December 2007, Volume 86, Number 2

Framing the French Riots: A Comparative Study of Frame Variation

David A. Snow, Universityof California, Irvine
Rens Vliegenthart, University of Amsterdam
Catherine Corrigall-Brown, University of British Columbia

In an attempt to advance understanding of frame variation and the factors that account for it, we conduct a comparative study of how the Fall 2005 French “riots” were framed diagnostically and prognostically. We examine these framing activities across a diverse set of actors and assess the role of ideological, contextual, attributional and temporal factors hypothesized to account for the observed variation. The data come from a content analysis of articles on the French riots that appeared in newspapers from a half dozen countries during the period in which the riots occurred. Our findings, based primarily on variance and regression analyses, reveal varied support for our hypotheses, suggest the theoretical and analytical utility of examining frame variation beyond the French riots, and raise questions that call for further empirical inquiry regarding framing processes.

Deconstructing Cultural Omnivorousness 1982-2002:
Heterology in Americans’ Musical Preferences

Ercilia García-Álvarez, Universitat Rovira i Virgili de Tarragona, Spain
Tally Katz-Gerro, University of Haifa, Israel
Jordi López-Sintas, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain

This research examines heterogeneity in Americans’ musical tastes by separating breadth and level of taste, taking into account the structural constraints such as cohort, period, social class, gender and racial composition, which have shaped Americans’ musical preferences over the past 20 years. We identify four types of respondents who share similar taste patterns that correspond to different degrees of omnivorousness: omnivores, limited, temperates and moderates. We argue that taste patterns deviate from the usual elitist basis in that omnivores are depicted as both highbrow individuals with lowbrow taste and non-highbrow individuals with lowbrow taste. We also find that structural constraints have little impact on breadth of tastes among omnivores and a relatively high impact on breadth of tastes among limited, temperates and moderates. Heterology is emphasized (rather than the Bourdieuvian homology) in an examination of the equivalence between the social structure and the cultural sphere. Heterology recognizes that breadth and level of taste are two independent dimensions of cultural consumption.

National Income, Inequality and Global Patterns of Cigarette Use

Fred Pampel, Universityof Colorado, Boulder

Declining tobacco use in high-income nations and rising tobacco use in low- and middle-income nations raises questions about the sources of worldwide patterns of smoking. Theories posit a curvilinear influence of national income based on the balance of affordability and health-cost effects. In addition, however, economic inequality, gender inequality and government policies may moderate the rise and fall in smoking prevalence with national income. This study tests these arguments using aggregate data for 145 nations and measures of smoking prevalence circa 2000. The results show nonlinear effects of national income for males that take the form of an inverted U, but show linear effects for females. They also show non-additive effects of economic inequality for males that moderate both the rise and decline of smoking with national income and non-additive effects of gender equality for females that moderate the positive effect of national income.

The Institutional Context of Industry Consolidation:
Radio Broadcasting in the United States, 1920-1934

Stephen Lippmann, Miami University

Shortly after the first commercial radio broadcast in 1920, the medium’s popularity exploded and the number of stations on the dial grew tremendously. By 1930, however, a mere 10 years after the first radio broadcast occurred, the industry was dominated by large, commercial stations who sold advertising time in a variety of forms and were operated to generate profi t. Because of the nature of broadcasting organizations and markets, explanations based on competitive dynamics and organizational fitness cannot explain this dramatic change in the broadcasting industry. In the absence of a competitive advantage, I argue that this concentration was the result of institutional shift s in legitimate organizational practices and the political environment in which broadcasters operated.

The Interactive Effects of Race, Gender and School
Composition on College Track Placement

Stephanie Southworth, University of North Carolina at Charlotte
Roslyn Arlin Mickelson, University of North Carolina at Charlotte

This article investigates how organizational features of high schools interact with students’ ascriptive characteristics to shape opportunities to learn. It advances previous research by examining the intersection of students’ gender-by-race cohort with their high schools’ racial composition on their Grade 12 English track placement in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools. Using HLM with a sample of seniors, we find that school racial composition has significant effects on the track placement of different race-gender cohorts, and that schools’ racial compositions interact with students’ ascriptive characteristics in these processes. Net of prior achievement, track placements are influenced by individual and family characteristics, as well as school racial composition. Attending a racially imbalanced school affects students’ chances of enrolling in college-prep tracks. Racially balanced high schools off er all students the greatest equality of access to college prep tracks.

Are Blacks Really Less Trusting than Whites?
Revisiting the Race and Trust Question

Brent Simpson, University of South Carolina
Tucker McGrimmon, University of South Carolina
Kyle Irwin, University of South Carolina

Many scholars have concluded that blacks are less trusting than whites. The research presented here calls that conclusion into question. Previous research has been based on the standard trust measure, which may not be well suited to understanding how trust varies with social categories such as race. Building on theories of self-categorization and social identity, we argue that blacks are not less trusting than whites as suggested in previous work. Instead trust is expected to be greater within race-category boundaries than across race-category boundaries. A new experiment designed to test this argument is employed. The results strongly support our predictions. This research also addresses how trustworthiness varies with race-category. Results for trustworthiness do not map on to those for trust. Instead, blacks in this research show a higher level of trustworthiness than whites, regardless of other’s race-category.

New Directions in Race Research

A Special Section edited by:

Charles A. Gallagher, Georgia State University

*Reinventing the Color Line
Immigration and America’s New Racial/Ethnic Divide

Jennifer Lee, Universityof California, Irvine
Frank D. Bean, Universityof California, Irvine

Contemporary nonwhite immigration from Latin America and Asia, increasing racial/ethnic intermarriage, and the growing number of multiracial individuals has made the black-white color line now seem anachronistic in America, consequently raising the question of whether today’s color line is evolving in new directions toward either a white-nonwhite divide, a black-nonblack divide, or a new tri-racial hierarchy. In order to gauge the placement of today’s color line, we examine patterns of multiracial identification, using both quantitative data on multiracial reporting in the 2000 U.S. Census and in-depth interview data from multiracial individuals with Asian, Latino or black backgrounds. These bodies of evidence suggest that the multiracial identifications of Asians and Latinos (behaviorally and self-perceptually) show much less social distance from whites than from blacks, signaling the likely emergence of a black-nonblack divide that continues to separate blacks from other groups, including new nonwhite immigrants. However, given that the construction of whiteness as a category has been fluid in the past and appears to be stretching yet again, it is also possible that the color line will change still further to even more fully incorporate Asians and Latinos as white, which would mean that the historical black-white divide could again re-emerge.

*Measuring Latinos:
Racial vs. Ethnic Classification and Self-Understandings

Steven Hitlin, University of Iowa
J. Scott Brown, Miami University
Glen H. Elder, Jr., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

The measurement of Hispanics in the 2000 U.S. Census significantly skews the racial identification of the Hispanic population in America. The literature on racial and ethnic identification, however, lacks serious engagement with the social psychology of self-identification. We draw on social identity theory to demonstrate how the process of individual self-categorization reinforces a society structured along racial and ethnic lines. This understanding of the psychological processes through which individuals categorize themselves and others leads to the conclusion that academic distinctions between “race” and “ethnicity” do not adequately reflect the social categories employed by Americans responding to the current U.S. government format for racial self-identification. Using a nationally representative sample, we demonstrate that a significant portion of self-reported Hispanics treat that identity as a race, most oft en by choosing “other” when asked for their racial classification. Ultimately, we advocate including “Hispanic” as one of the choices in what is currently called the “race question.” This approach more accurately captures the lived experience of those who claim an Hispanic identity.

*Modeling Determinants of White Racial Identity:
Results from a New National Survey

Paul R. Croll, University of Minnesota

White racial identity is central to whiteness studies. In order to further explore this key concept, this research uses new national survey data to model determinants of white racial identity. This article analyzes how prejudice, views on diversity and beliefs about America impact the importance of racial identity for whites. The data I use come from the American Mosaic Project Survey, a nationally representative, telephone survey (N = 2,081). This research adds to previous work in whiteness studies by using national survey data to measure and analyze white racial identity. This research also makes an important methodological contribution to race relations research by bringing concepts from whiteness directly into the arena of large-scale survey research. Finally, I discuss the duality of white racial identity in terms of its defensive and progressive components and the implications of this duality for future research.

 
*The Skin Color Paradox and the American Racial Order

Jennifer L. Hochschild, Harvard University
Vesla Weaver, University of Virginia

Dark-skinned blacks in the United States have lower socioeconomic status, more punitive relationships with the criminal justice system, diminished prestige, and less likelihood of holding elective office compared with their lighter counterparts. This phenomenon of “colorism” both occurs within the African American community and is expressed by outsiders, and most blacks are aware of it. Nevertheless, blacks’ perceptions of discrimination, belief that their fates are linked, or attachment to their race almost never vary by skin color. We identify this disparity between treatment and political attitudes as “the skin color paradox,” and use it as a window into the politics of race in the United States over the past half-century.

Using national surveys, we explain the skin color paradox as follows: Blacks’ commitment to racial identity overrides the potential for skin color discrimination to have political significance. That is, because most blacks see the fight against racial hierarchy as requiring their primary allegiance, they do not see or do not choose to express concern about the internal hierarchy of skin tone. Thus dark-skinned blacks’ widespread experience of harm has no political outlet – which generates the skin color paradox.

The article concludes by asking how much concern the skin color paradox really warrants. Without fully resolving that question, we note that policies designed to solve the problem of racial hierarchy are not helpful to and may even make worse the problem of skin color hierarchy within the black population.

 
*Residential Segregation and the Transformation of Home Mortgage Lending

Carolyn Bond, West Chester University
Richard Williams, University of Notre Dame

This article shows that, after decades of inequality, the 1990s saw sudden and dramatic increases in lending to low income and minority groups. Drawing in part on the work of Williams, Nesiba and McConnell (2005), we argue that government deregulation, industry restructuring and government-insured loans all fueled this growth by increasing the sources of loans to minorities. We further argue that this increased lending had small but perceptible effects on residential segregation. But, the transformation of the home mortgage industry also gave rise to new lenders who were quite unlike the old. We contend that the nature of lending was even more important than the amount: some lenders and types of lending had much more of an impact on residential segregation than did others. Specifically, loans from traditional lenders tended to decrease segregation. Conversely, loans from subprime and manufactured housing lenders that specialized in serving low income and minority markets either had no statistically significant effect on segregation or even increased it.

 
*Perceiving the Metropolis:
Seeing the City Through a Prism of Race

Maria Krysan, Universityof Illinois at Chicago
Michael Bader, University of Michigan

Investigating the role of preferences in causing persistent patterns of racial residential segregation in the United States has a long history. In this paper, we bring a new perspective – and new data from the 2004 Detroit Area Study – to the question of how best to characterize black and white preferences toward living in neighborhoods with people of different races. White and black residents of the Detroit metropolitan area (n = 734) were asked in an area probability sample survey about their evaluations of 33 actual communities throughout their metro area. These evaluations are used as an indirect measure of racial residential preferences by viewing how race – both of the respondent and of the community – shapes them. We find modest racial agreement about which communities would be “seriously considered” and “never considered” as a place to live, but by and large perceptions of the metropolis are racialized. Whites are influenced by the percentage white in a community (net of the community’s social class characteristics) and very unlikely to consider communities where they are anything but the strong majority. African Americans are also influenced by race, but in different ways and less fundamentally: 1.) Communities with high percentages of African Americans are among those most likely to be “seriously considered,” but so are communities with just a handful of African Americans; 2.) African Americans are less likely to “never consider” all communities, and more likely than whites to consider both communities where they are in the majority and in the minority; 3.) African Americans are unaffected by a community’s percent white net of community social class characteristics. We place these results in the context of the debate about racial residential preferences, arguing for the importance of grounding our understanding – and measures – of racial residential preferences in the context of real urban landscapes.

 
*The Emerging Black Middle Class: Single and Living Alone

Kris Marsh, Universityof North Carolina at Chapel Hill
William A. Darity Jr., Duke University
Philip N. Cohen, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Lynne M. Casper, University of Southern California
Danielle Salters, Duke University

The literature on the black middle class has focused predominantly on married-couple families with children, reflecting a conception of the black middle class as principally composed of this family type. If that conception is correct, then declining rates of marriage and childrearing would imply a decline in the presence and vitality of the black middle class. Indeed, this is the implication that researchers typically draw from the decline in black marriage rates. However, an alternative view suggests that the decline in marriage and childrearing is producing a shift in the types of households comprising the black middle class. This paper assesses – and affirms – that alternative view. This research shows that, indeed, never-married singles who live alone (Love Jones Cohort) constitute a rapidly growing segment of the black middle class, a development which requires rethinking how the black middle class is conceptualized and studied.

*Street Men, Family Men:
Race and Men’s Extended Family Integration

Natalia Sarkisian, Boston College

Disorganization theories postulate that black men have largely abandoned their familial roles. Using the NSFH data, this article refutes the hypothesis of black men’s familial disengagement by focusing on extended family integration. Black men are more likely than white men to live with or near extended kin, as well as to frequently see kin in person. Men are similar across race in terms of emotional and practical help, although black men are less likely than white men to provide financial assistance. The racial differences can be mostly attributed to the socioeconomic disadvantage of black men. The similarities emerge because blacks’ economic disadvantage hinders their involvement, but cultural values and extended family structure bring their involvement to the levels of the more economically advantaged whites.

 
*Mixed Race: Understanding Difference in the Genome Era

Elizabeth M. Phillips, National Human Genome Research
Institute, NIH
Adebola O. Odunlami, National Human Genome Research
Institute, NIH
Vence L. Bonham, National Human Genome Research
Institute, NIH

This article presents the findings of a qualitative study of multiracial individuals’ understanding of identity, race and human genetic variation. The debate regarding the correlation between race, genetics and disease has expanded, but limited empirical data has been collected regarding the lay public’s perspective. Participants in this study explore their identity and its relationships to their health care interactions. Participants also share their views on race-based therapeutics, health disparities and the connections between race, ancestry and genetics. Their voices highlight the limitations of racial categories in describing differences within our increasingly diverse communities. The genomic era will be a pivotal period in challenging current understandings and uses of racial categories in health.

 
*Will “Multiracial” Survive to the Next Generation?:
The Racial Classification of Children of Multiracial Parents

Jenifer Bratter, Rice University

Will multiracial identification resonate with future generations? Using the 2000 U.S. Census, I analyze the impact of a multiracial parent on the classification of children in four types of multiracial families (e.g., white/non-white, black/non-black). Compared to families where parents are of two different single race backgrounds, parental multiracial identity decreased the likelihood of multiracial classification due to the use of labels reflecting a shared single-race category (e.g. white-Asian mother and white father). When parents’ races did not overlap, multiracial classification was more common in households if the other parent was white or American Indian. These results suggest that intergenerational transmission of a multiracial identity is more common in contexts of racial diversity.