Rima Wilkes

Hypersegregation in the twenty-first century

We used metropolitan-level data from the 2000 U.S. census to analyze the hypersegregation of four groups from whites: blacks, Hispanics, Asians, and Native Americans. While blacks were hypersegregated in 29 metropolitan areas and Hispanics were hypersegregated in 2, Asians and Native Americans were not hypersegregated in any. There were declines in the number of metropolitan areas with black hypersegregation, although levels of segregation experienced by blacks remained significantly higher than those of the other groups, even after a number of factors were controlled. Indeed, although socioeconomic differences among the groups explain some of the difference in residential patterns more generally, they have little association with hypersegregation in particular, indicating the overarching salience of race in shaping residential patterns in these highly divided metropolitan areas.

“No Thanks, We’re Full”: Individual Characteristics, National Context, and Changing Attitudes Toward Immigration.

In this paper we examine how individual-level characteristics and national context affect attitudes toward immigration. Although many previous studies have compared attitudes toward immigration across countries, little attention has been paid to how attitudes may be affected by changes within a country over time. We take advantage of seventeen national Canadian Gallup surveys to consider how differences in national economic conditions and changing immigration flows affect attitudes and changes in attitudes between 1975 and 2000. While the state of the national economy affects attitudes this is not the case for the rate of immigration. Rather than affecting some groups more than others the state of the economy has a relatively uniform effect across groups. Our results also show that far from being a continuum, being anti-immigration and being pro-immigration are qualitatively different. Interest, ideology, and the national economy affect anti-immigration sentiments, but only ideology affects pro-immigration sentiments.

The spatial assimilation model reexamined : An assessment by Canadian data

Given the theoretical importance and policy implications of the spatial assimilation model, it is surprising that few studies have carefully and empirically examined the relationship of the three key variables in the model that has been used to explain the process of neighborhood attainment among immigrants, i.e., neighborhood environments, socioeconomic resources, and duration of residence in the host country. Few studies have delineated separate models to analyze the relationship between neighborhood environments and socioeconomic resources to the length of time spent in the host country. Using data from 1991 Canadian Census 2B profile and a special requested table from Statistics Canada, we evaluate how much the relationships of the three key variables mentioned in the spatial assimilation model apply to the spatial attainment of various racial/ethnic groups in Canada. The results reveal that the model explains the spatial attainment experiences of European groups. However, for Asians and blacks, the results suggest that their neighborhood attainments are not strongly related to their socioeconomic statuses. The study calls for a cautious approach in applying the spatial assimilation model.

Right-Wing Parties and Anti-foreigner Sentiment in Europe

Raijman, and Gorodzeisky (SRG hereafter) examine changes in Europeans’attitudes toward foreigners between 1988 and 2000. SRG show that during this period there was a dramatic increase in anti-foreigner sentiment in all of the 12 countries they studied.1 They use hierarchical linear models to investigate the extent to which this was influenced by differences in individual and country-level characteristics. SRG find little support for traditional competition or group threat models that routinely inform our understanding of prejudice and ethnic collective action (e.g., see Olzak 1992; Quillan 1995; Scheepers, Gijberts, and Coenders 2002). Instead, SRG demonstrate recent changes in the strength of the relationship between the political orientation of respondents and antiforeigner sentiment. Specifically, over time, individuals who locate themselves more to the right of the political spectrum have become increasingly intolerant toward foreigners (p. 441). Where people live also matters: anti-foreigner sentiment is higher in countries with stronger support for extreme right-wing parties (ERPs hereafter). By drawing our attention to the role of political factors in a debate that has been heavily oriented toward economic explanations, SRG make an important contribution to our understanding of the causes of anti-foreigner sentiment. In this comment, we extend SRG’s findings on the relationship between politics and prejudice. SRG claim that anti-foreigner sentiment is higher where the prevalence of support for the extreme right is strong. We argue that this is an overgeneralization. Sharp ideological differences between ERPs on racial issues, especially across countries, matter. These ideological differences, we suggest, not only affect attitudes across countries but also interact with attitudes at the individual level. Further, we demonstrate that because SRG treat all ERPs as if they are one type, outlier countries have a significant effect on their results. In contrast, our results are more robust because we consider the type of racism each ERP exhibits.

Explaining time trends in public opinion: Attitudes towards immigration and immigrants

Why does public opinion change over time? Much debate on this question centers on whether it is caused by the replacement of people or by individuals changing how they think. Theoretical approaches to this question have emphasized the importance of birth cohort succession, generational differences, and changing macro-economic conditions. In this article, we consider the extent to which these processes can account for changing attitudes towards immigration and immigrants. We use a new approach to the study of time trends in public opinion to analyze over 20 years of data on attitudes in Canada. This approach uses multi-level analysis to split attitudinal change into its cohort and period components. We find that most attitude change is the result of changing macro-economic conditions. In contrast, birth cohort succession has little effect. While there is modest evidence of generational differences in attitudes, these differences do not comprise a major part of the overall trend.

Picturing Protest: The Visual Framing of Collective Action by First Nations in Canada

Images of collective action shape public understanding of social movement campaigns and issues. Modern media includes more images than ever before, and these images are remembered longer and are more likely to elicit emotional responses than are textual accounts. Yet when it comes to media coverage of collective action, existing research considers only the written accounts. This means that little is known about the extent to which images of collective action events conform to or diverge from the “protest paradigm,” a pattern of reporting found in articles that tends to marginalize protesters and legitimizes authorities. The authors address this gap by analyzing newspaper photographs of one of the most significant recent cases of Indigenous-state conflict in North America—the 1990 “Oka Crisis.” This 78-day armed standoff between Indigenous peoples and Quebecois and Canadian authorities was sparked by the attempted expansion of a golf course onto Mohawk territory. The mass media produced thousands of articles and photographs in their coverage of the event. This article uses these photographs to assess the manner in which images frame collective action and collective actors. The authors find that images of collective action frame these events differently and in a more nuanced way than do textual accounts. For example, while challengers are just as likely to be shown in images of collective action, they are less likely to be specifically named. In addition, officials are more likely to be shown in dominant positions, but certain groups of officials (particularly government representatives) are also the most likely to be shown as emotional and angry. These findings illustrate the sometimes conflicting messages depicted in images of collective action.

The Protest Actions of Indigenous Peoples A Canadian-U.S. Comparison of Social Movement Emergence

Indigenous peoples in both Canada and the United States have engaged in numerous protests. Nevertheless, although these protests led to an ongoing national social movement in the United States, this has not been the case in Canada. This article draws on the sociological literature of social movements to explain this difference. Both cases have some key factors necessary for the formation of national social movements. These common factors include making purposeful political challenges and using noninstitutional tactics of protest. However, other necessary factors—strong leadership by social movement organizations, well-developed political networks, and the development of a strong national collective identity—are much weaker in Canada than they are in the United States.

How does newspaper coverage of collective action vary?: Protest by Indigenous people in Canada

Abstract Newspapers are a widely used source of data about collective action and social movements. In this study, we build upon a growing body of literature that critically assesses the coverage that newspapers provide of protest. We consider coverage in relation to a set of protest events that have yet to be considered in the literature (protest by Indigenous people in Canada); we consider multiple years (1985 and 1995); and finally, we measure coverage differently than has been done in previous studies (multiple articles and type of coverage as opposed to yes/no assessments). Using data on forty-three protest events, covered in seven Canadian newspapers, we find that while some events are covered by a similar number of newspapers, the volume of articles and type of coverage can be very different. We also find that for most newspapers, coverage rates improved over time. Scholars must be careful to assess whether increases in protest are real or merely reflect increases in coverage.

Does Size Really Matter? On the Relationship between Immigrant Group Size and Anti-Immigrant Prejudice†

Group threat theory understands prejudice as a manifestation of the threat, either actual or assumed, that minority groups pose to majority groups. This theory is often operationalized by analyzing the impact of group size on anti-immigrant prejudice. We test this hypothesis with a new dataset documenting 487 effects of group size on prejudice provided in 55 studies. More than half of these results show no relationship and the remainder shows both positive and negative relationships. Three explanations for this divergence are that there are (1) differences in the measurement of prejudice and immigrant group size across studies; (2) differences in the model through which size is hypothesized to lead to prejudice; and (3) differences in the geographic unit of analysis at which these relationships have been considered. Our analyses support the measurement explanation: results vary across studies because they reflect different measures of group size and prejudice.

Neighbourhood Ethnic Concentration and Discrimination

We investigate the association between the residential concentration of Chinese in Toronto and discrimination as experienced and perceived by Chinese immigrant residents. A unique aspect of this study is our focus on perceived employment discrimination. We find that Chinese immigrants living in neighbourhoods with a high concentration of other Chinese residents are more likely to perceive employment discrimination against Chinese people as a group, and are more likely to report exposure to ethnically motivated verbal assault, than are Chinese immigrants living elsewhere. Our results are consistent with studies of other populations. However, we argue that theory and policy related to ethnic concentration and discrimination should recognise that effects of ethnic concentration on discrimination are likely to vary with the ecological setting under investigation (for example, neighbourhoods versus larger areas), as well as by size of locale (city, region, or country), and the ethnic groups involved.