Ethnic diversity is increasing in most advanced countries, driven mostly by sharp increases in immigration. In the long run immigration and diversity are likely to have important cultural, economic, fiscal, and developmental benefits. In the short run, however, immigration and ethnic diversity tend to reduce social solidarity and social capital. New evidence from the US suggests that in ethnically diverse neighbourhoods residents of all races tend to ‘hunker down’. Trust (even of one's own race) is lower, altruism and community cooperation rarer, friends fewer. In the long run, however, successful immigrant societies have overcome such fragmentation by creating new, cross-cutting forms of social solidarity and more encompassing identities. Illustrations of becoming comfortable with diversity are drawn from the US military, religious institutions, and earlier waves of American immigration.

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E Pluribus Unum: Diversity and Community in the Twenty‐first Century The 2006 Johan Skytte Prize Lecture

The study of race and ethnic conflict historically has been hampered by inadequate and simplistic theories. I contend that the central problem of the various approaches to the study of racial phenomena is their lack of a structural theory of racism. I review traditional approaches and alternative approaches to the study of racism, and discuss their limitations. Following the leads suggested by some of the alternative frameworks, I advance a structural theory of racism based on the notion of racialized social systems. "The habit of considering racism as a mental quirk, as a psychological flaw, must be abandoned." -Frantz Fanon (1967:77) he area of race and ethnic studies lacks a _ sound theoretical apparatus. To complicate matters, many analysts of racial matters have abandoned the serious theorization and reconceptualization of their central topic: racism. Too many social analysts researching racism assume that the phenomenon is selfevident, and therefore either do not provide a definition or provide an elementary definition (Schuman, Steeh, and Bobo 1985; Sniderman and Piazza 1993). Nevertheless, whether implicitly or explicitly, most analysts regard racism as a purely ideological phenomenon.

Rethinking racism: toward a structural interpretation *

Although theories of prejudice have been extensively catalogued, empirical confrontations between competing theories are surprisingly rare. The primary goal of the present research was to test two major theoretical approaches to prejudice by whites against blacks: realistic group conflict theory, which emphasizes the tangible threats blacks might pose to whites' private lives; and a sociocultural theory of prejudice termed symbolic racism, which emphasizes abstract, moralistic resentments of blacks, presumably traceable to preadult socialization. The main dependent variable in our analysis is suburban whites' voting behavior in two mayoral elections in Los Angeles, both strongly influenced by racial issues, that matched the same two candidates, one black and one white. In both elections, symbolic racism (sociocultural prejudice) was the major determinant of voting against the black candidate for people removed from possible personal threats posed by blacks as well as for those at risk. Direct racial threats to whites' private lives (to their jobs, their neighborhoods, their children's schooling, their families' safety) had little effect on either antiblack voting behavior or symbolic racism. The article closes by developing the implications of these results for theories of prejudice and, more speculatively, for interpretations of the effects of voters' private lives on their political behavior. Theories of racial prejudice suffer from benign neglect. Although the theories themselves have been extensively and ably catalogued (most notably, by Allport, 1954; Ashmore & DelBoca, 1976; LeVine & Campbell, 1972), empirical confrontations between alternative theories occupy surprisingly little

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Prejudice and politics: Symbolic racism versus racial threats to the good life.

Symbolic Racism Versus Racial Threats to "The Good Life.".

Perceptions of threat occupy a central place in race relations in Blumer's theory of prejudice but few direct efforts to study such perceptions exist. Extending Blumer's reasoning, we hypothesize that such perceptions are driven by a group's feelings of racial alienation within the larger social order The more that members of a particular racial group feel collectively oppressed and unfairly treated by society, the more likely they are to perceive members of other groups as potential threats. We also examine whether such perceptions spring from simple self-interest, orthodox prejudice such as negative feelings and stereotyping, or broad beliefs about social stratification and inequality. We use data from the 1992 Los Angeles County Social Survey, a large multiracial sample of the general population, to analyze the distribution and social and psychological underpinnings of perceived group competition. Our results support the racial alienation hypothesis as well as the hypotheses positing effects for self-interest, prejudice, and stratification beliefs. We argue that Blumer's group-position framework offers the most parsimonious integration and interpretation of the social psychological processes involved in the formation of perceptions of group threat and competition. O ) ngoing immigration from Asia and Latin America and the earlier internal migration of African Americans out of the rural South have made most large cities in the United States remarkable multiracial conglomerations (Waldinger 1989). An immediate sociological concern raised by the growing heterogeneity of urban areas is whether members of different groups view one another as direct competitors for scarce economic, political, and social resources (Olzak 1993). Such perceptions may influ

https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/bobo/files/1996_perceptions_of_racial_group_competition_american_sociological_review.pdf

Ioan Davies

Papers

Toward a Theory of Minority-Group Relations