The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life.

Geographic studies of environmental racism have focused on the spatial relationships between environmental hazards and community demographics in order to determine if inequity exists. Conspicuously absent within this literature, however, is any substantive discussion of racism. This paper seeks to address this shortcoming in two ways. I first investigate how racism is understood and expressed in the literature. I argue that although racism is rarely explicitly discussed, a normative conceptualization of racism informs the research. Not only is this prevailing conception overly narrow and restrictive, it also denies the spatiality of racism. Consequently, my second goal is to demonstrate how various forms of racism contribute to environmental racism. In addition to conventional understandings of racism, I emphasize white privilege, a highly structural and spatial form of racism. Using Los Angeles as a case study, I examine how whites have secured relatively cleaner environments by moving away from older in...

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Rethinking Environmental Racism: White Privilege and Urban Development in Southern California

"A Different Mirror" is a dramatic new retelling of our nation's history, a powerful larger narrative of the many different peoples who together compose the United States of America. In a lively account filled with the stories and voices of people previously left out of the historical canon, Ronald Takaki offers a fresh perspective - a "re-visioning" - of our nation's past.

A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America. First Edition.

The authors review the research on gender by focusing on 3 domains of family life - marriage work (both wage and family work) and parenthood. Regarding marriage they consider intimacy communication and conflict and wife-battering. Regarding wage work they consider women and men as providers and resistance to wives as co-providers. Regarding family work they consider the nature of family work and resistance to sharing housework and child care. Regarding parenthood they consider the images of motherhood and fatherhood activities and experiences of mothering and fathering and the gender differentiation that accompanies parenting. The authors conclude that gender specialization in families persists across the domains of marriage work and parenthood. Everyday and ultimate responsibility for marriage housework and parenthood usually remains with women. Responsibility for breadwinning usually remains with men. Most women help men with provision and many men help women with family work and parenting although partners collude to sustain the belief that men are primary providers but parenting is shared. Partners tend to view mens minimal help with raising children as substantial and womens substantial help with provision as minimal. Though a growing number of women are bothered by this lopsided arrangement most men and women do not consider family life unfair. (authors modified)

Women and Men in Marriage, Work, and Parenthood.

Black teenagers living in metropolitan areas of the United States initiate sexual intercourse at earlier ages than other teenagers and have higher rates of premarital pregnancy. Ethnographic studies of black families have claimed that economic uncertainties cause young blacks to delay marriage, while many young women achieve adulthood through premarital parenthood. It is also probable that girls who grow up in a female-headed family or who see their sisters become teenage parents are more likely to accept single-parenthood as a way to achieve adult status. These studies have suggested that ghetto neighborhoods are characterized by loosely defined and enforced norms of sexual behavior and age and sex compositions conducive to juvenile deviance. These features of ghetto life make it difficult for parents to regulate successfully their children's behaviors. As a consequence, residents of ghetto neighborhoods are expected to initiate sexual intercourse at earlier ages and to have higher rates of accidental premarital pregnancy than other teens. These hypotheses have received limited support in previous demographic research on teenage fertility. In this paper, these ethnographic explanations of the fertility behaviors of black adolescents are tested, using data from a random sample of more than 1,000 black females aged 13-19 who lived in the city of Chicago in 1979. This analysis improves on previous demographic research by both measuring the total effects of these variables on fertility and decomposing them into components due to effects on rates of initial sexual

The Impact of Social Status, Family Structure, and Neighborhood on the Fertility of Black Adolescents

We examine repeat migration sequences in the United States especially those that entail a return, using data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics. Our guiding hypotheses derive from the concepts of location-specific capital and imperfect information. Descriptive analysis elucidates the dynamics, tempo, and differential frequency of repeat migration among various socioeconomic groups. Results disclose differences among migrants who choose to return or move onward to a new location, or do not move again, and lend support to our analytical framework. Major findings are: (1) the propensity to return to an area varies directly with the amount of locationspecific capital that is left behind and inversely with the ex-resident’s length of absence, (2) which repeat migration sequence unfolds—return or onward—depends on the ex-resident’s educational level and experience of unemployment.

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Return and other sequences of migration in the United States

Efforts to measure, monitor, and address racial/ethnic disparities in health care have been limited by the paucity of data regarding the race/ethnicity of users of the health care system. Indeed, until recently, many viewed the collection of such data as illegal (Fremont and Lurie 2004). One result is that the preponderance of studies on racial/ethnic differences in quality of care and patient outcomes has been limited to patients enrolled in Medicare or Medicaid. Several reports from the Institute of Medicine and the National Academy of Sciences recommend universal collection of self-reported data regarding race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status as a first step toward addressing disparities (Institute of Medicine 2002; National Research Council 2004). While self-reported data are widely considered to be the gold standard, absent a mandate to do so, collection of such data will be slow and inconsistent.

Several efforts to collect and use such data are underway. For example, the Health Research and Educational Trust, an independent research affiliate of the American Hospital Association, has developed a toolkit for and is assisting a growing number of hospitals with collection of racial, ethnic, and language data. Similarly, a group of hospitals funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to address disparities in cardiovascular care have committed to collecting race/ethnicity data and monitoring quality of care for different racial/ethnic groups. State policy has also moved toward collecting racial/ethnic data. For example, as part of the Massachusetts health care reform legislation, collection of race/ethnicity data from all hospitalized patients is required by law (Boston Public Health Commission 2006). In California, SB 853 and related regulations require HMO plans to collect race, ethnicity, and language information (California State Senate 2007). Finally, several of the plans participating in the National Health Plan Collaborative to Improve Quality and Eliminate Disparities have begun voluntary collection of self-reported data on the race/ethnicity of their enrollees (National Health Plan Collaborative 2006). Aetna has the most experience in doing so, but even with a mandate from their CEO and significant investment of resources over the past 4 years, the plan has been able to obtain data on only one-third of their enrollees thus far. Although a few smaller regional plans that followed Aetna's lead have obtained a similar proportion of self-reported data in less time, completing the process will likely take several more years.

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A new method for estimating race/ethnicity and associated disparities where administrative records lack self-reported race/ethnicity.

This research has two purposes. First, it examines individual- and household-level factors related to the propensity to move. The findings reveal that mobility is largely a matter of habitual movers changing residence repeatedly and frequently. The second objective is concerned with strengthening the foundation for projecting aggregate levels of mobility: (1) how does repeated movement manifest itself at the metropolitan scale? and (2) for predictive purposes, which aggregate indices capture the most important features of local population composition? Mobility rates were found to vary principally with the prevalence of chronic movers in an SMSA. These findings have several implications for policies designed to guide future population distribution. First, an SMSA’s capacity to correct local manpower imbalances by exchanging human capital with other areas may depend partially on its relative abundance of habitual movers. Second, the likelihood that new cities would attract disproportionate numbers of hypermobile persons might enhance their role within the framework of a broader distribution policy. The question posed here is whether high intrinsic levels of population turnover in some cities might fit into a larger strategy for realigning population growth and distribution nationally.

Chronic movers and the future redistribution of population: a longitudinal analysis

Commercial health plans need member racial/ethnic information to address disparities, but often lack it. We incorporate the U.S. Census Bureau’s latest surname list into a previous Bayesian method that integrates surname and geocoded information to better impute self-reported race/ethnicity. We validate this approach with data from 1,921,133 enrollees of a national health plan. Overall, the new approach correlated highly with self-reported race-ethnicity (0.76), which is 19% more efficient than its predecessor (and 41% and 108% more efficient than single-source surname and address methods, respectively, P < 0.05 for all). The new approach has an overall concordance statistic (area under the Receiver Operating Curve or ROC) of 0.93. The largest improvements were in areas where prior performance was weakest (for Blacks and Asians). The new Census surname list accounts for about three-fourths of the variance explained in the new estimates. Imputing Native American and multiracial identities from surname and residence remains challenging.

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Using the Census Bureau’s surname list to improve estimates of race/ethnicity and associated disparities

Data from the US High School and Beyond panel study indicate that of 13061 female high school sophomores who responded to both the baseline questionnaire in 1980 and a 1982 follow-up 41% of blacks 29% of Hispanics and 23% of non-Hispanic whites said they either would or might consider having a child outside of marriage Such willingness was higher among young women who according to their background characteristics were at greater risk of teenage parenthood In addition young black women were more willing to consider having a child while single than were white or Hispanic respondents at every level of risk The data also show that with the possible exception of Hispanics willing respondents generally registered much higher rates of nonmarital childbearing over the 2 years following the baseline survey than the young women unwilling to consider nonmarital childbearing Respondents reports on their own disciplinary problems in school and on their class-cutting and absenteeism showed that such problem behavior was related to the teenagers willingness to consider nonmarital childbearing Proportionally more of the respondents who ranked high on a scale of problem behavior were willing to do so even when background differences were controlled for In addition when the respondents educational expectations were used as proxy measures of the potential opportunity costs of single parenthood the results revealed that the higher their educational expectations the lower their willingness to have an out-of-wedlock birth This pattern persisted when the young womens background risk of teenage childbearing was considered Finally at least among Hispanic and white respondents inidividuals who reported several instances of depression in the previous month were more likely to claim that they would consider nonmarital childbearing than were their nondepressed peers (authors)

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Peter A. Morrison

Papers

Return and other sequences of migration in the United States

A new method for estimating race/ethnicity and associated disparities where administrative records lack self-reported race/ethnicity.

Chronic movers and the future redistribution of population: a longitudinal analysis

Using the Census Bureau’s surname list to improve estimates of race/ethnicity and associated disparities

Teenagers willing to consider single parenthood: who is at greatest risk?