White Candidates Research Articles

University offer rates for candidates from different ethnic categories

Previous research suggested that candidates from some black and minority ethnic groups were less likely to receive an offer of a place from an ‘old’ university. These findings were disputed in a re-analysis carried out for HEFCE which found that only Pakistani candidates were significantly less likely to receive offers (from both ‘old’ and ‘new’ universities). In this paper we return to the question of ethnic differences in university offer rates, examining UCAS admissions data for 2008. We use a cross-classified multi-level modelling approach to predict the probability that applications from candidates from different ethnic groups will receive an offer. Controlling for variables seeking to capture the academic quality of applications we find significant differences between offer rates for different ethnic groups. Significantly lower offer rates remained for the main ethnic groups when social characteristics were also taken into account in the model (social class background, gender and school type). However, offer rates for candidates from mixed ethnic groups were not significantly different from those for white British candidates. Our analysis did not find evidence of differences in offer rates from higher and lower status institutions for black and minority ethnic candidates relative to white British applicants.

Confronting Race and Colonialism: Experiences and Lessons Learned From Teaching Social Studies

Literature on teacher education and encounters with race highlight some of the difficulties that teacher candidates face when they confront their own racialized subjectivities. However, many of these projects focus exclusively on Whiteness studies, explicating how White teacher candidates come to witness their own racialized Whiteness in relation to their epistemological understandings of the world. In this paper, I diverge from this pattern of thought, exploring a subset of the tenets of critical race theory, that of silences and exclusions, pervading my own teaching in a primary/junior social studies methods class and exploring how these structured my lessons. Specifically, I look at how counternarratives, critiques against liberalism, and multiculturalism and encounters with racialized and colonial supremacy were involved in my pedagogical strategies. I conclude by suggesting that although these methods may seem daunting for the primary/junior classroom, they can provide valuable insights for teacher candidate orientations to their own pedagogies. Keywords: social studies pedagogy; anti-racism in practice

Racial Stereotypes and Perceptions of Representatives' Ideologies in U.S. House Elections

I examine the hypothesis that race affects citizens' perceptions of candidates' ideologies. In the past, systematic tests of this hypothesis have relied almost entirely on data drawn from experiments. While experimental research designs have contributed much to the analysis of political stereotypes and heuristics, the extent to which experimental research on this hypothesis is externally valid is open to question. Moreover, experimental approaches are not well‐suited to estimating the magnitude of the effects of stereotypes in real‐world situations, especially in the context of complex political phenomena such as election campaigns. In this article, I develop a statistical model of the effects of race on perceptions of candidates' ideologies and estimate the model using data on incumbent candidates from the American National Election Studies. The results suggest that, ceteris paribus, white citizens will tend to perceive black candidates to be more liberal than ideologically similar white candidates. In contrast, the perceptions of black respondents are not affected by the race of candidates, although black respondents' perceptions are more strongly correlated with candidates' positions on issues of particular interest to minorities than the perceptions of white respondents. I discuss the implications of these findings with respect to descriptive representation in the United States, the accountability of office holders, and the study of voting behavior.

NEAR-INFRARED IMAGING OF WHITE DWARFS WITH CANDIDATE DEBRIS DISKS

We have carried out $JHK_s$ imaging of 12 white dwarf debris disk candidates from the WIRED SDSS DR7 catalog, aiming to confirm or rule out disks among these sources. On the basis of positional identification and the flux density spectra, we find that seven white dwarfs have excess infrared emission, but mostly at WISE W1 and W2 bands, four are due to nearby red objects consistent with background galaxies or very low mass dwarfs, and one exhibits excess emission at $JHK_s$ consistent with an unresolved L0 companion at the correct distance. While our photometry is not inconsistent with all seven excesses arising from disks, the stellar properties are distinct from the known population of debris disk white dwarfs, making the possibility questionable. In order to further investigate the nature of these infrared sources, warm Spitzer imaging is needed, which may help resolve galaxies from the white dwarfs and provide more accurate flux measurements.

Discrimination in the Credential Society: An Audit Study of Race, Social Class, and College Selectivity in the Labor Market

Racial inequality in economic outcomes, particularly among the college educated, persists throughout US society. Scholars debate whether this inequality stems from racial differences in human capital (e.g., college selectivity, GPA, college major) or employer discrimination against black job candidates. However, limited measures of human capital and the inherent difficulties in measuring discrimination using observational data make determining the cause of racial differences in labor-market outcomes a difficult endeavor. In this research, I examine employment opportunities for white and black graduates of elite top-ranked universities versus high-ranked but less selective institutions. Using an audit design, I create matched candidate pairs and apply for 1,008 jobs on a national job-search website. I also exploit existing birth-record data in selecting names to control for differences across social class within racialized names. The results show that although a credential from an elite university results in more employer responses for all candidates, black candidates from elite universities only do as well as white candidates from less selective universities. Moreover, race results in a double penalty: When employers respond to black candidates, it is for jobs with lower starting salaries and lower prestige than those of white peers. These racial differences suggest that a bachelor’s degree, even one from an elite institution, cannot fully counteract the importance of race in the labor market. Thus, both discrimination and differences in human capital contribute to racial economic inequality.

Of kin and kidneys: Do kinship networks contribute to racial disparities in living donor kidney transplantation?

In the United States, racial disparities in kidney transplantation are large and especially stark for living donor transplants. Medical researchers frequently attribute this to the availability of medically compatible living kidney donors, who are usually kin. This paper evaluates this hypothesis by testing whether African American transplant candidates likely have lesser access to suitable living donors in their kinship networks than white candidates. This paper evaluates this hypothesis using a simulation design. Contrary to prior research on this topic, this simulation analysis concludes that black-white disparities in living donor kidney transplantation are unlikely to be the result of group differences in the availability of suitable donors. Although individual white kin are individually more likely to be suitable donors, African Americans' larger average kinship networks compensate for this difference.

Diversity in Philosophy

In his keynote address to the Democratic National Convention in 2004, then-senator Barack Obama referred to his relatively fast rise in American politics as an “unlikely story,” yet one that could happen only in America. The remark was understood to refer, among other things, to America’s fi embrace and recognition that a black man could play a key role in helping defi ne and highlight a political course for a white presidential candidate. In his memorable speech, Obama spoke to America’s long-standing self-denial in refusing to recognize the social and historical reality about its social, cultural, and racial complexity, or that this mosaic of its social reality can no longer ignore the different narratives that tell its story. The transformation of the sociopolitical space by the African diaspora is not limited to President Obama’s unlikely story, but it remains the highest level of that infl uence. Besides it, there are or have been others in quite unlikely places: Benin-born Jean Gregoire Sagbo, a council member of Novozavidovo, a town in southern Russia; GuineaBissau-born Joaquin Crima, a well-known Afro-Russian dubbed “Russia’s Obama” by his admirers and detractors alike; Kenyaborn James Atebe, who was elected to two terms (in 2005 and 2008) as mayor of Mission, a town in British Columbia, Canada; and a Nigeria-born member of a town council in Ireland. This list does not include African-American-Russians in nationally visible positions in both the private and public sectors. Their stories, unlikely until recently, defi nitely have brought permanent changes to the histories of the countries whose narratives will no longer afford to leave them out. Yet, despite them, we by no means can claim fito have made a breakthrough, or even come close to living the promises of an inclusive world. In some places the changes come fast, and in others they may take four centuries. Sagbo’s story is particularly captivating. It goes something like this: when he arrived in this small and impoverished Russian town in 1982, people would stop to stare at him because they had never seen a black man. They may have heard stories about the distant continent and its people, but most likely it was the type that usually gets fithrough Africa-unfriendly media. Seventeen years later, only seventeen, they realized that Sagbo may be black in terms of phenotype, but inside he was a

Race and the politics of close elections

Elections between black and white candidates tend to involve close margins and high turnout. Using a novel dataset of municipal vote returns during the rise of black mayors in U.S. cities, this paper establishes new facts about turnout and competition in close interracial elections. In the South, but not the North, close black victories were more likely than close black losses, involved higher turnout than close black losses, and were more likely than close black losses to be followed by subsequent black victories. These results are consistent with a model in which the historical exclusion of Southern blacks from politics made them disproportionately sensitive to mobilization efforts by political elites, leading to a black candidate advantage in close elections.

Academic performance of ethnic minority candidates and discrimination in the MRCGP examinations between 2010 and 2012: analysis of data

Objective To determine the difference in failure rates in the postgraduate examination of the Royal College of General Practitioners (MRCGP) by ethnic or national background, and to identify factors associated...

Rainbow Coalitions or Inter-Minority Conflict? Racial Affinity and Diverse Minority Voters

There is a considerable amount of research on racial affinity effects – voters being more likely to support a candidate of the same race – but not whether this applies only to candidates of the voters’ specific ethnocultural group, or also to racialized candidates in general. Research from the United States, Europe, and Canada suggests that racialized citizens will support a white candidate over a candidate of a different ethno-cultural minority. In other words, the prospects for rainbow coalitions on the basis of group identities are poor. To test this, the paper uses new data from a web-based survey experiment with a large panel of visible minority respondents. Respondents evaluated candidates in a hypothetical election. The key manipulation varied the ethnicity of one of the candidates. While respondents show strong affinity for their own ethnocultural group, they also seem to show some affinity for other minority candidates, and certainly no inter-minority conflict. “Rainbow coalitions” may be more likely than previous research suggests.

A spectroscopic and proper motion search of Sloan Digital Sky Survey: red subdwarfs in binary systems

Red subdwarfs in binary systems are crucial for both model calibration and spectral classification. We search for red subdwarfs in binary systems from a sample of high proper motion objects with Sloan Digital Sky Survey spectroscopy. We present here discoveries from this search, as well as highlight several additional objects of interest. We find 30 red subdwarfs in wide binary systems including: two with spectral type of esdM5.5, 6 companions to white dwarfs and 3 carbon-enhanced red subdwarfs with normal red subdwarf companions. 15 red subdwarfs in our sample are partially resolved close binary systems. With this binary sample, we estimate the low limit of the red subdwarf binary fraction of ∼10 per cent. We find that the binary fraction goes down with decreasing masses and metallicities of red subdwarfs. A spectroscopic esdK7 subdwarf + white dwarf binary candidate is also reported. 30 new M subdwarfs have spectral type of ≥M6 in our sample. We also derive relationships between spectral types and absolute magnitudes in the optical and near-infrared for M and L subdwarfs, and we present an M subdwarf sample with measured U, V, W space velocities.

The Political Glass Cliff

An archival study of U.K. General Election results from 2001, 2005, and 2010 revealed that Conservative black and minority ethnic (BME) candidates were less successful than their white counterparts. However, mediation analyses demonstrate that this lack of success can be explained by the lower winnability of BME candidates’ seats, such that the opposition candidate held a seat with a significantly larger majority compared with white candidates’ opponents. Results and implications are discussed in the framework of the “glass cliff,” previously demonstrated for women, in the sense that the seats minority groups contested were harder to win compared with majority groups.

Colleges must publish equality data on exam pass rates, says BMA

Royal colleges must publish a demographic breakdown of the pass rates in their postgraduate exams to allow proper analysis of any differences in pass rates between white candidates and candidates from ethnic minorities, the BMA has said. The junior doctor Tim Yates told …

The Demise of White Revolution: What's Next for Billy Roper?

In August 2011, Billy Roper, white nationalist leader and political candidate from Arkansas, dismantled White Revolution, the Internet web site that he founded in 2002. At the time of its closing, the site posted a membership of over 1000. In 2010, Roper ran for governor of Arkansas and began mobilizing a political party called the Nationalist Party of America. He had intentions of running for President as the party's nominee in 2012. Much of the promotion and fund-raising for his campaign was going to be conducted through the White Revolution online site. Roper subsequently dropped out of the race and discontinued organizing the nationalist political party. In an interesting turn, he has aligned with Pastor Thom Robb's Knights Party (a Christian Identity Klan group) located in Zinc, Arkansas, a rural Ozarks community. Roper's decision to renounce his former status as an agnostic neo-Nazi for Knight status in Robb's Klan group is an indication of subtle shifts occurring in the broader American white supremacist movement that include the convergence of ideologies that were once very different but now appear to be morphing into a new hybrid form.

The Political Glass Cliff: Ethnic Minority Candidates are Selected to Contest Hard-to-Win Seats

An archival study of U.K. General Election results from 2001, 2005, and 2010 revealed that Conservative black and minority ethnic (BME) candidates were less successful than their white counterparts. However, mediation analyses demonstrate that this lack of success can be explained by the lower winnability of BME candidates’ seats, such that the opposition candidate held a seat with a significantly larger majority compared with white candidates’ opponents. Results and implications are discussed in the framework of the “glass cliff,” previously demonstrated for women, in the sense that the seats minority groups contested were harder to win compared with majority groups.

THE WIRED SURVEY. IV. NEW DUST DISKS FROM THE McCOOK & SION WHITE DWARF CATALOG

We have compiled photometric data from the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer All Sky Survey and other archival sources for the more than 2200 objects in the original McCook & Sion Catalog of Spectroscopically Identified White Dwarfs. We applied color-selection criteria to identify 28 targets whose infrared spectral energy distributions depart from the expectation for the white dwarf photosphere alone. Seven of these are previously known white dwarfs with circumstellar dust disks, five are known central stars of planetary nebulae, and six were excluded for being known binaries or having possible contamination of their infrared photometry. We fit white dwarf models to the spectral energy distributions of the remaining ten targets, and find seven new candidates with infrared excess suggesting the presence of a circumstellar dust disk. We compare the model dust disk properties for these new candidates with a comprehensive compilation of previously published parameters for known white dwarfs with dust disks. It is possible that the current census of white dwarfs with dust disks that produce an excess detectable at K-band and shorter wavelengths is close to complete for the entire sample of known WDs to the detection limits of existing near-IR all-sky surveys. The white dwarf dust disk candidates now being found using longer wavelength infrared data are drawn from a previously underrepresented region of parameter space, in which the dust disks are overall cooler, narrower in radial extent, and/or contain fewer emitting grains.

Book Review: Race Appeal: How Candidates Invoke Race in U.S. Political Campaigns

Race Appeal: How Candidates Invoke Race in U.S. Political Campaigns. Charlton D. McIlwain and Stephen M. Caliendo. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 2011. 258 pp. $79.50 hbk. $27.95 pbk.Reviewed by: Queenie A. Byars, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USADOI: 10.1177/1077699012472026Researchers and pollsters are giving a lot of credit to the growing polarization in American society and bipartisan behavior in explaining the heightened level of racism in Many had hoped-or suspected-relationships among races would improve during President Barack Obama's first term in the White House. But on the contrary, the Associated Press Racial Attitudes Survey, released two weeks before the 2012 election, revealed that negative attitudes toward African Americans and Hispanics have grown since Obama was elected in 2008.In Race Appeal: How Candidates Invoke Race in U.S. Political Campaigns, professors Charlton D. McIlwain of New York University and Stephen M. Caliendo of North Central College, Naperville, Illinois, confirm in their introduction that race, racism and race-based political appeals are alive and well in America. McIlwain and Caliendo's research expands our knowledge and understanding of how language, images, and race interact to influence election outcomes.Specifically, their disciplines-communication and political science-meld as the authors go beyond Princeton University Professor Tali Mendleberg's groundbreaking 2001 The Race Card to expand the research conversation.McIlwain and Caliendo met while teaching in a summer school program at Princeton in 2008. A year later, they began talking about the similarity of race issues within their disciplines. Their expertise led to collaboration on the Project on Race in Political Communication and this book. Both are coeditors of The Routledge Companion to Race and Ethnicity.In their study, McIlwain and Caliendo painstakingly ask new and different questions while testing old arguments and theories to arrive at rational conclusions. They explore the topic while acknowledging three political realities and pursuing three objectives:1) To understand how both White and Black candidates use language and visual imagery to construct race-based persuasive appeals; 2) To shed light on the way that race-based appeals from White and Black candidates affect both White and Black voters; and 3) To explore more completely the way that news media cover campaigns involving candidates of color, including the array of both negative and positive consequences such coverage may have on the voting public and election hopes of minority candidates.From the political landscape and the empirical evidence on race appeals, to case studies in race appeal, the book's seven chapters offer a broad analysis. …

Racial Discrimination Taking Both Ways: Moderation of Social Goal and Task-Type

Findings have been mixed regarding racial discrimination in personnel selections. The current research proposes that varying evaluators’ interdependences with candidates leads to different patterns of racial discrimination in personnel selection situations by eliciting specific social goals (i.e., competition and cooperation goals). We further predict that contexts embedding social goals would also moderate the racial discrimination as stereotypical beliefs about certain racial groups are often mixed. Study 1 demonstrated the effect of social goal on hiring Asian versus White candidates for a occupation ostensibly requiring competence. Study 2 extended the findings of Study by showing that the patterns of discrimination were reversed when evaluators evaluate candidates for a occupation requiring dominance. Studies 1 and 2 also revealed an underlying mechanism: Evaluators’ preferences for Asian and White candidates depended on the extent to which evaluators construe specific traits (i.e., competence vs. dominance) associated with candidates’ race as instrumental to attaining their salient social goals in particular contexts (i.e., tasks or occupations requiring competence vs. dominance). Study 3 replicated the main findings of Study 2 in the field setting. Theoretical implications are discussed.

Narrow imaginations: How imagining ideal employees can increase racial bias

When people make important decisions, such as selecting a job candidate or graduate school applicant based on how well they fit with that imagined ideal. In two experiments we provide evidence that imagining the ideal has unintended consequences. Imagining an ideal candidate for a professional job led participants to preferentially imagine a White candidate (Experiment 1) and to preferentially hire a White candidate over a Black candidate with matched qualifications (Experiment 2). These effects were independent of explicit prejudice, suggesting that even low-prejudice individuals may be affected by this bias. However, an alternative imagery strategy—imagining a variety of suitable applicants—was effective at remediating the bias. In some cases discrimination may result not from prejudiced attitudes but from failures of the imagination.

Evaluation of Living Kidney Donors: Variables That Affect Donation

Approximately 10000 deceased donor organs are available yearly for 85 000 US patients awaiting kidney transplant. Living kidney donation is essential to close this gap and offers better survival rates. However, nationally, 80% of potential donors evaluated fail to donate. Nurse coordinators who perform predonation screening and education need additional insight into the large number of potential donors who fail to complete the donation process. Reasons for nondonation in donor candidates undergoing medical evaluation, and variables affecting nondonation at Vanderbilt University Medical Center between 2004 and 2009 are examined. Multivariable logistic regression models are used to test the effects of age and race on donation status and reasons for nondonation. Summary data are frequencies, percentages, and means (SD). The sample included 706 candidates (63% female, 80% white; mean age, 40 [SD, 12] years). Almost half (46%) received clearance to donate. Undiagnosed hypertension (14%), abnormal glucose tolerance (10%), and protein-urea (9%) were the most prevalent medical reasons for nondonation. About 13% of candidates changed their minds during evaluation. Analyses demonstrated an increased likelihood of older candidates (P < .001) and a decreased likelihood of white candidates (P = .007) being excluded from donation. Within the nondonation group, increased age was associated with undiagnosed hypertension and abnormal glucose tolerance (both race-adjusted, P = .01). Younger candidates (race-adjusted, P = .003) and African Americans (age-adjusted, P = .04) were more likely to decide against donation. The most prevalent medical reasons for nondonation could be identified through enhanced prescreening, and improved preevaluation education could decrease nondonation rates.