Race Racial Attitudes And Stratification Beliefs

Barack Obama's election as the forty-fourth president of the United States reinvigorated discussions of race, ideology and inequality in America. This debate occurs in an era when scholarly attention on the intersections in these key areas has been growing in tandem with the expanding racial and ethnic diversity of American society. To broaden our understanding of these complex convergences, this volume of the ANNALS continues the discussion by showcasing a set of cutting-edge papers by leading scholars of race and inequality, with special focus on racial attitudes and stratification beliefs research. Utilizing a mix of methodological and theoretical approaches, the contributors highlight four primary themes: (1) intersections of race, inequality, and ideology in specific institutional domains (e.g., crime, religion, work, immigration/national inclusion); (2) the meaning, measurement, and implications of "racial resentment"; (3) the role of social context and stereotypes in shaping racial (and non-racial) policy support; and (4) the operation of racial prejudice and stratification ideology in the context of Obama's presidency. This volume will appeal to a multidisciplinary scholarly audience, including policy-makers interested in current public opinion regarding the American occupational structure and its associated inequalities.

More than half a century has passed since the publication of An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy, Gunnar Myrdal's agonizing portrait of the pervasiveness of racially prejudiced attitudes and discriminatory practices in American life. Central to Myrdal's work was the paradox posed by the coexistence of race-based social, economic, and political inequality on the one hand, and the cherished American cultural values of freedom and equality on the other. In the five decades since the publication of this work, there has been a dramatic decline in white Americans' overt expressions of anti-black and anti-integrationist sentiments and in many of the inequalities Myrdal highlighted in his monumental work. Yet the persistence of racial antipathy is evidence of the continuing dilemma of race in American society. This collection of original essays by leading race relations experts focuses on the recent history and current state of racial attitudes in the United States. It addresses key issues and debates in the literature, and it includes chapters on the racial attitudes of African-Americans as well as whites. The volume will be of great importance to students and scholars concerned with the sociology and politics of contemporary American race relations.

As the population of older Americans grows, it is becoming more racially and ethnically diverse. Differences in health by racial and ethnic status could be increasingly consequential for health policy and programs. Such differences are not simply a matter of education or ability to pay for health care. For instance, Asian Americans and Hispanics appear to be in better health, on a number of indicators, than White Americans, despite, on average, lower socioeconomic status. The reasons are complex, including possible roles for such factors as selective migration, risk behaviors, exposure to various stressors, patient attitudes, and geographic variation in health care. This volume, produced by a multidisciplinary panel, considers such possible explanations for racial and ethnic health differentials within an integrated framework. It provides a concise summary of available research and lays out a research agenda to address the many uncertainties in current knowledge. It recommends, for instance, looking at health differentials across the life course and deciphering the links between factors presumably producing differentials and biopsychosocial mechanisms that lead to impaired health.

Motivated by the desire to explain how Americans perceive and evaluate inequality and related programs and policies, the authors conducted a national survey of beliefs about social and economic inequality in America. Here they present the results of their research on the structure, determinants, and certain political and personal consequences of these beliefs. The presentations serve two major goals; to describe and explain the central features of Americans' images of inequality. Beliefs About Inequality begins with a focus on people's perceptions of the most basic elements of inequality: the availability of opportunity in society, the causes of economic achievements, and the benefits and costs of equality and inequality. The book's analysis of the public's beliefs on these key issues is based on fundamental theories of social psychology and lays the groundwork for understanding how Americans evaluate inequality-related policies. The authors discuss the ultimate determinants of beliefs and the implications of their findings for social policies related to inequality. They propose that attitudes toward economic inequality and related policy are influenced by three major aspects of the current American social, economic, and political environment: a stable "dominant ideology" about economic inequality; individuals' social and economic status; and specific beliefs and attitudes, often reflecting "social liberalism" shaped by recent political debates and events. "a superb piece of scholarship, combining substantive ambition and theoretical depth with analytical clarity and sophistication."--Public Opinion Quarterly James R. Kluegel is chairman of the Department of Sociology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is the author of Evaluating Contemporary Juvenile Justice. Eliot R. Smith is professor of psychology at Indiana University. He is the author of Social Psychology.

In the United States, some populations suffer from far greater disparities in health than others. Those disparities are caused not only by fundamental differences in health status across segments of the population, but also because of inequities in factors that impact health status, so-called determinants of health. Only part of an individual's health status depends on his or her behavior and choice; community-wide problems like poverty, unemployment, poor education, inadequate housing, poor public transportation, interpersonal violence, and decaying neighborhoods also contribute to health inequities, as well as the historic and ongoing interplay of structures, policies, and norms that shape lives. When these factors are not optimal in a community, it does not mean they are intractable: such inequities can be mitigated by social policies that can shape health in powerful ways. Communities in Action: Pathways to Health Equity seeks to delineate the causes of and the solutions to health inequities in the United States. This report focuses on what communities can do to promote health equity, what actions are needed by the many and varied stakeholders that are part of communities or support them, as well as the root causes and structural barriers that need to be overcome.

This book explores the racial rules that are often hidden but perpetuate vast racial inequities in the United States.

The United States and Brazil were the largest slave-trading societies of the New World. The demographics of both countries reflect this shared past, but this is where comparisons end. The vast majority of the "Afro-Brazilian" population, unlike their U.S. counterparts, view themselves as neither black nor white but as mixed-race. Legacies of Race offers the first examination of Brazilian public opinion to understand racial identities, attitudes, and politics in this racially ambiguous context. Brazilians avoid rigid notions of racial group membership, and, in stark contrast to U.S. experience, attitudes about racial inequality, African-derived culture, and antiracism strategies are not deeply divided along racial lines. Bailey argues that only through dispensing with many U.S.-inspired racial assumptions can a general theory of racial attitudes become possible. Most importantly, he shows that a strict notion of racial identification in black and white cannot be assumed universal.

The chapters presented here provide the reader with an awareness of the divergent views of what constitutes racism and frameworks for reducing it. This book points out that the dialogue and research on this subject since the mid-1970s have yielded increased contro versy over the theories, foundation, and continued existence of racism. Ironically, what we viewed in the 1954Brown decision and the Civil Rights Act of 1964as the beginning of the end of racism turned out to be the beginning of confusion over the course of action to ensure societal acceptance of political mandates. Hence, the title of this book captures the essence of the emotional core of any forum for examining racism, past and present. One of the most controversial forums has been that ofeducation, beginning with the D.S. Supreme Court's 1954ruling in Brown v. Board oi Education. Behind every event that has spawned controversy is a profile in courage. It was not a simple decision for the players in the scenario of the Brown v. Board oi Education case to step forward and present themselves as evidence of discrimination. Blackparents supported by black organizations viewed this legal action as a chance for equal opportunity. Yet, the 1950s were a time when black communities were pained by the thought that bigotry and institutional racism would forever stand in the way of their achieving equality.