race

For many adolescents, schools serve as the epicenter of friendships and peer social engagement. Yet, as disciplinary practices like suspension become increasingly common and disproportionately targeted towards racial and ethnic minority youth, school punishment may not only weaken students’ tie to school, but also their friendships with fellow classmates. Wade C. Jacobsen’s new research examines whether and how school suspension in rural communities impacts current friendships and future engagement with antisocial peers.

To measure changes in friendship networks, Jacobsen examined surveys from 766 students each year between sixth and ninth grade. Each survey asked students to name their closest school friends, the number of times they were suspended, and involvement with substance use and delinquent behavior (e.g. vandalism, fighting, etc.). Jacobsen further observed whether students withdrew from peers, were rejected by peers, and increased involvement with antisocial peers. Disciplinary practices like suspension, which are disproportionately targeted towards racial and ethnic minority youth, may not only weaken students’ tie to school, but also their friendships with fellow classmates.

By the time students reached ninth grade, roughly 40 percent of racial and ethnic minority students experienced suspension versus less than 20 percent of white students. Furthermore, all students who were suspended nominated fewer peers and received less friendship nominations from peers than non-suspended same-grade students in ninth grade. The more times students were suspended, the more likely they were to discontinue friendships. Experiencing at least one school suspension also increased student likelihood of nominating friends who engaged in substance use. At the same time, suspended students held more friendships in different grades and schools than non-suspended students. 

School discipline imposes harmful effects across both urban and rural communities. When administrators design school punishment policies, they must acknowledge that they are carried out in a deeply racialized context and consider their impact on students of color, who are disproportionately targeted by teachers, school administrators, and law enforcement officers. 

Modern policing is often characterized by its quasi-militaristic tendencies, from its stated “wars” on drugs and crime to its use of armored vehicles and automatic weapons. The Department of Defense 1033 Program, which provides military equipment slated for storage to law enforcement agencies, is a popular route by which police and sheriff’s departments acquire military gear. According to data from the Defense Logistics Agency, the acquisitions of military equipment by state and local law enforcement sharply rose to a peak in 2016, but has declined in recent years. But what explains who participates in the DOD’s program and who acquires the most military equipment?

David Rameyand Trent Steidley investigate the factors that pattern whether law enforcement agencies participate in the program and how much gear they acquire using 1033 program participation and U.S. Census and American Community Survey data. They find that participation in the 1033 — but not the value of gear acquired — is greater in areas of higher violent arrests. They also find that, after controlling for crime rates and other factors, higher Black and Hispanic populations correlate to higher levels of participation and greater value acquired.

However, these racial impacts work in a nonlinear fashion. Agencies operating in areas very low and very high in minority presence have low probabilities of program participation, but agencies that serve a more diverse community are most likely to obtain military equipment through the 1033 program. For those that do participate, increases in minority populations raised the value of gear agencies used, with each subsequent increase garnering even more gear than the last (an exponential increase). In other words, program participation increases in response to racial demographics up to an extent, but once an agency decides to participate, the value of military equipment requested dramatically increases as minority populations increase. Once an agency decides to participate in the DOD’s program to get military equipment, the value of equipment requested dramatically increases as racial-minority populations increase.

Police militarization appears to support two key theories. From a classic rational choice perspective, law enforcement agencies respond to increasing crime rates with police militarization, possibly in an attempt to increase the agency’s ability to deter further crime. In contrast, the racial effects found in this study follow  a “minority threat” model, as military acquisitions are patterned by perceptions of racial competition in the presence of racial minority groups. This research illustrates how race, net of the crime rates in an area, can pattern not only where police operate, but how police operate. 

Books like The Rise of Women and The End of Men herald the academic success of young women in the United States today, but the image of the “genius” is still male. And fields that emphasize the importance of raw intelligence, like physics, economics, and computer science are still male-dominated. How can both of these social facts co-exist? New research from Michela Musto suggests that racialized and gendered classroom management practices in schools may be part of the problem. How teachers respond to talking out of turn establishes a hierarchy of intelligence in middle school classrooms, where high-achieving white boys are considered “brilliant” and more exceptional than girls, and low-achieving Black and Latino boys are viewed as “bad.”

Musto spent 2.5 years observing in a public middle-school in Los Angeles, talking to over 190 racially-diverse students. This article examines patterns of rule-breaking, especially talking out of turn, in sixth, seventh, and eighth grade math classes. In higher-level courses, which overwhelmingly consisted of white and Asian students, boys monopolized classroom discussions in eighth grade because teachers tolerated their interruptions and regularly allowed them to challenge their female classmates in sixth and seventh grade. Musto’s data shows that this disparity in who acts as the expert in high-level classrooms contributes to a belief among eighth-grade girls and boys that boys are more exceptionally intelligent than girls. How teachers respond to talking out of turn establishes a hierarchy of intelligence in middle school classrooms.

In lower-level courses, dominated by Black and Latino students, harsh discipline from teachers caused disengagement for some eighth-grade boys. Musto observed that students came to see Latino boys as the “dumbest” kids in school because teachers repeatedly challenged their competency, and high levels of policing left Latino boys academically disengaged. Race also mattered in higher-level classes because teachers tolerated non-academic interruptions from white boys, but not Asian ones. 

Taken together, racialized tracking and teacher response to students helps us understand the continued sense among students that while girls are smart, the truly exceptional students are white boys.

In general, Americans are positive about the idea of “diversity.” Yet, they may also have mixed, ambivalent feelings about living in a diverse area. In a recent article, Erin Hoekstra and Joseph Gerteis show that people express their mixed feelings through discussions of social order and civic engagement. This “civic talk” allows people to speak positively about the idea of diversity while also expressing misgivings about their changing neighborhoods and the presence of new, different groups.

The authors conducted fieldwork and interviews in neighborhoods in Atlanta, Los Angeles, and Minneapolis in the summer of 2003. Each neighborhood was fairly racially homogenous. In Los Angeles and Minneapolis, the neighborhoods were over 75% white, while the neighborhood in Atlanta was over 75% Black. The authors coded their field-notes and interviews to illustrate how people discussed diversity as an ideal in tension with their accounts of personal experiences. By using “civic talk,” residents maintained a positive orientation toward diversity, while simultaneously voicing their misgivings or apprehension about living in a more diverse area.

Participants frequently said that diversity was a positive, harmonious characteristic of their neighborhood. However, several people also discussed discomfort with others in their neighborhood and challenges associated with diversity. In identifying misgivings, participants used two aspects of civic life to voice their concerns. First, residents brought up the concept of “social order” to identify groups or newcomers who they associated with causing trouble or violating neighborhood rules. Second, residents would discuss a groups’ lack of “civic engagement,” such as not participating in the neighborhood association. By using “civic talk,” residents maintained a positive orientation toward diversity in the United States, while simultaneously voicing their misgivings or apprehension about living in a more diverse area.

Party animals are finally proving their point. Meeting the love of our lives, forgiving a friend, or even rethinking the way we experience ourselves are more likely to happen at a party than when washing dishes at home. In a new study, Alice Goffman casts her sociological eye on how social occasions — from drinks in a bar to birthday parties — can turn into transformative experiences.

Like a kaleidoscope, the nitty-gritty details of how people organize their events, their motivations to attend, the proper social norms, and what is required for social occasions to succeed follow intricate patterns. To interpret their complexity, Goffman and her research team deployed several strategies:

Goffman started to take notes and interview attendees when she attended social occasions in 2009. In addition, during the fall 2017 semester, 15 undergraduate students wrote weekly event journals as part of a college course and shared these diaries to be analyzed in the study. Finally, Goffman’s research team turned to The New York Times’ marriage section, online websites, and literary work for accounts of turning points and transitions in people’s lives. Goffman’s notes, undergraduates’ diaries, and people’s experiences helped her to understand social occasions as platforms for the emergence of life-changing moments.

Social occasions range from a visit to the doctor to the celebration of a bar mitzvah. Some of these events — parties especially — represent a special realm where people design exceptional atmospheres by decorating, dressing up, or displaying outstanding cooking. The ambiance aims to relax existent social boundaries and release attendees from the mundane pressures of everyday life. Likewise, gatherings bring together disparate people who share similar social connections, interests or activities, and create a sense of communion. The combination of heightened energy, social commonalities, and collision of divergent words gives people an opportunity to perceive things differently and think differently about themselves. Parties reinvent friendships, launch marriages, and boost professional careers by prompting people to revisit their personal plans and discovering new social connections.

Social occasions do not always run smoothly. As energy and relaxation go up, people become more vulnerable to moments of acute disrespect or embarrassment, causing lasting damage for social relationships. Social occasions also force participants to reveal their social preferences and personal rankings, so gatherings become de facto popularity contests based on, for instance, who is included in the guests lists or who gets social attention. Social norms around greetings, proper topics of discussion, or how to dance competently challenge guests to perform a complex’ choreography that others will watch and judge. People in parties thus discover their and others’ social relevance. Social occasions force participants to reveal their social preferences and personal rankings; gatherings become de facto popularity contests.

Social occasions have a flip side too. Racial discrimination, lack of economic or social capital, or not having an able body generate invisible restrictions to accessing and experiencing social occasions. Future research is required to identify how structural inequalities limit access to these transformative experiences.

If you make at least $859,000 per year in 2016 dollars, you’re part of the “one percent”– the top 1% of income earners in the United States. According to a recent study by Jill E. Yavorsky, Lisa A. Keister, Yue Qian and Michael Naud, you’re most likely to be part of the one percent if you’re a highly educated, white, married or cohabiting man or woman in your 50s, but individuals that don’t match those characteristics are much less likely to be.

The researchers used data from the U.S. Federal Reserve Board Survey of Consumer Finances from 1995 to 2016, which includes 40,418 one-percent households. They examine whether there has been a change in the gender makeup of the one percent and how many households in the one percent rely on women’s income to remain in this top category.

In 2016, only 4.5% of elite households rely on women’s income for one-percent status. While this number has increased modestly since 1995 — when only 1.7% of households relied on women’s income — a financial glass ceiling remains intact at the one percent level, and gender progress has effectively “stalled” for these women since the mid-1990s.In 2016, only 4.5% of elite households rely on women’s income for one-percent status.

Education, employment, age, and race affect whether households fall in the top one percent, but their analysis show key differences between men and women:  

• Higher education. A higher percentage of both married and single men and women in the top one percent of households are highly educated, compared with those in the full population. 
• Self-employment. Men and women in the top one percent are much more likely to be self-employed than those in the general population. Married men are much more likely to be self-employed than married women. 
• Age. Married and single men and women in one percent households are older, on average, than the general population. The average age for single women is 63, which is 9 to 12 years older than others in the one percent. 
• Race. Households in the top one percent are less racially diverse than households in the general population: Of married households in the top one percent, had respondents who identified as nonwhite, while only 3% of single-women households did.

In short, the same variables matter for both men and women, but key differences illustrate a continued gender imbalance.

Millions of students each year are suspended or expelled from school, sometimes in response to minor, non-violent policy violations such as skipping class and “disruptive behavior.” These harsh policies disproportionately push out students from disadvantaged backgrounds, especially youth of color. Much of the research on this topic focuses on middle and high school students. However, a new study by Wade Jacobsen, Garrett Pace, and Nayan Ramirez shows that a surprising number of urban students are already impacted by the third grade.

The researchers used data from several thousand children in 20 large American cities to document how many were suspended or expelled by age 9. Overall, 11% of children were removed from school at least once by this age. However, there were stark race and gender inequalities in elementary school discipline. Only 8% of white boys and 2% of white girls were suspended or expelled, compared with 40% of black boys and 15% of black girls.

Next, the researchers wanted to understand what factors are driving inequalities in early school discipline. They found that racial disparities were not due to differences in behavior reported by parents. Instead, disparities were mostly explained by school disciplinary practices and family background, such as poverty and parental incarceration.Only 8% of white boys and 2% of white girls were suspended or expelled, compared with 40% of black boys and 15% of black girls.

Exclusionary discipline is intended to punish and reduce aggressive behavior. However, the researchers showed that children who were suspended or expelled became more physically aggressive after they returned to school. They suggest that suspension and expulsion disrupt routines at home and cause children to fall behind at school, and this increased stress may lead to poor behavior.

While exclusionary discipline may sometimes be necessary to ensure student safety, there can be little disagreement that pushing kids out of schools when they are still learning to read is a practice that should be reconsidered. Finding effective alternatives to exclusionary discipline for non-violent behavior at an early age could improve racial equity in life-long educational outcomes.

“Broken-windows” policing was a popular policing strategy in the 1990s that emphasized aggressive policing of low-level crimes as a way to reduce more serious crimes in an area. However, broken-windows policing led to racial disparities in stops and arrests in many cities where it was implemented. Recent research by Joscha Legewie  and Jeffery Fagandemonstrates that such disparities in police stops and arrests can have far-reaching impacts on youth educational performance. Specifically, they found that in New York City, broken-windows policing led to diminished educational successes among African American boys in particular.

Legewie and Fagan tested the effect of policing program, “Operation Impact,” which began in 2004. Over its 10 years in existence, Operation Impact targeted high-crime areas of the city for increased stop-and-frisks of pedestrians and officers were encouraged to make arrests for low-level offenses. Legewie and Fagan argue that Operation Impact could have two potential impacts on educational performance among youth: 1) it could lead to major reductions in crime which could increase academic performance in high-crime areas or 2) it could diminish educational achievement due to negative direct and indirect contacts with police.

The authors employ data from two major sources to test this relationship: a database of NYC student records from 2003 to 2012 and NYPD data on pedestrian stops, crime complaints, and arrests during Operation Impact from 2004 to 2012. They adopt a difference-in-differences analytic approach to assess the before and after impacts of Operation Impact on crime and educational performance. The NYPD expanded, moved, removed, or added impact zones every six months during implementation of Operation Impact, which allowed Legewie and Fagan to estimate the causal effect of the program on youth educational performance by accounting for other neighborhood factors that could confound their findings. Operation Impact lowered educational performance of black boys in the neighborhoods affected, especially those between the ages of 13 to 15.

Operation Impact lowered educational performance of black boys in the neighborhoods affected, especially those between the ages of 13 to 15. They find that this reduced educational performance was related to decreased school attendance among African American boys, suggesting that this form of system avoidance may be partly to blame for bad test scores.

This research demonstrates how broken-windows policing strategies have had far-reaching consequences for opportunity gaps in education. The analysis suggests that while Operation Impact reduced violent and property crime rates, its costs to students’ educational success outweighed these crime reductions.

On April 18th, police officer Christopher Krickovich faced public criticism for rough handling a Black teenager at a local school. Similar incidents across the nation have compelled Black parents to talk to their children about how to navigate and survive police interactions. Most of these conversations use familiar high-profile cases involving Black men such as Michael Brown and Eric Gardner to illustrate the danger with police contact. Yet, Black girls and women have largely been neglected as targets of police brutality. In a recent study, Shannon Malone Gonzalez reveals that Black girls are not only left out of public discourse regarding police violence, but also the everyday “police talk” Black mothers use to teach Black children how to navigate interactions with law enforcement.

Gonzalez conducted interviews with 30 middle- and working-class Black mothers in an urban city. Each mother had one or more children between the ages of four and thirteen and 21 Black mothers had at least one daughter. During her interviews, Gonzalez asked Black mothers to reflect on their children’s racial and gendered vulnerabilities to police violence and how these perceptions of vulnerability informed police talk with their children. Black mothers often categorized Black sons as the primary targets of police brutality and Black daughters as collateral targets or “secondary victims.”

Black mothers often utilized the “making it home” framework when discussing police with their children. Through double consciousness — understanding one’s own vulnerabilities through the lens of the dominant group — this framework teaches Black youth to be hyperaware of police stereotypes that reproduce notions of Black criminality. Mothers provide suggestions for how Black youth should interact with law enforcement to increase their chances of “making it home” safely. Black mothers believe these talks are vital for their children’s survival.

At the same time, Gonzalez points out that these talks marginalize the experiences of Black girls in three ways. First, Black mothers often categorized Black sons as the primary targets of police brutality and Black daughters as collateral targets or “secondary victims.” Even when asked about girls, several mothers turn their attention back to their sons. Second, these talks reinforce the idea that violence associated with masculinity, such as physical assault and shootings, are more important than verbal harassment or sexual violence — experiences that are more often linked to women’s experiences of police misconduct. The “making it home” narrative also treats the home as an inherently safe space, even though homes often function as a site of police violence for Black girls and women. Finally, mothers see police talk as crucial for boys’ socialization but optional for their daughters. Through her work, Gonzalez encourages us to make Black women’s and girls’ experiences with police more visible in our understandings of police-community relations.

Contesting individual’s claims to Indigenous ancestry is nothing new; a notable example is Elizabeth Warren’s ancestry testing and Donald Trump’s repeated “Pocahontas” jeers. Proving authentic group heritage is something many Americans never think about, but such dynamics are common for Indigenous persons.

The labels, “Native American,” “Indigenous,” and “American Indian,” are social constructions rooted in the story of colonization. Indigenous populations in present-day United States were subject to state policies and institutions that lumped many different groups into the label, “Native American.” As a legacy of these policies, people have to provide proof of Native American ancestry to be considered official tribal members. In new research published in Sociology of Race and Ethnicity, Dwanna L. McKay explores how Indigenous people draw on different strategies to navigate these complicated systems of belonging and proving identity. Proving authentic group heritage is something many Americans never think about, but such dynamics are common for Indigenous Peoples.

Interviewing 45 Native American participants, McKay describes two dominant methods they use to defend their identity as authentic Indigineous Peoples. First, there is “blood quantum,” a term that refers to how much Native ancestry or family a person can point to in their family tree. The other common way to display authenticity is producing one’s “Indian Card,” a certificate that some Indigenous people receive as proof of their heritage. For several interviewees, these cards not only represent a structural and political qualification, but also hold cultural and personal significance.  

Of course, blood quantums and Indian cards are specific to Native Americans; members of other races in the United States do not have to similarly prove their ancestry or identity. This distinct picture is a product of colonialism and the subsequent categorization, marginalization, and isolated Indigenous populations. Today, such history has affected how people experience race and negotiate Indigenous authenticity.