Critical standpoint: Leaders of color advancing racial equality in predominantly white organizations

Organizations are often core sites for the production and perpetuation of social inequality. Although the United States is becoming more racially diverse, organizational elites remain disproportionately white, and this mismatch contributes to increasing racial inequality. This article examines whether and how leaders of color within predominantly white organizations can help their organizations address racial inequality. Our analysis uses data from a national study of politically oriented civic organizations and ethnographic fieldwork within one predominantly white organization. We draw on institutional work research, the outsider‐within concept, and insights from critical whiteness theory to explain how leaders of color can use their position and “critical standpoint” to help guide their organization toward advancing racial equality. The qualitative analysis shows how such leaders, when empowered, help their organization address race internally by (a) providing alternatives to white‐dominated perspectives, (b) developing tools to educate white members about racial inequality, and (c) identifying and addressing barriers to becoming a more racially diverse organization. The qualitative analysis also shows how leaders of color help their organization address race externally by (a) sharing personal narratives about living in a white‐dominated society and (b) brokering collaborations with organizations led by people of color. This research has implications for organizations seeking to promote social equality: Organizational leaders from marginalized status groups can help their organizations address social inequality, if those leaders possess a critical standpoint and sufficient organizational authority.     

(IN)VISIBILITY BLUES: THE PARADOX OF INSTITUTIONAL RACISM

In this article, we demonstrate how the taken-for-granted, inner-workings of culture can become implicated in the (in)visibility of minority members. We seek to illuminate ways in which institutions may unwittingly facilitate (in)visibility through their organizational habitus. We begin by providing further evidence of invisibility and visibility as real and commonly experienced psychosocial phenomena among minorities within predominantly white, institutional settings. In particular, we argue that a minority's inconspicuousness can be simultaneously fused together with one's conspicuousness to form what we call racial/ethnic (in)visibility. This study employs focus-group data collected from a sample of administrators and faculty from elite K-12 independent (private) schools, an institution that admittedly has been slow to make cultural change in its racial/ethnic ideologies and practices.     

The Differential Effects of Racially Homophilous Sponsorship Ties on Job Opportunities in an Elite Labor Market: The Case of NCAA Basketball Coaching

We examine how an assistant coach's race and the race of his supervisor (the head coach) interact to affect future job quality. While past research argues that homophily is beneficial to job mobility, we find differential effects based on the race. OLS and OLR regression analyses on the quality of one's first head coaching job in NCAA men's basketball indicate that black assistant coaches working under black head coaches (black homophily) are significantly disadvantaged compared to all other racial combinations: white assistants with white supervisors (white homophily), white assistants with black supervisors (white heterophily), and black assistants with white supervisors (black heterophily). In contrast, there is no significant difference in job quality among the latter three groups: white homophily, white heterophily, and black heterophily. This indicates that while homophily is neither advantageous nor disadvantageous for whites, it is disadvantageous for black job candidates. This racially based disadvantage makes it difficult for minority job candidates to break through the glass ceiling and has real‐world financial implications.     

Beyond and below racial homophily: ERG models of a friendship network documented on Facebook

A notable feature of U.S. social networks is their high degree of racial homogeneity, which is often attributed to racial homophily--the preference for associating with individuals of the same racial background. The authors unpack racial homogeneity using a theoretical framework that distinguishes between various tie formation mechanisms and their effects on the racial composition of networks, exponential random graph modeling that can disentangle these mechanisms empirically, and a rich new data set based on the Facebook pages of a cohort of college students. They first show that racial homogeneity results not only from racial homophily proper but also from homophily among coethnics of the same racial background and from balancing mechanisms such as the tendency to reciprocate friendships or to befriend the friends of friends, which both amplify the homogeneity effects of homophily. Then, they put the importance of racial homophily further into perspective by comparing its effects to those of other mechanisms of tie formation. Balancing, propinquity based on coresidence, and homophily regarding nonracial categories (e.g., students from "elite" backgrounds or those from particular states) all influence the tie formation process more than does racial homophily.     

When Does Race Matter? Race,Sex, and Dating at an Elite University

This paper unites quantitative and qualitative data from the College Social Life Survey (n = 732) to describe and explain patterns of racial homophily in undergraduate sexual/romantic relationships at an elite university, a closed social setting. It expands the literature on interracial romantic unions by comparing homophily in hookups (uncommitted sexual interactions), dates, and long‐term relationships. Although this population embodies many characteristics associated with greater racial mixing (youth, education, status equality, geographical proximity, racial diversity, independence from family), racial homophily is still strongly evident. Variation in levels of homophily among relationship types and among racial groups is explained by differences in desired homophily, social network segregation, and participation in formal race‐based student organizations. Black students are particularly socially isolated.     

Is ethnic prejudice declining in Britain? Change in social distance attitudes among ethnic majority and minority Britons

Most literature on racial prejudice deals with the racial attitudes of the ethnic majority and ethnic minorities separately. This paper breaks this tradition. We examine the social distance attitudes of white and non‐white British residents to test if these attitudes follow the same trends over time, whether they are driven by the same social processes and whether they are inter‐related. We have three main findings. Firstly, social distance from other ethnic groups has declined over time for both white and ethnic minority Britons. For the white majority there are both period and cohort elements to this decline. Secondly, we see some evidence that social distance between the majority and minority groups is reciprocal. Specifically, minorities who experience rejection by the white British feel a greater sense of distance from them. Thirdly, we find that all groups share the perception of the same ethnic hierarchy. We see evidence of particularly widespread hostility towards Muslim Britons from all ethnic groups suggesting that Muslims are singled out for negative attention from many British residents of all other backgrounds, including a large number who do not express hostility to other groups.     

RACE AND CHARITABLE CHURCH ACTIVITY

The availability of public funding for charitable church activity has increased dramatically in recent years. A key dispute over this increase is whether congregations’ propensity to provide charitable services depends upon the local community’s racial composition. Using three congregation‐level data sets, this article investigates how race affects charitable church activity. Each data set indicates that all‐white congregations become less charitably active as the share of black residents in the community grows. This response is found only for charitable activities and not for other activities. Additionally, all‐white congregations favorably disposed toward receiving government funding respond no differently to black residents than do not‐all‐white congregations. (JEL H41, J15, Z12)     

Race,Supervisorial Change,and Job Outcomes: Employability Resilience in NCAA Division I College Basketball Coaching

We examine how race affects the employment status of subordinates following a job change by their immediate supervisors. We test whether racial homophily between a subordinate and a supervisor affects the odds of being let go. We also consider whether a racial match between an incoming head coach and assistant affects whether assistants retain their assistant coaching position. Data for these analyses come from a unique data set that explores what happens to 704 NCAA Division I college basketball assistant coaches after the head coach leaves the school. Logistic regression analyses confirm the benefit of working for a white head coach as this decreases the likelihood of being let go, compared to more positive outcomes such as following the coach to a new school, being internally promoted or retained after the head coach's departure. Furthermore, racial homophily with incoming head coaches insulates subordinates from having to search for new employment by increasing the likelihood of assistants being retained.     

LGBT Religious Activism: Predicting State Variations in the Number of Metropolitan Community Churches, 1974–2000

Armstrong and Bernstein (2008) critique the emphasis movement scholars place upon activism within the formal political sphere, proposing, instead, a multi‐institutional approach which argues that protest can occur within any social institution and that the desired outcomes of activism can include cultural outcomes. The goal of this article is to expand the range of social movement targets studied through an examination of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) activism within the institution of religion. In the United States, religion, particularly Christianity, is used as the primary justification for defining same‐sex sexuality as undesirable and denying LGBT individuals full citizenship. The LGBT community challenges these traditional Christian definitions of same‐sex sexuality in numerous ways, including through the creation of LGBT‐affirming congregations. I examine the development and spread of congregations affiliated with the United Federation of Metropolitan Community Churches (UFMCC), an LGBT‐affirmative denomination, across all 50 states from 1974 to 2000. Drawing upon organizational ecology, resource mobilization, political opportunity, and theories of religious switching, I find that the distribution of UFMCC congregations challenges the usefulness of traditional explanations for activism.     

Race,Diversity, and Membership Duration in Religious Congregations*

It has long been noted that religious congregations tend to be racially homogenous. Previous case studies assert that members of a numerical minority group face individual and organizational pressures that lead them to leave congregations faster than majority members. This can create a constant pull toward homogeneity despite congregational efforts to diversify. Building on theory in organizational ecology, we test this assertion using national, multi level data from the U.S. Congregational Life Survey. The analysis shows that members of a numerical minority do have shorter durations of membership than majority members and that the gap between the two increases with the size of the majority.     

Racial discrimination in Britain, 1969–2017: a meta‐analysis of field experiments on racial discrimination in the British labour market

Field experiments represent the gold standard for determining whether discrimination occurs. Britain has a long and distinguished history of field experiments of racial discrimination in the labour market, with pioneering studies dating back to 1967 and 1969. This article reviews all the published reports of these and subsequent British field experiments of racial discrimination in the labour market, including new results from a 2016/17 field experiment. The article finds enduring contours of racial discrimination in Britain. Firstly, there is an enduring pattern of modest discrimination against white minorities of European heritage in contrast to much greater risks of discrimination faced by the main non‐white groups, suggesting a strong racial component to discrimination. Secondly, while there is some uncertainty about the magnitude of the risks facing applicants with Chinese and Indian names, the black Caribbean, black African and Pakistani groups all face substantial and very similar risks of discrimination. Thirdly, there is no significant diminution in risks of discrimination over time either for Caribbeans or for South Asians as a whole. These results are broadly in line with those from the ethnic penalties literature, suggesting that discrimination is likely to be a major factor explaining the disproportionately and enduringly high unemployment rates of ethnic minorities.     

Organizational Resources and the Gender Gap in Congregational Lay Leadership

The purpose of this study is to examine how organizational resources affect the gender gap within lay (volunteer) leadership in religious congregations. Using institutional theory as a framework, this study situates congregations within a larger field of organizations competing for legitimacy. Congregations with higher levels of resources—such as wealthier members, better-educated members, or larger memberships—are more likely to be connected to the core of the field and therefore more likely to have gender egalitarian practices in order to signal their legitimacy. Therefore, I hypothesize that women in resource-rich congregations will have greater access to volunteer leadership positions than women in congregations that are resource deficient. I analyze 70,942 individuals in 344 religious congregations from the 2001 U.S. Congregational Life Survey using multilevel modeling. I show that religious congregations with more members, better-educated attenders, and wealthier attenders have smaller gender gaps in volunteer leadership positions. Congregational resources can mitigate the gender gap in lay leadership, and women within resource-rich organizations have greater access to positions of authority.     

Discursive Colorlines at Work: How Epithets and Stereotypes are Racially Unequal

In a racialized social system, racial slurs and stereotypes applied to whites by nonwhites do not carry the same meanings or outcomes as they do when these roles are swapped. That is, racial epithets directed toward whites are unlikely to affect their life chances in the same way that racial epithets directed toward minorities do. Our central question in this paper is in what ways are epithets and stereotypes racially unequal? To answer this question, we rely upon a case study to drive our analysis. We argue that the symbolic meanings and outcomes of epithets and stereotypes matter because they maintain white supremacy in both material and symbolic ways. Thus, they serve as resources that impose, confer, deny, and approve other capital rewards in everyday interactions that ultimately exclude racial minorities, blacks and Latinas/os in particular, from opportunities and resources while preserving white supremacy.     

When Birds of a Feather Don't Flock Together: A Macrostructural Approach to Interracial Crime

The greater prevalence of intraracial crime to interracial crime is a common finding in criminology. This issue is best understood when specific crimes are studied from a proper theoretical basis. We argue that variation in rates of cross‐racial crime is explained by homophily bias, reflected in residential segregation, in conjunction with the motivational mindset of an offender, specifically whether a crime is instrumental or expressive in nature. We hypothesize that homophily bias is stronger in expressive crimes than it is in instrumental crimes. Using the National Incident‐Based Reporting System (NIBRS) for 2009 and 2010, we analyze robbery and aggravated assault as instrumental and expressive crimes, respectively. The analyses show that racial residential segregation increases, as expected, the relative frequency of black intraracial assault to black interracial assault, whereas it does not affect the relative frequency in robbery. Contrary to our hypothesis, however, the same variable shows little effect on the relative frequency of white intraracial to interracial assault. We give possible explanations as to why white crimes are insensitive to residential segregation.     

‘An Injurious Effect on the Neighbourhood’: Narratives of Neighbourhood Decline and Racialised Class Identities in Late Nineteenth-Century San Francisco

Spatial narratives of neighbourhood decline – stories about threats to neighbourhood resources – were crucial in reinscribing racialised class boundaries in the late nineteenth century. In 1894, white middle-class property owners in San Francisco’s Powell Street district protested the Board of School Directors’ decision to relocate the city’s only Chinese public school to a condemned building in their neighbourhood, leading to the renovation of the school’s existing structure within Chinatown and new efforts to restrict both Chinese and Japanese urban settlement. I analyse this event to show the importance of space for the race–class intersection. Protesters described the financial, social and moral costs of living near a Chinese school, thereby establishing racial criteria for middle-class identity and mobility. Theories of racial space must consider discursive links between race, class and space because spatial narratives that reproduce economic dominance over racial minorities help to maintain the racial order.     

Same‐Race Friendships and School Attachment: Demonstrating the Interaction Between Personal Network and School Composition1

Previous research has demonstrated that students are strongly attached to school when many same‐race peers are present. This study extends the literature by considering students’ immediate social environment at school—egocentric friendship networks. I hypothesized that same‐race friendships contribute to school attachment by increasing the amount of support that students receive for their racial backgrounds in direct interactions. Further, the association between same‐race friendships and school attachment should be stronger when the school includes many same‐race peers because the organizational condition increases the ability of same‐race friendships to connect students to the major components of school‐wide networks and reduces perceived racial contrast between friends and nonfriend peers. Statistical analysis of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) provided some support for these hypotheses, but white, black, Hispanic, and Asian students showed somewhat different patterns, suggesting group differences in how students develop and view same‐race friendships. The study highlights the importance of individual agency in navigating the multileveled social environment as well as the ability of organizational contexts to shift emotional consequences of personal relationships.     

‘What would it be reasonable for the kid to be called?’ – negotiating the racialised essentialism of names

In this article I assert that the importance of names within the process of racialisation has been under-explored in the UK context. I consider data from seven qualitative interviews, which suggest that names are racialised in the UK and that this racialisation can affect the naming choices of multiracial/ethnic parents. My participants indicated that, when choosing children’s forenames and surnames, there are juxtaposing concerns: a fear of potential discrimination faced by children on the basis of them bearing a ‘foreign’ name, and a desire to reflect the children’s multiracial and/or ethnic heritage. I describe and discuss two consequential strategies that my participants suggested: to give the child a white British name in an attempt to help them pass as white British, or to oppose the fears of racism/discrimination and give them a name that displays their Otherness. I discuss these ideas in relation to racial passing and whiteness literature.     

Is racial prejudice declining in Britain?1

This article employs two previously neglected indicators of racial prejudice from the British Social Attitudes surveys to examine the social distribution of prejudices against black and Asian Britons. Three hypotheses are proposed and tested: that racial prejudice is declining in Britain; that this decline is principally generational in nature; and that greater prejudice is shown towards more culturally distinct Asian minorities than black minorities. Strong evidence is found for the first two hypotheses, with evidence of an overall decline in prejudice and of a sharp decline in prejudices among generations who have grown up since mass black and Asian immigration began in the 1950s. Little evidence is found for the third hypothesis: British reactions towards black and Asian minorities are broadly similar suggesting racial differences may still be the main factor prompting white hostility to British minorities.     

Race,Ethnicity, and Underemployment in Nonmetropolitan America: A 30‐Year Profile*

Abstract Historically, rural racial and ethnic minorities have been among the most economically disadvantaged groups in the United States. Key to understanding economic deprivation is employment hardship, trends in which serve as a benchmark for progress toward racial and ethnic equality. We conceptualize employment hardship as underemployment, which goes beyond unemployment to include discouraged workers, involuntary part‐time workers, and the working poor. Analyzing data from the March Current Population Surveys of 1968 through 1998, we find that (1) there are large and persistent racial and ethnic inequalities in underemployment prevalence; (2) these disadvantages are explained only partially by other predictors of underemployment; (3) nonmetropolitan (nonmetro) minorities are more likely than either all metropolitan (metro) or central‐city minorities to be underemployed; (4) black‐white inequality has held steady overall, though it has declined markedly in nonmetro areas; and (5) Hispanic‐white inequality has increased; this trend, however, is restricted to metro areas, central cities in particular.     

What do we mean by broadening participation? Race,inequality, and diversity in tech work

In this article, I review the literature on race and racism in tech work and show that challenges related to increasing diversity and inclusion for racial and ethnic minorities are complicated and shaped by both immigration regimes and gender inequalities that do not impact all minority workers the same. I show that people of color are especially likely to be excluded from decision‐making leadership positions, limiting contributions that would shape the form and function of new technologies. Despite the complexity of these obstacles, I argue that addressing them is critical since the technology on which we increasingly rely may embed old racial inequity in an emerging technological landscape. Building from the existing literature, I show that (a) Black and Latinx workers are under‐represented numerically in tech work and those who do enter the field confront racial bias and (b) even though Asians are not numerically underrepresented, workplace practices, often supported by immigration policy and stereotype driven biases, interrupt full participation in decision making. I conclude by arguing that technological products reflect this lack of diversity in ways that further disadvantage communities of color.