Minority job numbers
Race, Place, and Crime: How Violent Crime Events Affect Employment Discrimination
Sanaz Mobasseri
American Journal of Sociology, July 2019, Pages 63-104
Abstract:
This article examines how exposure to violent crime events affects employers’ decisions to hire black job applicants with and without a criminal record. Results of a quasi-experimental research design drawing on a correspondence study of 368 job applications submitted to 184 hiring establishments in Oakland, California, and archival data of 5,226 crime events indicate that callback rates were 11 percentage points lower for black job applicants than for white or Hispanic applicants and 12 percentage points lower for those with a criminal record than those without one. Recent exposure to nearby violent crimes reduced employers’ likelihood of calling back black job applicants by 10 percentage points, whether or not they had a criminal record, but did not have the same effect on callback rates for white or Hispanic applicants.
Affirmative Action in Law Reviews
Adam Chilton, Jonathan Masur & Kyle Rozema
University of Chicago Working Paper, May 2019
Abstract:
Policies designed to increase the diversity of law review editors are being challenged in court. The lawsuits claim that, by "illegally us[ing] race and gender as criteria for selecting law students to staff their most elite academic journals," the law reviews have diminished the quality of the articles they publish. We test this claim by using citations as a measure of article impact and studying changes in diversity policies at the flagship law reviews of the top 20 law schools. Using data on the citations of articles published since 1960, we find no evidence that diversity policies for editor selection meaningfully decrease the impact of published articles. In fact, we find at least some evidence that diversity policies may actually increase the impact of published articles.
When racial/ethnic minorities emerge as leaders: The role of learning orientation and team minority composition
Tyree Mitchell & Patrick Coyle
Group Dynamics, forthcoming
Abstract:
Extant research suggests that when teams are composed of both White and racial/ethnic minority members, White individuals are more likely to be granted informal leadership status than racial/ethnic minorities. Given this unfortunate reality, we addressed an underexplored question: when or under what conditions do racial/ethnic minorities emerge as leaders? Using a multilevel approach, we examined individual (i.e., learning goal orientation) and team factors (i.e., team minority composition) as key moderators of the relationship between race/ethnicity and leadership emergence. Guided by insights from the social identity theory of leadership, we predicted racial/ethnic minorities would be more likely to emerge as leaders within teams composed of few minorities when they possess high (as opposed to low) levels of learning goal orientation. We tested our hypotheses with a sample of 80 self-managing teams within the context of an assessment center. Results demonstrated support for the notion that it is critical for racial/ethnic minorities to possess high levels of learning goal orientation when working in predominantly White teams to attain informal leadership status. As such, our findings help clarify the conditions under which racial/ethnic minorities emerge as leaders in self-managing teams.
Unpacking the Drivers of Racial Disparities in School Suspension and Expulsion
Jayanti Owens & Sara McLanahan
Social Forces, forthcoming
Abstract:
School suspension and expulsion are important forms of punishment that disproportionately affect Black students, with long-term consequences for educational attainment and other indicators of wellbeing. Prior research identifies three mechanisms that help account for racial disparities in suspension and expulsion: between-school sorting, differences in student behaviors, and differences in the treatment and support of students with similar behaviors. We extend this literature by (1) comparing the contributions of these three mechanisms in a single study, (2) assessing behavior and school composition when children enter kindergarten and before most are exposed to school discipline, and (3) using both teacher and parent reports of student behaviors. Decomposition analyses reveal that differential treatment and support account for 46 percent of the Black/White gap in suspension/expulsion, while between-school sorting and differences in behavior account for 21 percent and 9 percent of the gap respectively. Results are similar for boys and girls and robust to the use of school fixed effects and measures of school composition and student behavior at ages 5 and 9. Theoretically, our findings highlight differential treatment/support after children enter school as an important but understudied mechanism in the early criminalization of Black students.
The Effect of Teacher-Child Race/Ethnicity Matching and Classroom Diversity on Children's Socioemotional and Academic Skills
Damira Rasheed et al.
Child Development, forthcoming
Abstract:
Mounting evidence suggests teacher-child race/ethnicity matching and classroom diversity benefit Black and Latinx children's academic and socioemotional development. However, less is known about whether the effects of teacher-child matching differ across levels of classroom diversity. This study examined effects of matching on teacher‐reported child outcomes in a racially/ethnically diverse sample of teachers and children, and classroom diversity moderation using multilevel models. Data were drawn from a professional learning study involving 224 teachers (Mage = 41.5) and 5,200 children (Mage = 7.7) in 36 New York City elementary schools. Teacher-child race/ethnicity matching was associated with higher child engagement in learning, motivation, social skills, and fewer absences. Classroom diversity moderated matching such that teacher-child mismatch was related to lower engagement, motivation, social skills, math and reading scores in low‐diversity classrooms, but not in high‐diversity classrooms. Implications for practice and policy are discussed.
Indebted Over Time: Racial Differences in Student Borrowing
Monnica Chan et al.
Educational Researcher, forthcoming
Abstract:
Recent trends in higher education financing have increased students’ need to borrow to afford college. This brief examines how federal student loan borrowing has changed from 2000 to 2016 by student race/ethnicity using logistic regression analysis and data from the National Postsecondary Student Aid Study (NPSAS). We find that the odds of borrowing have diverged over time across racial and ethnic subgroups even after controlling for institutional sector and students’ financial circumstances. This divergence in student loan borrowing has important implications for policymakers and researchers interested in closing racial gaps in college access and success.
How “real” is reality television? Marginalized group representativeness in competitive reality television programming
Kelly Dillon & Elizabeth Jones
Psychology of Popular Media Culture, July 2019, Pages 319-328
Abstract:
The present study focuses on whether contestants of differing ethnicities, ages, and abilities in competitive reality TV programming in the United States are represented authentically in comparison with the U.S. population, and if marginalized status influences elimination order. This content analysis aims to address a gap in the literature, as a first step toward understanding the cultivation effects of race and ethnicity portrayals on reality TV programs. Competitive reality TV programs were chosen due to the perception that anyone can try-out or be chosen for most of these shows, leading to a larger pool of possible participants. Data from casts in shows airing from 2000 to 2013 were collected. Racial, ethnic, age, disability status, and elimination order data were collected from 653 contestants. These data were compared with U.S. Census data to answer key research questions. Analyses suggest no significant difference in the proportion of contestants who are female in comparison with the American population. Some racial and ethnic groups are overrepresented, and others significantly underrepresented, but minority status (gender, race, ethnicity, or age) does not affect performance in competitions, meaning marginalized groups do not fare any differently than majority group members. Additional research is necessary to understand representation in portrayal and narratives in reality programming.
Examining racial/ethnic disparities in school discipline in the context of student-reported behavior infractions
Kate Wegmann & Brittanni Smith
Children and Youth Services Review, August 2019, Pages 18-27
Abstract:
Although traditional methodologies of measuring racial/ethnic disparities in the use of exclusionary discipline have provided overwhelming evidence that students of color are far more likely than White students to experience exclusionary punishment, studies using these methods have been criticized for not accounting for students' general patterns of behavior, and also for not examining the extent to which students disproportionately receive non-exclusionary consequences (e.g., warnings). The current study examined both exclusionary and non-exclusionary forms of discipline for disproportionality, using a traditional percentage method as well as binary logistic regression to estimate the impact of students' self-reported number, frequency, and engagement in particular behavior infractions on the odds that students would also report one or more suspensions, office referrals, personal warnings from a teacher, or warnings about their behavior sent home. Engagement in particular behaviors had differential impact for African American vs. White students on the odds of receiving behavioral warnings, with African American students being less likely to be warned than their White peers. The current study demonstrates both the presence of disproportionality in non-exclusionary discipline as well as evidence that African American students experience escalated consequences (e.g., lower likelihood of receiving a warning) for infractions when they also engage in certain behaviors, even if those behaviors are not the direct cause for discipline. By maintaining differential consequences for behavior infractions committed by African American students vs. White students, schools can mirror racialized differences in policing and the criminal justice system, and through their role as agents of socialization, normalize such unequal systems for youth.
Race-Ethnicity, Class, and Unemployment Dynamics: Do Macroeconomic Shifts Alter Existing Disadvantages?
Wei-hsin Yu & Shengwei Sun
Research in Social Stratification and Mobility, forthcoming
Abstract:
Research indicates that individuals of different races, ethnic backgrounds, and class origins differ in their unemployment rates. We know less, however, about whether these differences result from the differing groups’ unequal hazards of entering or exiting unemployment and even less about how economic fluctuations moderate the ethnoracial and class-origin gaps in the long-term risks of transitioning into and out of unemployment. Using Rounds 1-17 of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 and event history models, we show that non-Hispanic blacks become more similar to non-Hispanic whites in their paces of entering unemployment as their local unemployment rate rises, perhaps because jobs largely closed to the former are eliminated in a greater proportion during recessions. Nonetheless, blacks’ relatively slow pace of transitioning from unemployment to having a job decelerates further with economic downturns. By contrast, Hispanics’ paces of entering and exiting unemployment relative to non-Hispanic whites hardly change with local unemployment rates, despite unemployed Hispanics’ slower rate of transitioning to having a job. With respect to class origin, we find that the advantages in both unemployment entry and recovery of young men with relatively educated parents diminish with economic deterioration. Based on these results, we suggest that facing economic pressure, employers’ preference for workers of a higher class origin is more malleable than their preference for whites over blacks, making unemployed blacks especially disadvantaged in uncertain economic times.
Socioeconomic-Based School Assignment Policy and Racial Segregation Levels: Evidence From the Wake County Public School System
Deven Carlson et al.
American Educational Research Journal, forthcoming
Abstract:
In the wake of political and legal challenges facing race-based integration, districts have turned to socioeconomic integration initiatives in an attempt to achieve greater racial balance across schools. Empirically, the extent to which these initiatives generate such balance is an open question. In this article, we leverage the school assignment system that the Wake County Public School System employed throughout the 2000s to provide evidence on this issue. Although our results show that Wake County Public School System’s socioeconomic-based assignment policy had negligible effects on average levels of segregation across the district, it substantially reduced racial segregation for students who would have attended majority-minority schools under a residence-based assignment policy. The policy also exposed these students to peers with different racial/ethnic backgrounds, higher mean achievement levels, and more advantaged neighborhood contexts. We explore how residential context and details of the policy interacted to produce this pattern of effects and close the article by discussing the implications of our results for research and policy.