race

Researchers have documented racial inequality in a variety of social spaces, finding that blacks and whites face different experiences in domains such as education, employment, and the criminal justice system. Such research often sorts people into uniform racial categories such as “black” and “white.” New directions in this research, however, consider the spectrum of skin color alongside racial identity, assessing whether and how skin shade impacts life chances and social inequalities. A recent study by Ellis Monk describes how skin color relates to policing and punishment, demonstrating there are penalties associated with darker skin.

Monk draws on data from the National Survey of American Life, a nationally representative in-person survey that asks participants about their lives. During this process, interviewers noted participants’ racial identity and the darkness of their skin. Monk then used these variables to determine whether skin color or racial identity predicts participants’ arrests or incarceration. He also considered a variety of other factors, such as participants’ age, education, marital status, poverty, employment, region, history of drug use, and hometown characteristics, to better test whether skin color relates to contact with the criminal justice system.For black Americans, darker skin color is strongly associated with being incarcerated and arrested.

For black Americans, darker skin color is strongly associated with being incarcerated and/or arrested, even considering all of the factors above. In fact, the penalties that darker-skinned blacks face in comparison to light-skinned blacks are comparable to the penalties that blacks as a whole face in comparison to whites. This research highlights how traditional approaches to studying racial inequality can benefit from considering how variations in skin color affect life chances in education, employment, and the criminal justice system.

Missing the school bus is a familiar nightmare for parents everywhere. But for families in school districts with school choice policies there is a bigger timing concern: registering for the school lottery. School choice policies, such as charter schools or open enrollment, allow families to select a school that is different than their traditional neighborhood school, but all of these policies require that families navigate a selection process. New research from Kelley Fong and Sarah Faude finds that missing initial registration deadlines is common and closely linked to race and class, making the timing of registration a key part of educational inequality under school choice.  

Fong and Faude worked with Boston Public Schools, which no longer has traditional neighborhood schools. Instead BPS uses a “compulsory choice policy” that requires new families to register and rank schools in person at a registration center. School registration and assignment for new families begins in January, and families that wait to register later are limited to schools that still have availability — which means that they cannot access top-ranked schools. Administrative data from the district revealed clear race and class stratification in registration timelines. During 2015 and 2016, 83% of white kindergarteners registered in the first round, compared with only 53% of black kindergarteners. Additionally, almost half of kindergarteners in lower-income neighborhoods missed the January deadline.Instead of compulsory choice opening paths to desired schools, a mismatch between family circumstances and bureaucratic processes meant that many families were effectively shut out of the best schools.   

The authors conducted a survey of families who registered in the summer (those who missed all of the school lottery deadlines and must register for remaining spots on a first-come, first-serve basis) and interviews with selected summer registrants. They found that family instability and complex bureaucratic procedures were the most common reasons for late summer registration. Half of the summer registrants indicated a recent move, while others indicated a change in child custody arrangements, changes in family finances, unfamiliarity with the system, and navigating multiple school systems. Instead of compulsory choice opening paths to desired schools, a mismatch between family circumstances and bureaucratic processes meant that many families were effectively shut out of the best schools. This research shows that when and how families register for schools is a major concern for those interested in educational equity.

Research shows that poor communities of color are policed more extensively than other areas, and heavy policing  can substantially alter people’s behavior and identities. Some research indicates that individuals avoid formal institutions (e.g., schools, hospitals), while other research suggests that individuals interpret the increased criminal justice contact as racialized injustice and become more involved in activism. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent to Adult Heath, Brianna Remster and Rory Kramer investigate community members’ varied responses to police contact.

Remster and Kramer found support for both avoidance of formal institutions and increased activism. People with more contact with the criminal justice system were more likely to avoid institutions — contact decreased the likelihood of receiving medical care and banking for members of all racial groups. Although the avoidance response applied to all races across contexts, avoidance tended to be stronger in predominantly minority communities. The researchers also found support for the activism hypothesis — individuals who had been stopped by police were more likely to take an activist role, which was measured by political rally attendance and whether individuals contacted government officials. In other words, after police contact individuals may withdraw for fear of further criminal justice contact, but they may also be inspired to protest unequal policing practices. After police contact individuals may withdraw for fear of further criminal justice contact, but they may also be inspired to protest unequal policing practices.

This research also reveals the far-reaching presence and effects of modern surveillance across many contexts. Although the impacts of aggressive policing may be stronger in some neighborhoods, the impacts were not limited to poor minority communities. People across a variety of contexts respond to increases in criminal justice contact through avoidance and activism. Overall, the findings show that criminal justice contact can alter social life in more than one way beyond the moment of arrest.

Social scientists have long considered how negative stereotypes about racial and ethnic minorities relate to Americans’ opinions about state policies, such as social spending, education, and the criminal justice system. Recent research by Joseph Baker, David Cañarte, and L. Edward Day in The Sociological Quarterly examines a similar but distinct set of attitudes: “xenophobia” — a fear of outsiders or people from different places. This study indicates that xenophobia may be a strong predictor of whether whites support punitiveness in the criminal justice system.

Using data from the Chapman Survey of American Fears, a nationally representative dataset, Baker and colleagues study the relationship between racial attitudes, xenophobia, and attitudes towards punitiveness in the criminal justice system. They measure what participants think of members of specific racial minority groups, as well as several dimensions of anti-immigrant attitudes. In addition, they consider a number of control variables that could affect this relationship, including sociodemographic, political, ideological, and religious characteristics. This study indicates that xenophobia may be a strong predictor of whether whites support punitiveness in the criminal justice system.

Baker and colleagues find that whites’ xenophobic attitudes more strongly predict their punitive attitudes than whites’ attitudes towards blacks or Hispanics. In fact, their analysis suggests that xenophobia is one of the strongest predictors of whites’ punitive attitudes — it even helped explain whites’ punitiveness within categories like political ideology. Furthermore, Baker and colleagues find that the association between xenophobic attitudes and punitiveness is stronger among whites than it is for blacks and Hispanics. Baker and colleagues describe how their results speak to the salience of immigration, anti-immigrant-attitudes, and political ideology in the 2016 presidential election, thus illustrating that a general fear of the “other” affects support for political policies.

Research shows that Asian-American immigrants’ children are often successful in school. Some researchers suggest that Asian-Americans’ cultural or religious beliefs drive this success, while others suggest Asian-American immigrants promote their children’s education because many Asian-American parents themselves are highly educated. There is more to this picture, however. In a recent article in The Sociological Quarterly, Pawan Dhingra explores how Asian-American parents use the need to be competitive and successful in the modern world to frame educational choices. For these Asian-American families, prioritizing educational and extracurricular activities is an active choice made in their children’s interest.

Dhingra uses focus groups and interviews with 60 Indian-American parents who emphasize their children’s education and have experienced economic success in America. He focuses on families “who participate in academic competition (e.g., spelling bees) and after-school mathematics classes, for enrichment.” All participants immigrated to the United States, and had annual family incomes of over $100,000, at least one spouse with a professional degree, and homes located in middle-class and upper-middle class suburbs. Asian-American immigrants’ emphasis on education cannot be reduced to culture or family education — it is also driven by a conscious awareness of the need to be competitive in today’s world.

Dhingra asks these parents why they encourage their children to pursue education and participate in extracurriculars. Many highlight the need to be competitive in the modern world, and they state that education is the best way for their children to maximize their chances of success as opposed to other activities, such as arts or sports. Parents stated that while sports might be an option for other families’ children, their own children would be better off focusing on academics. These findings demonstrate that Asian-American immigrants’ emphasis on education cannot be reduced to culture or family education — it is also driven by a conscious awareness of the need to be competitive in today’s world.  

In a scene familiar to today’s teachers, several students in the classroom are glued to their screens: one is posting to social media, one is playing a computer game, and another is hacking their way past the school’s protective firewall with the skills they perfected from years of interaction with the Internet. Are these students wasting class time or honing the skills that will make them a future tech millionaire? New research from Matthew Rafalow finds that teachers answer that question differently based on the social class and race makeup of the school. Schools that serve primarily White, more privileged students see “digital play” such as video games, social media, and website or video production as building digital competencies that are central to success, while schools that serve larger Latino or Asian populations view digital play as irrelevant or a distraction from learning.

Based on observations of three technology-rich Bay Area middle schools, Rafalow examined whether the skills students develop through digital play are considered cultural capital — skills, habits, and dispositions that that can be traded for success in school and work. Although digital play can lead to skills like finding information online, communicating with others, and producing digital media, classed and raced stereotypes about educational needs and future work prospects affect whether teachers recognize those skills in their students. In other words, Rafalow examined whether teachers reward, ignore, or punish students for digital play in the classroom.Rafalow examined whether teachers reward, ignore, or punish students for digital play in the classroom.

Rafalow found three distinct approaches across the schools. At the first school — a public middle school that largely serves middle-class Asian students — teachers viewed digital play as threatening to their traditional educational practices because it distracted students from “real” learning. Further, teachers believed students comfortable with digital skills could hack standardized tests that had been given electronically. At the second school — a public middle school that largely serves working-class Latino students — teachers discounted any skills that students brought into the classroom through their years of digital play. Instead, teachers thought introducing their students to website design and programming was a more important part of preparing them for 21st century working-class jobs. In contrast, at the third school — a private, largely White middle school — teachers praised skills students developed through digital play as crucial to job success and built a curriculum that further encouraged expression and experimentation online.

The ways teachers in this study approached digital play provide a clear example of how raced and classed expectations of students’ futures determine the range of appropriate classroom behavior.

Racism is not always obvious. It can be hidden in coded political speech or biases towards an ethnic or racial group’s cultural practices and behaviors. Even schools are not immune to this coded language. Recent research by Melanie Jones Gast demonstrates how both teachers and students explain Black students’ poor academic achievement and behavioral problems by blaming their neighborhoods, socioeconomic class, and culture.

Gast used in-depth interviews of 44 self-identified Black students and 14 teachers — both White and Black — at an ethnically and racially diverse California high school. Students were separated into three groups, two “working class” and one “middle class,” with most students falling into the working class groups. Working class students primarily lived in or near urban centers and had parents with high school diplomas or some college, and typically worked in manual labor jobs. Middle class students had at least one parent with higher education and a professional career, and lived near the urban center or in the suburbs. Students in the study were also grouped by enrollment in Honors classes. Interview questions with students and teachers covered topics such as factors related to academic success, ideal teacher-student relations, definitions of “good,” “bad,” “successful,” and “unsuccessful” students, and perceptions of the school, its teachers, and its students. Teachers often dismissed race and focused instead on how cultural norms, family values, poverty, and neighborhood dynamics caused students to underperform or misbehave in school.

Teachers often dismissed race as an issue that affected academic achievement of Black students, focusing instead on how cultural norms, family values, poverty, and neighborhood dynamics caused students to underperform or misbehave in school. Black, middle class students in Honors classes and some working class students echoed these teachers’ sentiments. They associated negative academic outcomes for Black students living in the inner city with gang activity and drugs. Black students in Honors classes often stated that they had good relations with their teachers and thought they could be successful in the classroom independent of their race. On the other hand, working class Black students often felt they could not voice criticisms against teachers when they believed the teachers mistreated them because of their race. This was especially the case when Black students interpreted teachers’ behaviors as preferential treatment toward White students. 

The ways teachers and some students explain the poor academic achievement and behavior problems of some Black students — by blaming Black students’ economic situation, culture, and neighborhood — only perpetuates racial stereotypes. Such language and behavior has the power to maintain, and perhaps exacerbate, the racial achievement gap.

Fathers who do not pay formal child support are often the brunt of media and public scrutiny. Black fathers, in particular, face racial stereotypes that accuse them of being “bad fathers” for not being involved in their children’s lives. Yet, not paying child support may also lead to more serious consequences, such as the accruement of child support debt and jail time for nonpayment of debt. New research by Elizabeth Cozzolino traces this multistep process to explore noncustodial fathers’ risks of receiving jail time for nonpayment of child support.

Cozzolino draws upon responses from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Survey to test which factors lead to a formal child support order; which factors lead to child support debt; and lastly, which factors result in a noncustodial father’s jail time for nonpayment of debt. The author suggests that two key pathways may determine a noncustodial father’s entrance into the criminal justice system: first, the relationship context between the mother and noncustodial father (e.g. securing a new relationship with another partner) and, second, the mother’s use of public assistance such as TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families) or Medicaid.If these punitive patterns continue, the welfare and criminal justice systems will only reproduce inequalities that exacerbate a father’s ability to financially support their children.

Out of the families with noncustodial fathers, roughly 50 percent received orders for child support. A mother’s use of public assistance and a decrease in the quality of the relationship between the mother and noncustodial father increased noncustodial fathers’ likelihood of receiving a formal child support order. Sixty percent of fathers with a child support order accrued child support debt, and this resulted in jail time for 14 percent of them. The use of public assistance by the mother was less important for accruing child support debt, but the relationship context remained salient. Significant factors that increased a noncustodial father’s likelihood of jail time include having multiple children with different partners and owing more than $10,000 in child support debt. If these punitive patterns continue, the welfare and criminal justice systems will only reproduce inequalities that will likely exacerbate a father’s ability to financially support their children.

We say that scent is the strongest sense tied to memory, but is it possible that scents can carry our cultural assumptions as well? Sociologist Karen Cerulo set out to study this question by diving into the world of perfumes. From a list of top-selling perfumes, Cerulo selected one expensive luxury brand, one mid-range brand for workplace professionals, and a bargain brand for everyday use. She collected the marketing materials for each brand to assemble a database of scents for each perfume and the core messages the manufacturers used to promote them. Cerulo then assembled 12 focus groups of volunteers with 73 people in total. She gave each a blind sample of the perfumes and asked them to discuss and describe their reactions to the scents, as well as who they thought the target buyers were for each.

The results were dramatic. Not only did many respondents correctly identify the fragrance notes (like “citrus”, “floral”, or “woodsy”), their descriptions also nailed the marketing materials’ language (like “sexy,” ”strong,” or “edgy”) — match rates ranged from 79% to 93% of focus group members) and the intended customers (such as “young, upper middle class,” with match rates from 63% to 73%).

Here’s the weird part: almost nobody correctly guessed the actual perfumes used in the study (only 6% of respondents got any of them right), and many of them couldn’t describe how they knew the right ideas in the marketing materials. This “nondeclarative culture” (aka: a gut reaction) shows how these implicit cultural messages were tied to the scents, rather than conscious exposure to brands and marketing. This “nondeclarative culture” shows how these implicit cultural messages were tied to the scents, rather than conscious exposure to brands and marketing.

Respondents were also good at matching the scents to stereotypes about race and class, showing how deep these assumptions go. One respondent said “but something about it makes me think Hispanic. It’s noisy. It’s probably from a drugstore…cheap and just too strong.” This research shows how implicit social messages get carried along in our popular culture. Whether we want to sell a product or root out prejudice, we have to remember that we don’t always get to pick our passive perceptions.

Race and racial identity shape the ways people treat us, and people generally classify one another’s race quickly. This becomes more complex, however, for those who don’t fit neatly into a specific racial category. Research by Casey Stockstill shows that social perceptions about people who are multiracial can be shaped by factors such as skin color, as well as the racial identity that a multiracial person expresses.

Stockstill conducted two experiments with business students at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. In the first, participants evaluated an applicant for a peer-counselor position at the school; the application came with a picture of the applicant, a light-skinned male. Stockstill presented four different versions of the applications, changing whether the applicant identified as “black,” “multiracial,” “biracial,” or “white” on their application. Then, in a second experiment, Stockstill did the same thing, but included a picture of a dark-skinned applicant instead. Stockstill asked participants to identify the applicant’s race and determine whether the applicant would be good for the job.

Regardless of skin color or asserted racial identity, participants’ evaluations of the applicants’ qualities and ability to handle the job were relatively similar. Stockstill did, however, find differences in the impacts of skin color and racial self-identity on how participants perceived the applicant’s race. For the most part, participants agreed with both the light-skinned and dark-skinned applicant’s self-presentation as black, biracial, or multiracial. On the other hand, participants were more likely to agree with the light-skinned applicant’s self-presentation as white than they were for the dark-skinned applicant. In other words, skin color was a greater predictor of how participants interpreted the race of multiracial applicants who asserted a white identity. Skin-color was a greater predictor of how participants interpreted the race of multiracial applicants who asserted a white identity.

The racial identity of the participant also mattered. White participants were more likely to state that the applicant was non-white, particularly for the dark-skinned applicant. These findings — highlighting the conflict between skin color and self-asserted racial identification for how people perceive one another’s race — show us the persistence of racial boundaries even in a society that is more racially tolerant than the past. Since this is especially true for multiracial individuals who identify as white, it is clear that the category white has decidedly fewer shades of gray.