Everybody's Doin' It (Right?): Neighborhood Norms and Sexual Activity in Adolescence

A neighborhood’s normative climate is linked to, but conceptually distinct from, its structural characteristics such as poverty and racial/ethnic composition. Given the deleterious consequences of early sexual activity for adolescent health and well-being, it is important to assess normative influences on youth behaviors such as sexual debut, number of sex partners, and involvement in casual sexual experiences. The current study moves beyond prior research by constructing a measure of normative climate that more fully captures neighborhood norms, and analyzing the influence of normative climate on behavior in a longitudinal framework. Using recently geo-coded data from the Toledo Adolescent Relationships Study (TARS), we analyze the effect of normative climate on adolescents’ sexual behaviors. Results indicate that variation in neighborhood normative climates increases adolescents’ odds of sexual debut and casual sex, and is associated with their number of sex partners, even after accounting for neighborhood structural disadvantage and demographic risk factors.     

Ethnic concentration in the neighbourhood and majority and minority language: A study of first and second-generation immigrants

Ethnic residential concentration is often found to hamper immigrants’ majority language proficiency. However, there are still several gaps in our understanding of the relationship between ethnic concentration and ethnic minorities’ language practices. This study examines the extent to which ethnic concentration also constrains immigrants’ majority language use, whether contact with natives and co-ethnics mediates these relationships, and whether ethnic concentration relates to second-generation minorities’ minority language proficiency. Structural equation models on data for people of Turkish and Moroccan origin living in the Netherlands (N = 2163) showed that ethnic concentration is indirectly related to weaker majority language proficiency and less majority language use through contact with natives and co-ethnics. For second-generation minorities, ethnic concentration is related to better minority language proficiency.     

Population size, perceived threat, and exclusion: a multiple-indicators analysis of attitudes toward foreigners in Germany

The major objective of the present research is to examine the long-standing theoretical proposition that hostility and discriminatory attitudes toward out-groups are likely to rise with relative size of the out-group population. Using data from The German General Social Survey (ALLBUS, 1996) we provide, for the first time, an examination of the impact of both actual and perceived size of the foreign population on discriminatory attitudes toward foreigners. Specifically, by using a multiple-indicators analytical model, we examine the theoretical proposition that perceived threat posed by an out-group population mediates the relations between size of the out-group and exclusionary attitudes toward the out-group. The analysis does not support the theoretical expectation that actual size of the foreign population in the locale is likely to increase either perception of threat or exclusionary attitudes. Perceived size, however, is found to be associated, as expected, with perceived threat, and perceived threat is found to mediate the relations between perceived size and support for exclusionary practices against foreigners—the higher the perceived size, the more pronounced are both the threat and anti-foreigner attitudes. The findings and their significance are discussed in the light of sociological theories on the relations between minority size and discrimination.     

Disentangling the reciprocal relationship between change in crime and racial/ethnic change

Prior research has found that racial/ethnic change and residential instability are positively related to neighborhood crime. However, the process of racial/ethnic change differentially influences crime above and beyond residential instability. While both processes affect crime through the disruption of existing social ties, racial/ethnic change has additional consequences for crime by heightening racial/ethnic tensions and undercutting cross-group interactions. This means racial/ethnic change is a different process than residential instability, and suggests that neighborhoods experiencing high rates of instability and high rates of racial/ethnic change may be particularly susceptible to crime. Therefore, we examine the influence of racial/ethnic compositional change on change in crime across different levels of residential instability. Further, we argue that demographic change and crime may be influencing each other simultaneously: increases in the crime rate and racial/ethnic compositional change impact each other at the same time. To capture this process, we employ a structural equation model (SEM) that accounts for the reciprocal and simultaneous relationship between racial/ethnic change and violent and property crime rates in Los Angeles, California between 1990 and 2000. We also account for the influence of change in spatially proximate communities. Results show robust evidence that increases in racial/ethnic change contributes to greater violent and property crime rates, but the reciprocal influence of crime on racial/ethnic change is contingent upon the degree to which a neighborhood is experiencing residential instability and crime type.     

Race,ageism and the slide from privileged occupations

The sociological literature on workplace inequality has been relatively clear regarding racial disparities and ongoing vulnerabilities to contemporary structural and employer biases. We still know little, however, about the consequences of age and ageism for minority workers and susceptibilities to downward mobility. Coupling insights regarding race with recent work on employment-based age discrimination, we interrogate in this article African Americans and Whites, aged 55 and older, and the extent to which they experience job loss across time. Our analyses, beyond controlling for key background attributes, distinguish and disaggregate patterns for higher and lower level status managers and professionals and for men and women. Results, derived from data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, reveal unique and significant inequalities. Relative to their White and gender specific counterparts, older African American men and women experience notably higher rates of downward mobility—downward mobility that is not explained by conventional explanations (i.e., human capital credentials, job/labor market characteristics, etc.). Such inequalities are especially pronounced among men and for those initially occupying higher status white-collar managerial and professional jobs compared to technical/skilled professional and blue-collar “first line” supervisors. We tie our results to contemporary concerns regarding ageism in the workplace as well as minority vulnerability. We also suggest an ageism-centered corrective to existing race and labor market scholarship.     

Prismatic Metropolis: Race and Residential Segregation in the City of the Angels

Most major urban areas remain segregated by race, especially in terms of black segregation from whites. We replicate and extend the innovative approach developed by Farley and colleagues for understanding processes of racial residential segregation with data collected in Los Angeles. Using a large (N = 4025) multiracial sample of adults, we examine (1) actual and perceived differences in economic status, (2) mutual preference for same race neighbors, and (3) racial prejudice and discrimination as hypotheses for the persistence of residential segregation. With a systematic experimental design we gauge respondent openness to living in areas with varying proportions of black, white, Latino, or Asian neighbors. We find no support for actual or perceived cost of housing as a barrier to integration. Although all groups exhibit some degree of ethnocentric preference for same race neighbors, this tendency is strongest among whites rather than blacks and plays only a small role in perpetuating segregation. Blacks face the greatest hostility in the search for housing and are consensually recognized as most likely to face discrimination in the housing market. Racial minorities are more open to sharing residential space with whites than with other minorities. We find generally higher rates of openness to integration than Farley and colleagues found in their recent Detroit survey.     

Contradictions of commitment in the new economy: Insecurity, time, and technology

The new flexible, 24/7 economy is characterized by employment insecurity, time pressure, and technologies that increase employees’ accessibility to their workplace. Accompanying these changes is a changing social contract between employees and their employers. Labor process and organizational theories suggest that these employment characteristics will undermine the attachment component of organizational commitment that remains an important feature of contemporary workplaces. We use an unpublished dataset of a nationally representative sample of employed individuals from the Families and Work Life Institute to test hypotheses linking the attachment component of organizational commitment to organizational insecurity, time pressure, and technologically created accessibility. Our expectation is that these changes will be particularly important for decreasing older cohorts of workers’ attachment to the organization since they have experienced a change in the social contract. The data are largely consistent with these expectations.     

“Value in diversity”: School racial and ethnic composition,teacher diversity,and school punishment

American schools have become increasingly punitive and characterized by racial and ethnic disparities in punishment outcomes. Scholarship on the causes and consequences of this shift has highlighted the potential salience of school context. The current study extends this work by exploring the potential effect of an underexplored factor, teacher diversity, on suspension disparities. To date, explorations of the role of teacher diversity have been limited to its impact on academic outcomes, teacher perceptions, and behavioral outcomes. The current study fills a void in the existing literature by examining (1) whether greater teacher diversity is associated with reductions in racial and ethnic suspension disparities and (2) whether greater teacher diversity interacts with the size of the racial and ethnic student population to influence suspension disparities. This study contributes to the existing literature by extending the “value in diversity” perspective to the school setting. Additionally, the findings suggest that racial and ethnic diversity in positions of authority in the school setting fosters a more equitable approach to the administration of student punishment.     

Income as a resilience factor for the impact of discrimination and institutional unfairness on minorities’ emotional well-being

This study investigated the impact of personal vs. institutional discrimination on the emotional well-being (EWB) of immigrant and ethnic minorities, and a possible protective mechanism of economic achievements that may buffer the negative effects of discrimination. Data were collected from the Israeli 2015 Social Survey. Immigrant minorities were those who came to Israel after 1980. Israeli Palestinians were regarded as an ethnic minority. The study showed that perceived unfairness and discrimination in public institutions, which were not necessarily directed towards individuals or their minority group, threatens EWB of minorities to an extent similar to that of personally experienced discrimination. Income moderated the effects of common and personal discrimination on EWB of immigrant and ethnic minorities, but not in the same way across the various groups. The study provides evidence that income may be a resilience factor, which buffers and compensates for the negative effect of discrimination on minorities’ EWB.     

Racial diversity, minority concentration, and trust in Canadian urban neighborhoods

Using a sample of 42,329 respondents nested within 4254 Canadian urban neighborhoods, this study demonstrates the conceptual and empirical importance of making a distinction between neighborhood racial diversity and minority concentration, and examines how each is uniquely associated with trust. Our analysis shows that at a given level of racial minority concentration, Whites are more trusting when their minority neighbors are more evenly distributed across racial minority groups. Meanwhile, Whites are less trusting as the neighborhood share of racial minorities increases. Overall, the effect of racial minority concentration tends to prevail over that of racial diversity.     

Shaking things up or business as usual? The influence of female corporate executives and board of directors on women’s managerial representation

Previous theory and research suggests that workplace gender composition at the highest organizational levels should play a crucial role in reducing gender linked inequalities in the workplace. In this article, we examine how the presence of women in top corporate positions influences female managerial representation at the establishment-level. Using a unique multi-level dataset of 5679 establishments nested within 81 Fortune 1000 corporations, we find that having more women on corporate boards, but not in executive positions, at the firm-level is associated with greater female managerial representation at the establishment-level. The results also show that women are more likely to be in management positions when employed in young, large, and managerially intensive workplaces, as well as those with a larger percentage of female non-managers. Implications for future research and policy implementation are discussed.     

Spatial variation in poverty-generating processes: Child poverty in the United States

This study builds on research demonstrating that sub-regions within the United States have different processes that abet poverty and that child poverty is spatially differentiated. We focus on the social attributes of the local area to assess what the geographic place represents in terms of social characteristics, namely racial/ethnic composition and economic structure, and to resolve apparent inconsistencies in poverty research. Using spatial regime and spatial error regression techniques to analyze county census data, we examine spatial differentiation in the relationships that generate child poverty. Our approach addresses the conceptual and technical aspects of spatial inequality. Results show that local-area processes are at play with implications for more nuanced theoretical models and anti-poverty policies that consider systematic differences in factors contributing to child poverty according to the racial/ethnic and economic contexts.     

Coalitional affiliation as a missing link between ethnic polarization and well-being: An empirical test from the European Social Survey

Many studies converge in suggesting (a) that ethnic and racial minorities fare worse than host populations in reported well-being and objective measures of health and (b) that ethnic/racial diversity has a negative impact on various measures of social trust and well-being, including in the host or majority population. However, there is much uncertainty about the processes that connect diversity variables with personal outcomes. In this paper, we are particularly interested in different levels of coalitional affiliation, which refers to people’s social allegiances that guide their expectations of social support, in-group strength and cohesion. We operationalize coalitional affiliation as the extent to which people rely on a homogeneous social network, and we measure it with indicators of friendships across ethnic boundaries and frequency of contact with friends. Using multi-level models and data from the European Social Survey (Round 1, 2002–2003) for 19 countries, we demonstrate that coalitional affiliation provides an empirically reliable, as well as theoretically coherent, explanation for various effects of ethnic/racial diversity.     

Spaces of encounter and attitudes towards difference: A comparative study of two European cities

Scholars have been increasingly interested in how everyday interactions in various places with people from different ethnic/religious background impact inter-group relations. Drawing on representative surveys in Leeds and Warsaw (2012), we examine whether encounters with ethnic and religious minorities in different type of space are associated with more tolerance towards them. We find that in Leeds, more favourable affective attitudes are associated with contact in institutional spaces (workplace and study places) and socialisation spaces (social clubs, voluntary groups, religious meeting places); however, in case of behavioural intentions – operationalised as willingness to be friendly to minority neighbours – only encounters in socialisation spaces play a significant role in prejudice reduction. In Warsaw, people who have contacts with ethnic and religious minorities in public (streets, park, public services and transport) and consumption spaces (cafés, pubs, restaurants) express more positive affective attitudes towards them, but only encounters in consumption space translate into willingness to be friendly to minority neighbours.     

Variations in age-specific homicide death rates: a cohort explanation for charges in the age distribution of homicide deaths

An age-period-cohort characteristic model previously used to explain age-period-specific rates of homicide arrests for those 15 to 49 from 1960 to 1995 is applied to measures of age-period-specific homicide deaths. The extension of this model to the examination of homicide victimization is significant because we are able to test the utility of the model across a longer time span (1930 to 1995) and a wider range of ages (10 to 79) and disaggregated by sex and race (Whites and non-Whites). Although the results indicate that past and recent shifts in age-period-specific rates of homicide deaths are associated with specific characteristics of cohorts, there are some important differences across race and sex groupings in the effects of these characteristics. The effects of the cohort variables examined in our model are independent of age and period, often substantively large, and last throughout the life course. The results are consistent with Durkheimian explanations of lethal violence, hypotheses from victimization theory, and basic tenets of cohort theory.     

Are motherhood penalties and fatherhood bonuses warranted? Comparing pro-work behaviors and conditions of mothers, fathers, and non-parents

Research has confirmed a motherhood penalty and fatherhood bonus at work. Employers, it appears, regard mothers and fathers differently from one another and differently from non-parents. We have yet to systematically explore whether mothers exhibit fewer pro-work behaviors than fathers and non-parents or whether fathers engage in more of them than mothers and non-parents. This article draws on nationally representative data from full-time employed adults to investigate mother, father, and non-parent differences in work effort, work intensity, job engagement, and four measures of work enhancement from home. Mothers and fathers are similar on five out of seven outcomes tapping pro-work dimensions. When they differ, mothers report greater job engagement and work intensity than fathers. Mothers are no different from non-parents on all outcomes. All findings hold net of individual, job, and family controls. I conclude that reducing workplace gender inequality will require organizational changes that pay explicit attention to workers’ care-giving responsibilities.     

I wouldn’t, but you can: Attitudes toward interracial relationships

Using the 2008 Cooperative Congressional Election Study (CCES), we study Whites’ attitudes towards dating, cohabiting with, marrying, and having children with African Americans and Asian Americans. We find that 29% of White respondents reject all types of relationships with both groups whereas 31% endorse all types. Second, Whites are somewhat less willing to marry and bear children interracially than to date interracially. These attitudes and behaviors are related to warmth toward racial outgroups, political conservatism, age, gender, education, and region. Third, White women are likely to approve of interracial relationships for others but not themselves, while White men express more willingness to engage in such relationships personally, particularly with Asians. However, neither White men nor White women are very likely to actually engage in interracial relationships. Thus, positive globalattitudes toward interracial relationships do not translate into high rates of actual interracial cohabitation or marriage.     

Education and religion: Individual, congregational, and cross-level interaction effects on biblical literalism

Using ideas from cultural and organizational theory, I examine the interplay of individual and congregation-level educational attainment on biblical literalism. Data on 387 congregations and 100,009 worshippers (US Congregational Life Survey, 2001) are used to test hypotheses. Results indicate that the effects of congregational education and individual educational attainment are among the largest effects in models. This study is the first to show that regardless of an individual’s own education, affirmations of biblical literalism are less likely when persons with higher education dominate a congregation. This finding brings into relief the important role of social context in persons’ belief in biblical literalism. Additionally, congregational education amplifies the influence of individual education on biblical literalism such that the gap in belief between college/non-college education individuals widens in high education congregations. This finding suggests that high education persons more deeply absorb the influence of a more educated congregational context.     

Churning races in Canada: Visible minority response change between 2006 and 2011

Why do most people have stable responses to census race questions, while some do not? Using linked Canadian data, we examine personal, social, and economic characteristics that predict response stability as White or as one of six large visible minority groups, versus a change in response to/from White or to/from another visible minority group. Response change rates in Canada are generally comparable to those in the US, UK, and New Zealand. Likely reflecting the centuries-old hegemony of Whites in these countries, White is the most stable response group in Canada as well as the US, UK, and New Zealand. Multiple-race response groups are among the newest and least stable response groups. Social statuses and experiences (mixed ethnic heritage, immigration status, and exposure to own-group members) are generally more predictive of race response stability and change than economic (income level and change in income) or personal statuses (education, age). This highlights the socially-constructed nature of race group boundaries. Joining and leaving a group are often predicted by the same status/characteristic and in the same direction, hinting that the status/characteristic adds complexity to the race-related experiences of constituents.     

No experience required: Violent crime and anticipated,vicarious, and experienced racial discrimination

There is a growing body of evidence linking racial discrimination and juvenile crime, and a number of theories explain this relationship. In this study, we draw on one popular approach, Agnew's general strain theory, and extend prior research by moving from a focus on experienced discrimination to consider two other forms, anticipated and vicarious discrimination. Using data on black, white, and Hispanic youth, from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods (PHDCN), we find that experienced, anticipated, and to a lesser extent, vicarious discrimination, significantly predict violent crime independent of a set of neighborhood, parental, and individual level controls, including prior violent offending. Additional analyses on the specific contexts of discrimination reveal that violence is associated with the anticipation of police discrimination. The effects tend to be larger for African American than Hispanic youth, but the differences are not statistically significant. These findings support the thesis that, like other strains, discrimination may not have to be experienced directly to influence offending.