Mixed Race Studies

What’s Black and White and Black Or White?: The Effects of Category Assignment on the Evaluation of and Memory for Multi-raced Faces

University of Colorado
2007
85 pages
ISBN: 9780549508632

Eve C. Willadsen-Jensen

A thesis submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Colorado in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Psychology

This paper examines the effect of social categorization, from the initial category assignment to perceiver evaluations and memory, on a racially ambiguous target. In a series of 3 studies, racial categorization at the initial stage of person perception was manipulated by providing a race cue prior to viewing racially-ambiguous faces. The studies demonstrated that categorization of an ambiguous target lead to differences in the initial processing of the face as well as evaluation and memory. Racially ambiguous faces were evaluated in a manner consistent with the race cue. In Studies 1 and 2, racially ambiguous faces cued with the word “Black” primed more biased responses than racially ambiguous faces cued with the word “White”. This difference was reflected in participants’ event-related potentials (Study 2) with larger initial attention to faces primed by “Black” followed by a shift in attention to faces primed by “White”. This pattern was for both ambiguous and unambiguous faces. The pattern continued into memory effects (Study 3) with better memory for “White” than “Black” cued faces. These results demonstrate how initial category assignment during early face processing affects the entire person perception process.

Purchase the dissertation here.

Race and Ethnic Relations in the Twenty-First Century: History, Theory, Institutions, and Policy

Cognella
2011
436 pages
Paperback ISBN: 978-1-93555-160-7

Edited by:

Rashawn Ray, Assistant Professor of Sociology
University of Maryland, College Park

This book examines the major theoretical and empirical approaches regarding race/ethnicity. Its goal is to continue to place race and ethnic relations in a contemporary, intersectional, and cross-comparative context and progress the discipline to include groups past the Black/White dichotomy. Using various sociological theories, social psychological theories, and subcultural approaches, this book gives students a sociohistorical, theoretical, and institutional frame with which to view race and ethnic relations in the twenty-first century.

Table of Contents

• Race and Ethnic Relations in the Twenty-First Century / Rashawn Ray
• The Embedded Nature of ‘Race’ Requires a Focused Effort to Remove the Obstacles to a Unified America / Dr. James M. Jones
• PART 1 THE SOCIOHISTORICAL CONTEXT OF RACE
  • The Science, Social Construction, and Exploitation of Race / Rashawn Ray
  • Science of Race
    • The Evolution of Racial Classification / Tukufu Zuberi
  • Social Construction of Race
    • Racist America: Racist Ideology as a Social Force / Joe R. Feagin
  • Exploitation of Race
    • White Racism and the Black Experience / St. Clair Drake
• PART 2 THEORETICAL AND CONCEPTUAL PERSPECTIVES
  • Racial Attitudes Research: Debates, Major Advances, and Future Directions / Rashawn Ray
  • Individual and Structural Racism
    • Racial Formation: Understanding Race and Racism in the Post-Civil Rights Era / Michael Omi and Howard Winant
    • From Bi-racial to Tri-racial: Towards a New System of Racial Stratification in the U.S.A. / Eduardo Bonilla-Silva
  • The Social Psychology of Prejudice and Perceived Discrimination
    • Race Prejudice as a Sense of Group Position / Herbert Blumer
    • Reactions Toward the New Minorities of Western Europe / Thomas F. Pettigrew
  • Racial Attitudes and Public Discourses
    • Racial Attitudes and Relations at the Close of the Twentieth Century / Lawrence D. Bobo
  • Race, Gender, and Sexuality
    • Getting Off and Getting Intimate: How Normative Institutional Arrangements Structure Black and White Fraternity Men’s Approaches Toward Women / Rashawn Ray and Jason A. Rosow
  • Colorism, Lookism, and Tokenism
    • “One-Drop” to Rule them All? Colorism and the Spectrum of Racial Stratifi cation in the Twenty-First Century / Victor Ray
  • Assimilation Perspectives: Group Threat Theory, Contact Theory, and Ethnic Conflict
    • The Ties that Bind and Those that Don’t: Toward Reconciling Group Threat and Contact Theories of Prejudice / Jeffrey C. Dixon
  • Citizenship, Nationalism, and Human Rights
    • Citizenship, Nationalism, and Human Rights / Shiri Noy
• PART 3 THE CUMULATIVE PIPELINE OF PERSISTENT INSTITUTIONAL RACISM
  • The Cumulative Pipeline of Persistent Institutional Racism / Rashawn Ray
  • Individual and Structural Racism
    • A Different Menu: Racial Residential Segregation and the Persistence of Racial Inequality / Abigail A. Sewell
  • Education
    • Cracking the Educational Achievement Gap(s) / R. L’Heureux Lewis and Evangeleen Pattison
  • The Labor Market, Socioeconomic Status, and Wealth
    • Are Emily and Greg More Employable than Lakisha and Jamal? A Field Experiment on Labor Market Discrimination / Marianne Bertrand and Sendhil Mullainathan
    • Black Wealth/White Wealth: Wealth Inequality Trends / Melvin L. Oliver and Thomas M. Shapiro
    • The Mark of a Criminal Record / Devah Pager
  • The Criminal Justice System
    • Toward a Theory of Race, Crime, and Urban Inequality / Robert J. Sampson and William Julius Wilson
  • The Health Care System
    • Root and Structural Causes of Minority Health and Health Disparities / Keon L. Gilbert and Chikarlo R. Leak
• PART 4 CONFRONTING THE PIPELINE: SOCIAL POLICY ISSUES
  • Engaging Social Change by Embracing Diversity / Rashawn Ray
  • When Is Affirmative Action Fair? On Grievous Harms and Public Remedies / Ira Katznelson
  • Engaging Future Leaders: Peer Education at Work in Colleges and Universities / Alta Mauro and Jason Robertson
  • What Do We Think About Race? / Lawrence D. Bobo

Belonging nowhere and everywhere: multiracial identity development.

Bulletin of the Menninger Clinic
Volume 61, Number 3 (Summer 1997)
pages 368-384

K. A. Deters

Few therapists are trained to work with multiracial individuals. Most have little knowledge of the process of identity development in this ever-increasing population. In this article, an examination of how the social construction of race impacts identity development is followed by a review of current theories regarding multiracial identity development. Interviews of clinicians illustrate how therapists understand their work with multiracial clients as well as the issues they have personally confronted. The challenges faced by therapists working with this population center on understanding how oppression affects identity development, supporting racial ambiguity as a part of normal identity development, working from a nonoppressive theoretical perspective, and examining their own internalized rules about racial and ethnic stereotypes. This preliminary examination indicates the need for further research. A controlled study in this area would be of benefit to the field.

Japanese American Student Alliance: Ha-fu: Exploring Half Asian Identity

George Washington University
Marvin Center, Amphitheater (view map)
800 21st Street, NW
Washington, D.C. 20052
2013-04-28, 12:00-16:00 EDT (Local Time)

Learn more about GW’s multiracial experience as a student panel discusses their perspectives and shares their stories.

The George Washington University Presents:
2013 Asian Pacific Islander Celebration
Many Voices, One Song

Sponsored by the George Washington University Student Association, Asian Student Alliance, Chinese American Student Association, Hawaii Club, Japanese American Student Alliance, Korean Cultural Organization, Kappa Phi Lambda, Inc., Philippine Cultural Society, Pi Delta Psi, Inc., Sigma Psi Zeta, Inc., Vietnamese Student Association.

For more information, click here.

Ambiguity and the Timecourse of Racial Perception

Bulletin of the Menninger Clinic
Volume 24, Number 5 (October 2006)
pages 580-606
DOI: 10.1521/soco.2006.24.5.580

Eve C. Willadsen-Jensen
University of Colorado, Boulder

Tiffany A. Ito, Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience
University of Colorado, Boulder

Two studies examined early perceptual processing and explicit racial categorization of racially ambiguous faces. Participants viewed racially ambiguous faces as well as faces of Whites, Asians, and Blacks while event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were recorded. Initial perceptual processes, indexed by ERP components occurring within 200 ms [milliseconds]  of stimulus onset, showed that racially ambiguous faces were differentiated from Asian and Black but not White faces. Later in processing, around 500 ms after stimulus onset, racially ambiguous faces were differentiated from White faces. However, the racially ambiguous faces were still perceived more similarly to Whites than to Asians or Blacks. Finally, explicit social categorization reflected the ambiguity of the faces. These results highlight the complex nature of racial perception, and the importance of understanding how the growing population of multiracial individuals is perceived.

Read or purchase the article here.

Multiracial Identity Development

Arlington County Public Schools
Arlington County, Virginia
Clarendon Education Center
2011-11-30
28 pages/ 55 slides

Ms. Eleanor Lewis, M.A., CAGS, School Psychologist
Arlington Public Schools

Ms. Veronica Sanjines, M.A., CAG, School Psychologist
Arlington Public Schools

Dr. Ricia Weiner, Ph.D., School Psychologist
Arlington Public Schools

Special Education Parent Resource Center: Workshop Handouts

View the entire presentation here.