Mixed Race Studies

Scholarly perspectives on the mixed race experience.

recent posts

about

  • The Social Process of Racial Identity Development Across Adolescence: Monoracial vs. Multiracial Pathways

    The Social Process of Racial Identity Development Across Adolescence: Monoracial vs. Multiracial Pathways

    Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association
    Marriott Hotel, Loews Philadelphia Hotel
    Philadelphia, PA
    2005-08-12

    33 pages

    Steven Hitlin, Assistant Professor of Sociology
    University of Iowa

    J. Scott Brown
    Carolina Population Center
    University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

    Glen H. Elder, Jr.
    Carolina Population Center
    University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

    Research on multiracial individuals has been increasing recently, partly due to the advent of a new racial measurement convention in the 2000 Census. However, the cross-sectional nature of this work obscures a vital aspect of multiracial identity; multiracial identity appears much more fluid than monoracial identity. Using a longitudinal, nationally representative sample of adolescents, we find that a significant percentage of American adolescents demonstrate fluidity in racial self-reports as they make the transition to adulthood. We identify six possible pathways of multiracial identity development and find that significant numbers of adolescents report racial identification consistent with each pathway. Importantly, over time many more adolescents add a racial identity (Diversify) or subtract one (Consolidate) than remain consistently multiracial. We then turn to exploring mean differences between pathways along a number of psychological and social characteristics. Finally, we attempt to predict developmental pathways of racial identification within a multinomial framework. Ultimately, our study attempts to re-frame a developmental perspective by focusing on the demonstrated fluidity inherent in multiracial identity development. 

    Read the entire paper here.

  • The Formation of Multiracial Identities

    The Formation of Multiracial Identities

    Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association Annual Meeting,
    Sheraton Boston and the Boston Marriott Copley Place
    Boston, MA
    2008-07-31

    Crystal Bedley
    Rutgers University

    Since the 1970s, research on the multiracial population has been largely theoretically driven without substantial empirical investigation into how mixed-race people form a multiracial identity. This project articulates the historical, political, and cultural contexts that multiracial people experience living in the United States in order to build a foundation for exploring the particular social and cultural factors that influence multiracial identity development in mixed-race persons. In addition, this project bridges the psychological and sociological literatures on the multiracial population through its discussion of social/ecological influences on identity and identity theory.  The author will conduct in-depth interviews (starting this spring) with 30-50 mixed-race respondents to better understand not only the multiracial identity formation process, but also to grasp the ways in which Hispanic/Latino identities complicate the formation of a multiracial identity, as well as exploring how context influences the expression of this identity.

    Read the entire paper here.

  • Political Discourse on Racial Mixture: American Newspapers, 1865 to 1970

    Political Discourse on Racial Mixture: American Newspapers, 1865 to 1970

    Paper presented at the annual meeting of the MPSA Annual National Conference
    Palmer House Hotel
    Hilton, Chicago, IL
    2008-04-03

    Jennifer L. Hochschild, Henry LaBarre Jayne Professor of Government & Professor of African and African American Studies
    Harvard University

    Brenna Marea Powell
    Harvard University

    Vesla Weaver, Assistant Professor
    The Woodrow Wilson Department of Politics
    University of Virginia

    We trace American political discourse around multiracialism, race-mixing, and mixed-race people from the end of the Civil War through the civil rights era. We use two new sources of data: counts of keywords such as “mulatto” and “multiracial” in two black and four white newspapers over 150 years, and a content analysis of themes and assumptions in almost 2,100 articles from the same newspapers, also using keywords that indicate racial mixture.

    These datasets provide evidence on two analytic and two substantive points: First, the press’s treatment of mixture permits us to analyze “racial meaning,” defined as the varied ways in which Americans construe, practice, and judge group-based identities and identifications. Second, the datasets enable us to trace the timing of changes in ideas about racial meaning, and to map these changes onto a new periodization of distinct institutional treatments of racial mixture. Substantively, the dataset show vividly how much Americans argued over what counted as a race, how people were to be allocated to and across races, and what implications racial groupings should have. The contemporary racial order, which looks inevitable and orderly in hindsight, was not at all clear while it was being created. Most importantly, the language of the newspaper articles shows vividly that Americans’ debates over racial mixture and racially mixed people were (and continue to be) a critical site for contestation over racial hierarchy, advance, and equality.

    Read the entire paper here.

  • Global Bodies: Narratives of Gendered ‘Mixed-race’

    Global Bodies: Narratives of Gendered ‘Mixed-race’

    Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association
    Hilton San Francisco & Renaissance Parc 55 Hotel
    San Francisco, CA
    2004-08-14

    Suki Ali, Department of Sociology
    Goldsmiths College, University of London

    ‘Mixed-race’ bodies are a source of endless fascination in the popular imagination.  They may encompass a range of racialised types but are determined by what they are not.  Falling between the feared predatory ‘black’ body and the safe, unsexed ‘white’ body, the ‘exotic’ global body radiates subtle but powerful sexuality, it is the source of desire and unease, something to be admired and owned. How do those who are ‘mixed-race’ manage this discursive space which is constituted as a site of instability and uncertainty? For these people backgrounds it is a site of ambivalence, the source of strength and inauthenticity, a paradox which provides insights into the problematic nature of visible raciality. In this paper I use narrative and memory work to show how the revisioning of embodied experience operates as a form of recuperation of the indeteminability of the ‘mixed-race’ global body.

    Read the entire paper here.

  • ‘The Nephew’ and ‘The Front Line’: black and mixed masculinities in Irish Cinema

    ‘The Nephew’ and ‘The Front Line’: black and mixed masculinities in Irish Cinema

    Old Ireland, New Irish: ‘The same people living in the same place’: American Conference for Irish Studies 2009
    ‘Into the heartland of the ordinary’: Second Galway Conference of Irish Studies 2009

    Hosted by
    Centre for Irish Studies
    National University of Ireland, Galway
    2009-06-10 through 2009-06-13

    Zélie Asava
    University College Dublin

    This paper explores representations of ethnicity and gender in The Nephew and The Front Line, Irish films which feature mixed-race and black male protagonists, and so reflect the changing face of the nation in Post-Celtic Tiger Ireland as well as reflecting contemporary concerns regarding the histories and transformations of Irish identity and tradition.

    Historically the mixed/black body formed a canvas for Western conceptual theories of blackness, as Fanon noted: ‘I am overdetermined from without’.v In the last 20 years mixed/black actors have featured in several Irish films – Pigs, The Crying Game, Mona Lisa, Irish Jam, Breakfast on Pluto, Isolation and Boy Eats Girl – as prostitutes, single mothers, rappers and social contaminants. The transnational migratory bodies of The Nephew and The Front Line will be explored as revealing new directions in Irish cinema which attempt to deconstruct the mixed/black body, multiculturalism and the ‘new Irish’.

    The discourses of ‘race’ and gender expressed in these two films portray ‘the possibility of a very differenced Ireland in the world’ which Gerardine Meaney observes may reconfigure the field of Irish Studies. They represent and reinvent public and private identities by projecting non-white Irish identity onto an Irish landscape in order to bring this social demographic from the margins to the centre of Irish visual culture.

  • Race, Mixed Race and ‘Race Work’ in Japanese American Beauty Pageants

    Race, Mixed Race and ‘Race Work’ in Japanese American Beauty Pageants

    Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association
    Montreal Convention Center
    Montreal, Quebec, Canada
    2006-08-10

    Rebecca King-O’Riain, Senior Lecturer
    Department of Sociology
    National University of Ireland

    Long-standing debates within critical race theory about the efficacy of the concept of ‘race’ have posited the mixed race experience as an illustration of the flexible and multiple nature of this socially constructed concept (Gans 2005). However, mixed race studies (Root 1996; DuBose and Winter 2002) themselves have shown that mixed race does not mean ‘no-race’.  There persists, even in mixed race research, the notion of race as a concept where racial meaning is congealed and tied through its supposed association with the body to biology.  Using ethnographic fieldwork in Japanese American beauty pageants, this paper illustrates that the mixed race body invites us to examine more carefully race work – a concept that I introduce to explain how people exert effort to try to keep their own biological notions of race (typically references to looks or physical appearance) in line with their thinking about culture (i.e. full blooded people of color have culture, whites don’t). I look at multiple levels of social interaction in order to shed light on how race is socially and politically constructed in a world where race has gone underground and is more difficult to detect and trace – a world where there can be “racial intent without race” (Ignatiev 2004).

    To read the entire paper, click here.

  • The Relationship Between Multiracial Identity Variance, Social Connectedness, Facilitative Support, and Adjustment in Multiracial College Students

    The Relationship Between Multiracial Identity Variance, Social Connectedness, Facilitative Support, and Adjustment in Multiracial College Students

    University of Oregon
    June 2008
    151 pages

    James Lyda

    A Dissertation presented to the Department of Counseling Psychology and Human Services and the Graduate School of the University of Oregon in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.

    Research has suggested that multiracial individuals may vary in how they racially identify depending on the context in which they operate (Renn, 2004; Root, 1998, 2003).  To examine this assertion, multiracial identity and variance in multiracial identity were examined in this exploratory study of a nationally representative sample of 199 multiracial college students.  Additionally, the relationship of multiracial identity variance with factors common to adult transitional development and to the college student experience, including social connectedness, various forms of facilitative support, college adjustment, and depression, were also examined in this study.  Sex differences among these study variables were also explored.

    The results of descriptive analyses revealed that this generally connected, adjusted, and non-depressed sample consistently varied their racial identity depending on their context.  Results of Pearson product-moment correlations among study variables for the whole sample demonstrated that this multiracial identity variance was not related to adjustment, social connectedness, facilitative supports, or depression. But results differed when breaking down the sample by sex. For males, increased variance in multiracial identity across contexts was related to lower perceived availability of, support from, and connectedness to student support groups. For females, increased multiracial identity variance was related to lower participation in ethnic and cultural student support groups.  A series of subsequent simultaneous multiple regression analyses revealed that increased involvement in one form of facilitative support in the college environmentethnic/cultural student support groups- actually predicted lower multiracial identity variance for the sample.

    Regarding connectedness, for the entire sample, higher social connectedness was related to higher college adjustment but lower participation in ethnic and cultural student support groups.  Sex differences also emerged for connectedness. For males, social connectedness was directly related to availability of student groups, adjustment, and institutional attachment, and for females social connectedness was directly related to college adjustment, but inversely related to participation in ethnic/cultural groups.

    Table of Contents

    I. RATIONALE
    Historical, Political, and Social Implications of Mixed Race Identity
    Racial and Ethnic Identity
    Multiracial Identity Models
    Monoracial Identity Development Models
    Biracial and Multiethnic Identity Development Models
    Ecological Models of Multiracial Identity Development
    Wardel and Cruz-jansen’s Model
    Root’s Model
    Multiracial Identity Variance
    Social Connectedness
    Social Connectedness and Multiracial Identity: Influence of Sex
    Facilitative Support
    College Adjustment
    Depression
    Purpose of This Study
    Research Questions

    II. METHODOLOGY
    Participants
    Measures
    Demographics
    Multiracial Identity Variance
    Social Connectedness
    Facilitative Supports
    College Adjustment
    Chapter
    Depression
    Procedures
    Pmticipant Recruitment
    Data Collection
    Sample Size

    III. RESULTS
    Overview
    Preliminary Analyses
    Descriptive Analyses
    Multiracial Identity Variance
    Sex Differences
    Social Connectedness
    Sex Differences
    Perceptions of Facilitative Student Supports
    Sex Differences
    College Adjustment
    Sex Differences
    Depression
    Sex Differences
    Correlation Analyses
    Multiracial Identity Variance
    Social Connectedness
    Facilitative Supports
    College Adjustment
    Depression
    Regression Analyses
    Explaining Multiracial Identity Variance.
    Explaining Social Connectedness.
    Explaining Depression
    Summary of Results

    IV. DISCUSSION
    Main Findings: Relationship Among Variables
    Demographics
    Multiracial Identity Variance
    Social Connectedness
    Facilitative Supports
    College Adjustment
    Depression
    Sex Differences
    Implications of the Findings
    Study Limitations
    Future Research and Intervention
    Conclusion

    APPENDICES
    A. REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE
    B. INFORMED CONSENT STATEMENT
    C. MEASUREMENT INSTRUMENTS
    REFERENCES

    ….Overall the sample was racially diverse, predominantly female, and came from highly educated parents.  The sample was racially diverse in the sense that multiple combinations of multiracial heritage were represented.  This is important in validating the sample as a cross section of the multiracial population, which distinguishes the current study from previous multiracial identity research that has focused specifically on a limited representation of specific bi- or multiracial sub-groups, such as black/white biracial individuals (Shih & Sanchez, 2005; Wardle & Cruz-Jansen, 2004). The sample tended to consist of participants with highly educated parents and as a result were likely to be of higher socioeconomic status. It is unknown if the general socioeconomic status of the sample is representative of the multiracial college student population as a whole.  Also, women outnumbered men three to one. These factors are important when considering the generalizabiity of these results…

    Read the entire dissertation here.

  • The Historical Legal Construction of Black Racial Identity of Mixed Black-White Race Individuals: The Role of State Legislatures

    The Historical Legal Construction of Black Racial Identity of Mixed Black-White Race Individuals: The Role of State Legislatures

    Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Western Political Science Association
    Manchester Hyatt
    San Diego, California
    2008-03-20

    Richard T. Middleton, IV, Associate Professor of Political Science
    University of Missouri, St. Louis

    This research paper is an analysis of the historical legal construction of black racial identity of mixed black-white race individuals in America.  In particular, I investigate how state legislatures in the United States constructed black racial identity through the enactment of laws and constitutional provis ions. This research identifies the following two-part framework by which state legislatures historically used the language of the law to coerce mixed black-white race individuals to adopt a personal sense of collective identity with people of black African ancestry: (1) identification of mixed black-white race individuals and blacks/Negroes as constituting two separate racial groups yet speaking of them in the same blush and disadvantaging them the same, and (2) abandoning recognition of mixed black-white race individuals (mulattoes) as a distinct racial group from Negroes/blacks through the enactment of statutes that espoused the rule of hypodescent. To provide empirical support for this paper’s thesis, a survey of statutes across all fifty states ranging from the colonial period up to the mid-1900s is conducted.

    Read the entire paper here.  Supporting documents: 1 and 2.

  • Essentialism and the Perception of Mixed-Race Individuals: Implications for the Sociopolitical Assimilation of Ethnic Minorities

    Essentialism and the Perception of Mixed-Race Individuals: Implications for the Sociopolitical Assimilation of Ethnic Minorities

    Paper presented at the annual meeting of the International Society of Political Psychology (ISPP) 32nd Annual Scientific Meeting
    Trinity College
    Dublin, Ireland
    2009-07-14

    Arnold Ho
    Harvard University

    James Sidanius, Professor of Psychology and of African and African American Studies
    Harvard University

    Previous work examining hypodescent, the process whereby persons of mixed-race descent are assigned to their socially subordinate racial status, showed that hypodescent may be applied to both Asian-White and Black-White targets (Ho & Sidanius, 2008).  However, no research has uncovered attitudinal covariates of hypodescent.  Thus, while hypodescent has been shown to occur, little is known about its antecedents.  Across two survey studies, we show that essentialism, or the tendency to see racial group boundaries and differences as being biological rather than socially constructed, can lead to hypodescent. Establishing essentialism as a precursor to hypodescent further establishes the role of essentialist thinking in intergroup relations, a topic of recent interest in social and political psychology (Prentice & Miller, 2007).  The relationship between essentialism and classical (“old fashioned”) racism, as well as the implications of hypodescent for the sociopolitical assimilation of African- and Asian-Americans, are discussed.

    Read the entire paper here.

  • The Shifting Politics of Multiracialism in the United States

    The Shifting Politics of Multiracialism in the United States

    Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association (APSA) 2008 Annual Meeting
    Hynes Convention Center
    Boston, Massachusetts
    2008-08-28

    38 pages

    Awarded the American Political Science Association Public Policy Section 2008 prize for her paper, co-authored with Vesla Weaver, of the University of Virginia Government Department, “The Shifting Politics of Multiculturalism in the United States.”  The award will be presented at the APSA Annual Meeting, 2009-09-03 through 2009-09-06  in Toronto, Canada.

    Jennifer L. Hochschild, Henry LaBarre Jayne Professor of Government & Professor of African and African American Studies
    Harvard University

    Vesla Weaver, Assistant Professor
    The Woodrow Wilson Department of Politics
    University of Virginia

    For the first time in American history, the 2000 census allowed respondents to identify with more than one race. That change resulted, in part, from mobilization of activists and an increasing population of mixed-race partnerships and multiracial offspring.  However, despite both supporters’ and opponents’ predictions of rapid growth in multiracial identification, less than 3 percent of the population chose more than one race in 2000.  And the largest recent surveys show similar results.

    This paper explores whether and how far multiracialism has become embedded in Americans’ practice and understanding of race, and considers what might happen in the foreseeable future. Starting from theories that elegantly explicate various forms of policy feedback and transformation but are weaker on causal explanations for them, we identify four factors that lead an enacted policy to endure or be blocked.  They are: whether other agencies have incentives to institutionalize the policy, whether the policy triggers development of a committed constituency, whether opposing groups remain strong, and whether the change is supported by independent societal trends. We find that the first and fourth factors encourage consolidation of multiracial identification, while the second and third work toward keeping it very low. Thus institutional procedures and underlying societal trends tend in one direction while individuals’ active and intentional choices are tending the opposite way: a fascinating and unusual situation with important implications for theories of path dependency and policy transformation.

    The trajectory of multiracial identification could change the racial order in the United States, for better or for worse. If it increases, it might portend a shift in classification norms that could break down racial boundaries and even reduce interracial hostility and fear.  Alternatively, an increase could signal Americans’ desire to find one more route out of blackness and into some less denigrated status, to the detriment of African Americans. If multiracial identification does not increase, that will indicate the power of old single race understandings regardless of demographic changes, with all of their implications for prejudice and group loyalty.

    Read the entire paper here.