Racial Majority Research Articles

Patterns of Bully/Victim Problems in Mixed Race Groups of Children

AbstractThis study investigated the extent of bullying within and between British Asian and White girls and boys (n = 156) and some of the reasons why it occurs. There was no significant difference in the percentage of peers that nominated Asian and White children as either bullies or victims. Contrary to our prediction (derived from Tajfel's social judgement theory), both Asian children and White children were significantly more likely to be named as bullies of same‐race classmates than to be named as bullies of other‐race classmates. Again contrary to our prediction, for Asian boys and White boys there were no significant correlations between general racial preferences/attitudes on the one hand, and the extent to which they were named by classmates as bullies of other‐race children on the other hand. In order to investigate the types of bullying directed at own‐race and other‐race pupils, a subset of the sample of children (n = 60) were also asked about the specific types of bullying they had experienced, and who was responsible. Some significant racial differences emerged, most notably that proportionally more Asian children than White children reported that they had been teased about their colour or race by children of the other‐race, and the opposite was the case for non‐racial types of teasing. The implications of these results for children's social development, and for school's attempts to remove bully/victim problems, are discussed. One recommendation was that teasing, and especially racial teasing by racial majority pupils, should be a focus for intervention.

Opening a window into police internal affairs: Impact of procedural justice reform on third-party attitudes

The study explores the impact of a procedural innovation on justice judgments made by third party observers. The innovation involved the establishment of a review panel with civilian participants to monitor a police department's investigation of allegations of misconduct against its officers. The study distinguishes the impact on racial minority observers from that on racial majority observers. Data suggest that the innovation had a positive, though differing, impact on the justice judgments of both minority and majority observers.

Sanctions against South Africa: Some Issues and Implications

Two diametrically opposite views hare been advanced on the subject of sanctions against South Africa. One supports sanctions on the ground that, 1. sanctions will facilitate the end of apartheid and 2. timely imposition of sanctions can avoid an all-out racial blood-bath in Southern Africa. India's Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi has been the foremost advocate of this argument. In his address at the Harare Summit of the Non-aligned Movement, 2–6 September 1986, he reiterated that‘sanctions could yet bring a relatively peaceful transition to racial equality and majority rule. Else, unprecedented violence would mow down a multitude of the finest flowers of South Africa.‘1 Opposing this view others argue that, 1. sanctions are immoral; 2. they will hurt South Africa's blacks more than the whites and 3. that at any rate sanctions are impracticable. The champ ionof this “no-sanction-business” is Britain's Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, who observed towards the close of the Commonwealth Meeting that sanctions would only harm the blacks and frontline states and so she would not like to be accused of causing‘greater hardship to the people of South Africa.’2 Mrs Thatcher also warned that imposition of sanctions would hurt the British economy as well as render some 250,000 British workers jobless. In addition to giving a new angle to the sanction debate, she obviously picked up this theme to impress the British voters.

Minority-Group Status and Fertility: A Study of Japanese and Chinese in Hawaii and California

Since there is a racial majority in California but not in Hawaii, these two states provide a natural experiment for testing the minority-status theory of fertility. The following propositions were deduced from the theory: (1) no net differences in Japanese, Chinese, and white fertility in Hawaii; (2) lower Japanese, and Chinese than white fertility in California; (3) lower Japanese and Chinese fertility in California than in Hawaii. Support for the first and third propositions and partial support for the second proposition in 1970 census public-use samples suggest that minority status may have depressed the fertility of currently married Japanese and Chinese women in California. The implications are explored.