Race Bending: "Mixed" Youth Practicing Strategic Racialization in California

As more U.S. youth claim "mixed" heritages, some adults are proposing to erase race words altogether from the nation's inequality analysis. Yet such proposals, as detailed ethnography shows, ignore the complex realities of continuing racialized practice. At an urban California high school in the 1990s, "mixed" youth strategically employed simple "race" categories to describe themselves and inequality orders, even as they regularly challenged these very labels' accuracy. In so "bending" race categories, these youth modeled a practical and theoretical strategy crucial for dealing thoughtfully with race in 21st century America . [race, youth, youth culture, discourse, language]     

"Playing between Classes": America's Troubles with Class, Race, and Gender in a Black High School and Community

A cultural and relational framework of social class is used to present an ethnographic portrait of class as it unfolds with race and gender in a black high school and community. Traditionally viewed as troubling, these students (and staff) play between classes in ways that impact structural analyses of class and their implications for public policy.     

"Race" and the Construction of Human Identity

Race as a mechanism of social stratification and as a form of human identity is a recent concept in human history. Historical records show that neither the idea nor ideologies associated with race existed before the seventeenth century. In the United States, race became the main form of human identity, and it has had a tragic effect on low-status "racial" minorities and on those people who perceive themselves as of "mixed race." We need to research and understand the consequences of race as the premier source of human identity. This paper briefly explores how race became a part of our culture and consciousness and argues that we must disconnect cultural features of identity from biological traits and study how "race" eroded and superseded older forms of human identity. It suggests that "race" ideology is already beginning to disintegrate as a result of twentieth-century changes.     

Classroom Race/Ethnic Composition,Family-School Connections,and the Transition to School

Using data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study–Kindergarten Cohort (N = 13,970), we examined whether two aspects of school-family connections, parental involvement and communication quality, accounted for the association between classroom composition and children's academic and socioemotional functioning following the transition to elementary school. For students with more same-race/ethnic representation in their classrooms, greater classroom race/ethnic diversity promoted more parental involvement, which in turn promoted children's interpersonal skills and reading achievement. Classroom diversity made little difference to parental involvement when students had fewer same-race/ethnic peers in the classroom. Teacher–parent communication quality did not emerge as an explanatory mechanism, and findings did not vary by the race/ethnic match between students and their teachers.     

Reestablishing "Race" in Anthropological Discourse

Anthropology, despite its historic role in both creating and dismantling the American racial worldview, seems barely visible in contemporary scholarly and public discussions of "race." The authors argue that race should once again be central to anthropological inquiry, that cultural and physical anthropologists must jointly develop and publicly disseminate a unified, uniquely anthropological perspective. They suggest ways to proceed and identify internal barriers that must be overcome before the anthropological voice can be heard.     

Dialectics of Race and Nationality: Contradictions and Philadelphia Working-Class Youth

This article explores the concept of dialectical contradictions as it relates to individual understandings of intergroup relations in the United States. The ways that working-class white youth and adults combine contradictory experience and ideology in their behavior and belief systems regarding foreign-born residents and people of color are detailed. By describing conflict and cooperation among youth from different races and nationalities, the discussion shows the relationship between the concept of dialectics and race relations as they are played out in day-to-day interactions in a Philadelphia neighborhood and Polish nationalities parish school.     

Introduction: Expanding the Discourse on "Race"

In response to Mukhopadhyay and Moses's call for biological and cultural anthropologists to reestablish a dialogue on race, anthropologists from the four major subfields join colleagues from two allied disciplines to address the possible ways in which the anthropological discourse on race can become more holistic and amenable to the urgent needs and interests of the public. This essay offers an overview of the current resurgence of race-focused scholarship in anthropology, as well as a framework for an intertextual reading of the articles featured in this theme forum. Anthropologists' current conversation on race and racism is built on a rich legacy, elements of which are still being uncovered in gender- and racecognizant explorations of the discipline's past Despite the considerable hiatus since the last major juncture of race-centered debate and research, that legacy has recently inspired a promising upsurge of critical analysis which, if mobilized effectively, may contribute to the subversion of the often subtle cultural and structural logics of contemporary racism, as well as clear the ground for a new culture for multiracial democracy. Toward this end, anthropologists and others interested in using anthropological tools must cultivate more richly nuanced analyses and intervention strategies informed by insights emerging from the cross-fertilization of ideas from the various subfields along with such fields as human genetics and ethnic studies. Anthropology's unique role in interrogating, theorizing, and potentially disrupting the dynamics of racism may be dependent on understanding the conceptual and methodological significance of strategic intradisciplinary and interdisciplinary interfaces.     

Access to Music Education with Regard to Race in Two Urban Areas

This quantitative study examined access to school music instruction with regard to race in two urban areas: Detroit, Michigan, and Washington, DC, in 2009–2010. We found significant differences in the provision of music instruction between schools with high and low proportions of nonwhite enrollment, in categories including curricular offerings, extracurricular offerings, and resources. In the Detroit area, only 31 percent to 60 percent of schools with high percentages of nonwhite students offered any music instruction at all. We contrast our findings with those of a National Center for Educational Statistics report to demonstrate how regional and national averages can obscure information that should guide policy, such as the influence of location and racial demographics of schools on the provision of public school music instruction. The article concludes with a discussion of the implications of using flawed data in the creation of policy and suggestions for more comprehensive and accurate data collection and analysis.     

Race,Ethnicity, Psychosocial Factors,and Telomere Length in a Multicenter Setting

Background

Leukocyte telomere length(LTL) has been associated with age, self-reported race/ethnicity, gender, education, and psychosocial factors, including perceived stress, and depression. However, inconsistencies in associations of LTL with disease and other phenotypes exist across studies. Population characteristics, including race/ethnicity, laboratory methods, and statistical approaches in LTL have not been comprehensively studied and could explain inconsistent LTL associations.

Methods

LTL was measured using Southern Blot in 1510 participants from a multi-ethnic, multi-center study combining data from 3 centers with different population characteristics and laboratory processing methods. Main associations between LTL and psychosocial factors and LTL and race/ethnicity were evaluated and then compared across generalized estimating equations(GEE) and linear regression models. Statistical models were adjusted for factors typically associated with LTL(age, gender, cancer status) and also accounted for factors related to center differences, including laboratory methods(i.e., DNA extraction). Associations between LTL and psychosocial factors were also evaluated within race/ethnicity subgroups (Non-hispanic Whites, African Americans, and Hispanics).

Results

Beyond adjustment for age, gender, and cancer status, additional adjustments for DNA extraction and clustering by center were needed given their effects on LTL measurements. In adjusted GEE models, longer LTL was associated with African American race (Beta(β)(standard error(SE)) = 0.09(0.04), p-value = 0.04) and Hispanic ethnicity (β(SE) = 0.06(0.01), p-value = 0.02) compared to Non-Hispanic Whites. Longer LTL was also associated with less than a high school education compared to having greater than a high school education (β(SE) = 0.06(0.02), p-value = 0.04). LTL was inversely related to perceived stress (β(SE) = -0.02(0.003), p<0.001). In subgroup analyses, there was a negative association with LTL in African Americans with a high school education versus those with greater than a high school education(β(SE) = -0.11(0.03), p-value<0.001).

Conclusions

Laboratory methods and population characteristics that differ by center can influence telomere length associations in multicenter settings, but these effects could be addressed through statistical adjustments. Proper evaluation of potential sources of bias can allow for combined multicenter analyses and may resolve some inconsistencies in reporting of LTL associations. Further, biologic effects on LTL may differ under certain psychosocial and racial/ethnic circumstances and could impact future health disparity studies.     

Making Fun out of Difference: Ethnicity–Race and Humour in a London School

This article highlights the importance of humour and laughter in analyses of ethnicity and race in everyday life, and contributes to the growing anthropological engagement with the role of the ludic in social life. Focusing on pupil interaction in an ethnically and racially diverse London school, it argues that while peer classification practices can lead to reification of ethnic and racial differences, ludic interactions have cross-cutting, counter-balancing or liquefying effects. In interactions of humour, ethnic and racial differences can become the very material from which banter and laughter are created, constituting a convivial sociality that manifests closeness at the same time as difference. Such interactions enable peers to address their racial and ethnic differences, and a wider context of prejudice and racism, lightly, ‘making fun out of’ what could potentially divide and distance them.     

Teachers' Expectations and Sense of Responsibility for Student Learning: The Importance of Race, Class, and Organizational Habitus

This article examines how the concentration of low-income African American students in urban elementary schools is deeply coupled with a leveling of teachers' expectations of students and a reduction in their sense of responsibility for student learning. We argue that this process is rooted in school-based organizational habitus through which expectations of students become embedded in schools. We show that this process can be mediated if school leaders engage in practices designed to increase teachers' sense of responsibility for student learning. [organizational habitus, race, class, teacher expectations]     

Race and racism: Towards a global future

There is a deepening and worldwide contradiction in the meaning and structure of race and racism. The age of empire is over; apartheid and Jim Crow have ended; a significant consensus exists that the concept of race lacks an objective basis; and yet the concept persists, as idea, as practice, as identity, and as social structure. This suggests that the global racial situation remains not only volatile but also seriously undertheorized. Five key racial problems of the twenty-first century are stressed: (1)Nonracialism vs. Race Consciousness; (2)Racial Genomics; (3)The Nation and its Peoples; (4)Race/Gender/Class “Intersectionality”; and (5) Empire, Race, and Neoconservatism. A radical pragmatist approach is proposed, stressing the ineluctable link between racialized experience and racialized social structure. This argument, that racial hegemony has not been secured, draws on the DuBoisian legacy as well as racial formation theory. Because racial rule is essential to rule itself, these contradictions are destined to deepen, not diminish.     

Race: a social destruction of a biological concept

It is nowadays a dominant opinion in a number of disciplines (anthropology, genetics, psychology, philosophy of science) that the taxonomy of human races does not make much biological sense. My aim is to challenge the arguments that are usually thought to invalidate the biological concept of race. I will try to show that the way “race” was defined by biologists several decades ago (by Dobzhansky and others) is in no way discredited by conceptual criticisms that are now fashionable and widely regarded as cogent. These criticisms often arbitrarily burden the biological category of race with some implausible connotations, which then opens the path for a quick eliminative move. However, when properly understood, the biological notion of race proves remarkably resistant to these deconstructive attempts. Moreover, by analyzing statements of some leading contemporary scholars who support social constructivism about race, I hope to demonstrate that their eliminativist views are actually in conflict with what the best contemporary science tells us about human genetic variation.     

Geneticists and Race

SYNOPSIS. During the twentieth century, geneticists have dramaticallychanged their assessments of the biological and social consequencesof human race differences and race crossing. In the first quarterof the century, most geneticists thought that human races differedhereditarily by important mental as well as physical differencesand that wide race crosses were biologically and socially harmful.The period from 1925 to the outbreak of World War II saw nochange in geneticists' views on hereditary mental differencesbetween human races, but a shift to agnosticism on the issueof wide race crosses. By the early 1950s, geneticists generallyargued that wide race crosses were at worst biologically harmless,but still held to earlier beliefs about hereditary mental differencesbetween races. The final period from 1951 to the present haswitnessed the shift to agnosticism on the issue of hereditarymental differences between races. The changes in geneticists'assessments of race differences and race crossing were causedbyincreased understanding of the complex relationship betweengenes and environment and by cultural changes.     

Addressing teachers' concerns about teaching evolution

Evolution was introduced into the senior secondary school Life Sciences curriculum in South Africa for the first time in 2008. Research in other countries shows that evolution is an extremely controversial topic to teach, raising serious concerns for teachers. Curriculum change theory dealing with ‘stages of concern’ suggests that teachers implementing a new curriculum move through a predictable series of types of concerns, and that if their initial concerns are not addressed then teachers are slow to move on to more important task-related matters. This has serious implications for both professional development programmes and the development of support materials for teachers: information about teachers' concerns is needed so that those having to support teachers can do so on an informed basis. This article identifies the concerns of 125 secondary school teachers having to teach evolution for the first time. Data was gathered using an activity-based questionnaire administered in a workshop setting to four different groups of biology teachers attending inservice workshops on the teaching of evolution, at stages progressively closer to the implementation date. The majority of concerns identified were early-stage ‘self-concerns’, dealing with personal worries and a need for information. Implications of the findings for providing support for teachers with concerns about teaching evolution are discussed.     

Race and the Concept of Progress in Nineteenth Century American Ethnology

While nineteenth century American ethnologists relied on the word "evolution" more than the word "progress" to define their theory of culture, their theory of evolution nonetheless implied a teleological projection that was no more than a paeon for Anglo-Saxon race achievement. Believing that failures in earlier stages of evolution had limited brain size and quality of the "inferior races," they suggested that, for all practical purposes, the Caucasian was the lone man in evolution. While the Caucasian maintained an active, progressive role in modifying the environment, the lower races broke into the modern world as mere "survivals" from the past, mentally and physiologically unable to shoulder the burdens of complex civilization. Ethnology became a means through which both scientists and social scientists sought to estimate the relative value of the races, delineate social categories, and help justify the dynamics of race legislation.     

What Does Africa Have to Do with Being African American? A Microethnographic Analysis of a Middle School Inquiry Unit on Africa

In the United States, "race" and "black identity" are becoming more complex with the increasing numbers of individuals who identify as "black and foreignborn." Emanating from a year-long study in an urban middle school classroom and a microethnographic investigation of a two-week unit on Africa, this article employs a Pan-African framework to examine how schools and the broader society serve as sites where black identity is contested. The article concludes with implications for education, society, and the study of race and black identity in classroom life.     

Race and racial denial in Switzerland

Although mainstream historiography’s postcolonial indifference has been heavily contested, a profound engagement with how race relates to racism in Switzerland seems far-off. As the country’s direct democratic system relentlessly allows for race to be mobilized, Swiss racial denial results in an inability to productively name and contest racism. This would be particularly pertinent, as racism has not only been normalized by right-wing popular initiatives but also by a state-sponsored climate in which any attempt of naming racism is deemed excessive or hysterical. This article explores the effects of anti-racialist ‘anti-racism’ on public debates about racism in Switzerland. It has been argued that, in wake of the UNESCO consensus, anti-racialism has been established as the dominant paradigm of anti-racism across Europe. Through an analysis of Swiss state anti-racism, I will propose that an unexamined commitment to the anti-racialist tradition actively contributes to the difficulty of naming and combating racism in Switzerland.     

The Status of the Race Concept in Physical Anthropology

There are hereditary differences among human beings. Some of these differences have geographical correlates. Some genetic variants that produce physical or behavioral deficits occur significantly more often in some areas, or in some ethnic groups, than in others. However, none of these facts provides any intellectual support for the race concept, for racial classifications, or for social hierarchies based on ethnic-group membership.
The geographical element of the race concept is important in theory but is widely ignored in practice since it does not conform well to the facts of current human phenotype distribution. Much of the literature on supposed racial differences involves such geographically meaningless exercises as studying differences among "races" by subdividing a sample of North Americans. If races are defined as geographically delimited conspecific populations characterized by distinctive regional phenotypes, then human races do not exist now and have not existed for centuries,