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Measuring Racial Discrimination | 
 enlarge | Authors: Panel On Methods For Assessing Discrimination, National Research Council
Creators: Rebecca M. Blank, Marilyn Dabady, Constance F. Citro
Publisher: National Academies Press
Category: Book
List Price: $44.95
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Sales Rank: 234012
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 340
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.4
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6 x 0.9
ISBN: 0309091268
Dewey Decimal Number: 305.8
EAN: 9780309091268
ASIN: 0309091268
Publication Date: June 28, 2004
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Book Description
Many racial and ethnic groups in the United States, including blacks, Hispanics, Asians, American Indians, and others, have historically faced severe discrimination?pervasive and open denial of civil, social, political, educational, and economic opportunities. Today, large differences among racial and ethnic groups continue to exist in employment, income and wealth, housing, education, criminal justice, health, and other areas. While many factors may contribute to such differences, their size and extent suggest that various forms of discriminatory treatment persist in U.S. society and serve to undercut the achievement of equal opportunity.
Measuring Racial Discrimination considers the definition of race and racial discrimination, reviews the existing techniques used to measure racial discrimination, and identifies new tools and areas for future research. The book conducts a thorough evaluation of current methodologies for a wide range of circumstances in which racial discrimination may occur, and makes recommendations on how to better assess the presence and effects of discrimination.
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Survey of Measures for Determining Racial Discrimination October 28, 2004
3 out of 7 found this review helpful
Measuring Racial Discrimination by Rebecca M. Blank (National Academes Press) Many racial and ethnic groups in the United States, including blacks, Hispanics, Asians, American Indians, and others, have historically faced severe discrimination-pervasive and open denial of civil, social, political, educational, and economic opportunities. Today, large differences among racial and ethnic groups
., continue to exist in employment, income and wealth, housing, education, criminal justice, health, and other areas. While many factors may contribute to such differences, their size and extent suggest that various forms of discriminatory treatment persist in U.S. society and serve to undercut the achievement of equal opportunity.
Measuring Racial Discrimination considers the definition of race and racial discrimination, reviews the existing techniques used to measure racial discrimination, and identifies new tools and areas for future research. The book conducts a thorough evaluation of current methodologies for a wide rage of circumstances in which racial discrimination may occur and makes recommendations on how to better assess the presence and effects of discrimination.
Excerpt: In the United States, large differences among racial and ethnic groups characterize many areas of social, economic, and political life, including such domains as the criminal justice system, education, employment, health care, and housing. For example, racial differences-which generally disadvantage minorities-exist in arrest and incarceration rates, earnings, income and wealth, levels of educational attainment, health status and health outcomes, and mortgage lending and homeownership. There are many possible explanations for such differences; one explanation may be the persistence of behaviors and processes of discrimination against minorities.
In this context, the Committee on National Statistics convened the Panel on Methods for Assessing Discrimination in 2001 to define racial discrimination; review and critique existing methods used to measure such discrimination and identify new approaches; and make recommendations regarding the best of these methods, as well as promising areas for future research. Because of wide interest in this topic, several funding agencies sponsored our study: the Ford Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the U.S. Department of Education.
The work of this panel is a direct outgrowth of the project that resulted in the two-volume report America Becoming: Racial Trends and Their Consequences (National Research Council, 2001a). Several of the panel members who were involved in producing these volumes held conversations around the question "What do we need to know to understand more about the role of race in American society?" At least one answer was
"We need better methods to identify and understand the effects of race-based discrimination."
The panel comprised a diverse group of experts in the fields of criminal justice, law, economics, psychology, public policy, sociology, and statistics. This diversity added a great deal to the creative debates among the panel members but also added to the difficulties in writing this report. It took time to develop a language and an intellectual framework with which we were all comfortable. In our report, we provide an extended discussion of definitions of discrimination and race, consolidating many aspects of a large social science literature on these topics. We also discuss various approaches to modeling and measuring discrimination in different fields. The interdisciplinary and diverse nature of the panel helped broaden these discussions, and we hope that our presentation of the definitional issues provides insight to those interested in the conceptualization of discrimination, just as we hope that our discussion of the methodological issues introduces new ideas to those engaged in measuring discrimination.
The breadth and complexity of the topic of discrimination and its effects posed a challenge for maintaining a tight focus on our charge, which was to define discrimination and review methods for measuring it. To keep to that charge, we spend no time discussing policies intended to alleviate discrimination (such as affirmative action or programs to build recruitment pools). We acknowledge, however, that the panel members have diverse opinions about appropriate policy options to address problems of discrimination, and inevitably our debates over policy issues at times crept into our debates over methodological issues.
Because of the charge and constraints on our time and resources, we focus our analysis on racial discrimination, particularly discrimination against African Americans, for which there is a very large literature. We do not address discrimination on the basis of nonracial factors, such as gender or age, nor do we discuss so-called reverse discrimination. Under the rubric of racial discrimination, we do include discrimination against ethnic groups, particularly Hispanics. The reasons have to do with the discrimination that has affected them coupled with the blurred nature of the definition of race and ethnicity for many Hispanics.
All of the panel members recognize the difficulties in defining racial discrimination in a clear way and in finding credible ways to measure it. There are different types of discrimination, different venues in which it can occur, and different ways in which it can have an effect. This report cannot address all of these topics comprehensively, but we have attempted to focus on at least some of the more important definitional and measurement problems. The measurement issues we address are relevant for understanding and measuring other types of discrimination. Despite the difficulty of ourtask, the panel members are all persuaded that accurate methods to identify and measure discrimination are highly important, and as scholars and re-searchers, we were committed to carrying out our charge in the best way possible.
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