Social Problems 56(3)

Networks of Opportunity: Gender, Race, and Job Leads
Steve McDonald, Nan Lin, Dan Ao

Researchers have commonly invoked isolation from job opportunities as an explanation for persistence of gender and race inequality in the labor market, but few have examined whether access to information about job opportunities varies by race and gender. Findings from nationally representative survey data reveal significant white male advantage in the number of job leads received through routine conversations when compared to white women and Hispanics. Differences in social network resources (social capital) partly explain the deficit among Hispanics, but fail to account for the job lead gap between white women and men. Further analyses show that inequality in the receipt of job information is greatest at the highest levels of supervisory authority, where white males receive substantially more job leads than women and minorities.

An Empirical Assessment of Whiteness Theory: Hidden from How Many?
Douglas Hartmann, Joseph Gerteis, Paul R. Croll

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 understanding (or lack thereof) of racial privileges; and adherence to individualistic, color-blind ideals. Consistent with whiteness theories, we find that white Americans are less aware of privilege than individuals from racial minority groups and consistently adopt color-blind, individualist ideologies. However, we also find that whites are both more connected to white identity and culture as well as more aware of the advantages of their race than many theoretical discussions suggest. We then combine these results to estimate that 15 percent of white Americans exhibit what we call "categorical whiteness," a consistent and uniform adherence to the theoretical tenets that are the focus of this body of theory. We conclude by suggesting that these findings provide the basis for a more nuanced, contextualized understanding of whiteness as a social phenomenon.

Multiracial Groups and Educational Inequality: A Rainbow or a Divide?
Mary E. Campbell

How do multiracial groups "fit" into the system of racial oppression and privilege in the United States? Are the outcomes of multiracial individuals explained by the Latin Americanization hypothesis (Bonilla-Silva 2002), or a hardening racial divide between blacks and all other racial groups (Gans 1999; Yancey 2006)? Using the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, I address these questions and show that the educational outcomes of multiracial groups and individuals are not consistently explained by measures of appearance, as suggested by these theories. Although the educational outcomes of Latinos and single-race groups are significantly associated with skin color and the racial perceptions of observers, multiracial young adults' high school and college educational outcomes are not consistently related to either measure of appearance. Parental education and family income are the most important predictors of educational outcomes for multiracial respondents across different types of outcomes. The implications of these findings for racial inequality and research on multiracial groups are discussed.

Exploring the Connection between Immigration and Violent Crime Rates in U.S. Cities, 1980–2000
Graham C. Ousey, Charis E. Kubrin

A popular perception is that immigration causes higher crime rates. Yet, historical and contemporary research finds that at the individual level, immigrants are not more inclined to commit crime than the native born. Knowledge of the macro-level relationship between immigration and crime, however, is characterized by important gaps. Most notably, despite the fact that immigration is a macro-level social process that unfolds over time, longitudinal macro-level research on the immigration-crime nexus is virtually nonexistent. Moreover, while several theoretical perspectives posit sound reasons why over-time changes in immigration could result in higher or lower crime rates, we currently know little about the veracity of these arguments. To address these issues, this study investigates the longitudinal relationship between immigration and violent crime across U.S. cities and provides the first empirical assessment of theoretical perspectives that offer explanations of that relationship. Findings support the argument that immigration lowers violent crime rates by bolstering intact (two-parent) family structures.

Homicide In and Around Public Housing: Is Public Housing a Hotbed, a Magnet, or a Generator of Violence for the Surrounding Community?
Elizabeth Griffiths, George Tita

One of the unintended consequences of decades-long public housing policy has been to concentrate the poor within communities that are at the extreme end of economic disadvantage. More than in other types of disadvantaged communities, living in public housing can sharply circumscribe the social world of its residents and isolate them from people and social institutions in surrounding areas. This study draws on the concepts of social isolation from urban sociology and offending "awareness space" from environmental criminology to explain why violence rates are dramatically higher in public housing compared to otherwise disadvantaged nonpublic housing neighborhoods and, moreover, whether residents or outsiders are responsible for the violence. Using homicide data for the Southeast Policing Area of Los Angeles (1980 through 1999), and relating the location of homicides within and outside of public housing to the places of residence of both victims and offenders, our research reveals that public housing developments are hotbeds of violence involving predominantly local residents. There is no evidence that public housing serves as either a magnet for violence by drawing in nonlocal offenders, or a generator of violence in surrounding neighborhoods. We conclude that this social isolation from the larger community can both escalate violence between residents inside public housing, but also limit their offending awareness space, such that the violence is contained from spreading beyond the development.

Assessing Trends in Women's Violence via Data Triangulation: Arrests, Convictions, Incarcerations, and Victim Reports
Jennifer Schwartz, Darrell J. Steffensmeier, Ben Feldmeyer

Constructionist theories suggest the national rise in female violence arrests may be policy generated because arrest statistics are produced by violent behavior and changing official responses (e.g., net-widening enforcement policies). Normative theories attribute the rise to female behavior changes (e.g., in response to increased freedoms or hardships). We examine whether any narrowing of the arrest gender gap is borne out across offense types of varying measurement reliability, in victimization data, and across two post-arrest criminal justice stages. Advanced time-series analyses over 1980 through 2003 support the constructionist position. First, all sources show little or no increase in women's rates for the more reliably measured offenses of homicide and robbery, and for rape. Second, the assault gender gap narrows for arrests, but holds stable in victimization data. And, third, the assault gender gap narrows moderately for convictions, but is stable for imprisonment, indicating spill-over effects of more expansive arrest policies. Several factors have produced greater female representation in "criminal assault" arrests including (1) proactive policing targeting and formally responding to minor violence and in private contexts, (2) interventionist developmental epistemologies that blur distinctions among violence types and circumstances, (3) the rise of social movements recognizing "hidden" victims, (4) law and order political messages stressing greater accountability, and (5) the somewhat greater decline in male compared to female violence in the late 1990s. The problem of women's violence is largely a social construction. Rather than women becoming more violent, changes in the management of violence increasingly mask differences in the violence levels of women and men.

The Persistence of Educational Disparities in Smoking
Fred C. Pampel

Besides reducing overall smoking prevalence, do anti-tobacco policies to raise prices and restrict locations for smoking also reduce educational disparities? Theories emphasizing proximate disincentives answers yes, suggesting that the policy changes create stronger disincentives for smoking among low education groups. A social resource or fundamental cause theory suggests in contrast that flexible and broad resource advantages of high education groups maintain inequalities in health behavior despite policy changes. Using 24 National Health Interview Surveys, this study tests these claims by describing smoking prevalence by education level from 1976 to 2006 in the United States and giving special attention to the last ten years when tax and clean-air policies have expanded. Logistic regression models that allow trends in smoking to vary by education, race, ethnicity, and nativity find a small decline in educational disparities in smoking. However, this decline stemmed from trends among Hispanic and foreign-born respondents; in contrast, smoking disparities among white, African American, and native-born respondents show no evidence of narrowing. Likely due to the greater resources of high education groups for health behavior, changes in prices and restrictions thus far have done little to reduce educational disparities.

Cinethetic Racism: White Redemption and Black Stereotypes in "Magical Negro" Films
Matthew W. Hughey

Recent research on African American media representations describes a trend of progressive, antiracist film production. Specifically, "magical negro" films (cinema highlighting lower-class, uneducated, and magical black characters who transform disheveled, uncultured, or broken white characters into competent people) have garnered both popular and critical acclaim. I build upon such evidence as a cause for both celebration and alarm. I first examine how notions of historical racism in cinema inform our comprehension of racial representations today. These understandings create an interpretive environment whereby magical black characters are relationally constructed as both positive and progressive. I then advance a production of culture approach that examines 26 films that resonate with mainstream audiences' understanding of race relations and racialized fantasies. I find that these films constitute "cinethetic racism"—a synthesis of overt manifestations of racial cooperation and egalitarianism with latent expressions of white normativity and antiblack stereotypes. "Magical negro" films thus function to marginalize black agency, empower normalized and hegemonic forms of whiteness, and glorify powerful black characters in so long as they are placed in racially subservient positions. The narratives of these films thereby subversively reaffirm the racial status quo and relations of domination by echoing the changing and mystified forms of contemporary racism rather than serving as evidence of racial progress or a decline in the significance of race.

Battlin' on the Corner: Techniques for Sustaining Play
Jooyoung Lee

Drawing from close to four years of ethnographic fieldwork, in-depth interviews, and video recordings, this paper analyzes how inner-city men sustain playful street corner rap "battles" in South Central Los Angeles. Although participants know that the battle is supposed to be a playful way of resolving perceived disrespect in group rap "ciphers," some become "more than play." Indeed, ritual insults have the power to provoke feelings of rage, which can propel individuals into violence. To sustain the playful meanings of battles, participants who offend their opponent use different nonverbal cues to signal, "I was just playing," while the offended party responds with cues signaling, "I do not have any hard feelings." When these moves do not work, onlookers step in between participants, tell jokes, and use other gestures to defuse escalating tensions. The techniques outlined in this article elaborate Erving Goffman's (1974) theories of "keys" and "limits," showing how embodied and emotional cues are used to sustain the shared presumption that "this is play."

Social Problems, August 2009: Volume 56, Issue 3