Paul R. Croll

• Augustana College

Objective Citing the black family as the locus of responsibility for black disadvantage has a long history in the United States; however, only limited research has examined the place of family upbringing in studies of Americans’ beliefs about the causes of racial inequality. Methods We use data from the 2010, 2012, and 2014 General Social Surveys...

Teaching students about economic inequality and race is a challenging endeavor. There are significant differences in resources, wealth, income, education, and opportunities between racial groups in the contemporary United States. The disparities between racial groups in the United States are so large that students often have a difficult time coming...

This paper uses new, nationally representative data to examine how Americans describe their own racial and ethnic identities when they are not constrained by conventional fixed categories. Recent work on shifting racial classifications and the fluidity of racial identities in the United States has questioned the subjective and cultural adequacy of...

Colorblindness is often conceptualized as a set of deeply held but unrecognized ideological tenets. However, we believe that colorblindness has also now become an explicit cultural discourse involving self-conscious claims and specific convictions. To illustrate this point—which has both conceptual and empirical implications—we introduce the notion...

This chapter addresses the challenges instructors face when teaching about race in the college classroom. By using concrete examples from inside the classroom, the chapter provides suggestions and ideas about how to get students to talk openly and honestly about race. One of the biggest challenges is finding ways to create a space within the classr...

Attitudes about racial inequality in the United States are often viewed through the lenses of discrimination and disadvantage. However, as whiteness studies suggest, systems of racial inequality produce both disadvantage and advantage. National surveys have documented explanations for African American disadvantage but have not collected data on exp...

This paper employs data from a recent national survey to offer an empirical assessment of core theoretical tenets of whiteness studies. Using survey items developed explicitly for this purpose, we analyze three specific propositions relating to whites' awareness and conception of their own racial status: the invisibility of white identity; the unde...

White racial identity is central to whiteness studies. In order to further explore this key concept, this research uses new national survey data to model determinants of white racial identity. This article analyzes how prejudice, views on diversity and beliefs about America impact the importance of racial identity for whites. The data I use come fr...

Using articles drawn from the years 1996-1999, this paper updates and expands Jack Niemonen’s 1997 TAS analysis of the articles dealing with race and ethnicity in the four core sociology journals. We found a greater rate of publication and several new substantive areas incorporating race and ethnicity, but many of the patterns Niemonen identified r...

White racial identity is central to whiteness studies. In order to further explore this key concept, this research uses new national survey data to model determinants of white racial identity. This article analyzes how prejudice, views on diversity and beliefs about America impact the importance of racial identity for whites. The data I use come fr...