Lincoln Quillian

Black Neighbors, Higher Crime? The Role of Racial Stereotypes in Evaluations of Neighborhood Crime

This article investigates the relationship between neighborhood racial composition and perceptions residents have of their neighborhood’s level of crime. The study uses questions about perceptions of neighborhood crime from surveys in Chicago, Seattle, and Baltimore, matched with census data and police department crime statistics. The percentage young black men in a neighborhood is positively associated with perceptions of the neighborhood crime level, even after controlling for two measures of crime rates and other neighborhood characteristics. This supports the view that stereotypes are influencing perceptions of neighborhood crime levels. Variation in effects by race of the perceiver and implications for racial segregation are discussed.

Group threat and regional change in attitudes toward African-Americans

Using survey data from the GSS 1972-91, the author assesses several possible causes of regional differences and temporal change in white racial attitudes. The study concludes that (1) support for racetargeted policies has not changed over birth cohorts, (2) changes in individual characteristics explain only a small portion of the decline in traditional prejudice over birth cohorts, (3) the influence of education on racial attitudes has been increasing over birth cohorts, and (4) percentage black and average per capita income are good predictors of racial attitudes and explain a portion of the North/South gap and the change over time in prejudice.

Beyond black and white: The present and future of multiracial friendship segregation

How will racial divisions in student friendship networks change as U.S. schools incorporate a growing Asian and Hispanic population? Drawing on theories of race in assimilation processes and the effects of relative group size on intergroup relations, several hypotheses are developed to address this question. These hypotheses are tested using data on friendships among students in grades 7 to 12 from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. Key findings are that (1) cross-race friendships including Asian and Hispanic students are more common than those between white and black students, but race and Hispanic background have significant influences on student friendships that persist over immigrant generations; (2) black or white racial identifications are strongly associated with the friendship choices of Hispanic students; (3) cross-race friendships increase with school racial diversity; and (4) own-group friend selection intensifies for students in small racial minorities in a school. The results support theories of racially segmented patterns of assimilation in primary group relations and suggest that students in small racial minorities seek to maintain a friendship network including several own-race friends. Implications are discussed.

Migration patterns and the growth of high-poverty neighborhoods, 1970-1990

Using geocoded data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, this article examines why the number of high‐poverty neighborhoods in American cities has increased since 1970. The main findings are (1) the migration of the nonpoor away from moderately poor neighborhoods has been a key process in forming new high‐poverty neighborhoods, although in the early 1980s increasing poverty rates were also important; and (2) African‐Americans have moved into predominately white neighborhoods at a pace sufficient to increase their numbers there, but neighborhoods with increasing black populations tend to lose white population rapidly. Implications for theories of poor neighborhoods are discussed.

How long are exposures to poor neighborhoods? The long-term dynamics of entry and exit from poor neighborhoods

Although discussions of poor neighborhoods often assume that their residents are a distinct population trapped in impoverished environments for long durations, no past research has examined longitudinal patterns of residence in poor neighborhoods beyond single-year transitions. Using data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics from 1979 to 1990 matched to census tract data, this paper provides the first estimates of duration of stay and rates of re-entry in poor (20%+ poor) and extremely poor (40%+ poor) census tracts. The results indicate that (1) there is great racial inequality in longitudinal patterns of exposure to poorneighborhoods – mostAfrican Americans will live in a poor neighborhood over a 10 year span, contrasted to only 10 percent of whites; (2) exits from high poverty neighborhoods are not uncommon, but re-entries to poor neighborhoods following an exit are also very common, especially among African Americans; and (3) length of spell in a poor neighborhood is positively associated with low income, female headship, and, most of all, black race. Little of the racial difference is accounted for by racial difference in poverty status or family structure. Implications for research and public policy are discussed.

Segregation and Poverty Concentration: The Role of Three Segregations.

A key argument of Massey and Denton’s (1993) American Apartheid is that racial residential segregation and non-white group poverty rates combine interactively to produce spatially concentrated poverty. Despite a compelling theoretical rationale, empirical tests of this proposition have been negative or mixed. This article develops a formal decomposition model that expands Massey’s model of how segregation, group poverty rates, and other spatial conditions combine to form concentrated poverty. The revised decomposition model allows for income effects on cross-race neighborhood residence and interactive combinations of multiple spatial conditions in the formation of concentrated poverty. Applying the model to data reveals that racial segregation and income segregation within race contribute importantly to poverty concentration, as Massey argued. Almost equally important for poverty concentration, however, is the disproportionate poverty of blacks’ and Hispanics’ other-race neighbors. It is thus more accurate to describe concentrated poverty in minority communities as resulting from three segregations: racial segregation, poverty-status segregation within race, and segregation from high- and middle-income members of other racial groups. The missing interaction Massey expected in empirical tests can be found with proper accounting for the factors in the expanded model.

Estimating Risk: Stereotype Amplification and the Perceived Risk of Criminal Victimization

This paper considers the process by which individuals estimate the risk of adverse events, with particular attention to the social context in which risk estimates are formed. We compare subjective probability estimates of crime victimization to actual victimization experiences among respondents from the 1994 to 2002 waves of the Survey of Economic Expectations (Dominitz and Manski 2002). Using zip code identifiers, we then match these survey data to local area characteristics from the census. The results show that: (1) the risk of criminal victimization is significantly overestimated relative to actual rates of victimization or other negative events; (2) neighborhood racial composition is strongly associated with perceived risk of victimization, whereas actual victimization risk is driven by nonracial neighborhood characteristics; and (3) white respondents appear more strongly affected by racial composition than nonwhites in forming their estimates of risk. We argue these results support a model of stereotype amplification in the formation of risk estimates. Implications for persistent racial inequality are considered.

Does Unconscious Racism Exist

This essay argues for the existence of a form of unconscious racism. Research on implicit prejudice provides good evidence that most persons have deeply held negative associations with minority groups that can lead to subtle discrimination without conscious awareness. The evidence for implicit attitudes is briefly reviewed. Criticisms of the implicit prejudice literature raised by Arkes and Tetlock (2004) are discussed, but found to be inconsistent with several findings of prejudice research.

Does intergenerational social mobility affect antagonistic attitudes towards ethnic minorities

Up till now, no study satisfactorily addressed the effect of social mobility on antagonistic attitudes toward ethnic minorities. In this contribution, we investigate the effect of educational and class intergenerational mobility on ethnic stereotypes, ethnic threat, and opposition to ethnic intermarriage by using diagonal mobility models. We test several hypotheses derived from ethnic competition theory and socialization theory with data from the Social and Cultural Developments in The Netherlands surveys (SOCON, waves 1995, 2000, and 2005) and The Netherlands Kinship and Panel Study (NKPS, wave 2002). We find that the relative influence of social origin and social destination depends on the specific origin and destination combination. If one moves to a more tolerant social destination position, the influence of the social origin position is negligible. If on the other hand, one is socially mobile to a less tolerant social position, the impact of the origin on antagonistic attitudes is substantial and may even exceed the impact of the destination category. This confirms our hypothesis that adaptation to more tolerant norms is easier than adaptation to less tolerant norms. We find only meagre evidence for the hypothesis that downward mobility leads to frustration and consequently to more antagonistic attitudes.

The decline of male employment in low-income black neighborhoods, 1950–1990

Abstract Many urban theorists, notably W.J. Wilson, hypothesize that rates of male joblessness in low-income urban neighborhoods have increased since the 1960s. This paper examines this claim by tabulating male employment trends in census tracts in 49 metropolitan areas from 1950 to 1990, and models causes of these trends. The results show a marked decline in the employment of working-age men in low-income black tracts, both in absolute terms and relative to the employment rates of male residents of other types of tracts. This decline occurred among cities in all regions of the country. By 1990, more than 40% of working-age black men in low-income tracts were not employed, about two-thirds of whom were adults between the ages of 25 and 64. Models indicate that declining urban manufacturing employment contributed to the declining rates of work for black men in low-income neighborhoods, but they do not support explanations based on spatial mismatch, suburbanization, or black out-migration. The paper concludes that Wilson is right to focus on the employment problem of low-income black neighborhoods, and that black male joblessness in low-income neighborhoods in 1990 reached crisis levels.