Mixed Race Studies

School counselors’ perceptions of biracial students’ functioning

Columbia University
September 2010
178 pages
Publication Number: AAT 3400544
ISBN: 9781109673753

Mai Margaret Kindaichi

Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy under the Executive Committee of The Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Columbia University

The number of biracial school-aged youth has continued to increase dramatically (Jones & Smith, 2001), and has drawn timely attention to the extent to which practicing school counselors address biracial youths’ concerns in a culturally competent manner. This study examined the perceptions of a nationally-based random sample of 203 White school counselors who provided their assessment of a students functioning (i.e., GAF) and case conceptualizations (i.e., multicultural case conceptualization ability [MCCA]; Ladany et al., 1997) in response to a summary of a fictitious student. In the summary, the student was identified as White, Black, Asian, Biracial Black-White, Biracial Black- Asian, or Biracial Asian-White; the student summaries were identical less the racial background of the identified student. Potential differences in assessments of students’ functioning and inclusion of racial-cultural information in case conceptualizations were examined across the six student conditions, which yielded non-significant results. Nearly 89% and 93% of participants failed to address race or culture in their conceptualizations of students’ presenting concerns and treatment conceptualizations, respectively. Additionally, school counselors’ denial of racism (i.e., color-blind racial attitudes) was shown to moderate their inclusion of racial-cultural information in their treatment conceptualizations across students’ racial backgrounds. Implications of the findings, future research directions, and multicultural education in school counseling curricula are discussed.

Table of Contents

• CHAPTER I
  • INTRODUCTION
    • Multicultural Counseling Competence in School Counselors
    • Color-Blind Racial Attitudes
    • Attitudes toward Multiracial Youth
    • Overview of the Dissertation Project
• CHAPTER II
  • LITERATURE REVIEW
    • Multicultural Counseling Competence in School Settings
    • Explanation of Terms
    • Research concerning Biracial Individuals
      • Unique Challenges in Research Concerning Biracial and Multiracial Individuals
      • Perceptions of Biracial and Multiracial Individuals and Interracial Marriage
      • Empirical Literature on Biracial Adolescents’ Psychological Well-Being and Adjustment
      • Summary Models of Biracial Identity Development and Identity Resolution
      • School Professionals’ Attitudes toward Biracial and Multiracial Children and Adolescents
    • Color-Blind Racial Attitudes
    • Summary and Research Questions
• CHAPTER III
  • METHOD
    • Research Goals
    • Participants and Sampling Method
    • Sample
    • Instruments
• CHAPTER IV
  • RESULTS:
    • Preliminary Analyses
    • Main Analyses
      • Question 1
      • Question 2
      • Question 3
      • Question 4
      • Question 5
    • Summary
• CHAPTER V
  • DISCUSSION
    • Limitations
    • Implications for Education and Training
    • Future Research Directions
• REFERENCES
• APPENDICES
• APPENDIX A. SAMPLE SURVEY PACKET
• APPENDIXB. COLOR-BLIND RACIAL ATTITUDES SUBSCALES
• APPENDIX C. ATTITUDES TOWARD MULTIRACIAL CHILDREN CODING
• APPENDIX D. CODING SCHEME FOR MULTICULTURAL CASE CONCEPTUALIZATION ABILITY

List of Tables

• Table 1. Summary of Stage Progressions in Linear Biracial Identity Development Models
• Table 2. Demographic Characteristics of Participants
• Table 3. Participants’ Demographic Information across Student Conditions
• Table 4. Participants’ Descriptions of School Counseling Settings
• Table 5. Mean GAF, MCCA Etiology, and MCCA Treatment Scores across Student Conditions and Participants’ Race/Ethnicity
• Table 6. Mean CoBRAS Subscale and AMCS Scores by Student Condition and Participants’ Race/Ethnicity
• Table 7. Correlations among White School Counselors’ Experience, Race-Related Attitudes, Case Conceptualization Ability, and GAF Scores
• Table 8. Analysis of Variance in GAF by Student Conditions (N=201)
• Table 9. Hierarchical Regression of School Counselors’ AMCS and CoBRAS Scores on GAF Scores for Biracial Students (N = 83)
• Table 10. Analyses of Variance in MCCA Etiology and MCCA Treatment by Students’ Backgrounds (N=201)
• Table 11. Multivariate Analysis of Variance in MCCA Etiology, MCCA Treatment, and GAF Scores
• Table 12. Summary of Hierarchical Multiple Regression Analyses for Moderator Effects

List of Figures

• Figure 1: Frequency Distribution of MCCA Etiology Scores Offered by White School Counselors across Student Conditions
• Figure 2: Frequency Distribution of MCCA Treatment scores offered by White School Counselors across Student Conditions
• Figure 3: Interaction Effect of Color-Blind Racial Attitudes across Student Conditions on Mean MCCA Treatment Scores

Purchase the dissertation here.

West Meets East: Nineteenth-Century Southern Dialogues on Mixture, Race, Gender, and Nation

The Mississippi Quarterly
Volume 56, Number 4 (Fall 2003)

Suzanne Bost, Associate Professor of English
Loyola University

When I was growing up in the Eastern half of the United States, American history was presented to me in neatly binary terms: Cowboys and Indians, North and South, Black and White. There were binaries when my family moved out West, too, but the demarcations were in different places: North or South of the border, English or Spanish, hamburgers with or without green chile. Here, sometimes cowboys were Indians, and Mexicans were Americans. The fact that my Eastern home was North and my Western home was South complicated matters further, and I learned to accept that Southerners, though never victorious, were not always as misguided as my first teachers had suggested they were. The deconstruction of American myths and binaries began for me long before I learned to see the world through the lenses of postmodernism or the new American Studies. Moreover, this racial and national decentering occurred not by way of contemporary globalization or NAFTA but throughout American history.

Mestizaje and hybridity are popular concepts today because they lift identity from singular categories and frameworks. They are celebrated, along with Tiger Woods, fusion cuisine, and the Internet, as transracial, transnational frameworks for new, millennial Americans. For Mexicans and Mexican Americans, however, hybridity and racial and national decentering are not a postmodern horizon but rather long-standing historical facts. Racial mixture was part of the Spanish colonial strategy for, literally, “hispanicizing” the natives and acquiring their lands. As such, mixture has been central to the formation of racism, nationalism, resistance, and identity politics in most Southern Americas for centuries. In nineteenth-century Mexico, mestizaje was nationalistic, not transgressive or defiant of norms, while in the Southeastern United States, miscegenation represented a breakdown in the definition of American identity…

Read the entire article here.

Blood groups of Whites, Negroes and Mulattoes from the State of Maranhão, Brazil

American Journal of Physical Anthropology
Volume 6, Issue 4 (December 1948)
pages 423–428
DOI: 10.1002/ajpa.1330060412

E. M. da Silva
Department of Hematology
Instituto Oswaldo Cruz, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Within the Brazilian “melting pot” the intensity and variation of the racial mixture rises to a high point in the State of Maranhão. Of the three main races entering into this mixture, Indian, Negro and White, remnants are still to be found in more or less pure condition. As would be expected, however, all possible combinations of these primary groups are now abundantly present. Thus the population of this State presents unlimited opportunities for research in the problems of physical anthropology growing out of race mixture.

The present study deals with the classical blood groups in Whites and Negroes and in mixtures of these two races. The observations were made in the city of São Luiz and in the village of Santo Antonio dos Pretos (Municipe of Codó), a little over 300 km southeast of the former.

The Negroes were selected on the basis of their well-known physical characteristics. The series totals 198 and includes representatives of different African groups.

The Whites are mainly from Arabian (Syrian) stock, with some Portuguese and a few Spanish individuals. The series totals 196.

The individuals of mixed origin, which we will call Mulattoes in accordance with Brazilian custom, are mostly if not all first generation crosses. Selection was made by examining…

Read or purchase the article here.

Studies in Melanin Pigmentation of the Skin of Racial Crosses in Port Moresby

Oceania
Volume 33, Number. 4 (June, 1963)
pages 287-292

R. J. Walsh
New South Wales Red Cross Blood Transfusion Service, Sydney, Australia

A. V. G. Price
Department of Public Health, Territory of Papua and New Guinea

The colour of the skin in different populations has always been of great interest but until recently few attempts have been made to study the factors determining the nature and amount of skin pigment. Perhaps the greatest difficulty lias been the lack of a reliable method of quantitative assessment. Davenport and Davenport (1910) devised a “colour top”—a rotating disc with sectors of different colours. The areas of the sectors were varied until the blended colours on rotation corresponded to the colour of the skin. Ruggles Gates (1949) approached the problem by producing a series of coloured papers which could be matched against the skin.  These methods, however, did not permit separate analysis of the multiple factors contributing to skin colour (haemoglobin and bilirubin contained in the skin, and carotene pigments, for example). Reflectance measurements of light at various wavelengths have therefore been used by a number of workers (Wiener. 1945 ; Harrison, 1957 ; Baraicot, 1958).

During a recent visit to New Guinea measurements were made of the reflectance of light from the skin of various subjects. A photo-electric reflectometer was used with a filter having maximum transmission at 650 millimicrons. The instrument was adjusted with a rheostat so that a meter reading of 100 corresponded to the reflectance from a magnesium oxide surface.  This instrument is described in another paper (Walsh, 1963) and reasons are given for believing that the reflectance value is related to the melanin content of the skin. Batnicot (1958) also concluded that the reflectance value at this wavelength is a measure of the melanin pigment.

There is now clear evidence that melanin is produced by the melanotytes of the skin from the amino acids phenylalaninc and tyrosine. In the initial stages of this production the copper-containing enzyme, tyrosinase, is important. Absence of tyrosinase, but not of melanocytes, is responsible for albinism and a deficiency of tyrosinase is probably the basis of the pathological condition known as vitiligo, A number of physical conditions, of which the most important is exposure to ultraviolet light, can increase the melanin content of the skin, and some chemical conditions inhibit production. These factors have recently been reviewed by Fitzpatrick and Szaba (1959).

However, there is no information available as to what determines the varying amounts of melanin in human skin of different ethnic groups. Obviously genetic factors must be responsible because there are great differences between people of…

Read or purchase the article here.

The Physical Form of Mississippi Negroes

American Journal of Physical Anthropology
Volume 16, Issue 2 (October/December 1931)
pages 193–201
DOI: 10.1002/ajpa.1330160213

Melville J. Herskovits (1895-1963), Professor of Anthropology and African Studies
Northwestern University

Vivian K. Cameron

Harriet Smith

During the years 1923 to 1927, research was carried on in an attempt to investigate the physical form of the American Negro, with particular reference to the question of a possible physical type being formed in the United States, and to the amount and consequences of the racial mixture that had gone into the formation of the Negro population of this country.  The results of this research may be briefly summarized as follows: first, that the American Negro, as indicated by the genealogies collected in the course of the study, represented much more racial crossing than had been generally recognized, and secondly, that in spite of this crossing, a physical type which combined the characteristics of the African and European ancestral populations hand which was relatively homogeneous in character had been formed.

Awaiting publication of the complete results of this study, a volume outlining the results was brought out. The point most generally made when this work was criticized was that since the majority of the sample utilized in the study had been measured in the north, the group studied could not be…

Read or purchase the article here.

Categorization of humans in biomedical research: genes, race and disease

Genome Biology 2002
Volume 3, Number 7
2002-07-01
Print ISSN 1465-6906; Online ISSN 1465-6914
DOI: 10.1186/gb-2002-3-7-comment2007

Neil Risch
Department of Genetics
Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California

Esteban Burchard
Department of Medicine
University of California, San Francisco, California

Elad Ziv
Department of Medicine
University of California, San Francisco, California

Hua Tang
Department of Statistics
Stanford University, Stanford, California

Opinion

A debate has arisen regarding the validity of racial/ethnic categories for biomedical and genetic research. Some claim ‘no biological basis for race’ while others advocate a ‘race-neutral’ approach, using genetic clustering rather than self-identified ethnicity for human genetic categorization. We provide an epidemiologic perspective on the issue of human categorization in biomedical and genetic research that strongly supports the continued use of self-identified race and ethnicity.

A major discussion has arisen recently regarding optimal strategies for categorizing humans, especially in the United States, for the purpose of biomedical research, both etiologic and pharmaceutical. Clearly it is important to know whether particular individuals within the population are more susceptible to particular diseases or most likely to benefit from certain therapeutic interventions. The focus of the dialogue has been the relative merit of the concept of ‘race’ or ‘ethnicity’, especially from the genetic perspective. For example, a recent editorial in the New England Journal of Medicine [1] claimed that “race is biologically meaningless” and warned that “instruction in medical genetics should emphasize the fallacy of race as a scientific concept and the dangers inherent in practicing race-based medicine.” In support of this perspective, a recent article in Nature Genetics [2] purported to find that “commonly used ethnic labels are both insufficient and inaccurate representations of inferred genetic clusters.” Furthermore, a supporting editorial in the same issue [3] concluded that “population clusters identified by genotype analysis seem to be more informative than those identified by skin color or self-declaration of ‘race’.” These conclusions seem consistent with the claim that “there is no biological basis for ‘race'” [3] and that “the myth of major genetic differences across ‘races’ is nonetheless worth dismissing with genetic evidence” [4]. Of course, the use of the term “major” leaves the door open for possible differences but a priori limits any potential significance of such differences.

In our view, much of this discussion does not derive from an objective scientific perspective. This is understandable, given both historic and current inequities based on perceived racial or ethnic identities, both in the US and around the world, and the resulting sensitivities in such debates. Nonetheless, we demonstrate here that from both an objective and scientific (genetic and epidemiologic) perspective there is great validity in racial/ethnic self-categorizations, both from the research and public policy points of view…

…Admixture and genetic categorization in the United States…

What are the implications of these census results and the admixture that has occurred in the US population for genetic categorization in biomedical research studies in the US? Gene flow from non-Caucasians into the US Caucasian population has been modest. On the other hand, gene flow from Caucasians into African Americans has been greater; several studies have estimated the proportion of Caucasian admixture in African Americans to be approximately 17%, ranging regionally from about 12% to 23% [22]. Thus, despite the admixture, African Americans remain a largely African group, reflecting primarily their African origins from a genetic perspective. Asians and Pacific Islanders have been less influenced by admixture and again closely represent their indigenous origins. The same is true for Native Americans, although some degree of Caucasian admixture has occurred in this group as well [23]…

Read the entire opinion here.

Mixed: A Mixed Heritage

Daily Bruin
University of California, Los Angeles
2010-11-09

Nicholas Greitzer

America has always been considered a melting pot – a melting pot of ideas, of ethnicities, of religions, of experiences and of people.

In the 2000 census, for example, this miscegenation resulted in more than 6.8 million Americans self-identifying as multiracial. While there may not be any similar statistics for UCLA, a look at the enrollment figures for 2009 lists 4.4 percent of students as having an ethnicity of unstated, unknown or other, close to the national percentage in 2000 of 2.4 of those who identify themselves as multiracial.

Second-year international development studies and Chicana/Chicano studies student Camila Lacques falls into that group that cannot be adequately fit into the racial options provided by the U.S. Census Bureau or the University of California undergraduate application.

“People want to put you in a box, but mixed people don’t fit into a box,” said Lacques, who identifies herself as half Mexican, a quarter Irish and a quarter eastern European Jewish.

Lacques’ cultural makeup is not limited to those backgrounds found within her blood, as she was raised in a predominantly black neighborhood and attended an elementary and middle school that was comprised primarily of Korean students…

…In a similar vein, for second-year sociology student Ay’Anna Moody, being multiracial revolves around teaching others that they need to be intellectually curious.

“I needed to know who I was in order for me to move forward, culturally and socially,” said Moody, whose dad is black Creole and whose mom is Scott-Irish, German and black.

While Moody said that Irish traditions such as St. Patrick’s Day held a prominent place in her family, it was the black cultural influence that dominated her household, which she shared with her mother and stepfather…

Read the entire article here.

Rachel Knight: Slave, White Man’s Mistress and Mother to a Movement

Johnathon Odell: Discovering Our Stories
2010-09-20

John Odell

Rachel’s Children

I can’t help but think of the Old Testament Abraham when I hear stories about Newt Knight. Both men sired children by a wife and a slave. In Newt’s case it was Serena and Rachel. With Abraham, Sara and Hagar. According to religious texts, one of these women went on to become the matriarch of God’s chosen people. Exactly which one, depends on what you happen to be reading, your Bible or your Koran. Jews and Christians claim the wife Sarah and Muslims claim the handmaiden Hagar. Several Crusades were launched trying to settle that matter.

In Jones County, there’s always been a fierce crusade of competing stories about Rachel, the white account versus the black account. Like most stories, the white interpretation gets written down and called history, while the black story gets handed down by word-of-mouth and called folklore.

Growing up as a white boy, I swore by Ethel Knight’s written-down version. According to her, Rachel was a light-skinned temptress with blue-green eyes and flowing chestnut hair. But evil as the day is long. Ethel alternately calls her a vixen, a witch, a conjure woman, a murderer and a strumpet.

Serena, Newt’s white wife, is but an innocent captive, forced a gunpoint to live in this den of iniquity, and like Newt, powerless as Rachel’s sorcery wrecked and degraded their family.

As a child of Jim Crow, this narrative satisfied my budding sensibilities about race. In my white-bubble world, there could never be any possibility of true love or affection between a white man and a black woman. Nor would any white man sire children by a black woman and then choose to live amongst his mixed-race offspring. Unless of course, the black woman had either seduced him unmercifully or mysteriously conjured him, or both. It just wasn’t possible that he actually loved her, or her children.

Imagine my surprise when I heard, as they say, “the rest of the story.” It was as shocking as sitting down in church and listening to the preacher get up and declare from the pulpit that Abraham’s birthright went to Hagar’s kid Ishmael, instead of Sarah’s son, Isaac, and it was we Christians who were the infidels!  Boy would that turn some peoples world upside down!…

Read the entire essay here.

Race remains hot topic despite Obama presidency

USA Today
2010-10-17

Shannon Mullen, Asbury Press

The election of the first black president in U.S. history was supposed to usher in a post-racial era in America.

But a series of controversies since then, from the White House “Beer Summit” to the conflicts between the tea party and NAACP, shows that race is still a hot-button issue.

“As a society, clearly we’re not over race,” said Hettie V. Williams, lecturer in the African American History Department at Monmouth University…

…But Williams, of Monmouth University, and others still see reason for optimism. Mixed marriages are on the rise, she noted, and more Americans of mixed parentage feel comfortable identifying themselves as multiracial.

In New Jersey, one of the most racially and ethnically diverse states in the country, nearly 2 of 3 residents say it is important for people of different races and ethnic groups to live, go to school and work closely together, according to the latest Monmouth University/Gannett New Jersey Press Media poll. Forty percent say blacks and whites are now treated equally..

…But Deepa Kumar, associate professor of journalism and media studies at Rutgers University, sees disturbing parallels between the rise of right-wing, “anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim” groups across Europe and the rhetoric of the tea party and Pamela Geller’s Stop Islamization of America group, which has led the fight against the ground zero mosque…

…Tukufu Zuberi, a sociologist and professor of race relations at the University of Pennsylvania, says the media presents a superficial view of the role of race in America.

“There is a tremendous disconnect between what we see and hear and read in the media and the racial realities that people are experiencing in society,” Zuberi said…

Read the entire article here.

Cast From Their Ancestral Home, Creoles Worry About Culture’s Future

New York Times
2005-10-11

Susan Saulny, National Correspondent

NATCHITOCHES PARISH, La., Oct. 9 – It is peaceful here on the Cane River, beyond the fluffy tops of high cotton and towering magnolia trees, but it is not home. For the New Orleans Creoles living in exodus here and elsewhere around Louisiana, their city was far more than home – it was homeland, the capital of an ethnic nation unique in this country.

“New Orleans was our womb and for most of us, it was going to be our grave,” said Timothy Bordenave, who is living in a cottage here, a five-hour drive away from the city, describing the deep sense of lifelong connection felt to New Orleans by many of the city’s Creoles, the population of mixed-race families who trace their roots to the city’s French and Spanish colonial era…

…Many Creoles trace their roots to immigrants and slaves from the former French and Spanish colonies in the Caribbean, particularly Cuba and what is now Haiti. Historians say it was New Orleans’s position as a crossroads and port town that allowed for the easy mingling of races and nationalities that in turn gave birth, in the 18th century, to a part-European, part-Afro-Caribbean society that grew to an estimated 20,000 people in Louisiana by the mid-1800’s.

The Creole culture that developed over generations—known for a distinctive cuisine, language and music—contributed to New Orleans’s singular identity and helped define Louisiana to the world. Before Hurricane Katrina, experts estimated that 10 to 20 percent of black people in New Orleans—30,000 to 60,000 people—considered themselves Creole by way of ancestry, but even more lived lives influenced by the culture because of their proximity to it…

Read the entire article here.