scholarly journals Race as an Open Field: Exploring Identity beyond Fixed Choices

2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-69 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul R. Croll ◽  
Joseph Gerteis
Keyword(s):  
Open Field ◽  
Mixed Race ◽  
The United States ◽  
Racial Identification ◽  
Racial Boundaries ◽  
Racial Identities ◽  
The Social ◽  
Ethnic Classification ◽  
Nationally Representative ◽  
The Relationship

This paper uses new, nationally representative data to examine how Americans describe their own racial and ethnic identities when they are not constrained by conventional fixed categories. Recent work on shifting racial classifications and the fluidity of racial identities in the United States has questioned the subjective and cultural adequacy of fixed categorization schemes. Are traditional racial boundaries breaking down? We explore the possibility in three ways. First, we explore the relationship between open-field identification (asked at time of survey) with fixed-choice racial and ethnic identifications (asked upon panel entry). Despite changes in American racial and ethnic discourse, most people reproduce normative, categorical racial and ethnic descriptors to identify themselves. Yet racial and ethnic classification is more complex and fluid for some respondents, particularly those who had earlier described themselves as Hispanic or mixed race. Second, we investigate the social meaning of alternative racial labels. Within the standard racial and ethnic categories, there are both dominant labels (e.g., White, Black, Hispanic) and less dominant alternatives (e.g., Caucasian, African American, Latinx); in some cases, the differences come with important social distinctions. Third, we explore the ways that a small but important subset of respondents refuse or deny racial identification altogether. We conclude with a discussion of the future of racial and ethnic classifications, paying particular attention to plans for the 2020 U.S. census.

The Racial and Economic Context of Trump Support: Evidence for Threat, Identity, and Contact Effects in the 2016 Presidential Election

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric Knowles ◽  
Linda Tropp
Keyword(s):  
The United States ◽  
Local Economy ◽  
Racial Identification ◽  
White Americans ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Neighborhood Diversity ◽  
Nationally Representative ◽  
To Come ◽  
Neighborhood Level ◽  
Support Evidence

Donald Trump's ascent to the Presidency of the United States defied the expectations of many social scientists, pundits, and laypeople. To date, most efforts to understand Trump's rise have focused on personality and demographic characteristics of White Americans. In contrast, the present work leverages a nationally representative sample of Whites to examine how contextual factors may have shaped support for Trump during the 2016 presidential primaries. Results reveal that neighborhood-level exposure to racial and ethnic minorities is associated with greater group threat and racial identification among Whites, as well as greater intentions to vote for Trump in the general election. At the same time, however, neighborhood diversity afforded Whites with opportunities for intergroup contact, which is associated with lower levels of threat, White identification, and Trump support. Further analyses suggest that a healthy local economy mutes threat effects in diverse contexts, allowing contact processes to come to the fore.

scholarly journals The Authoritarian Dynamic During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Effects on Nationalism and Anti-Immigrant Sentiment

2021 ◽  
pp. 194855062097802
Author(s):  
Todd K. Hartman ◽  
Thomas V. A. Stocks ◽  
Ryan McKay ◽  
Jilly Gibson-Miller ◽  
Liat Levita ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Order ◽  
Situational Factors ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Right Wing Authoritarianism ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
The Social ◽  
Political Outcomes ◽  
Nationally Representative ◽  
Using Data ◽  
The Relationship

Research has demonstrated that situational factors such as perceived threats to the social order activate latent authoritarianism. The deadly COVID-19 pandemic presents a rare opportunity to test whether existential threat stemming from an indiscriminate virus moderates the relationship between authoritarianism and political attitudes toward the nation and out-groups. Using data from two large nationally representative samples of adults in the United Kingdom ( N = 2,025) and Republic of Ireland ( N = 1,041) collected during the initial phases of strict lockdown measures in both countries, we find that the associations between right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) and (1) nationalism and (2) anti-immigrant attitudes are conditional on levels of perceived threat. As anxiety about the COVID-19 pandemic increases, so too does the effect of RWA on those political outcomes. Thus, it appears that existential threats to humanity from the COVID-19 pandemic moderate expressions of authoritarianism in society.

Gender and Marital Satisfaction: Data from the National Survey of Families and Households

1998 ◽  
Vol 83 (1) ◽  
pp. 319-327 ◽  
Author(s):  
Walter R. Schumm ◽  
Farrell J. Webb ◽  
Stephan R. Bollman
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Marital Satisfaction ◽  
Representative Sample ◽  
The United States ◽  
Nationally Representative ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Satisfaction Relationship ◽  
Representative Samples ◽  
Small Support

In 1972, Bernard argued that marriage was good for men and bad for women. Subsequent research noted that wives, on average, reported lower marital satisfaction than husbands. Furthermore, when differences within couples existed on marital satisfaction, the wife was usually the less satisfied spouse; however, most previous studies of the gender/marital satisfaction relationship had not been based on nationally representative samples. A nationally representative sample from the 1988 Survey of Families and Households was used to assess the relationship of gender with marital satisfaction. Within-couple analyses indicated that wives were less satisfied with their marriages than husbands and that, when substantial within-couple differences occurred with respect to marital satisfaction, the wife was usually the less satisfied spouse. Results provide at least small support for feminist assertions about the relatively adverse nature of marriage for women in the United States.

Toward a Critical Refugee Study: The Vietnamese Refugee Subject in US Scholarship

2006 ◽  
Vol 1 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 410-433 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yêên Lêê Espiritu
Keyword(s):  
The United States ◽  
Vietnamese Americans ◽  
Science Literature ◽  
Global Context ◽  
Vietnamese American ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Science Literature ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Vietnamese Studies ◽  
Vietnamese Refugee

This review of the field of Vietnamese refugee studies in the United States first assesses the social science literature that dominated Vietnamese studies during the 1970s and 1980s, showing how this scholarship produces Vietnamese Americans as the desperate-turned-successful. Then it reviews the current range of Vietnamese American scholarship, foregrounding the promising studies that situate the diversity and vibrancy of Vietnamese lives within a critical global context. The paper concludes by suggesting that we imbue the term "refugee" with social and political critiques that call into question the relationship between war, race, and violence, then and now.

Mixed-Race Children and Their Korean Mothers

Framed by War ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 148-173
Author(s):  
Susie Woo
Keyword(s):  
South Korea ◽  
Mixed Race ◽  
The United States ◽  
Racial Identification ◽  
Korean Women ◽  
South Korean ◽  
Segregated Schools ◽  
Child Placement ◽  
Women And Children ◽  
Identification Practices

This chapter looks at what happened to the Korean women and children who remained in South Korea. It sets the stage by describing how President Rhee’s 1953 directive to remove children with American fathers to the United States heightened the vulnerability of those who stayed. The South Korean government worked closely with Harry Holt and in 1954 established Korea’s first welfare agency, Child Placement Service, expressly to remove mixed-race children. The chapter describes how US racial identification practices used to determine which children were “part-black” were introduced to and became institutionalized in South Korea. It also describes how Korean women were erased in this process. They were coerced to give up their mixed-race children and were offered no support from either government. For the children, solutions ranging from segregated schools to welfare reports that pathologized them as “social handicaps” relegated this population to the margins. The chapter ends with a consideration of how mixed-race children and the mothers who fought to raise them navigated the ongoing legacies of US militarization in South Korea.

Sleep Among Children

2019 ◽  
pp. 93-118 ◽  
Author(s):  
Judith Owens ◽  
Monica Ordway
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Screen Time ◽  
The United States ◽  
Sleep Health ◽  
Developmental Issues ◽  
Infancy And Childhood ◽  
The Social ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter focuses on the developmental issues that impact sleep during infancy and childhood and link to adult sleep. For example, it examines differences in sleep across childhood as well as the relationship of pediatric and adult sleep health and specific issues such as mother–child bedsharing. The chapter discusses the social determinants of sleep for children—for example, increasing screen time and social media involvement, impact of bedtime routines, the mismatch of school hours to the biology of sleep in teenagers (e.g., highlighting that a reason that high schools start at 8 AM in the United States is so that parents can drop them off before they take off on their long commutes to work).

Ethics Committees and Consultation in Mental Health

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Don C. Postema
Keyword(s):  
Ethics Education ◽  
Ethics Committees ◽  
The United States ◽  
Biomedical Ethics ◽  
Spiritual Beliefs ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

Understanding the role of ethics committees in providing ethics consultations, ethics education, and ethics-related policies is the context for exploring the relationship of ethics, psychiatry, and religious and spiritual beliefs. After a brief history of biomedical ethics in the United States since the mid-20th century, this chapter presents several case studies that exemplify frequently encountered tensions in these relationships. The central contention is that respecting these beliefs is not equivalent to acquiescing to ethical claims based on them. Rigorous critical reflection and psychiatric insight, coupled with the values embedded in the social practices of healthcare, provide the grounds for evaluating the weight and bearing of religious and spiritual beliefs in ethically complex cases. This is one contribution that ethics committees can make at the intersection of psychiatry and religion.

Sexual Identity

Sociology ◽  
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Clare Forstie
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Identity ◽  
Queer Theory ◽  
The United States ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Sexual Identities ◽  
Theoretical Perspectives ◽  
The Social ◽  
And Behavior ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Theoretical Foundations

Sexual identity research within sociology has largely examined the social contexts of sexuality as a central part of how we think about ourselves. While much of this research focuses on the experiences of marginalized people (gay, lesbian, bisexual, queer, and other identities), critical attention has also been paid to the social construction of heterosexual or straight identities. Theoretical perspectives from fields like queer theory and psychology have informed this thinking, and activism and research specifically from queer theory has significantly influenced how researchers understand sexual identities. Intersections with other identities are also critical to understanding sexual identities, and much forward-thinking work on sexual identities examines gender, race, class, and ability simultaneously. This bibliography outlines research on sexual identity, beginning with key sources like Journals, Edited Volumes, and Online and Popular Sources. The Theoretical Foundations section includes classic works, best for those seeking an introduction to the field. The Studying Identity: Research Methods section addresses how sexual identities might be best studied, as well as ongoing methodological challenges. Also included are sections discussing how sexual identities have been defined, including histories of sexual identities, intersections with other identities and changing identity categories, research on sexual identity and the self, research that examines the relationship between sexual identity and behavior, and works discussing how sexual identities are understood in relationships and religion. Sections addressing collective sexual identities and identities in spaces examine how identities are used in social movements and how sexual identities shape and are shaped by communities. Finally, a section focused on the political economy of sexual identities addresses the relationships between sexualities, nations, economies, and policy. While the bulk of this bibliography focuses on sexual identities within the United States, sources examining sexual identities in a variety of national and transnational contexts are included in a number of sections.

Collective Memory

Sociology ◽  
2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christina Simko
Keyword(s):  
Collective Memory ◽  
The United States ◽  
Emile Durkheim ◽  
State Legitimacy ◽  
The Past ◽  
National Memory ◽  
The Social ◽  
Political Borders ◽  
Monuments And Memorials ◽  
The Relationship

Collective memory encompasses both the shared frameworks that shape and filter ostensibly “individual” or “personal” memories and representations of the past sui generis, including official texts, commemorative ceremonies, and physical symbols such as monuments and memorials. Sociological work on collective memory traces its origins to Émile Durkheim and his student, Maurice Halbwachs. In the United States, the contemporary sociology of memory coalesced in the 1980s and 1990s, after Barry Schwartz brought renewed attention to Durkheim’s focus on commemoration as well as Halbwachs’s interest in how the past is reconstructed in the present, in the service of present needs, interests, and desires. Though this line of research initially emphasized heroic pasts—particularly national commemorations that bolstered state legitimacy with reference to triumphant episodes—scholars quickly began to address the ways that collectivities grapple with “difficult pasts,” or episodes that evoke shame, regret, and/or dissensus, and that threaten to “spoil” national identity. What is the relationship between memory and forgetting, and related concepts such as silence and denial? Can the increasingly pervasive language of “trauma” help us understand the current preoccupation with difficult pasts in both scholarly literature and public culture? More recently, scholars have critiqued the field’s overwhelming focus on national memory from two angles. First, studies of micro-level memories have revived Halbwachs’s initial interest in the social frameworks that structure (seemingly) individual memories. Second, globalization facilitates connectedness and identification beyond and/or outside of national frames of reference, and thus scholars have pointed to the emergence of “cosmopolitan” memories that create community and solidarity beyond and outside formal political borders.

scholarly journals TO TEST OR NOT? SINGULAR OR MULTIPLE HERITAGE?

2015 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 321-347 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer L. Hochschild ◽  
Maya Sen
Keyword(s):  
New Technology ◽  
Multiple Points ◽  
Racial Identities ◽  
Public Opinion Surveys ◽  
New Public ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Media ◽  
Nationally Representative ◽  
Media Reports ◽  
The Relationship

AbstractDNA ancestry testing may seem frivolous, but it points to two crucial questions: First, what is the relationship, if any, between biology and race? Second, how much and why do people prefer clear, singular racial identities over blurred, mixed racial self-understandings, or the reverse? We posit that individuals of different racial or ethnic backgrounds will have different levels of support for this new technology. In particular, despite the history of harm caused by the biologization of race, we theorize that African Americans will be receptive to the use of DNA ancestry testing because conventional genealogical searches for ancestral roots are mostly unavailable to them. This “broken chain” theory leads to two hypotheses, of disproportionately high Black interest in DNA ancestry testing—thus an implicit acceptance of a link between biology and race—and high acceptance among Blacks of multiple heritages despite a preference for evidence of roots in Africa.To test these hypotheses, we analyze two databases of U.S. newspaper articles, one with almost 6,000 items and a second with 700. We also analyze two new public opinion surveys of nationally representative samples of adult Americans. Most of the evidence comes from the second survey, which uses vignettes to obtain views about varied results of DNA ancestry testing. We find that the media increasingly report on the links between genetic inheritance and race, and emphasize singular racial ancestry more than multiple heritages. The surveys show, consistent with our theory, that Blacks (and Hispanics, to some degree) are especially receptive to DNA ancestry testing, and are pleased with not only a finding of group singularity but also a finding of multiple points of origin. Qualitative readings of media reports illuminate some of the reasons behind these survey findings. We conclude with a brief discussion of the broader importance of DNA ancestry testing.

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