Center for the Study of Democratic Politics and
Lab on Politics, Race and Experimental Methods Conference
The Racial Frontier: Multiracial or Mixed-Race Identity in the Social Sciences
Date: Friday, March 24
Time: 9:00am to 4:00pm
Location: Bendheim Hall
9:00am – 9:10am: Breakfast
9:10am – 9:50am: Gregory Leslie (Princeton University)
Title: The Racial Frontier: Biracials, Machine Learning, and the Future of Racial Group Boundaries
Abstract: A growing thread of research uses Biracials—those who exist at the intersections of our major social cleavages (racial groups)—to reveal the current nature and future trajectory of our racial hierarchy. Specifically, researchers explore whether Minority-White Biracials (those with one White parent and one Minority parent) tend to be more similar to either Whites or to their Minority counterparts. The former circumstance would suggest a trajectory of assimilation for racial minority groups and waning intergroup prejudice, while the latter augurs enduring racial group boundaries and continued minority subjugation. Existing studies provide tremendous contributions, but may be limited in their data and methodology. In this study, I offer new data which measures Biracials by parentage (an important circumvention of endogeneity) and a machine learning approach which can use hundreds of variables at a time in order to measure how Biracials compare to their single-race counterparts. In terms of political attitudes, Black-White Biracials are more similar to Blacks, while Asian-Whites exhibit political thinking approximating that of single-race Whites. Latino-Whites remain "in-between" their counterpart groups.
9:50am – 10:30am: Sarah Gaither (Duke University)
Title: Mixed Experiences in Identity and Denial
Abstract: Although psychological research regarding multiracial individuals is still limited, we know that multiracial people face unique experiences navigating social situations since they have multiple racial groups with which to identify. Some work suggests that because of their ability to maneuver among their multiple racial identities, multiracial people adopt flexible cognitive strategies in dealing with their social environments—a benefit to having multiple racial identities. However, other research shows that multiracial individuals report higher levels of social exclusion and experiences of identity denial than other racial groups resulting in increased levels of various mental health outcomes. Here, I will review my past and current research examining the behavioral and psychological outcomes linked to having a flexible racial identity across the lifespan.
10 Minute Break
10:40am – 11:20am: Paul Starr and Ed Freeland (Princeton University)
Title: ‘People of Color’ as a Category and Identity
Abstract: Although the category “people of color” has not been adopted by the U. S. Census, it has assumed critical importance in public and social-scientific understanding of population change. But do Americans understand it as a neutral demographic category or a political identity? We provide the first U.S. national estimates for self-identification as a person of color (PoC ID). We also measure dissonance between individuals’ self-identification and the reflected appraisals of others, as well as where Americans draw the boundaries of PoC in regard to different ethnoracial groups. PoC ID ranges from 95% among Blacks to 61% among Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders and 45% among Hispanics. Liberalism significantly increases PoC ID among AAPI, while conservatism reduces PoC ID among Hispanics, but political ideology is unassociated with PoC ID among Blacks. Stronger ethnic group consciousness raises PoC ID among all three groups. Demographic factors (particularly gender, age, and nativity) also influence PoC ID and PoC ID dissonance, but effects vary in direction and significance sharply from one group to another. All groups agree that Blacks would be the most welcome at a meeting of PoC, but Black respondents have a more restrictive conception than other groups of who would be welcome, while AAPI are the most inclusive. The results suggest caution in use of the term “people of color” and in assuming that growing populations of Hispanics and Asians will necessarily lead to a national majority who share the same super-panethnic identity as PoC.
11:20am – 12:00pm: Jennifer Sims (University of Alabama in Huntsville)
Title: The Inequality of Racial Perception: What (mis)perception of mixed-race people illustrates about patterns of seeing race
Abstract: With regard to the many dimensions of race, increasingly researchers are focusing on how “human bodies are visually read, understood, and narrated by means of symbolic meanings and associations,” that is, what sociologists Omi and Winant (2014) call the “ocular” dimension of race. Thus far, the ocular dimension of race has been studied as a characteristic of the observed person; as a noun or “thing” in other words. It is one’s “observed race” according to Wendy Roth (2016) and one’s “street race” according to López et al (2018). The physical features that function as “cues” or “markers” of street race have been examined by researchers like Monk and Maclin & Malpass, respectively.
The second chapter of my current book project continues this analytical focus on the ocular dimension of race, albeit by flipping the direction of focus. Rather than analyzing the conclusion (thing) of racial conceptualization or even the physical markers (things) used to reach conclusions, the chapter explores the societal level cognizing (action) that is racial perception. It does by centering mixed-race people’s experiences with (mis)perception to illustrates not only how contemporary patterns of racial perception are rooted in white supremacy but also how they function to maintain racial inequality at the individual, interactional, and ideological levels. Since being perceived in a given way has consequences, especially when people with power are the perceivers, the chapter theorizes racial perception as a discrete system of inequality.
12:00pm – 1:30pm: Lunch
1:30pm – 2:10pm: Isaiah Johnson (Princeton University)
Title: Steadfast or Treacherous? How Proximity to Whiteness Shapes Multiracial Political Behavior
Abstract: In attempting to extend the research paradigm on multiracial political behavior, this project seeks to answer the following central question: “Does proximity to Whiteness reduce Black linked fate for Multiracial identifiers and contribute to differences in monetary allocations to partisan organizations?” Linked Fate is central to studying Black political behavior (Gurin, Hatchett, and Jackson 1989; Dawson 1994), as well as multiracial identity formation (Davenport, Franco, and Iyengar 2022; Davenport, Iyengar, and Westwood 2022, Davenport et al. 2015; Davenport 2018; Davenport 2016b; Leslie and Sears 2022); yet, much of the research on multiracial political behavior utilizes observational data and doesn’t incorporate the role of private incentives in affecting linked fate (see White and Laird 2020; White, Laird, and Allen 2014 for more). I utilize an experimental design focusing on inducing costly behavior to better approximate linked fate in multiracial identifiers (Kinder and Kam 2007; White and Laird 2020; White, Laird, and Allen 2014). Further, I theorize that Proximity to Whiteness – the degree to which multiracials view themselves as maintaining a White social identity – moderates the subject’s willingness to contribute to partisan organizations linked to Black politics. Observational data is shown to develop construct validity in the Proximity to Whiteness scale. Shifting the paradigm beyond examining monoracial Black and White Americans towards developing theories on multiracial identity development and its effect on political behavior provides a significant step forward for research at the intersection of sociology, psychology, and race and ethnic politics.
2:10pm – 2:50pm: Alexander Agadjanian (University of California, Berkeley)
Title: Multiracial Americans and Dynamics of Racial Identity Change
Abstract: TBD
10 Minute Break
3:00pm – 3:40pm: Danielle Lemi (Southern Methodist University)
Title: Doing Race, Doing Mixed Race: Identity Labor and the Future of Representation in American Politics
Abstract: TBD
4:30pm: Dinner