception tested here acknowledges 20 different racial and ethnic groups; it adds significantly but not commensurately to the explanatory power of the models. Despite the increasingly diverse racial and ethnic composition of entry-level labor markets in the United States, it is black exclusion that seems to drive the effects of race and ethnicity on unemployment.     

Exposure to School and Residential Diversity: A New Test of Perpetuation Theory

Perpetuation theorists have recently hypothesized intergenerational consequences associated with participation in racially/ethnically diverse environments; however, few studies have considered possible intergenerational implications when offering empirical tests of perpetuation theory. By linking longitudinal administrative, geographic, and census data from students who attended Jefferson County Public Schools—one of the most racially/ethnically desegregated school districts in the USA—we specifically test whether early exposure to racial/ethnic diversity in neighborhoods and in high schools is associated with students living in more racially/ethnically diverse neighborhoods later in life. Using multilevel models, we find that early exposure to diversity in both neighborhoods and schools is significantly related to neighborhood diversity in both early and mid-adulthood and for both black and white students. However, the strength of these relationships diminished over time.     

The Everyday Struggle: Social Capital, Youth Violence and Parenting Strategies for Urban, Low-Income Black Male Youth

Drawing on 3 years of longitudinal ethnographic participant observations and interviews with parents of early adolescent black males (ages 12–15) living in a high-risk inner-city neighborhood, this paper examines the practices and implications of black parenting strategies on the social and health outcomes of black male youth. Little is known about the relationship between social capital, parenting strategies, adolescent development and violence among urban, low-income black male youth. This paper addresses the following questions: (1) in what ways do low-income black parents mobilize, deploy and manage social capital to reduce adolescent risk behaviors associated with violence among black male youth living in high-risk neighborhoods? (2) Does the ability to generate social capital and interpersonal trust within and outside the family shape parenting strategies for black male youth? (3) What are the unique challenges parents encounter as they raise black male youth in distressed neighborhoods? I found that parents’ ability to generate and manage social capital, particularly within kinship and local community networks, significantly influences whether black youth male resist, desist or persist in engaging in adolescent risk behaviors associated with youth violence over the adolescent life course.     

Exploring Neighborhood Effects on Health and Life Satisfaction: Disentangling Neighborhood Racial Density and Neighborhood Income

This study examines the independent and synergistic influences of neighborhood racial density and neighborhood income on several indicators of health status and life satisfaction in a sample of 311 adult African Americans living in New York City. This is made possible by the two-stage sampling procedure that was used in the collection of the data, ensuring that respondents?? neighborhoods vary on both racial density and income. Findings from a series of OLS regression models that adjust standard errors to account for the non-independence of observations demonstrate that neighborhood income moderates the relationship between racial density and health and life satisfaction. When neighborhood income is low, high neighborhood racial density is detrimental for health and life satisfaction. However, when neighborhood income is high, neighborhood racial density is protective for health and life satisfaction. These results indicate that the role of neighborhood income needs to be considered when examining the relationship between neighborhood racial density, health, and life satisfaction. Moreover, these findings may provide insight for understanding the past conflicting results.     

Unequal Opportunity: School and Neighborhood Segregation in the USA

Race and Social Problems - School and neighborhood segregation are intertwined in complex ways. Schools reflect segregated neighborhoods, and school considerations reinforce neighborhood...     

Diverse Muslims in a Racialized Landscape: Race,Ethnicity and Islamophobia in the American City of Milwaukee,Wisconsin

Studying the racially and ethnically diverse Muslim minority population in any US city must take into account the racialized landscape prevailing in the city. Milwaukee is a highly racially segregated city, where residential patterns have been shaped by decades of immigration by various ethnic and racial groups, and by restrictions on residential housing, as well as industrialization, deindustrialization and suburbanization. This paper presents findings of an ethnographic research along with the results of a household survey of Muslims in Milwaukee in the context of Milwaukee's urban landscape. Muslims in Milwaukee are racially, ethnically and linguistically diverse. Their patterns of residence and of worship suggest the influence of not only segregation and the typical patterns of ethnic immigration but also clustering and dispersal. Patterns of residences also show the influence of not only Muslim leadership and organization but also of the racialized landscape of the city. Our survey provides a portrait of a community negotiating racial and ethnic differences and solidarities.     

Racial Disparities in Early Criminal Justice Involvement

Criminologists have long reported the existence of racial disparity in the criminal justice system, but the important question is why. While some argue that observed differences are a consequence of more criminal behavior among minorities, the weight of the evidence indicates that this is but a partial explanation. In this paper, we study data from a sample of juveniles to examine how racial differences in early police contact, and important social environments—family, school, and neighborhoods—affect later contact and arrests, controlling for self-reported delinquency. We find that early (in middle school) contact with police is an important predictor of later (high school) arrests. Also we found that, in addition to being male and living in a low-income family, children who have parents who have a history of arrest, who have experienced school disciplinary actions, who have delinquent peers, and who are in networks with deviant adults are more likely to have problems with law enforcement. These factors help to explain racial differences in police contacts and arrests.     

Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Leisure-time Physical Activity in California: Patterns and Mechanisms

Evidence has shown that racial/ethnic minorities in the United States are less likely than whites to engage in leisure-time physical activity (LTPA); yet few studies to date have included Asian subgroups in the analyses and mechanisms underlying these disparities are not well known. This study uses data from the 2007 California Health Interview Survey (N = 37,164) to examine racial/ethnic disparities in self-reported adherence to LTPA recommendations and to explore the mediating roles of socioeconomic status (SES), acculturation, and neighborhood perceptions. Nine racial/ethnic groups were included: non-Hispanic whites, non-Hispanic blacks, Mexicans, and six largest Asian subgroups. Results confirm that racial/ethnic minorities are, in general, less likely than whites to meet LTPA recommendations, whereas heterogeneity is also evident across Asian subgroups. No significant disparity is revealed for the Japanese and Filipinos but whites are advantaged compared to all other Asian groups. Educational attainment, percent of lifetime spent in the United States and access to park, playground, or open space are significantly associated with meeting LTPA recommendations. SES and acculturation play differential roles in explaining group disparities for blacks, Mexicans, and some Asian subgroups. Perceived neighborhood environment does not mediate LTPA disparities by race/ethnicity. Net of these mediators, the advantages of whites in meeting LTPA recommendations persist for blacks, Mexicans, the Chinese, and Koreans. Future research should theorize and operationalize additional multilevel pathways linking race/ethnicity and LTPA while assessing measurement errors in the existing constructs.     

Racial Prejudice and Spending on Drug Rehabilitation: The Role of Attitudes Toward Blacks and Latinos

We enhance understanding of the prejudice-induced "color coding" phenomenon among whites by determining whether racial and ethnic prejudices are associated with a previously unexplored policy outcome, spending on drug rehabilitation. We examine attitudes toward both blacks and Latinos; the latter is a group largely ignored in previous research. We assess the impact of several types of racial/ethnic views, including those that manifest modern/indirect prejudice (e.g., stereotypes about violence, individualistic causal attributions) and those that reflect social-distance-based traditional prejudice (opposition to residential proximity and to interracial marriage). These relationships are examined using data from the General Social Survey. Bivariate results support the linkage between both traditional and modern prejudice and rehabilitation spending. Logistic regression analyses also indicate that support for rehabilitation is racialized: Attributing race differences in socioeconomic outcomes to "structural" factors, namely discrimination and lack of chance for education, is associated with believing rehabilitation spending is inadequate, controlling for the effects of other racial/ethnic attitudes and background factors. The relationship between this measure of modern prejudice and the outcome is consistent with color coding. The implications of the findings are discussed, and suggestions for future research that further examine the scope of color coding are offered.     

Perceived Racial Discrimination in Health Care and Race Differences in Physician Trust

Racial discrimination in health care is more often perceived by racial minority patients than by whites. In this study, we explored whether two types of perceived racial discrimination, perceptions that the healthcare system is racially biased in general (perceived institutional racial discrimination) and perceptions that one has personally encountered racial discrimination while seeking health care (perceived interpersonal racial discrimination), mediated racial differences in patients’ trust in physicians. We examined this in a sample of black (N = 127) and white (N = 303) patients being treated in two Veterans Affairs orthopedic clinics for advanced osteoarthritis. Patients completed measures of perceived institutional and interpersonal racial discrimination in health care before meeting with an orthopedic surgeon and a measure of physician trust after the visit. Using a multiple mediator bootstrapping procedure, we tested whether perceived institutional and/or interpersonal racial discrimination mediated the association between race and trust. Compared to whites, blacks reported lower physician trust (M = 4.00 vs. 4.17, β = ?0.15, 95 % CI = ?0.25, ?0.05), more perceived institutional racial discrimination (M = 3.13 vs. 2.60, β = 0.43, 95 % CI = 0.25, 0.61), and more perceived interpersonal racial discrimination (M = 1.94 vs. 1.21, β = 0.60, 95 % CI = 0.47, 0.74). Perceived interpersonal, but not institutional, racial discrimination mediated the race difference in physician trust and accounted for 55 % of the variance. Our finding that lower physician trust among black patients than white patients was explained by perceptions of interpersonal racial discrimination in health care suggests that issues of racial discrimination may need to be addressed in order to foster minority patients’ trust in physicians.     

Teacher-Based Racial Discrimination: The Role of Racial Pride and Religiosity Among African American and Caribbean Black Adolescents

This study explored the extent to which private regard and religiosity beliefs serve as protective factors for school bonding among African American and Caribbean black adolescents who experience racial discrimination in school. Findings are drawn from a nationally representative sample of (n = 810) African American and (n = 360) Caribbean black adolescents (52% girls) aged 13–17 (M_age = 15, SD = 1.42) years. Results suggest that perceiving racial discrimination from teachers was associated with lower levels of school bonding for African American and Caribbean black adolescents. For African American adolescents, perceiving more racial discrimination from teachers and reporting lower private regard beliefs was associated with less school bonding. The findings for Caribbean black adolescents revealed that endorsing moderate levels of religiosity and perceiving higher rates of teacher discrimination was associated with less school bonding. The developmental significance and implications for future research are discussed.     

Variations in Citizenship Profiling by Generational Status: Individual and Neighborhood Characteristics of Latina/os Questioned by Law Enforcement About Their Legal Status

Although racial profiling is widely studied, the related issue of citizenship profiling by law enforcement has received little scholarly attention. In this study we begin to address citizenship profiling, which may be highly salient in light of the increasing policing of immigration in the United States through Secure Communities and other federal, state and local efforts to localize the enforcement of immigration laws. Using a sample of 563 Latina/o adults residing in 46 neighborhoods in El Paso County, Texas, USA, we assess the impacts of a variety of individual and neighborhood characteristics on the likelihood of being questioned about citizenship status by law enforcement. Results using hierarchical generalized linear models (HGLMs) show that, at the individual-level, first-generation Latina/o immigrants and second-Latina/os are more likely to be questioned about citizenship status than third- and later-generation Latina/os. At the neighborhood-level, living in a neighborhood with a mid-level of Latina/o immigrant characteristics increased the probability of being questioned. The implications of these findings for citizenship profiling are discussed.     

Toward a Framework for Understanding Forces that Contribute to or Reinforce Racial Inequality

For many years social scientists have debated the role of social structure versus culture in explaining the social and economic outcomes of African Americans. The position that one takes often reflects ideological bias. Conservatives tend to emphasize cultural factors whereas liberals pay more attention to structural conditions, with most of the attention devoted to racialist structural factors such as discrimination and segregation. In this article I develop a framework for understanding the formation and maintenance of racial inequality and racial group outcomes that integrates cultural factors with two types of structural forces—those that directly reflect explicit racial bias and those that do not. In so doing, I hope to spark greater interest and dialogue in the research and policy arenas around a more holistic approach to poverty alleviation.

Wealth Mobility of Families Raising Children in the Twenty-First Century

Wealth inequality between the top and bottom deciles has grown over the last 20 years (Piketty and Zucman in Wealth and inheritance in the long run, Centre for Economic Policy Research, London, 2014), as has the racial wealth gap (Shapiro et al. in The roots of the widening racial wealth gap: explaining the black–white economic divide. Institute on Assets and Social Policy, Brandeis University, Waltham, 2013. http://iasp.brandeis.edu/pdfs/Author/shapiro-thomas-m/racialwealthgapbrief.pdf). Within these broad trends of inequality, some families are able to get ahead and grow their wealth, while others are not. Yet we do not understand well the critical variables that increase the likelihood of wealth mobility across the life course—within the same generation. This paper addresses this gap and investigates the following questions: What accounts for intra-generational relative and absolute wealth mobility for families with children in the first decade of the twenty-first century? And how does it differ by race? The paper draws on two longitudinal data sets—the Panel Study of Income Dynamics household survey data matched with neighborhood-level US Census data (1999–2011), and the IASP Leveraging Mobility (LM) study (1998–2011). Applying an integrated mixed methods design, analyses are conducted in three stages: (1) A grounded theory analytic approach of the LM data determines key variables of wealth mobility: homeownership, income, employment characteristics, extended family wealth, negative life events, and neighborhood factors; (2) regression analyses test these indicators for absolute and relative wealth mobility; and (3) recontextualization through further analyses of LM data deepen the regression results by illustrating the pathways of significant wealth mobility predictors. Results reveal that increasing family income, larger family transfers, consistent long-term homeownership, and in some cases white-collar occupations increase the likelihood of upward relative wealth mobility. Negative life events, higher rates of neighborhood poverty, and black race are negatively correlated with the amount of wealth growth. These key drivers of wealth mobility highlight the need for targeted policies that reinforce and expand opportunities for all families to build wealth over the life course.     

Hiding within racial hierarchies: how undocumented immigrants make residential decisions in an American city

In the United States, the residential segregation of Latinos from whites has persisted but has fallen between Latinos and blacks. Demographers offer the size of the Latino population that is undocumented as one potential explanation for these patterns. However, little work has examined undocumented immigrants’ first-hand accounts of residential decision-making. Drawing on interviews with undocumented-headed, Latin American-origin families in Dallas, Texas, we explore how lacking legal status relates to residential selection. We find that some undocumented families perceive certain neighbourhoods to be ‘off-limits’, not only because of financial constraints, explicit legal impediments to their tenure, or individual racial preferences, but also because they perceive them as high-risk: Most sample households agree that law enforcement patrols areas with white majorities in order to exclude Latinos and, specifically, the undocumented. As a strategy to minimise the perceived risk law enforcement poses to their families’ stability, some undocumented families in the study report opting into neighbourhoods with Latino majorities in order to ‘blend in’, whereas others describe feeling safe in neighbourhoods with black majorities where they can ‘hide in plain sight’. We demonstrate how undocumented families’ perceptions of law enforcement in neighbourhoods with differing racial compositions may partly underlie trends in residential selection and stratification.     

Exposure to Violence and Achievement Motivation Beliefs: Moderating Roles of Cultural-Ecological Factors

This study conceptualized individual-level cultural-ecological factors (racial identity and religious coping) as adolescent assets that would promote achievement motivation and reduce negative associations between community violence exposure and motivation. Our examination of African American adolescents (N = 380) from urban contexts indicated a negative association between community violence exposure and motivation beliefs (academic self-efficacy and academic importance). Accounting for socioeconomic factors and parental support, higher racial pride (private regard), and higher use of religion to cope with difficult times predicted higher motivation beliefs. Religious coping reduced the negative association of violence exposure with motivation beliefs. Among boys, however, there was a stronger, negative relationship between community violence and academic self-efficacy for those higher in private regard. Boys reporting higher private regard had more positive motivation beliefs when experiencing lower community violence. Results suggest cultural-ecological factors can support academic motivation but also may not fully protect youth exposed to high ecological risk.     

Police Endorse Color-Blind Racial Beliefs More Than Laypersons

Racial disparities in the US criminal justice system (CJS) have been extensively documented in scholarly work. Critical race scholars have suggested that color-blind racial attitudes inform the set of beliefs that CJS practitioners use in decision making. If this is the case, factors that are related to color-blind racial attitude trends in CJS practitioners must be better understood. We focus on a single CJS practitioner—the police—to assess their color-blind racial beliefs and compare these to the broader US public. Using the Color-Blind Racial Attitudes Scale (CoBRAS), we identified sociodemographic variables associated with high CoBRAS scores in a multiracial lay sample (N = 1401; males and females, mean age = 33.4 years). Police (N = 112) and police recruits (N = 52) CoBRAS scores were compared to CoBRAS scores of lay participants with similar sociodemographics as the police and recruit samples, (respectively, N = 451; N = 291). Police scored significantly higher on the CoBRAS than laypersons even when controlling for sociodemographic variables. Police recruits also have higher CoBRAS scores than laypersons, again controlling for sociodemographic variables. These findings suggest that police work attracts people who endorse color-blind racial beliefs. These findings make understanding the relationship between color-blind racial beliefs and discriminatory behavior of CJS practitioners imperative.     

Hardship Among Older Adults in the HRS: Exploring Measurement Differences Across Socio-Demographic Characteristics

Measures of hardship have been proffered as better indicators of economic well-being than traditional measures of socioeconomic status (SES). However, there is a dearth of research on latent factor structures and measurement bias in items assessing hardship across socio-demographic characteristics, especially among older adults. As such, the purpose of this study was to determine the factor structure of items measuring hardship in the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) and to determine measurement bias across socio-demographic groups (i.e., race/ethnicity, gender, and age). The participants were HRS subjects who completed an additional psychosocial survey (N = 3074). The results revealed a single latent factor for hardship (comparative fit index = 0.99, root mean square error of approximation = 0.02) using confirmatory factor analysis on eight items in the HRS. The multiple indicator, multiple causes (MIMIC) model was used to determine measurement bias in the items due to socio-demographic characteristics. Compared to white respondents, black respondents were more likely to endorse items of financial dissatisfaction (Odds Ratio (OR) = 2.19, 95 % Confidence Interval (CI) = 1.43, 3.35), while Latino respondents were more likely to endorse food insecurity (OR = 2.78, 95 % CI = 1.60, 4.83); and older individuals (age 65 and older) were less likely to endorse having moved to a worse residence/neighborhood (OR = 0.32, CI = 0.18, 0.57) and being unemployed (OR = 0.28, CI = 0.20, 0.38). These results indicate that there is differential item functioning for specific measures of hardship suggesting that there are differences observed for the measurement of hardship for these items across racial/ethnic and age groups.     

Racial Disproportionality in Juvenile Justice: The Interaction of Race and Geography in Pretrial Detention for Violent and Serious Offenses

Youth of color, particularly black youth, are overrepresented at every stage of processing in the juvenile justice system. This paper presents an analysis of racial differentials at an early stage—pretrial detention among youth charged with violent and serious offenses. It contributes to work in this area by exploring police decision making, which has been understudied in comparison with decision making by court actors. Contrary to prior studies suggesting that race differences in police treatment are found primarily in the handling of youth suspected of minor offenses, we find that black youth are three times as likely as white youth to be detained, controlling for other demographic and legal factors, including offense type and severity. This paper also contributes to efforts to understand how racial disproportionality occurs, by including an analysis of how geography affects detention decisions differentially by race. Using data from an urban county in Michigan, we find that geography and race interact, such that white youth from the suburbs are much less likely to be detained than white youth from the city and black youth from the city or suburbs.