Category: Definitions

  • Integrated Public Use Microdata Series (IPUMS) The Integrated Public Use Microdata Series (IPUMS) consists of fifty-nine high-precision samples of the American population drawn from fifteen federal censuses, from the American Community Surveys of 2000-2007, and from the Puerto Rican Community Surveys of 2005-2007. Some of these samples have existed for years, and others were created…

  • In the racial politics of the United States, racial passing refers to a person classified by society as a member of one racial group (most commonly Caucasian / Afro-American heritage) choosing to identify with a different group (usually white) by appearance. The term was used especially in the US to describe a person of mixed-race…

  • The Jim Crow laws were state and local laws in the United States enacted between 1876 and 1965. They mandated de jure racial segregation in all public facilities, with a supposedly “separate but equal” status for black Americans. In reality, this led to treatment and accommodations that were usually inferior to those provided for white…

  • The one-drop rule is a historical colloquial term for a belief among some people in the United States that a person with any trace of African ancestry is black. See also: hypodescent. Wikipedia For more information, see Winthrop D. Jordan’s (Paul Spickard, ed.) “Historical Origins of the One-Drop Racial Rule in the United States,” in…

  • Quadroon, octoroon and, more rarely, quintroon were historically racial categories of hypodescent used to describe proportion of African ancestry of mixed-race people in the slave societies of Latin America and parts of the 19th century Southern United States, particularly Louisiana… Octoroon means a person of fourth-generation black ancestry. Genealogically, it means one-eighth black. Typically an…

  • Quadroon, octoroon and, more rarely, quintroon were historically racial categories of hypodescent used to describe proportion of African ancestry of mixed-race people in the slave societies of Latin America and parts of the 19th century Southern United States, particularly Louisiana… …Quadroon usually referred to someone of one-quarter black ancestry; that is, with three white grandparents…

  • The Report on an Investigation into the Colour Problem in Liverpool and Other Ports or simply, The Fletcher Report of 1930 was a report sponsored by the Liverpool [England] Association for the Welfare of Half-Caste Children in December, 1927.  The report, released on 1930-06-16, was written by Muriel E. Fletcher a 1920 graduate of the University of…

  • Hybridity refers in its most basic sense to mixture. The term originates from biology and was subsequently employed in linguistics and in racial theory in the nineteenth century. Its contemporary uses are scattered across numerous academic disciplines and is salient in popular culture.  This article explains the history of hybridity and its major theoretical discussion…

  • Amalgamation is a now largely archaic term for the intermarriage and interbreeding of different ethnicities or races. In the English-speaking world, the term was in use into the twentieth century. In the United States, it was partly replaced after 1863 by the term miscegenation. While the term amalgamation could refer to the interbreeding of different…

  • In social science research, snowball sampling is a technique for developing a research sample where existing study subjects recruit future subjects from among their acquaintances. Thus the sample group appears to grow like a rolling snowball.  As the sample builds up, enough data is gathered to be useful for research.  This sampling technique is often…