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Re-examining Racial Attitudes: The Conditional Relationship between Diversity and Socio-economic

Environment

Regina P. Branton and Bradford S. Jones

Problem: Social science research notes that racial context is related to attitudes toward social issues;
however, surprisingly little research has examined how the impact of racial context on attitudes is
activated.

Goal of the article: The aim of this article is to examine racial context "effects" for policy preferences,
but to do so within a broader perspective. This article extends the literature on racial attitudes by
considering a conditional relationship between racial and ethnic context and socioeconomic context
and expanding racial context to include multiple racial and ethnic groups.

Conclusion: The findings indicate that racial and ethnic contextual effects do emerge; however, these
effects are conditional on the socioeconomic context in which an individual resides. Specifically, high
socioeconomic contexts and highly diverse contexts are related to higher levels of support for racial
social issues; however, contexts characterized by low socioeconomic context and high racial and
ethnic diversity are associated with lower levels of support for such issues.

Concepts: Ethnic contextual effects and socio-economic context.

We argue the impact of racial composition on attitudes is conditional on socioeconomic context.

an unconditional model leads to a conclusion that racial/ethnic composition is either positively or


negatively associated with racial attitudes. Here, we find that affluent contexts help ameliorate
racially intolerant attitudes. In this sense, the results suggest a "positive" affect between racial/ethnic
composition and attitudes of tolerance. Yet because the conditional effect holds "both ways," there
is also an important negative implication for our results. The results indicate that poorer
socioeconomic contexts exacerbate racially intolerant attitudes. As such, African-Americans, Latinos,
and Asian-Americans residing in poorer and economically de- pressed contexts, who are most in
need of assistance (i.e., policy benefits), also
live in areas where racial tensions are the
highest.

our study helps explain why in some


conditions, one finds support for the racial
threat hypothesis while in other conditions,
one finds support for the racial contact
hypothesis. On the face of it, these two
hypotheses seem incompatible. Yet when
interpreted in terms of the conditional
relationship, the results are, in fact,
compatible.

Threat versus contact theory becomes threat


combined with contact theory.

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