Understanding Of Discrimination Research Articles

Discrimination and the Proliferation of Stressors: A Social Network Analysis

This study offers one of the few investigations into the role of discrimination in the stress proliferation process. Using a community-based sample of adults and actor-partner interdepended models, our findings reveal an intra-personal spillover effect, wherein individuals experiencing direct discrimination also report heightened secondary stressors across various life domains (i.e., general life, romantic partnerships, employment, social and recreational activities, and the health of family/friends). We further demonstrate an inter-personal crossover effect, indicating that individuals whose close network members experience high levels of discrimination reported an increased number of secondary everyday stressors across various life domains. Notably, the stress proliferation stemming from vicarious discrimination is primarily confined to intimate partner ties and does not extend to kinship or non-family ties. This study extends the stress process research by advancing our understanding of discrimination's pivotal role in stress proliferation and illuminates the potential ripple effects of discriminatory experiences across social networks.

Data justice in the “twin objective” of market and risk: How discrimination is formulated in EU's AI policy

AbstractBased on a focus on artificial intelligence (AI) policy in the European Union (EU), we explore the dominant approach taken to data justice in policy. More specifically, we ask how the particular issue of discrimination is translated into policy goals and measures as a way to address prominent concerns about AI. Looking at the stage of policy formulation, we provide an analysis of the way (non) discrimination is currently pursued within the EU's AI policy debate through the study of relevant policy documents and public consultations between 2017 and 2023. We argue that whilst the issue of discrimination has moved from the margins to the mainstream in policy debate, it has done so based on an understanding of discrimination as an inevitable risk of AI; such risk is specific to particular situations and the technological features of AI; the nature of this risk can be assessed and managed through a set of procedural safeguards; and such safeguards can be supported by the creation of a trustworthy AI market. Whilst this translation of justice is very important for contending with some of the critique surrounding the advancement of AI, it may also serve to contain and neutralize such critique in the interest of marketization.

The Artificial Recruiter: Risks of Discrimination in Employers’ Use of AI and Automated Decision‐Making

Extant literature points to how the risk of discrimination is intrinsic to AI systems owing to the dependence on training data and the difficulty of post hoc algorithmic auditing. Transparency and auditability limitations are problematic both for companies’ prevention efforts and for government oversight, both in terms of how artificial intelligence (AI) systems function and how large‐scale digital platforms support recruitment processes. This article explores the risks and users’ understandings of discrimination when using AI and automated decision‐making (ADM) in worker recruitment. We rely on data in the form of 110 completed questionnaires with representatives from 10 of the 50 largest recruitment agencies in Sweden and representatives from 100 Swedish companies with more than 100 employees (“major employers”). In this study, we made use of an open definition of AI to accommodate differences in knowledge and opinion around how AI and ADM are understood by the respondents. The study shows a significant difference between direct and indirect AI and ADM use, which has implications for recruiters’ awareness of the potential for bias or discrimination in recruitment. All of those surveyed made use of large digital platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn for their recruitment, leading to concerns around transparency and accountability—not least because most respondents did not explicitly consider this to be AI or ADM use. We discuss the implications of direct and indirect use in recruitment in Sweden, primarily in terms of transparency and the allocation of accountability for bias and discrimination during recruitment processes.

What is “Race” in Algorithmic Discrimination on the Basis of Race?

Abstract Machine learning algorithms bring out an under-appreciated puzzle of discrimination, namely figuring out when a decision made on the basis of a factor correlated with race is a decision made on the basis of race. I argue that prevailing approaches, which are based on identifying and then distinguishing among causal effects of race, in their metaphysical timidity, fail to get off the ground. I suggest, instead, that adopting a constructivist theory of race answers this puzzle in a principled manner. On what I call a “thick constructivist” account of race, to be raced is to be socially positioned in the way indicated by a certain set of statistical regularities on the basis of particular phenotypical traits. A thick constructivist sees that acting on the basis of correlations that constitute race qua social position just is acting on the basis of race, because races just are social positions that subject their member individuals to a particular matrix of social relations that define the raced position. This conclusion has considerable ramifications for our understanding of discrimination, algorithms and beyond.

Latinxs and Racial Frames: The Evolution of Settler Colonial Ideologies in New Mexico

Abstract I leverage the case of Nuevomexicanos, New Mexico’s long-standing Mexican American population, to extend our understanding of how legacies of Spanish and American conquest—that is, double colonization—can inform Latinxs’ understandings of discrimination and race. I show that while most Nuevomexicanos reported experiences with discrimination, they often minimized their racialized experiences because such instances were incompatible with the idea that living in a Hispanic-majority state sheltered them from racism. The Hispanic-majority frame was often paired with rationales that addressed spatial comparisons, cultural diversity or class inequality to deflect race. Nuevomexicanos struggled with viewing themselves as a low-status group due to their substantial representation in New Mexico yet still managing White racism. I argue that Nuevomexicanos’ race-minimizing frames parallel strategies that date back to Spanish colonization to leverage whiteness in order to contest discrimination. Nuevomexicanos race-minimizing claims, therefore, embody resistance strategies to claim equality with Whites. This study details how double colonization and region reflect variations in Latinxs’ conceptions of race.

Discrimination in Long-Term Care Facilities: Legal Consciousness and Problem-Solving Among Staff

Abstract Over half of direct care workers in long-term care facilities are women of color. Building on legal consciousness theory–which explains how individuals invoke legal principles to define everyday experiences–this study examines how staff understand and resolve discrimination between residents and staff and among staff. This study employs a multi-method qualitative extended comparative case approach. Data includes in-depth semi-structured interviews (n=80) and participant and non-participant observation (n=8 months) at two facilities that vary in staff racial composition. Findings reveal rampant unreported instances of race and sex discrimination toward Black staff by white staff and residents. Black staff at all levels did not invoke rights or discrimination rhetoric when they experienced overt race discrimination by residents but engaged in significant emotional labor to respond to race discrimination by residents. Black staff, however, perceived microaggressions and unequal treatment by white staff as discrimination. At both facilities, floor staff and management adopted diverse team approaches across race and staff hierarchy for responding to race discrimination by residents toward Black female staff. These findings suggest the need for new and targeted policy and practice approaches that recognize extensive emotional labor expended by staff of color when addressing discrimination by residents and challenges from white staff when addressing race discrimination by staff. These findings have theoretical implications by extending legal consciousness theory to multi-level staff understandings of discrimination. Findings also provide useful tools and case examples for policymakers and practitioners interested in racial justice, particularly given how COVID has exacerbated racial inequities in long-term care.

A campaign to tackle discrimination

AbstractBackgroundDementia Australia’s strategic direction represents a year of extensive community consultation and identifies discrimination as a leading issue for people living with dementia.An objective is to change community attitudes to dementia, creating greater community empathy so no‐one with dementia feels isolated.MethodIn 2019, Dementia Australia surveyed >5000 respondents to identify types of discrimination faced by people living with dementia. Of responding family members, friends and carers, 94% said people had not stayed connected with a relative living with dementia. Some 80% said people had deliberately avoided their friend or relative living with dementia; 81% felt people in shops, cafes and restaurants treated people living with dementia differently. Traditionally anti‐discrimination campaigns focus on elevating awareness and understanding to change behaviour. Dementia Australia tackled the behaviour directly: expanding people’s understanding of discrimination and its impact, providing practical information and tips to do better. The 'Help Keep the World Open' campaign used the social isolation created by COVID‐19 to show that once the crisis had passed, most people could resume regular social routines. However, for people with dementia, isolation can be a reality every day. The next campaign stage ‐ ‘A little support makes a lot of difference’ ‐ highlighted the capabilities of people living with dementia, given the right supports. The campaign shared tips and tools to support people living with dementia to live well. These broad‐ranging national campaigns were developed collaboratively with people with a lived experience of dementia. The high‐level objectives were to raise awareness of dementia and the lack of understanding that causes discrimination, to shift negative perceptions and show practical ways for people to support those living with dementia.ResultExceptional levels of engagement and reach were achieved across media. From May 18 to 23 December 2020, more than 35 million impressions reached 4.6 million Australians, with engagement rates well above industry averages across all channels.ConclusionOur content created increased awareness and understanding of dementia, changing misconceptions ‐ vital to improving quality of life. This campaign demonstrated that building empathy alongside knowledge by asking the community to change behaviour and attitudes is both engaging and effective.

COVID-19: an age of fear, simulacra, or reality?

ABSTRACT The present research aims to deconstruct the proclamatory discourses on COVID-19 circulating in the networks of cyberspaces. The study attempts to analyse whether the knowledge produced about the precautionary assumptions such as a lockdown or social distancing are intentionally highlighted through media and other social networks. For this purpose, the research borrows Jean Baudrillard’s concept of Simulacra and Simulation to analyse how the COVID-19 pandemic creates a sensation of unreal fear at the global level. This excessive sensation constructs a culture of exercising power that gradually replaces the real understanding of discrimination between reality and imitation. This projection of sustained discordance aligns with Baudrillard’s basic tenets of media simulation of reality, wherein a simulation process is a fabricated culture constructed by human beings that dominates nature through a reversal of commonsensical understanding about the relationship between nature and the culture that is constructed by man. Hence, whatever knowledge is consumed as a constructed entity remains a copy ad infinitum. The exploration demonstrates the stage of hyper-reality highlighted in the process of simulation and simulacra. The present analysis is interested in perusing the effects of interpenetration between the real/created media knowledge production through Baudrillard’s concept of simulation simulacra.

Reconceptualizing Intersectionality in Judicial Interpretation: Moving Beyond Formalistic Accounts of Discrimination on Islamic Covering Prohibitions

This article analyzes the United Nations Human Rights Committee’s (HRC) consideration of legal prohibitions on Islamic face-coverings in Yaker v. France and Hebbadj v. France, and argues that the HRC’s recognition of discrimination at play represents a significant departure from the judicial trend of accepting such prohibitions in Europe. We contend that the HRC’s limited interpretation of intersectionality in the cases elides the full extent of harms and violations arising from such legislation. However, we suggest that judicial understanding of discrimination can be enhanced by drawing on a modified UN concept of harmful traditional practices, which allows an understanding of Islamic face-covering as one among many global patriarchal practices. Decolonizing jurisprudence on intersectional discrimination in this way allows an explicit recognition and articulation of how an exclusive focus on prohibitions of practices of members of minority groups, without attention to majority patriarchal practices, contributes to legitimating sexist and racist targeting of minority groups – and entrenches sexism against women more broadly.

Evidence from Field Experiments in Hiring Shows Substantial Additional Racial Discrimination after the Callback

AbstractField experiments using fictitious applications have become an increasingly important method for assessing hiring discrimination. Most field experiments of hiring, however, only observe whether the applicant receives an invitation to interview, called the “callback.” How adequate is our understanding of discrimination in the hiring process based on an assessment of discrimination in callbacks, when the ultimate subject of interest is discrimination in job offers? To address this question, we examine evidence from all available field experimental studies of racial or ethnic discrimination in hiring that go to the job offer outcome. Our sample includes 12 studies encompassing more than 13,000 job applications. We find considerable additional discrimination in hiring after the callback: majority applicants in our sample receive 53% more callbacks than comparable minority applicants, but majority applicants receive 145% more job offers than comparable minority applicants. The additional discrimination from interview to job offer is weakly correlated (r = 0.21) with the level of discrimination earlier in the hiring process. We discuss the implications of our results for theories of discrimination, including statistical discrimination.

Implicit Bias's Failure

In the two decades since the introduction of the Implicit Association Test, the effort by many researchers to get policymakers and society to take implicit bias seriously has had many successes. But, this paper argues, that effort has failed in its most important political project. The political project of implicit bias research responded to the increasing racial conservatism of the period following the civil rights era. In the academy, in the courts, and in public policy advocacy, researchers and activists have deployed the findings of implicit bias research to defend antidiscrimination efforts and to support extending those efforts to new domains. Their political project responded to the increasing conservatism on racial issues by aiming to depoliticize and depersonalize society’s understanding of discrimination. The first goal, depoliticization, would be achieved by substituting a discourse of science for the then-dominant discourse of justice. The second goal, depersonalization, aimed to respond to the rise of anti-anti-racism. The political project of implicit bias research has rested on at least two predictive premises: first, that scientific proof of the persistence of bias will help persuade moderates and conservatives who believed antidiscrimination laws had already served their purpose; and, second, that implicit bias explanations for inequality will be more politically acceptable to the broader public, because they do not involve accusing individuals of racism. Although these premises have proven true to some extent, the increasing use of implicit bias language by political progressives has not, in the main, blunted opposition to aggressive antidiscrimination enforcement. Instead, the same battle lines that were once drawn around accusations of individual racism, and later drawn around accusations of systemic racism, are now drawn around attributions of implicit bias. Indeed, in some ways the turn to using implicit bias language has given the advantage to those who resist aggressive efforts to overcome racial inequality. The focus on implicit bias, as instantiated by the IAT, has given racial conservatives the opportunity to frame their opposition in scientific terms — as questioning the reliability or validity of particular studies or tools — and thus allowed them to draw attention away from the political underpinnings of their arguments. And the repeated invocation of the concept of implicit bias by political progressives suggests that old-fashioned intentional discrimination is a thing of the past, when in fact it may simply be better hidden. Indeed, at a moment in history when overt racism — seen in the reaction among some to the election of a black president, and in a significant part of the movement that elected Donald Trump — once again seems a major factor in our public life, the suggestion that implicit bias is the central problem may be particularly misleading.

Perceptions of discrimination against Muslims. A study of formal complaints against public institutions in Sweden

ABSTRACT While discrimination in the labour market, housing and consumer domains has been studied extensively, discrimination against minorities by public institutions has thus far been a somewhat neglected issue. Still, it has a stratifying potential similar to that of labour market discrimination; public institutions distribute both common resources, services, and impose sanctions on citizens who do not conform to society’s rules and regulations. To fully assess the scope of the unequal opportunities facing ethnic, racial and religious minorities, we need a deeper understanding of discrimination within public institutions. In the present paper, I study how discrimination occurs in different institutional contexts by drawing on 116 formal discrimination complaints made to the Swedish Ombudsman against Discrimination by Muslims and individuals who may have been presumed to be Muslims. Drawing on the complainants’ accounts of the reported incidents, I identify how discrimination has been perceived in the different institutional contexts. Based on the results, I derive concrete hypothesis concerning how discrimination against Muslims occur within public institutions.

Colorism and classism confounded: Perceptions of discrimination in Latin America

Despite competing narratives of mestizaje (race-mixing) emphasizing class discrimination and social movements highlighting the existence of racial discrimination in Latin America, little work has examined the overlap of class and color in people's understandings of discrimination. This study moves beyond the color/class binary by examining perceptions of only class, only color, and both class and color discrimination (dual discrimination). I also examine whether individuals have difficulty attributing the causes of discrimination by expanding upon the social psychological concept of attributional ambiguity. Using nationally representative data from the 2010 LAPOP's Americas Barometer survey, I find that color-based explanations have not replaced class-based explanations. Instead, both class and color appear to be part of schemas drawn upon by individuals to understand the unfavorable treatment they perceive—in line with scholarship showing both class disadvantage and color conjointly influence the stratification systems of Latin America. There is also suggestive evidence that individuals may have trouble disentangling the causes of the discrimination they perceive.

Harm and Discrimination

Many legal, social, and medical theorists and practitioners, as well as lay people, seem to be concerned with the harmfulness of discriminative practices. However, the philosophical literature on the moral wrongness of discrimination, with a few exceptions, does not focus on harm. In this paper, I examine, and improve, a recent account of wrongful discrimination, which divides into (1) a definition of group discrimination, and (2) a characterisation of its moral wrong-making feature in terms of harm. The resulting account analyses the wrongness of discrimination in terms of intrapersonal comparisons of the discriminatee’s actual, and relevantly counterfactual, well-being levels. I show that the account faces problems from counterfactuals, which can be traced back specifically to the orthodox - comparative, counterfactual, welfarist - concept of harm. I argue that non-counterfactual and non-comparative harm concepts face problems of their own, and don’t fit easily with our best understanding of discrimination; hence they are unsuitable to replace the orthodox concept here. I then propose a non-orthodox - comparative, counterfactual, hybrid (partly welfarist, partly non-welfarist) - concept of harm, which relies on counterfactual comparisons of ways of being treated (rather than well-being levels). I suggest how such a concept can help us handle the problems from counterfactuals, at least for my account of discrimination. I also show that there are similar proposals in other harm-related debates. An upshot of the paper is thus to corroborate the case for a non-orthodox, hybrid concept of harm, which seems better able to fulfil its functional roles in a variety of contexts.

Implicit Bias's Failure

In the two decades since the introduction of the Implicit Association Test, the effort by many researchers to get policymakers and society to take implicit bias seriously has had many successes. But, this paper argues, that effort has failed in its most important political project. The political project of implicit bias research responded to the increasing racial conservatism of the period following the civil rights era. In the academy, in the courts, and in public policy advocacy, researchers and activists have deployed the findings of implicit bias research to defend antidiscrimination efforts and to support extending those efforts to new domains. Their political project responded to the increasing conservatism on racial issues by aiming to depoliticize and depersonalize society’s understanding of discrimination. The first goal, depoliticization, would be achieved by substituting a discourse of science for the then-dominant discourse of justice. The second goal, depersonalization, aimed to respond to the rise of anti-anti-racism. The political project of implicit bias research has rested on at least two predictive premises: first, that scientific proof of the persistence of bias will help persuade moderates and conservatives who believed antidiscrimination laws had already served their purpose; and, second, that implicit bias explanations for inequality will be more politically acceptable to the broader public, because they do not involve accusing individuals of racism. Although these premises have proven true to some extent, the increasing use of implicit bias language by political progressives has not, in the main, blunted opposition to aggressive antidiscrimination enforcement. Instead, the same battle lines that were once drawn around accusations of individual racism, and later drawn around accusations of systemic racism, are now drawn around attributions of implicit bias. Indeed, in some ways the turn to using implicit bias language has given the advantage to those who resist aggressive efforts to overcome racial inequality. The focus on implicit bias, as instantiated by the IAT, has given racial conservatives the opportunity to frame their opposition in scientific terms — as questioning the reliability or validity of particular studies or tools — and thus allowed them to draw attention away from the political underpinnings of their arguments. And the repeated invocation of the concept of implicit bias by political progressives suggests that old-fashioned intentional discrimination is a thing of the past, when in fact it may simply be better hidden. Indeed, at a moment in history when overt racism — seen in the reaction among some to the election of a black president, and in a significant part of the movement that elected Donald Trump — once again seems a major factor in our public life, the suggestion that implicit bias is the central problem may be particularly misleading.

On the threshold: becoming Romanian Roma, everyday racism and residency rights in transition

ABSTRACTThis article examines the reaction of welfare state actors and ‘Romanian Roma’ migrants to the political environment on migration in the UK. Based on the ethnographic fieldwork between January 2013 and March 2014, the article focuses on how processes of everyday racism infused understandings of the legal framework for European migrants’ residency rights. The article first explores how state actors developed ideas about ‘Romanian Roma families’ as opposed to ‘Romanian-not-Roma families’ in a context marked by pervasive uncertainty about legal entitlements, welfare restructuring and decreasing resources. Second, I draw on new migrants’ accounts to identify their perceptions and understandings of discrimination placed within their previous experiences of racism and state violence. The article argues that processes of racialisation are subtly enfolded into everyday life shaping the narratives through which both welfare state actors and new migrants understand their situated experiences and future plans. The article reveals the small and mundane practices that reproduce racialised hierarchies which maintain the notion of ‘Roma’ as a group with particular proclivities and the affects for their socio-legal status as European migrants in the UK.

Cleburne Not Romer: Objective versus Subjective Theories of Animus

There has been a concerted effort by jurists and scholars to characterize the doctrine of animus in a way that raises the doctrinal, political, and institutional stakes of invoking the doctrine to an intolerable level. This strategy appears designed to accomplish two primary outcomes. First: to eliminate a useful, equality-forcing doctrine (i.e., animus) from the equal protection lexicon. Second: to preemptively carve out a space for accommodation of religious objection to same-sex marriage and the equality of sexual minorities.As explained in greater detail in the essay, one can observe two competing theories of unconstitutional animus: a weak subjective theory and a more vigorous objective theory. The subjective theory reduces the concept of animus to something akin to discriminatory intent — the idea that a law violates equal protection only when it is motivated by ill will on the part of its proponents. By contrast, the objective theory of animus requires no inquiry into the hearts and minds of legislators or voters, but instead focuses on the structure and impact of the challenged law.Significantly, the objective theory of animus moves us past an antiquated understanding of discrimination based on conscious and explicit expressions of bias and toward a more realistic and productive understanding of discrimination based on unconscious bias as it manifests in legal structuring.This essay documents the effort to cabin the doctrine of animus, and demonstrates how this effort conflicts with established animus precedent.

A Tribute to the Women: Rewriting History, Retelling Herstory in Civil Rights

Much of the scholarship on the modern Civil Rights Movement (CRM) has recaptured dramatic and poignant events through eyewitness accounts and oral narratives—from letters, speeches, newspaper editorials, press releases, photographs, and documentary films that summon vivid images of fire hoses and police dogs, peaceful protestors, and violent rioters (McAdam 1982; Morris 1984; Payne 1994; Robnett 1997; Williams 1988). The conventional approach to (or master narrative of) civil rights history has focused almost exclusively on extraordinary, elite men from W.E.B. DuBois to Martin Luther King Jr. and Thurgood Marshall to such notable civil rights organizations as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)—that led the fight for equal protection under the law, desegregated lunch counters, and the right to vote in local and national elections (Branch 1988, 1998, 2006; Carson 1981; Fairclough 1987; Garrow 1986; Lewis 1993; Reed 1997; Sullivan 2009). Rather than broaden and deepen our understanding of individual and collective forms of resistance, however, such an approach simplifies and distorts a more nuanced and complicated version of civil rights history in the United States. All too often people come to associate the modern CRM with celebrated heroes and a static, fixed understanding of discrimination that is less than critical of hierarchal relationships determined solely (or primarily) by a racial caste system—specifically, an era of Jim Crow when “separate but equal” accommodations were legally sanctioned by the Supreme Court's Plessy v. Ferguson decision. Far less common is an association of the modern CRM with a richer, more nuanced understanding of discrimination that is critical of hierarchal relationships determined by interlocking systems of oppression—namely, racism and sexism—experienced by forgotten heroines who similarly risked their lives and reputations for equality and justice before the law (notable exceptions being Collier-Thomas and Franklin 2001; Giddings 1984; Gilmore 1996; Ling and Monteith 2004; Olson 2001; Robnett 1997).

Reading between the lines: gender, work and history

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore the role of history in the creation of gender dynamics at work.Design/methodology/approachDrawing on an ANTi‐history – which draws on actor‐network theory (ANT) – and critical sensemaking framework, the authors analyze a written history of a teachers' union to examine how historically contextualized networks of actors shape notions of gender.FindingsThe findings support the notion of history as socially constructed story telling, which serves to shape rather than describe gendered relations at work.Research limitations/implicationsThe research is limited to archival materials as the participants are not available as direct informants. Archives by their nature are incomplete and some accounts are summaries.Practical implicationsUnderstanding the socially constructed role of history will help management educators and practitioners to examine historical accounts as part of the problem of gendered relations. The paper reinforces the notion that understanding of discrimination may be lost as power imbalances are written out of historical accounts in the attempt to be politically correct.Originality/valueThe paper's contribution to research lies in its application of new methods of historical analysis (namely, ANTi‐history and critical sensemaking) and a focus on history as a powerful sensemaking device that shapes on‐going sensemaking.

Conceptual and methodological aspects of relations between discrimination and health in epidemiological studies

This article addresses conceptual and methodological aspects of the relations between discrimination and health from an epidemiological perspective. Definitions of discrimination and related constructs are reviewed, and the main theories underlying their association with health are presented. Scales developed to assess discrimination are discussed, in conjunction with a new instrument, devised to operationalize the concept in Brazilian epidemiological surveys. As a relatively unpredictable and uncontrollable source of psychosocial stress, discrimination has been consistently associated with adverse health outcomes and behaviors, particularly mental disorders, smoking, and alcohol use. However, progress in the area depends partly on dealing with aspects related to the assessment of the phenomenon, such as the definition of a construct map and simultaneous measurement of different types of discrimination. Research involving these aspects will enhance our understanding of discrimination and its health consequences, thus increasing our ability to reduce its social occurrence.