Population Research and Policy Review, Feb 6, 2008
Many if not most countries around the world categorize their inhabitants by race, ethnicity and/o... more Many if not most countries around the world categorize their inhabitants by race, ethnicity and/or national origins when it comes time to conduct a census. In an unpublished survey of census questionnaires, the United Nations found that 65 % enumerated their populations by national or ethnic group (United Nations Statistics Division 2003). However, this statistic encompasses a wide diversity of approaches to ethnic classifi cation, as evinced by the spectrum of terms employed; 'race,' 'ethnic origin,' 'nationality,' 'ancestry' and 'indigenous,' 'tribal' or 'aboriginal' group all serve to draw distinctions within the national population. The picture is further complicated by the ambiguity of the meanings of these terms: what is called 'race' in one country might be labelled 'ethnicity' in another, while 'nationality' means ancestry in some contexts and citizenship in others. Even within the same country, one term can take on several connotations, or several terms may be used interchangeably. This article surveys the approaches to ethnic enumeration that 141 nations took on their 1995-2004 (or '2000 round') censuses. Using a unique data set compiled by the United Nations Statistical Division, this research identifi es several dimensions along which classifi cation practices vary. Specifi cally, I address three research questions:
Ce document a été généré automatiquement le 1 juillet 2021. Les contenus des Cahiers de l'Urmis s... more Ce document a été généré automatiquement le 1 juillet 2021. Les contenus des Cahiers de l'Urmis sont disponibles selon les termes de la Licence Creative Commons Attribution-Pas d'Utilisation Commerciale-Pas de Modification 4.0 International.
Ce document a été généré automatiquement le 1 juillet 2021. Les contenus des Cahiers de l'Urmis s... more Ce document a été généré automatiquement le 1 juillet 2021. Les contenus des Cahiers de l'Urmis sont disponibles selon les termes de la Licence Creative Commons Attribution-Pas d'Utilisation Commerciale-Pas de Modification 4.0 International.
Multiracial self-identification is frequently portrayed as a disproportionately female tendency, ... more Multiracial self-identification is frequently portrayed as a disproportionately female tendency, but previous research has not probed the conditions under which this relationship might occur. Using the 2015 Pew Survey of Multiracial Adults, we offer a more comprehensive analysis that considers gender differences at two distinct stages: reporting multiple races in one's ancestry and selecting multiple races to describe oneself. We also examine self-identification patterns by the generational locus of multiracial ancestry. We find that females are more likely to be aware of multiracial ancestry overall, but only first-generation females are more likely than their male counterparts to self-identify as multiracial. Finally, we explore the role of racial ancestry combination, finding that multiracial awareness and self-identification are likely gendered differently for different segments of the mixed-race population. This offers a more nuanced picture of how gender interacts with oth...
Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race, 2019
In recent decades, dramatic developments in genetics research have begun to transform not only th... more In recent decades, dramatic developments in genetics research have begun to transform not only the practice of medicine but also conceptions of the social world. In the media, in popular culture, and in everyday conversation, Americans routinely link genetics to individual behavior and social outcomes. At the same time, some social researchers contend that biological definitions of race have lost ground in the United States over the last fifty years. At the crossroads of two trends—on one hand, the post-World War II recoil from biological accounts of racial difference, and on the other, the growing admiration for the advances of genetic science—the American public’s conception of race is a phenomenon that merits greater attention from sociologists than it has received to date. However, survey data on racial attitudes has proven to be significantly affected by social desirability bias. While a number of studies have attempted to measure social desirability bias with regard to racial ...
Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race, 2015
What, if anything, does Nicholas Wade’s A Troublesome Inheritance: Genes, Race and Human History ... more What, if anything, does Nicholas Wade’s A Troublesome Inheritance: Genes, Race and Human History have to offer sociologists? For most of us, the answer is “nothing.” Because simply put, this is not scholarly work. A Troublesome Inheritance is not an empirically-grounded monograph that offers substantiated arguments, but rather a trade book targeting general readers who are probably not interested in the literature reviews and citations that academics expect. All kinds of claims are made without reference to any supporting evidence or analysis. As a result, the book cannot serve as a source of data or credible theory regarding race, culture, social structure, or the relationship of genes to human behaviors. But for sociologists of knowledge and of science, A Troublesome Inheritance is a gold mine. These scholars will no doubt delight in discovering the echoes of eighteenth-century race science, nineteenth-century polygenetic and Romantic thought, twentieth-century eugenics and development theory, as well as enduring sexism and the occasional tirade against “Marxists.” This book may also well become a classic for students of racial ideology, right up there with Herrnstein and Murray’s The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life ( 1994 ). Both books are poignant cultural artifacts that testify to the ways in which biological science is invoked in the United States to shore up belief in races and to justify inequality between groups. NICHOLAS WADE , A Troublesome Inheritance: Genes, Race and Human History . New York : Penguin Press , 2014 , 278 pages, ISBN 978-1-5942-0446-3. $27.95 .
The racial classification of mixed-race people has often been presumed to follow hypo- or hyperde... more The racial classification of mixed-race people has often been presumed to follow hypo- or hyperdescent rules, where they were assigned to either their lower- or higher-status monoracial ancestor group. This simple framework, however, does not capture actual patterns of self-identification in contemporary societies with multiple racialized groups and numerous mixed-race combinations. Elaborating on previous concepts of multiracial classification regimes, we argue that two other theoretical models must be incorporated to describe and understand mixed-race identification today. One is “co-descent”, where multiracial individuals need not align with one single race or another, but rather be identified with or demonstrate characteristics that are a blend of their parental or ancestral races. The other is the “dominance” framework, a modern extension of the “one-drop” notion that posits that monoracial ancestries fall along a spectrum where some—the “supercessive”—are more likely to domina...
How has growing knowledge about human genetics affected how American textbooks present race? This... more How has growing knowledge about human genetics affected how American textbooks present race? This article analyzes 80 biology textbooks published from 1952 to 2002 to reveal that U.S. biology texts have pursued the topic of race with renewed vigor in recent years. Moreover, textbooks have redefined race as genetic without furnishing empirical evidence for this framing. The textbooks’ transformation sheds light on the broader relationship between race and science in the United States, where claims about racial difference have not only drawn instrumentally and selectively from empirical research, but at times forgo scientific grounding altogether. As the textbooks show, both the tight and the loose linkage of race to science can preserve the cultural authority of the race concept. The texts also make clear that race is not a one-time construct or a relic of centuries past. Instead, it is continually remade—and is being reworked today—suggesting its dynamic adaptation for ongoing use a...
Population Research and Policy Review, Feb 6, 2008
Many if not most countries around the world categorize their inhabitants by race, ethnicity and/o... more Many if not most countries around the world categorize their inhabitants by race, ethnicity and/or national origins when it comes time to conduct a census. In an unpublished survey of census questionnaires, the United Nations found that 65 % enumerated their populations by national or ethnic group (United Nations Statistics Division 2003). However, this statistic encompasses a wide diversity of approaches to ethnic classifi cation, as evinced by the spectrum of terms employed; 'race,' 'ethnic origin,' 'nationality,' 'ancestry' and 'indigenous,' 'tribal' or 'aboriginal' group all serve to draw distinctions within the national population. The picture is further complicated by the ambiguity of the meanings of these terms: what is called 'race' in one country might be labelled 'ethnicity' in another, while 'nationality' means ancestry in some contexts and citizenship in others. Even within the same country, one term can take on several connotations, or several terms may be used interchangeably. This article surveys the approaches to ethnic enumeration that 141 nations took on their 1995-2004 (or '2000 round') censuses. Using a unique data set compiled by the United Nations Statistical Division, this research identifi es several dimensions along which classifi cation practices vary. Specifi cally, I address three research questions:
Ce document a été généré automatiquement le 1 juillet 2021. Les contenus des Cahiers de l'Urmis s... more Ce document a été généré automatiquement le 1 juillet 2021. Les contenus des Cahiers de l'Urmis sont disponibles selon les termes de la Licence Creative Commons Attribution-Pas d'Utilisation Commerciale-Pas de Modification 4.0 International.
Ce document a été généré automatiquement le 1 juillet 2021. Les contenus des Cahiers de l'Urmis s... more Ce document a été généré automatiquement le 1 juillet 2021. Les contenus des Cahiers de l'Urmis sont disponibles selon les termes de la Licence Creative Commons Attribution-Pas d'Utilisation Commerciale-Pas de Modification 4.0 International.
Multiracial self-identification is frequently portrayed as a disproportionately female tendency, ... more Multiracial self-identification is frequently portrayed as a disproportionately female tendency, but previous research has not probed the conditions under which this relationship might occur. Using the 2015 Pew Survey of Multiracial Adults, we offer a more comprehensive analysis that considers gender differences at two distinct stages: reporting multiple races in one's ancestry and selecting multiple races to describe oneself. We also examine self-identification patterns by the generational locus of multiracial ancestry. We find that females are more likely to be aware of multiracial ancestry overall, but only first-generation females are more likely than their male counterparts to self-identify as multiracial. Finally, we explore the role of racial ancestry combination, finding that multiracial awareness and self-identification are likely gendered differently for different segments of the mixed-race population. This offers a more nuanced picture of how gender interacts with oth...
Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race, 2019
In recent decades, dramatic developments in genetics research have begun to transform not only th... more In recent decades, dramatic developments in genetics research have begun to transform not only the practice of medicine but also conceptions of the social world. In the media, in popular culture, and in everyday conversation, Americans routinely link genetics to individual behavior and social outcomes. At the same time, some social researchers contend that biological definitions of race have lost ground in the United States over the last fifty years. At the crossroads of two trends—on one hand, the post-World War II recoil from biological accounts of racial difference, and on the other, the growing admiration for the advances of genetic science—the American public’s conception of race is a phenomenon that merits greater attention from sociologists than it has received to date. However, survey data on racial attitudes has proven to be significantly affected by social desirability bias. While a number of studies have attempted to measure social desirability bias with regard to racial ...
Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race, 2015
What, if anything, does Nicholas Wade’s A Troublesome Inheritance: Genes, Race and Human History ... more What, if anything, does Nicholas Wade’s A Troublesome Inheritance: Genes, Race and Human History have to offer sociologists? For most of us, the answer is “nothing.” Because simply put, this is not scholarly work. A Troublesome Inheritance is not an empirically-grounded monograph that offers substantiated arguments, but rather a trade book targeting general readers who are probably not interested in the literature reviews and citations that academics expect. All kinds of claims are made without reference to any supporting evidence or analysis. As a result, the book cannot serve as a source of data or credible theory regarding race, culture, social structure, or the relationship of genes to human behaviors. But for sociologists of knowledge and of science, A Troublesome Inheritance is a gold mine. These scholars will no doubt delight in discovering the echoes of eighteenth-century race science, nineteenth-century polygenetic and Romantic thought, twentieth-century eugenics and development theory, as well as enduring sexism and the occasional tirade against “Marxists.” This book may also well become a classic for students of racial ideology, right up there with Herrnstein and Murray’s The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life ( 1994 ). Both books are poignant cultural artifacts that testify to the ways in which biological science is invoked in the United States to shore up belief in races and to justify inequality between groups. NICHOLAS WADE , A Troublesome Inheritance: Genes, Race and Human History . New York : Penguin Press , 2014 , 278 pages, ISBN 978-1-5942-0446-3. $27.95 .
The racial classification of mixed-race people has often been presumed to follow hypo- or hyperde... more The racial classification of mixed-race people has often been presumed to follow hypo- or hyperdescent rules, where they were assigned to either their lower- or higher-status monoracial ancestor group. This simple framework, however, does not capture actual patterns of self-identification in contemporary societies with multiple racialized groups and numerous mixed-race combinations. Elaborating on previous concepts of multiracial classification regimes, we argue that two other theoretical models must be incorporated to describe and understand mixed-race identification today. One is “co-descent”, where multiracial individuals need not align with one single race or another, but rather be identified with or demonstrate characteristics that are a blend of their parental or ancestral races. The other is the “dominance” framework, a modern extension of the “one-drop” notion that posits that monoracial ancestries fall along a spectrum where some—the “supercessive”—are more likely to domina...
How has growing knowledge about human genetics affected how American textbooks present race? This... more How has growing knowledge about human genetics affected how American textbooks present race? This article analyzes 80 biology textbooks published from 1952 to 2002 to reveal that U.S. biology texts have pursued the topic of race with renewed vigor in recent years. Moreover, textbooks have redefined race as genetic without furnishing empirical evidence for this framing. The textbooks’ transformation sheds light on the broader relationship between race and science in the United States, where claims about racial difference have not only drawn instrumentally and selectively from empirical research, but at times forgo scientific grounding altogether. As the textbooks show, both the tight and the loose linkage of race to science can preserve the cultural authority of the race concept. The texts also make clear that race is not a one-time construct or a relic of centuries past. Instead, it is continually remade—and is being reworked today—suggesting its dynamic adaptation for ongoing use a...
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