Hostname: page-component-f554764f5-44mx8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-04-17T15:26:51.041Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Putting Race in Context: Identifying the Environmental Determinants of Black Racial Attitudes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 November 2004

CLAUDINE GAY
CLAUDINE GAY
Affiliation:
Stanford University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Prior research on the contextual determinants of black racial attitudes has focused on the effects of residential segregation while overlooking differences in the socioeconomic character of neighborhoods. I posit that socioeconomic environments, in particular, the quality and socioeconomic composition of neighborhoods, may affect whether blacks view race as a defining interest in their lives. I test these propositions with a multilevel dataset that merges the 1992–1994 Multi-City Survey of Urban Inequality with block-group–level demographic statistics from the 1990 Census. The results indicate that neighborhood quality and neighborhood socioeconomic composition work at cross-purposes in affecting black racial attitudes. The salience of race recedes with improvements in neighborhood quality yet advances with greater exposure to the race-oriented predispositions of high-status blacks. In closing, I discuss the implications of shifting residential patterns for the future of political consensus and group-based mobilization among African Americans.

Type
ARTICLES
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 98 , Issue 4 , November 2004 , pp. 547 - 562
Copyright
© 2004 by the American Political Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Alba Richard, and John Logan. 1991. “Variations on Two Themes: Racial and Ethnic Patterns in the Attainment of Suburban Residence.” Demography 28 (August): 431– 53.Google Scholar
Alba Richard, John Logan, and Paul Bellair. 1994. “Living with Crime: The Implications of Racial/Ethnic Differences in Suburban Location.” Social Forces 73 (December): 395– 434.Google Scholar
Anderson Elijah. 1992. Streetwise. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Basolo Victoria, and Denise Strong. 2002. “Understanding the Neighborhood: From Residents' Perceptions and Needs to Action.” Housing Policy Debate 13 (1): 83– 105.Google Scholar
Baugh John. 1983. Black Street Speech. Austin: University of Texas Press.
Berry Jeffrey, Kent Portney, and Ken Thomson. 1993. The Rebirth of Urban Democracy. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution.
Bledsoe Timothy, Susan Welch, Lee Sigelman, and Michael Combs. 1995. “Residential Context and Racial Solidarity among African Americans.” American Journal of Political Science 39 (May): 34– 58.Google Scholar
Broman Clifford, Harold Neighbors, and James Jackson. 1988. “Racial Group Identification among Black Adults.” Social Forces 67 (September): 146– 58.Google Scholar
Bureau of the Census. 1990. Census of Population and Housing Guide. Washington, DC: Department of Commerce.
Clark Kenneth. 1965. Dark Ghetto. New York: Harper and Row.
Cohen Cathy, and Michael Dawson. 1993. “Neighborhood Poverty and African American Politics.” American Political Science Review 87 (June): 286– 302.Google Scholar
Cose Ellis. 1995. The Rage of a Privileged Class. New York: HarperPerennial.
Darden Joe. 1990. “Differential Access to Housing in the Suburbs.” Journal of Black Studies 21 (September): 15– 22.Google Scholar
Dawson Michael. 1994. Behind the Mule. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Dawson Michael. 2002. Black Visions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
DeFrances Carol. 1996. “The Effects of Racial Ecological Segregation on Quality of Life: A Comparison of Middle-Class Blacks and Middle-Class Whites.” Urban Affairs Review 31 (July): 799– 809.Google Scholar
Demo David, and Michael Hughes. 1990. “Socialization and Racial Identity among Black Americans.” Social Psychology Quarterly 53 (4): 364– 74.Google Scholar
Dillingham Gerald L. 1981. “The Emerging Black Middle Class: Class Consciousness or Race Consciousness?” Ethnic and Racial Studies 4 (4): 432– 47.Google Scholar
Frazier E. Franklin. 1957. Black Bourgeoisie. New York: Free Press.
Frey William. 1994. “Minority Suburbanization and Continued “White Flight” in U.S. Metropolitan Areas: Assessing Findings from the 1990 Census.” Research in Community Sociology 4: 15– 42.Google Scholar
Frey William. 2001. Melting Pot Suburbs: A Census 2000 Study of Suburban Diversity. Washington, DC: Center on Urban and Metropolitan Policy, Brookings Institution.
Gujarati Damodar N. 1995. Basic Econometrics. New York: McGraw–Hill.
Gurin Patricia, Arthur Miller, and Gerald Gurin. 1980. “Stratum Identification and Consciousness.” Social Psychology Quarterly 43 (March): 30– 47.Google Scholar
Harris Fredrick C. 1999. Something Within. New York: Oxford University Press.
Hausman J. A. 1978. “Specification Tests in Econometrics.” Econometrica 46 (November): 1251– 71.Google Scholar
Hochschild Jennifer. 1995. Facing Up to the American Dream. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Huckeldt Robert. 1986. Politics in Context: Assimilation and Conflict in Urban Neighborhoods. New York: Agathon Press.
Huckfeldt Robert, and Carol W. Kohlfeld. 1989. Race and the Decline of Class in American Politics. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
Hughes Michael, and David Demo. 1989. “Self-Perceptions of Black Americans: Self-Esteem and Personal Efficacy.” American Journal of Sociology 95 (July): 132– 59.Google Scholar
Iceland John, Daniel Weinberg, and Erika Steinmetz. 2002. Racial and Ethnic Residential Segregation in the United States, 1980–2000. U.S. Census Bureau, Series CENSR-3. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.
Kinder Donald, and Nicholas Winter. 2001. “Exploring the Racial Divide: Blacks, Whites, and Opinion on National Policy.” American Journal of Political Science 45 (April): 439– 56.Google Scholar
Landry Bart. 1987. The New Black Middle Class. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Lau Richard. 1989. “Individual and Contextual Influences on Group Identification.” Social Psychology Quarterly 52 (3): 220– 31.Google Scholar
Logan John. 2001. The New Ethnic Enclaves in America's Suburbs. Albany: Lewis Mumford Center, State University of New York.
Logan John. 2002. Separate and Unequal: The Neighborhood Gap for Blacks and Hispanics in Metropolitan America. Albany: Lewis Mumford Center, State University of New York.
Logan John, and Richard Alba. 1993. “Locational Returns to Human Capital: Minority Access to Suburban Community Resources.” Demography 30 (May): 243– 68.Google Scholar
Logan John, Richard Alba, and Shu-Yin Leung. 1996. “Minority Access to White Suburbs: A Multiregional Comparison.” Social Forces 74 (March): 851– 81.Google Scholar
Massey Douglas S., and Nancy A. Denton. 1993. American Apartheid: Segregation and the Making of the Underclass. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
O'Hare William, and William Frey. 1992. “Booming, Suburban, and Black.” American Demographics September: 30– 38.Google Scholar
Oliver J. Eric, and Tali Mendelberg. 2000. “Reconsidering the Environmental Determinants of White Racial Attitudes.” American Journal of Political Science 44 (July): 574– 89.Google Scholar
Olzak Susan. 1989. “Labor Unrest, Immigration, and Ethnic Conflict in Urban America, 1880–1914.” American Journal of Sociology 94 (May): 1303– 33.Google Scholar
Phelan Thomas. J., and Mark Schneider. 1996. “Race, Ethnicity, and Class in American Suburbs.” Urban Affairs Review 31 (May): 659– 80.Google Scholar
Pinderhughes Howard. 1993. “The Anatomy of Racially Motivated Violence in New York City: A Case Study of Youth in Southern Brooklyn.” Social Problems 40 (November): 478– 92.Google Scholar
Rogers Reuel. 2001. “Black Like Who?: Afro-Caribbean Immigrants, African Americans, and the Politics of Group Identity.” In Islands in the City, ed. Nancy Foner. Berkeley: University of California Press, 163– 92.
Schneider Mark, and Thomas Phelan. 1993. “Black Suburbanization in the 1980s.” Demography 30 (May): 269– 79.Google Scholar
Sigelman Lee, and Susan Welch. 1991. Black Americans' Views on Racial Inequality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Tate Katherine. 1993. From Protest to Politics. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
Villemez Wayne J. 1980. “Race, Class, and Neighborhood: Differences in the Residential Return on Individual Resources.” Social Forces 59 (December): 414– 30.Google Scholar
Wacquant Loic, and William J. Wilson. 1993. “The Cost of Racial and Class Exclusion in the Inner City.” In Ghetto Underclass, ed. William J. Wilson. Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 25– 42.
Welch Susan, Lee Sigelman, Timothy Bledsoe, and Michael Combs. 2001. Race and Place. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
White Halbert. 1982. “Maximum Likelihood Estimation of Misspecified Models.” Econometrica 50 (January): 1– 26.Google Scholar
Wilson William J. 1987. The Truly Disadvantaged. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Submit a response

Comments

No Comments have been published for this article.