Ethno-Racial Attitudes and Social Inequality

Sociologists ordinarily assume that social structure drives the content of individual level values, attitudes, beliefs, and ultimately, behavior. In some classic models this posture reaches a point of essentially denying the sociological relevance of any micro-level processes. In contrast, psychologists (and to a degree, economists) operate with theoretical models that give primacy to individual level perception, cognition, motivation, and choice. Within the domain of studies of ethnoracial relations, each of these positions has modern advocates. From the sociologically deterministic vantage point Edna Bonacich trumpets the “‘deeper’ level of reality” exposed by class analytics (1980, p. 9), while Omi and Winant (1994, p. 59) focus on “racialized social structure.” Others, while not so completely rejecting micro-level analyses, nonetheless call for primary attention to so-called “structural racism” (e.g., Bonilla-Silva (1997)). Within psychology we have seen an explosion of work on implicit attitudes or unconscious racism that more than ever centers attention on the internal psychological functioning of the individual. We argue here that, in general, a committed social psychological posture that examines both how societal level factors and processes shape individual experiences and outlooks and how the distribution of individual attitudes, beliefs, and values, in turn, influence others and the larger social environment provides the fullest leverage on understanding the dynamics of race. Specifically we argue in this chapter that ethno-racial attitudes, beliefs, and identities play a fundamental constitutive role in the experience, re-production, and process of change in larger societal patterns of ethno-racial inequality and relations. Some basic conceptual anchoring of attitude, race, and ethnicity is necessary. By attitude, we refer to “a favorable or unfavorable evaluation of an object” (Schuman et al. 1997, p. 1). Race typically involves socially constructed perceptions of phenotypic differences, variation in skin color and tone, hair texture, eye shape and other facial features while ethnicity refers to variations in language, attire, aspects of self-presentation, and other cultural behaviors. Ethno-racial attitudes thus reflect a variety of race and ethnicity associated objects: racial and ethnic groups and their attributes, features and assessments of relations between such groups, intergroup contact, and public policies pertinent to either race or ethnicity. Ethno-racial attitudes are built up and constituted in environments structured to correspond to F. L. Samson (*) Department of Sociology, University of Miami 5202 University Drive, 120D Merrick Building Coral Gables, FL, 33146, USA e-mail: [email protected]