race

Brown v. Board of Education ushered in a new era of legal action in school districts to promote racial integration in the 1960s and 1970s. Since the 1990s, however, desegregation efforts in schools have begun to stall, and some research suggests that white flight and poor economic conditions have actually worsened racial segregation in school districts. To address these issues, John Logan, Weiwei Zhang, and Deirdre Oakley explore school desegregation trends in metropolitan areas from 1970 to 2010.   

The study draws from an index of 358 court cases from the American Communities Project and data on the racial composition of schools compiled from multiple sources. Logan and colleagues use multilevel modeling techniques to examine segregation within districts, the effects of court mandates on this trend, and the effect of mandates on white flight at the district level. 

They find that most desegregation at the metropolitan level occurred between 1970 and 1980, with little change after 1990, particularly in the South. At the district level, white and black students attend districts with larger shares of minorities, suggesting that both white and black students are becoming less isolated at school from other minority groups like Asian and Latino students. The findings indicated that legal mandates have had a substantial impact on both desegregation and changes in white enrollment within districts — districts that faced an initial desegregation mandate in the 1970s reduced segregation in their schools more than districts with no mandate. Desegregation mandates, however, also resulted in white flight between districts, slightly diminishing desegregation gains within districts.  Desegregation gains made in the formative years following Board v. Brown may have been superseded by a “post-desegregation status quo” 

Together, these findings suggest that the unprecedented desegregation gains made in the formative years following Board v. Brown may have been superseded by a “post-desegregation status quo” due to white flight. Thus, despite an abundance of court litigation in metropolitan areas, desegregation within schools has essentially reached a stalemate.

The concept of “colorblind racism” was first popularized by Eduardo Bonilla-Silva in his groundbreaking book Racism with Racists. He explains how people in the 21st century are quick to say they do not see race, or that we live in a post-racial society, in order to demonstrate that they themselves are not racist. While this might not seem like a bad thing at first glance, colorblind ideas often underplay the continued existence of racism and racial inequality. This often results in blaming racial minorities rather than thinking about how systems and institutions perpetuate racial and economic inequality. 

Most research on the concept of colorblind racism has focused on conservatives and/or Republicans, but Meghan Burke tackles the bipartisan nature of colorblindness by focusing on “racial codes,” which are the colorblind ways in which Americans talk about racial issues without ever really discussing race. As Burke states, “racial codes allow these deeply racialized social issues to be discussed in seemingly race-neutral terms, thereby preserving colorblindness as an important moral stance” (291). In interviews with two groups — residents of a diverse, liberal neighborhood and members of a Tea Party organization in the Chicago area — Burke shows readers that both liberals and conservatives use colorblind language. In both groups, people are quick to say that racism is bad, that racism is over, and that they’re not racist, in order to construct an identity of a good, moral person.

One of the problems with this moral stance, according to Burke, is that it does not address the existence of racial inequality — if anything, colorblind ideologies work to ignore or hide such inequality. Burke found that both liberal and conservative participants talked about welfare, public housing, and street “hooligans” in ways which seemingly ignore race but do more than hint at the idea that local African-Americans are the problem. Burke’s research forces social scientists to reconsider previous understandings of race and racism in politics, drawing attention to how people across the political spectrum avoid discussing race, downplay the existence of racism, and see inequality as a result of individual issues.

The recent increase in hate crimes and normalization of public anti-immigrant attitudes have contributed to undocumented immigrants fearing family separation and deportation. For the roughly 2.5 million undocumented children and adults living in the U.S., socioeconomic resources like physical and mental healthcare services, employment, and education are limited. Under these conditions, “ontological security” – or the degree to which one feels secure within their social environment – becomes vital. A new study by Elizabeth Vaquera, Elizabeth Aranda, Isabel Sousa-Rodriguez provides new insight into the ways in which young undocumented adults develop a sense of security and attempt to cope with their precarious legal status.

The authors interviewed 53 undocumented and formerly undocumented young adults residing in Florida that were recruited through immigration advocacy organizations. Participants’ ages ranged from 18 to 33 and at least half migrated from Mexico. Interviews addressed several topics related to emotional and psychological well-being, including background immigration stories, family life, educational history, and racial/ethnic identity.

The researchers find that undocumented young adults experience a variety of emotions related to their status. For example, many participants reported low self-esteem. Other participants reported feeling frustrated that their status limited access to a number of colleges and jobs for which they could participate. Additional feelings included isolation, fear, anxiety and insecurity. One person described the constant fear of public officials who could potentially remove them or members of their family, saying, “Growing up it was any person that looked official. You just stay away from them … mall security guards, anyone that looked official. They terrified me!” For some, retaining Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) provided some temporary relief, though many still struggled with sadness and depression. Networking with peers of similar legal statuses helps create strong peer networks and may help empower young undocumented adults to develop positive coping strategies and solutions.

To cope with these feelings, the interviewees were found to engage in both positive and negative coping strategies. Positive coping mechanisms included engaging in charity work, confiding in close family and friends, playing sports, and listening to music. Others reported feeling little hope in improved circumstances and turned to more disruptive behaviors. These participants resorted to things like drinking, smoking, harming themselves, displaying anger, and pondering suicidal thoughts. Yet despite these feelings, the authors note that networking with peers of similar legal statuses helps create strong peer networks and may help empower young undocumented adults to develop positive coping strategies and solutions. As we move forward in the current political climate, pro-immigrant advocacy organizations will be an important piece to supporting undocumented individuals and families.

African Americans have long endured criticism about their spending habits. Conservative campaigns in the 1980s and 90s used stereotypical images of “gold diggers” and “welfare queens” to convince white, middle-class Americans that low-income minorities not only drained government resources, but also spent those resources on frivolous items. Republican Congressman Jason Chaffetz played to these sentiments recently when he said, “Americans have choices, and they’ve gotta make a choice. And so maybe, rather than getting that new iPhone that they just love and they want to spend hundreds of dollars on, maybe they should invest in their own healthcare.” New research by Raphaël Charron-Chénier, Joshua Fink and Lisa Keister goes beyond such individual-level explanations to investigate the structural factors that contribute to racial disparities in consumption.

The authors use data from a nationally representative sample of over 9,500 households from the 2013 and 2014 Consumer Expenditure Surveys. These surveys measure total household purchases, including spending on food, entertainment, health care, housing, transportation and utilities. The authors then examined differences between black households and white households across low, middle, and high socioeconomic statuses. 
Low-income blacks are less likely than whites to spend money on goods that require large amounts of money up front. 

Charron-Chénier and colleagues show that the average total spending for black households was significantly less than for white households, with black households spending $8,387 and white households spending $13,713.  More specifically, blacks spent less on housing, transportation, healthcare, and entertainment. Low-income blacks in particular also spent less money on goods that required significant amounts of money up front than did low-income whites, though this difference diminished with income increases. Black households, however, did spend more than white households on goods that required long-term contracts, such as utilities, due to the threat of late fines and fees. So despite common criticisms about black consumer spending habits, this research shows that blacks actually spend far less than whites on “frivolous” items like new iPhones and they spend more on the long-term costs of maintaining a household. 

Research shows that both race and class can influence health, physical activity, and exercise, yet little is known about how multiple identities intersect to influence fitness habits. If middle-class adults are more likely to exercise than low-income adults, then why are middle-class blacks less physically active than middle-class whites?

To examine how race, class, and gender all intersect to shape physical activity, Rashawn Ray designed “The Barriers and Incentives to Physical Activity Survey,” which asked 482 respondents questions about their physical activity habits as well as about how they perceived the racial composition of their neighborhood. The study only included black men, black women, white men, and white women, oversampled for black men and women, and used demographic factors like occupation, education level, and income to identify middle-class respondents.

Ray found that the perceived blackness of a neighborhood had a remarkable influence on who participates in physical activity. Most notably, he found that “black men’s level of physical activity significantly decreases in neighborhoods perceived to be predominantly white whereas black women’s physical activity significantly decreases in neighborhoods perceived to be predominantly black and urban.” Unsurprisingly, white women and white men are more likely to be physically active when living in neighborhoods that are predominantly white. 

 Ray draws from intersectionality and feminist literature to make sense of the findings. Women’s concerns about safety and street harassment, Ray suggests, may influence black women’s reduced activity in neighborhoods perceived of as less safe, which are typically urban and predominantly black. Safer, more affluent neighborhoods are also more likely to have resources like childcare and women’s-only fitness spaces that could increase the likelihood of physical activity. On the other hand, black men experience frequent criminalization and may avoid physical activity in predominantly white neighborhoods where they are perceived as threatening. They may opt to exercise in predominantly black neighborhoods, even though these neighborhoods were identified as having fewer resources than white neighborhoods.  For many black men and women, the risks associated with physical activity may outweigh the benefits of exercise. 

These findings highlight the complex relationship people have with their bodies, their activities, and their communities. It also suggests that for many black men and women, the risks associated with physical activity may outweigh the benefits of exercise.

School is often a space where racial and ethnic identities are shaped and constructed. Most notably, Black students within white schools have been found to develop racial identities through shared experiences of racism with same-race peers. New research by Bedelia Richards illustrates how this process works for West-Indian students who are often lumped into a “black” racial category by school officials and peers. Yet, Richards finds that despite the school’s racial ascriptions, West-Indian students develop ways to celebrate their various ethnic identities.

Richards conducted four months of observation and twelve interviews at Mayfield High School in Brooklyn, which has a diverse student body of white, African-American, West-Indian, and Asian pupils. School officials participate in tracking, which allows teachers and administrators to assign students different academic trajectories. “Gifted” students are placed within the highest tracks, while struggling students are often placed in “remedial” classes. Richards finds that Asian and white students are most likely to be placed in the highest academic tracks, whereas African-American and West-Indian students are most likely to be placed in the lowest tracks. These tracks become racialized, as teachers and administrators inadvertently reinforce understandings of “black” through mistreatment and stigmatization.  Racialized tracking intensifies racial group consciousness, while simultaneously increasing the salience of ethnic identity among West-Indian students. 

Even as these students are exposed to this racialization through tracking, West Indian students express pride in their individual heritage by speaking in Jamaican, Guyanese, and Haitian. In fact, Richards argues that this process intensifies racial group consciousness, while simultaneously increasing the salience of ethnic identity among West-Indian students. In short, Richards’ research highlights the ways that school processes like tracking can have consequences on both students’ racial and ethnic identities.

Previous sociological research has revealed that part of women’s lower earnings compared to those of men come from a “motherhood penalty.” Not only are mothers more likely to face discrimination in hiring, employers and colleagues also perceive them as less committed to their work due to the responsibilities of rearing children. Additionally, when mothers take time off to take care of children, they often come back to the same job with lower wages than they had previously. 

Paula England and her colleagues set out to determine if the motherhood penalty differently affects employed women across earning brackets and job skills. They studied women from nationally representative survey data (NLSY79) that follows the same group of similarly aged people over time. They classify mothers as any woman in the dataset who had given birth or adopted a child. To answer how the motherhood penalty varies by cognitive skill within the same wage level, they use respondents’ scores on the Armed Forces Qualifying Test, then divided the respondents into either a low or high score group. Additionally, the researchers use educational attainment as a control variable. Then, they create a second set of statistical models to analyze the differences in motherhood penalty between those in the top fifth percentile of hourly wages versus those in the bottom fifth.  Highly skilled white women with wages in the 80th and above percentile suffer the biggest motherhood penalty. 

The results show that highly skilled white women with wages in the 80th and above percentile suffer the biggest motherhood penalty, losing 10% in wages for each of their children. This loss is significantly larger than the penalties for women with similarly high skills but low wages or less skilled women with earnings in either the high or low wage group. This is surprising because women with high skills and high wages tend to have the most continuous job experience compared to other women. But because the correlation between wages and experience is so steep, even dropping out of the workforce to rear children for a short time makes it extremely difficult for highly skilled, highly paid women to make up for lost time. For black women across wage groups and skill levels, interestingly, the motherhood penalties overall are less than they are for white women; however, black women overall have lower wages than white women from the start. Privilege, it seems, has its price in the form of high motherhood penalties.

Recent estimates from Child Trends indicate that nearly seven percent of children in the U.S. have experienced parental incarceration. And this rate is twice as high among black children. Most of the current research on the negative impacts of parental incarceration focuses on the effects of a father’s imprisonment on boys’ behavioral problems — boys with incarcerated fathers often act out in school and at home. To expand beyond this research, Anna R. Haskins examines the effects of paternal incarceration on both young boys and girls’ cognitive development and across racial lines.

Haskins analyzed a sample of over two thousand children from the Fragile Families project, a longitudinal study that tracks children and their parents across twenty large U.S. cities. Focusing on the first 9 years of the child’s life, she observed four skills representing cognitive development: verbal ability, reading comprehension, mathematical problem-solving, and attention span. She then determined if a father’s incarceration negatively impacts these key developmental areas during middle childhood. If white Americans were incarcerated at the same rate as African Americans, the black-white achievement gaps at age nine in reading, math, and attention skills would reduce by a range of seven to fourteen percent. 

Findings suggest that the experience of paternal incarceration diminishes a child’s reading, math, and attentional capacities, but not their verbal abilities. But these effects differ between boys and girls. While girls experience reduced reading and math skills, boys are more likely to exhibit a reduced attention span. Preliminary estimates also indicate that racial disparities in paternal incarceration contribute to racial inequality in the achievement gap. In other words, if white Americans were incarcerated at the same rate as African Americans, the black-white achievement gaps at age nine in reading, math, and attention skills would reduce by a range of seven to fourteen percent.

Haskins argues that children of an incarcerated parent may face undue stress, trauma, or stigma, which may latently impact cognitive capacities. In addition to perpetuating racial inequities in educational attainment, the collateral consequences of paternal incarceration extend “beyond boys’ bad behavior,” negatively impacting both young boys’ and girls’ cognitive skills.

Senior year of high school is often an exciting time for students, as many make decisions about higher education and nervously await college admission letters. Yet, not all seniors join their peers in the move to higher education. The sociological “life-course labeling perspective” suggests that students already involved with the criminal justice system face the enduring consequences of a criminal record and many are forced to take alternative pathways after high school. Drawing from this perspective, Alex Widdowson, Sonja Siennick, and Carter Hay examine how being arrested in high school affects college enrollment.

The authors draw from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth to test whether a student’s arrest within the first three years of high school impedes enrollment into 2-year and 4-year colleges within 9 months after graduation. Out of the 1761 students sampled, nine percent had been arrested during their first three years of high school. The authors also examined a sample of youths who received a GED or dropped out of high school. The authors find that people who had been arrested during high school were more likely to be Black and male, to engage in higher levels of delinquency, and to exhibit lower levels of interest in school. Further, they found that high school graduated youths that were arrested were 42 percent less likely to enroll in 4-year college programs within 9 months after graduating high school, and 41 percent less likely after 10 years. Arrests for GED and high school dropouts followed a similar pattern. However, arrest had no direct effect on enrolling in a 2-year college.  High school students that were arrested were 42% less likely to enroll in four-year college programs. 

The authors conclude that arrest rates account for much of these findings because being arrested hinders performance in school. Youths’ who were arrested had lower GPAs and decreased participation in advanced coursework, which weakened the competitiveness of their college applications and deterred them from enrolling in college. Therefore, improving youths’ performance may limit the long-term effects of an arrest within an economy that increasingly relies on higher education for a stable income.

Recent high-profile incidents of police violence against black citizens have spoiled the reputation and legitimacy of legal authorities among many Americans. In a new study, Matthew Desmond, Andrew V. Papachristos, and David S. Kirk investigate one of the consequences of this police misconduct and its accompanying legal cynicism — people are less likely to call 911 to report criminal activity.

Using 911 call data from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and U.S. Census neighborhood characteristics, the researchers analyze how crime reporting calls fluctuated in the weeks following the high-profile beating of Frank Jude, a black male citizen. Controlling for the level of crime reporting before the incidents, time variation, and neighborhood block-group characteristics, they find that levels of citizen reporting significantly decreased in the weeks following the incident, and that this effect was particularly strong in majority black neighborhoods. This drop in crime reporting lasted for over a full year after the beating, and resulted in an estimated 22,200 fewer 911 crime reporting calls. The researchers also replicate this finding with three other cases of police violence, and show that 911 calls for car accidents were not altered in response to the incidents, suggesting that the reduction in calls was not due to some concurrent event impacting emergency calls overall.  The drop in crime reporting lasted for over a full year and resulted in 22,200 fewer 911 calls.

This study illustrates how the high-profile cases of police force do not just impact those closely connected to the perpetrator and victim, but have broader consequences for police-community relations. The decrease in citizen crime reporting can have tragic outcomes for public safety, and the authors note that the uptick in Milwaukee homicides following the Frank Jude beating could be, in part, the result of decreased 911 calls. Overall, the research highlights how seemingly “isolated incidents,” at least as framed by police departments and politicians, can have wide-ranging effects across a community.