Racial attitudes or racial ideology? An alternative paradigm for examining actors' racial views

Abstract

Most analysts of racism in the United States rely on surveys to make sense of actors' racial views and are oriented by methodological individualism. In contrast, a minority of scholars study actors' views as part of a racial ideology expressing their collective group interests. Nevertheless, these latter analysts have not developed a conceptual apparatus that can guide other researchers. My task in this article then is advancing a formal conceptualization of racial ideology and operationalizing it to facilitate using it in research. Using data from the 1998 Detroit Area Study, I illustrate the elements of this paradigm. In the explication of the various components of this paradigm, I discuss the central features of contemporary racial ideology in the Unites States which I label 'colour blind racism'. I conclude with a short discussion of the implications of this paradigm and of colour blind racism.