Race-Relations Theories and the Racial Dynamics of Basketball Performance

Does the local, racial context influence racial differences in culture? I answer this question by testing predictions from group threat theory and the cultural division of labor about which high schools have greater black-white differences in basketball performance. Data are from the National Education Longitudinal Study are analyzed with multilevel ordered probit models. After controlling for predictors of sports performance in students’ families, schools, and neighborhoods, we find evidence for both theories. Black-white differences in basketball performance is greater in schools that are about 50% black, as group threat predicts, and in schools with more hierarchical segregation within them, as the cultural division of labor predicts. We also find that racial conflict within the schools mediates the effect of group threat. The theoretical implications of the findings are discussed.

Changing public opinion about gender activates group threat and opposition to feminist social movements among men

Two studies examined whether men’s perception of the declining value of traditional masculinity activates social status, realistic, and symbolic threat, and in turn motivates opposition to feminist social movements. In Study 1, men’s perception that their ingroup is losing value across several social spheres was associated with social status and realistic threat, both of which were associated with opposition to feminist movements. Study 2, an experiment, presented men with public opinion data showing a 30-year decline in the degree to which Americans value traditional masculinity or no decline. Information about the declining value of masculinity activated status threat, which motivated less support for feminist movements. Among men who highly identified as masculine, this same information reduced support for feminist movements through symbolic threat. In sum, perceived decline in the social value of traditional masculinity creates status anxiety about the ingroup’s future and motivates compensatory reactions against gender equality.

REACTION TO THE BLACK CITY AS A CAUSE OF MODERN CONSERVATISM

Social scientists in a variety of fields have long relied on economic-structuralist theories to understand the ascendance and hegemony of the modern Conservative Movement in the United States. In the materialist theory of political change (MTPC), structural crisis in the 1970s destabilized Keynesian-managerialism, and paved the way for neoliberalism. Key weaknesses of this approach include its relatively aspatial scope—comparatively less attention to the spatial variation of neoliberalism’s popularity—and its demotion of other elements of the Conservative Movement into a veritable super-structure of secondary movements. This paper offers a “racial amendment” to the MTPC, and an application to electoral geographies in the state of Ohio since 1932. This amendment synthesizes group threat theory, critical historiography, and Du Boisian theories of Whiteness to suggest that the growing influence of suburban conservatism is not reducible simply to class interest.

Perceived injustice, perceived group threat and self-reported right-wing violence: An integrated approach

The present study seeks to explain individual differences in self-reported politically motivated violence and vandalism, and participation within an extreme right-wing group. While violent extremism is highly debated, few criminological studies explicitly test factors that can trigger violent extremism. The present study addresses this gap by integrating two different frameworks: a perceived injustice and group threat-initiated model and an impulsivity-initiated model. We also investigate several intervening mechanisms. We draw on a sample of 705 adolescents and young adults living in Flanders, Belgium to test the strength of direct and intermediary effects of perceived injustice, perceptions of out-group threat from Jewish populations, ethnocentrism, feelings of superiority, moral support for right-wing extremism, and exposure to racist peers on politically motivated violence and vandalism. Results of structural equation models (SEM) indicate various direct and intermediary effects between both perceived injustice and violent extremism, and between impulsivity and violent extremism. Our model reveals the complex and intricate antecedents of violent extremism. Importantly, we find that feelings of injustice and unfair treatment are a major source of extremist violence, as they easily trigger often debated causes such as high in-group identification and ethnocentrism. Implications of these findings for preventing violent extremism are discussed, given the centrality of perceptions of injustice and threat.

Diversity and violence during conflict migration: The Troubles in Northern Ireland

The effect of diversity on violence is ambiguous. Some studies find that diverse areas experience more violence; others find the opposite. Yet violence displaces and intimidates people, creating measurement challenges. We propose a novel indicator of diversity that circumvents these problems: the location of physical structures at disaggregated geographical levels, and introduce this solution in the context of the Troubles in Northern Ireland. Our data reveals a curvilinear relationship between diversity and violence with the steepest increase at low diversity, driven by an increase in violence when our proxy for Catholic proportion of the population rises from 0 to 20%. These patterns are consistent with a theory of group threat through exposure.

Youthful victimization in post-war Bosnia and Herzegovina: A multi-level analysis of a national sample

Intra-national conflicts with racial or ethnic elements can complicate post-war reconciliation. From 1992 to 1995, much of the former Yugoslavia, a nation largely drawn from three distinct ethnic groups, was embroiled in such a conflict. After the signing of the Dayton Peace Accord, it was feared that schools would become a surrogate battlefield for school-aged children within the newly created nation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). Group threat theory and the imbalance of power thesis provide differing views on such conflicts. Group threat theory posits that as a population – in this case a school – approaches maximum ethnic diversity, the residents – in this case the students – will feel increasingly threatened, resulting in higher cross-group victimizations. The imbalance of power thesis suggests that a group’s decision to victimize another group depends on the relative lack of ethnic diversity: The extent to which one ethnic group dominates a school, the likelihood of victimization of any smaller groups increases. We explore which of these two theories best explains victimization levels within a sample of 2003 school-aged BiH adolescents born in areas dominated by Muslim Bosnians, Eastern Orthodox Serbians, or Roman Catholic Croatians. We find that there is an ethnic component to victimizations: students born in Serbia face higher levels of victimization than do their Bosnian-born counterparts under conditions that fit better with group threat theory than the imbalance of power thesis. We speculate about the significance of these findings for national ethnic harmony in BiH.

Armed group threat will raise CAR poll security fears

Headline CAR: Armed group threat will raise poll security fears