Racism, Ethnic Ideology, and Racial Attitudes.

Abstract

In the fall of 1974, an examination of Black (N = 118) and White (N = 310) undergraduate racial attitudes was undertaken at a large mid-western university. Same race, opposite sex administrators asked the students to complete the questionnaires in the privacy of their own dormitory rooms in return for a small financial remuneration. Along with various items from Woodmansee and Cook's Multifactor Racial Attitude Inventory, indices were created to examine James Jones' tripartite racism concept and Yetman and Steele's ethnic ideology continuum. An attempt was made to determine if the racism indices and a specific set of ethnic ideologies could be differentially related to predictions of specific attitudes and situations concerning interracial contact. A more general purpose was to examine racial attitudes in a given college student population where intergroup relations were encouraged by the university community as part of an overall learning process. Two major hypotheses were developed. One, Black female students should respond more negatively than either White males, White females, or Black males on measures of interracial contact. Secondly, the more racist in orientation and less central in ethnic ideology an individual is, the greater likelihood of a more negative stance on attitudes toward interracial contact. In addition, the more general question of the utility of the ideology continuum and the three levels of racism were also examined. In general, the data lend relative support to hypothesis one, but only partial support to hypothesis two. For hypothesis one, Black female students respond somewhat more negatively (though the difference is not significant) than Black males. When comparing across race and sex, however, Black female students' responses differ significantly from nearly all White female and male students' responses. The most notable exception being that Black female students report having fewer interracial contacts than Whites, but at the same time, give these fewer contacts a more favorable evaluation. For hypothesis two, there was a slight trend for those who possess extreme ideologies (i.e., exclusion or separation) to respond more negatively on attitudes toward interracial contact. The utility of the ethnic ideology continuum and the three levels of racism were discussed. The individual level of racism appears to be the only dimension which accounts for a substantial amount of the variance across attitudes toward interracial contact. Similarly, the ethnic ideology continuum is not significantly related to these attitudes. Questions were raised concerning the operationalization of an ethnic ideology continuum and three dimensions of racism. It was concluded that the social psychological perspective taken in the present study may prove fruitful in examining one's attitudes toward institutions and their practices, and that there is a pressing need for further development of reliable and valid measures to assess ethnic ideology and racism.