research questions about race

August 14, 2020

How to Study Racial Disparities

To understand the causes of unequal treatment, researchers need to be sensitive to the statistical, conceptual and historical complexities associated with race

By Bryan Schonfeld & Sam Winter-Levy

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As the United States grapples with the national reckoning over race prompted by the killing of George Floyd, it has become increasingly clear that even a pandemic does not strike equally. Nationwide, Black people have been 3.7 times as likely as white people to die of COVID-19, taking age into account; in some states, Black people have died of COVID-19 at age-adjusted rates five to nine times higher than those of white people.

Against this backdrop, the importance of studying racial disparities in social, economic, and public health outcomes has rarely been clearer. But researchers, and the journalists who report on their findings, should exercise caution in trying to uncover the sources of these stark discrepancies. Studying race, and in particular the relationship between race and social outcomes like health or police violence, comes with both statistical and conceptual challenges, which make understanding exactly why Black people are dying from COVID-19 at higher rates harder than it might seem.

Perhaps the biggest issue arises out of what statisticians call “post-treatment bias.” Because racial identity is assigned at birth, it affects a wide range of other aspects of people’s lives—where someone lives, how they’re educated, the sorts of opportunities they have, and how much money they earn. To understand the effect of race on a certain outcome—say, police violence, or the likelihood of death among COVID-19 patients—scholars will often control for factors like education, income, health status or occupation. But all these variables are “post-treatment,” or downstream, of race, in the sense that race itself can shape how a person is raised, educated and employed. Controlling for these variables can distort any results that scholars may find.

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Consider the following analogy: if researchers set out to investigate whether smoking leads to death, but controlled for whether someone gets lung cancer, they might find that smoking doesn’t increase mortality—because they’ve effectively removed an important pathway by which smoking influences health. What’s more, by controlling for lung cancer, they’re now comparing the life spans of smokers who don’t get lung cancer, who are likely to be unusually healthy, to nonsmokers without lung cancer (and comparing nonsmokers who get lung cancer, a highly unusual group, to smokers who get lung cancer). In the context of race, controlling for almost any socioeconomic or health variable—as most studies on ethnic disparities in COVID-19 deaths do—can create serious biases in an analysis, calling many empirical results into question.

Similar issues abound in the study of race and policing. Take the recent debate over whether there is evidence of racism in American policing. Roland Fryer, an economist at Harvard, found that police shoot white, Black and Hispanic Americans whom they’ve stopped at equal rates . However, as political scientists Dean Knox, Will Lowe, and Jonathan Mummolo point out , if there is initial discrimination in who gets stopped in the first place, estimating racial disparities in how people are treated once they’ve been stopped becomes much more complicated —especially since police officers are more likely to stop Black and Hispanic people than white people, and more of those stops are unjustified . If Black people are stopped by police for lesser (or nonexistent) offenses, “equal treatment” in terms of the use of force would actually indicate deeply unequal policing overall . Being stopped by the police is “post-treatment” to race, and failing to account for this bias can lead to erroneous conclusions that may mask the extent of racism in American institutions.

A second challenge, as the political scientists Maya Sen and Omar Wasow point out , comes from the instability of racial labels. As one study concluded , “No two measures of race will capture the same information.” In one 19-year survey of thousands of Americans, a full 20 percent of the sample changed either how they were racially classified by others or how they identified themselves. Survey respondents even changed identification in response to life events: incarceration, unemployment or having an income below the poverty line made respondents more likely to identify as Black, while people who get married are more likely to be seen as and identify as white.

Between the 2000 and 2010 censuses, nearly 10 million respondents altered their self-identified race or response regarding Hispanic origin; only 41 percent of Hispanics identified their race and ethnic origin the same way in both censuses. Another study found that homicide victims were more likely to be classified as Black on their death certificates, while people who died of cirrhosis of the liver were more likely to be classified as Native American—even accounting for the race of the victim as given by their next of kin.

Throughout American history, racial boundaries have shifted considerably. Chinese Americans in the Mississippi Delta were once classified as almost Black, while a 1974 U.S. federal committee on racial and ethnic definitions struggled with how to categorize people of South Asian origin: it initially recommended they be labeled white/Caucasian before classifying them as Asian or Pacific Islanders.

And there are big differences in racial definitions across countries: in the United States, thanks to the so-called one-drop rule, a person with any Black heritage has historically been categorized as Black; in Brazil, an individual is not “Black” if he or she has any European ancestry.

In other words, racial identities are largely not biologically determined, but are instead the product of social forces. Yet as sociologist Ann Morning has documented , the biological view of race still dominates in biology textbooks and among biology undergraduates and biology professors in the U.S.. And when quantitative social scientists study race, they often just include a binary variable for Black or white in an equation. When this sort of research finds racial disparities in outcomes like COVID-19 mortality rates or police killings, it often raises more questions than it provides answers: it doesn’t explain why or how race affects life outcomes, nor does it shed much light on potential policy interventions that could help.

But there are better ways to study race. In a 2016 paper , Sen and Wasow propose that researchers should think about race not as an essential set of unchangeable biological characteristics but rather as what they call “a bundle of sticks” that includes factors like skin color, dialect, neighborhood, genes, class, names, and region of ancestry. While “race” itself cannot be manipulated in a study, many of these traits, which are closely linked with what we mean by race, can be. By focusing only on one stick in the bundle at a time—rather than on the combination of ancestry, neighborhood, socioeconomic status, skin color, names, and the like that would be conveyed by a simple “race” variable—researchers can attempt to isolate exactly which factors lie behind the racial disparities we observe.

For example, researchers can manipulate the name on a resume to study how the perceived race of a job applicant affects their likelihood of getting hired. The late Harvard sociologist Devah Pager, for example, found that employers responded as much to an applicant with a stereotypically white name and a criminal record as they did to a Black applicant without one. Or researchers can try to isolate the role of perceived skin color, another stick in the bundle, in racial disparities in policing. In one recent paper in Nature Human Behaviour , which examines police stops around 7 P.M., researchers found that Black drivers were more likely to be stopped when it is sunnier; after sunset, a “veil of darkness” protects Black drivers from being racially profiled. Again, by focusing on one factor in the bundle of sticks—perceived skin color, in this case—the researchers isolated other factors that could drive disparities in traffic stops, such as socioeconomic and neighborhood characteristics.

Another way to avoid issues of post-treatment bias and the instability of racial labels is to focus on differences within a racial group, rather than attempting comparisons between them, to see which mechanisms might be driving differences in outcomes. To study educational disparities between Blacks and whites, for example, instead of simply conducting an analysis of educational outcomes across the population at large and controlling for race and socioeconomic factors—a common approach that is both contaminated by post-treatment bias and conceptually unclear—researchers could try to isolate within-group variation in one of the bundle of sticks plausibly related to education.

Take the Moving to Opportunity experiment, for example, which involved the random assignment of housing vouchers. Researchers have analyzed this experiment to compare the academic performance of Black youngsters from high-poverty neighborhoods to similarly situated Black youngsters in moderate-poverty neighborhoods, finding that neighborhoods can substantially influence socioeconomic outcomes.

Some of the pitfalls of across-group analysis can be seen in Charles Murray’s notorious and deeply flawed book The Bell Curve , which asserted that white Americans possessed a genetic advantage in cognitive ability over Black Americans. Murray simply compared Black and white differences in IQ tests and concluded that these differences must be, at least in part, genetic. This analysis views race almost exclusively as an essential biological category, fails to address the complex mix of social factors underpinning racial identity, and is vulnerable to all the statistical biases discussed above. A more sophisticated research design examined Black individuals who varied in levels of European ancestry but shared a similar social environment and identity, and found no relationship between genes associated with white ancestry and cognitive ability. “By identifying meaningful within-group differences,” Sen and Wasow commented, “scholars can narrow the causal mechanisms that explain disparate across-race outcomes.”

In the context of COVID-19, researchers should avoid drawing too many conclusions about the underlying causes of racial disparities from studies that simply include a binary variable for race—whose “effect” is conceptually unclear—and that control for socioeconomic characteristics and health conditions that are likely downstream of race. A more promising approach would involve isolating one possible explanation for this gap—say, differences in neighborhood health institutions, incarceration rates, or particular occupational roles and health conditions—and studying differences within racial groups to gain insight into which factors might be driving racial disparities in COVID-19 mortality.

To create a more just society, we must understand the underlying causes of racial disparities in social, economic and public health outcomes. But while studying the extent of disparities between groups—such as the black-white wealth gap or disparities in COVID-19 death rates—is essential, if researchers wish to explain the causes of these disparities they need to make sure they remain sensitive to the statistical, conceptual and historical complexities associated with race. Researchers are likely to make more progress if they approach race as a composite measure of linked characteristics like dialect, ancestry, neighborhood, class and skin color—rather than as a fixed biological category.

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Stanford scholars examine systemic racism, how to advance racial justice in America

Black History Month is an opportunity to reflect on the Black experience in America and examine continuing systemic racism and discrimination in the U.S. – issues many Stanford scholars are tackling in their research and scholarship.

A pandemic that disproportionately affected communities of color, roadblocks that obstructed efforts to expand the franchise and protect voting discrimination, a growing movement to push anti-racist curricula out of schools – events over the past year have only underscored how prevalent systemic racism and bias is in America today.

What can be done to dismantle centuries of discrimination in the U.S.? How can a more equitable society be achieved? What makes racism such a complicated problem to solve? Black History Month is a time marked for honoring and reflecting on the experience of Black Americans, and it is also an opportunity to reexamine our nation’s deeply embedded racial problems and the possible solutions that could help build a more equitable society.

Stanford scholars are tackling these issues head-on in their research from the perspectives of history, education, law and other disciplines. For example, historian Clayborne Carson is working to preserve and promote the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. and religious studies scholar Lerone A. Martin has joined Stanford to continue expanding access and opportunities to learn from King’s teachings; sociologist Matthew Clair is examining how the criminal justice system can end a vicious cycle involving the disparate treatment of Black men; and education scholar Subini Ancy Annamma is studying ways to make education more equitable for historically marginalized students.

Learn more about these efforts and other projects examining racism and discrimination in areas like health and medicine, technology and the workplace below.

Update: Jan. 27, 2023: This story was originally published on Feb. 16, 2021, and has been updated on a number of occasions to include new content.

Understanding the impact of racism; advancing justice

One of the hardest elements of advancing racial justice is helping everyone understand the ways in which they are involved in a system or structure that perpetuates racism, according to Stanford legal scholar Ralph Richard Banks.

“The starting point for the center is the recognition that racial inequality and division have long been the fault line of American society. Thus, addressing racial inequity is essential to sustaining our nation, and furthering its democratic aspirations,” said Banks , the Jackson Eli Reynolds Professor of Law at Stanford Law School and co-founder of the Stanford Center for Racial Justice .

This sentiment was echoed by Stanford researcher Rebecca Hetey . One of the obstacles in solving inequality is people’s attitudes towards it, Hetey said. “One of the barriers of reducing inequality is how some people justify and rationalize it.”

How people talk about race and stereotypes matters. Here is some of that scholarship.

For Black Americans, COVID-19 is quickly reversing crucial economic gains

Research co-authored by SIEPR’s Peter Klenow and Chad Jones measures the welfare gap between Black and white Americans and provides a way to analyze policies to narrow the divide.

How an ‘impact mindset’ unites activists of different races

A new study finds that people’s involvement with Black Lives Matter stems from an impulse that goes beyond identity.

For democracy to work, racial inequalities must be addressed

The Stanford Center for Racial Justice is taking a hard look at the policies perpetuating systemic racism in America today and asking how we can imagine a more equitable society.

The psychological toll of George Floyd’s murder

As the nation mourned the death of George Floyd, more Black Americans than white Americans felt angry or sad – a finding that reveals the racial disparities of grief.

Seven factors contributing to American racism

Of the seven factors the researchers identified, perhaps the most insidious is passivism or passive racism, which includes an apathy toward systems of racial advantage or denial that those systems even exist.

Scholars reflect on Black history

Humanities and social sciences scholars reflect on “Black history as American history” and its impact on their personal and professional lives.

The history of Black History Month

It's February, so many teachers and schools are taking time to celebrate Black History Month. According to Stanford historian Michael Hines, there are still misunderstandings and misconceptions about the past, present, and future of the celebration.

Numbers about inequality don’t speak for themselves

In a new research paper, Stanford scholars Rebecca Hetey and Jennifer Eberhardt propose new ways to talk about racial disparities that exist across society, from education to health care and criminal justice systems.

Changing how people perceive problems

Drawing on an extensive body of research, Stanford psychologist Gregory Walton lays out a roadmap to positively influence the way people think about themselves and the world around them. These changes could improve society, too.

Welfare opposition linked to threats of racial standing

Research co-authored by sociologist Robb Willer finds that when white Americans perceive threats to their status as the dominant demographic group, their resentment of minorities increases. This resentment leads to opposing welfare programs they believe will mainly benefit minority groups.

Conversations about race between Black and white friends can feel risky, but are valuable

New research about how friends approach talking about their race-related experiences with each other reveals concerns but also the potential that these conversations have to strengthen relationships and further intergroup learning.

Defusing racial bias

Research shows why understanding the source of discrimination matters.

Many white parents aren’t having ‘the talk’ about race with their kids

After George Floyd’s murder, Black parents talked about race and racism with their kids more. White parents did not and were more likely to give their kids colorblind messages.

Stereotyping makes people more likely to act badly

Even slight cues, like reading a negative stereotype about your race or gender, can have an impact.

Why white people downplay their individual racial privileges

Research shows that white Americans, when faced with evidence of racial privilege, deny that they have benefited personally.

Clayborne Carson: Looking back at a legacy

Stanford historian Clayborne Carson reflects on a career dedicated to studying and preserving the legacy of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.

How race influences, amplifies backlash against outspoken women

When women break gender norms, the most negative reactions may come from people of the same race.

Examining disparities in education

Scholar Subini Ancy Annamma is studying ways to make education more equitable for historically marginalized students. Annamma’s research examines how schools contribute to the criminalization of Black youths by creating a culture of punishment that penalizes Black children more harshly than their white peers for the same behavior. Her work shows that youth of color are more likely to be closely watched, over-represented in special education, and reported to and arrested by police.

“These are all ways in which schools criminalize Black youth,” she said. “Day after day, these things start to sediment.”

That’s why Annamma has identified opportunities for teachers and administrators to intervene in these unfair practices. Below is some of that research, from Annamma and others.

New ‘Segregation Index’ shows American schools remain highly segregated by race, ethnicity, and economic status

Researchers at Stanford and USC developed a new tool to track neighborhood and school segregation in the U.S.

New evidence shows that school poverty shapes racial achievement gaps

Racial segregation leads to growing achievement gaps – but it does so entirely through differences in school poverty, according to new research from education Professor Sean Reardon, who is launching a new tool to help educators, parents and policymakers examine education trends by race and poverty level nationwide.

School closures intensify gentrification in Black neighborhoods nationwide

An analysis of census and school closure data finds that shuttering schools increases gentrification – but only in predominantly Black communities.

Ninth-grade ethnic studies helped students for years, Stanford researchers find

A new study shows that students assigned to an ethnic studies course had longer-term improvements in attendance and graduation rates.

Teaching about racism

Stanford sociologist Matthew Snipp discusses ways to educate students about race and ethnic relations in America.

Stanford scholar uncovers an early activist’s fight to get Black history into schools

In a new book, Assistant Professor Michael Hines chronicles the efforts of a Chicago schoolteacher in the 1930s who wanted to remedy the portrayal of Black history in textbooks of the time.

How disability intersects with race

Professor Alfredo J. Artiles discusses the complexities in creating inclusive policies for students with disabilities.

Access to program for black male students lowered dropout rates

New research led by Stanford education professor Thomas S. Dee provides the first evidence of effectiveness for a district-wide initiative targeted at black male high school students.

How school systems make criminals of Black youth

Stanford education professor Subini Ancy Annamma talks about the role schools play in creating a culture of punishment against Black students.

Reducing racial disparities in school discipline

Stanford psychologists find that brief exercises early in middle school can improve students’ relationships with their teachers, increase their sense of belonging and reduce teachers’ reports of discipline issues among black and Latino boys.

Science lessons through a different lens

In his new book, Science in the City, Stanford education professor Bryan A. Brown helps bridge the gap between students’ culture and the science classroom.

Teachers more likely to label black students as troublemakers, Stanford research shows

Stanford psychologists Jennifer Eberhardt and Jason Okonofua experimentally examined the psychological processes involved when teachers discipline black students more harshly than white students.

Why we need Black teachers

Travis Bristol, MA '04, talks about what it takes for schools to hire and retain teachers of color.

Understanding racism in the criminal justice system

Research has shown that time and time again, inequality is embedded into all facets of the criminal justice system. From being arrested to being charged, convicted and sentenced, people of color – particularly Black men – are disproportionately targeted by the police.

“So many reforms are needed: police accountability, judicial intervention, reducing prosecutorial power and increasing resources for public defenders are places we can start,” said sociologist Matthew Clair . “But beyond piecemeal reforms, we need to continue having critical conversations about transformation and the role of the courts in bringing about the abolition of police and prisons.”

Clair is one of several Stanford scholars who have examined the intersection of race and the criminal process and offered solutions to end the vicious cycle of racism. Here is some of that work.

Police Facebook posts disproportionately highlight crimes involving Black suspects, study finds

Researchers examined crime-related posts from 14,000 Facebook pages maintained by U.S. law enforcement agencies and found that Facebook users are exposed to posts that overrepresent Black suspects by 25% relative to local arrest rates.

Supporting students involved in the justice system

New data show that a one-page letter asking a teacher to support a youth as they navigate the difficult transition from juvenile detention back to school can reduce the likelihood that the student re-offends.

Race and mass criminalization in the U.S.

Stanford sociologist discusses how race and class inequalities are embedded in the American criminal legal system.

New Stanford research lab explores incarcerated students’ educational paths

Associate Professor Subini Annamma examines the policies and practices that push marginalized students out of school and into prisons.

Derek Chauvin verdict important, but much remains to be done

Stanford scholars Hakeem Jefferson, Robert Weisberg and Matthew Clair weigh in on the Derek Chauvin verdict, emphasizing that while the outcome is important, much work remains to be done to bring about long-lasting justice.

A ‘veil of darkness’ reduces racial bias in traffic stops

After analyzing 95 million traffic stop records, filed by officers with 21 state patrol agencies and 35 municipal police forces from 2011 to 2018, researchers concluded that “police stops and search decisions suffer from persistent racial bias.”

Stanford big data study finds racial disparities in Oakland, Calif., police behavior, offers solutions

Analyzing thousands of data points, the researchers found racial disparities in how Oakland officers treated African Americans on routine traffic and pedestrian stops. They suggest 50 measures to improve police-community relations.

Race and the death penalty

As questions about racial bias in the criminal justice system dominate the headlines, research by Stanford law Professor John J. Donohue III offers insight into one of the most fraught areas: the death penalty.

Diagnosing disparities in health, medicine

The COVID-19 pandemic has disproportionately impacted communities of color and has highlighted the health disparities between Black Americans, whites and other demographic groups.

As Iris Gibbs , professor of radiation oncology and associate dean of MD program admissions, pointed out at an event sponsored by Stanford Medicine: “We need more sustained attention and real action towards eliminating health inequities, educating our entire community and going beyond ‘allyship,’ because that one fizzles out. We really do need people who are truly there all the way.”

Below is some of that research as well as solutions that can address some of the disparities in the American healthcare system.

Stanford researchers testing ways to improve clinical trial diversity

The American Heart Association has provided funding to two Stanford Medicine professors to develop ways to diversify enrollment in heart disease clinical trials.

Striking inequalities in maternal and infant health

Research by SIEPR’s Petra Persson and Maya Rossin-Slater finds wealthy Black mothers and infants in the U.S. fare worse than the poorest white mothers and infants.

More racial diversity among physicians would lead to better health among black men

A clinical trial in Oakland by Stanford researchers found that black men are more likely to seek out preventive care after being seen by black doctors compared to non-black doctors.

A better measuring stick: Algorithmic approach to pain diagnosis could eliminate racial bias

Traditional approaches to pain management don’t treat all patients the same. AI could level the playing field.

5 questions: Alice Popejoy on race, ethnicity and ancestry in science

Alice Popejoy, a postdoctoral scholar who studies biomedical data sciences, speaks to the role – and pitfalls – of race, ethnicity and ancestry in research.

Stanford Medicine community calls for action against racial injustice, inequities

The event at Stanford provided a venue for health care workers and students to express their feelings about violence against African Americans and to voice their demands for change.

Racial disparity remains in heart-transplant mortality rates, Stanford study finds

African-American heart transplant patients have had persistently higher mortality rates than white patients, but exactly why still remains a mystery.

Finding the COVID-19 Victims that Big Data Misses

Widely used virus tracking data undercounts older people and people of color. Scholars propose a solution to this demographic bias.

Studying how racial stressors affect mental health

Farzana Saleem, an assistant professor at Stanford Graduate School of Education, is interested in the way Black youth and other young people of color navigate adolescence—and the racial stressors that can make the journey harder.

Infants’ race influences quality of hospital care in California

Disparities exist in how babies of different racial and ethnic origins are treated in California’s neonatal intensive care units, but this could be changed, say Stanford researchers.

Immigrants don’t move state-to-state in search of health benefits

When states expand public health insurance to include low-income, legal immigrants, it does not lead to out-of-state immigrants moving in search of benefits.

Excess mortality rates early in pandemic highest among Blacks

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has been starkly uneven across race, ethnicity and geography, according to a new study led by SHP's Maria Polyakova.

Decoding bias in media, technology

Driving Artificial Intelligence are machine learning algorithms, sets of rules that tell a computer how to solve a problem, perform a task and in some cases, predict an outcome. These predictive models are based on massive datasets to recognize certain patterns, which according to communication scholar Angele Christin , sometimes come flawed with human bias . 

“Technology changes things, but perhaps not always as much as we think,” Christin said. “Social context matters a lot in shaping the actual effects of the technological tools. […] So, it’s important to understand that connection between humans and machines.”

Below is some of that research, as well as other ways discrimination unfolds across technology, in the media, and ways to counteract it.

IRS disproportionately audits Black taxpayers

A Stanford collaboration with the Department of the Treasury yields the first direct evidence of differences in audit rates by race.

Automated speech recognition less accurate for blacks

The disparity likely occurs because such technologies are based on machine learning systems that rely heavily on databases of English as spoken by white Americans.

New algorithm trains AI to avoid bad behaviors

Robots, self-driving cars and other intelligent machines could become better-behaved thanks to a new way to help machine learning designers build AI applications with safeguards against specific, undesirable outcomes such as racial and gender bias.

Stanford scholar analyzes responses to algorithms in journalism, criminal justice

In a recent study, assistant professor of communication Angèle Christin finds a gap between intended and actual uses of algorithmic tools in journalism and criminal justice fields.

Move responsibly and think about things

In the course CS 181: Computers, Ethics and Public Policy , Stanford students become computer programmers, policymakers and philosophers to examine the ethical and social impacts of technological innovation.

Homicide victims from Black and Hispanic neighborhoods devalued

Social scientists found that homicide victims killed in Chicago’s predominantly Black and Hispanic neighborhoods received less news coverage than those killed in mostly white neighborhoods.

Algorithms reveal changes in stereotypes

New Stanford research shows that, over the past century, linguistic changes in gender and ethnic stereotypes correlated with major social movements and demographic changes in the U.S. Census data.

AI Index Diversity Report: An Unmoving Needle

Stanford HAI’s 2021 AI Index reveals stalled progress in diversifying AI and a scarcity of the data needed to fix it.

Identifying discrimination in the workplace and economy

From who moves forward in the hiring process to who receives funding from venture capitalists, research has revealed how Blacks and other minority groups are discriminated against in the workplace and economy-at-large. 

“There is not one silver bullet here that you can walk away with. Hiring and retention with respect to employee diversity are complex problems,” said Adina Sterling , associate professor of organizational behavior at the Graduate School of Business (GSB). 

Sterling has offered a few places where employers can expand employee diversity at their companies. For example, she suggests hiring managers track data about their recruitment methods and the pools that result from those efforts, as well as examining who they ultimately hire.

Here is some of that insight.

How To: Use a Scorecard to Evaluate People More Fairly

A written framework is an easy way to hold everyone to the same standard.

Archiving Black histories of Silicon Valley

A new collection at Stanford Libraries will highlight Black Americans who helped transform California’s Silicon Valley region into a hub for innovation, ideas.

Race influences professional investors’ judgments

In their evaluations of high-performing venture capital funds, professional investors rate white-led teams more favorably than they do black-led teams with identical credentials, a new Stanford study led by Jennifer L. Eberhardt finds.

Who moves forward in the hiring process?

People whose employment histories include part-time, temporary help agency or mismatched work can face challenges during the hiring process, according to new research by Stanford sociologist David Pedulla.

How emotions may result in hiring, workplace bias

Stanford study suggests that the emotions American employers are looking for in job candidates may not match up with emotions valued by jobseekers from some cultural backgrounds – potentially leading to hiring bias.

Do VCs really favor white male founders?

A field experiment used fake emails to measure gender and racial bias among startup investors.

Can you spot diversity? (Probably not)

New research shows a “spillover effect” that might be clouding your judgment.

Can job referrals improve employee diversity?

New research looks at how referrals impact promotions of minorities and women.

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• Published: 05 August 2021

Let’s talk about race: changing the conversations around race in academia

• Jasmine M. Miller-Kleinhenz   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-8661-733X 1 ,
• Alexandra B. Kuzmishin Nagy   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-5976-6890 2 ,
• Ania A. Majewska   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-0965-3177 3 ,
• Adeola O. Adebayo Michael   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-6606-9930 4 ,
• Saman M. Najmi   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-9648-098X 2 ,
• Karena H. Nguyen   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-1916-1002 3 ,
• Robert E. Van Sciver   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-1818-2661 5 &
• Ida T. Fonkoue 6 , 7  

Communications Biology volume  4 , Article number:  902 ( 2021 ) Cite this article

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Jasmine Miller-Kleinhenz et al. highlight the risk of science and academia’s general neutrality to discussions around race and social justice. Their collectively-developed course represents a framework to begin these important discussions and improve conversations on race in academia.

The racial injustices experienced by Black Americans have existed for hundreds of years, yet the egregious murders of Black men and women in the spring and summer of 2020 ignited an awakening that shook our nation to its core, creating aftershocks that spared no sector of society, least of all our academic institutions. Many in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) have attempted to remain neutral to the issues of race in society, claiming that the scientific endeavor transcends race. However, there is well-established evidence for racial bias and name-based discrimination in recruitment 1 , 2 , 3 , retention 1 , 2 , 4 , 5 , hiring 1 , 2 , 3 , 5 , and funding 6 , 7 in STEM. Therefore, it stands to reason that even if science aims to be objective, scientists that conduct scientific research are not always objective in matters of race.

The outcry from many Black scientists and their allies highlighted issues of racism in academia and resulted in the proliferation of movements such as #BlackInTheIvory 8 , #BlackinX (e.g., BlackinChem, BlackinNeuro, BlackinPhysics, etc.) 9 , and #ShutDownSTEM 10 , among others. A growing number of academic departments and institutions issued statements expressing their desire to change the academic culture to create environments that are diverse, equitable, and inclusive (DEI) 11 , 12 . Many followed these statements with action by offering implicit bias training, forums and conversations focused on anti-racism, searches to increase diversity in hiring, and committees to assess departmental recruitment and retention practices 11 . While these activities are commendable and should be continued, these approaches are not particularly novel and are often implemented in ways that are unlikely to result in lasting changes in academic culture 13 .

As postdoctoral researchers enrolled in an Institutional Research and Academic Career Development Awards (IRACDA) program supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) at Emory University, our training also includes teaching at historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs). Because of our unique training environment, we experienced first-hand the need for long-lasting, cultural change on race issues in academia. After the traumatic murder of George Floyd and the social unrest that followed, we realized that we were all ill-equipped to discuss how racial inequalities impact and intersect with science in our conversations and interactions with our peers and students within our departments, labs, and classrooms. Additionally, while many of us were admitted into the program as underrepresented scientists in STEM, only a few of us identified as Black or people of color, highlighting that we all had different lived experiences and unique perspectives. Moreover, it became clear that our training thus far had overlooked the need to create a space for regular learning, discussions, and reflections on race inequalities in the US in general and particularly in academia.

Therefore, to address the gap in our training and to actively work towards lasting change for ourselves, our cohort designed a semester-long course on “Race and Social Justice in Academia.” We wanted to create a course that, upon completion, would give us the tools to be effective educators at HBCUs in our immediate future, effective educators at any setting further along in our careers, and better citizens of society. Moreover, we hoped our course would provide other postdocs and faculty with a framework from which to discuss and implement actionable items that can impart meaningful changes in academia. Our goal with this commentary is to share the process of how we created and developed this course, in the hopes that it can serve as a framework for sustained efforts in other academic communities.

The planning

Community is key.

We reach out to collaborators, obtain feedback from colleagues, and network at scientific meetings when we hope to increase our research output; similarly, we must interact with others if we hope to improve our cultural competence and educate ourselves to become anti-racist 14 , 15 . In our case, we were fortunate to have an existing community that was formed from our common postdoctoral funding, awarded from the same institution in the same year. As a diverse community of scientists, we recognized that, while we felt sensitive to racial injustices, we still had much to learn. Building on this cohort model, we took the initiative to become anti-racist and to become better people, and thus better scientists, educators, and colleagues.

The successful outcomes of our initiative can be directly attributed to the community we created in our cohort. While we were sorted into our cohort because of the NIH IRACDA program, we are surrounded by various communities. A community can be formed within a department, a lab, or a professional organization. When diversity exists within these communities, it is a strength. Diversity can come from one’s race, ethnicity, gender, disability, national origin, age, health status, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, socio-economic standing, immigration status, or family background. Depending on your situation, your community may not be diverse in some of these areas, but how these categorizations intersect for the members of your community will inform diverse perspectives and lead to better outcomes. Moreover, it is not necessary to have all aspects of identity to build empathy towards people underrepresented in academia. It is important to consider discussing what identities may be missing from your community to generate further discussion.

Have a collective conversation

Regardless of our community composition, we found it essential to have a collective conversation to discuss how we would educate ourselves about the topics of race, racial inequality, and social justice (Fig.  1A ). In our initial meetings, we shared our own personal objectives, motivations, and goals for engaging in such a course. This process highlighted common interests and led to fruitful discussions about key aspects that were missing from the original course design. Most importantly, this process ensured that underrepresented members of the group were not shouldering the burden of finding, suggesting, and outlining the scope of discussion. Simply put, the goal of these discussions was to avoid the burden that often falls on Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) to initiate and lead similar conversations in academia at the undergraduate, graduate student, postdoctoral, and faculty levels 12 , 16 , 17 . At the end of this conversation, everyone agreed on the major topics and learning objectives (Table  1 ), and equitably distributed the work of leading future sessions.

Following our model, groups everywhere can use our course as a guide to ( A ) facilitate conversations around social justice and come to an understanding about the changes they can make to achieve racial justice and equity in academia, and ( B ) actually make those lasting changes. On the left-hand side, a diverse group of people engages in a conversation while having a picnic. On the right-hand side, a diverse group of people works together to build a home representing academia, with different colors of wooden planks, representing the many skin tones that are present in academia.

Meet regularly

Similar to regular lab meetings that improve our research, becoming anti-racist is a lifelong commitment. Following the collective conversation mentioned in the previous section, we felt that our cohort needed an ongoing, multi-week discussion to examine the root of the racial injustices that we had recognized as academics and to discuss possible strategies to mitigate these injustices. For our cohort, we chose to meet over the course of 16 weeks to give each other the space to share our experiences and ideas and to ensure accountability in participation and facilitation. Specifically, we chose a weekly meeting time that aligned with everyone’s schedule and assigned two different members of the cohort to lead sessions each week. This structure gave individuals the opportunity to choose a week where they could invest more time in preparing and facilitating a session while still keeping everyone involved. We recognize that this process will require extra effort and time, but the reality is that there is no quick fix to dismantling systems of oppression within our institutions and society at large. A commitment to anti-racism requires a conscious, intentional, and continuous effort to achieve lasting changes in our mindset. These changes may then lead to solutions that are realistic and implementable within our communities (Fig.  1B ).

The implementation

We used backward design principles of pedagogy 18 to determine course learning objectives as a group (Table  1 ). Each participant signed up to serve as a facilitator for two learning objectives, which resulted in two people co-leading each session. Pairs collaborated to outline learning outcomes (or sub-objectives), create activities, or implement existing pedagogical techniques and tools to complement those outcomes. In addition, speakers were invited, such as educators from HBCUs and experts of inclusive pedagogy, to contribute to the conversation by sharing their lived experiences.

We employed active, student-centric, inclusive teaching methods 19 , 20 , 21 , 22 to share content and engage all participants in the learning experience. For example, we often used think-pair-share activities 23 , during which participants were offered time to reflect, then collaborated with a partner, before sharing their responses with the rest of the group. We also constructed activities modeled after the “jig-saw” method 24 , where participants were arranged into different groups with distinct tasks. These groups were then disassembled and new groups, composed of participants with different original tasks, were formed. The members of these new groups then took turns sharing their tasks and responses with the other members until everyone was exposed to all the tasks and responses. All activities were inspired by primary literature 25 , existing resources 12 , 26 , 27 , and relevant news articles 28 .

Our overall strategy was to have interactive sessions that encouraged an exchange of ideas. To promote such discussions, we often posed open-ended questions to invite all participants’ voices to be heard 29 . In addition, trauma-informed pedagogical practices were applied to ensure that participants were not re-traumatized (e.g., provided trigger warnings for potentially graphic content 30 ). Interactions as facilitators and participants allowed us to build trust and rapport as well as break through some of the discomfort that comes with these conversations. We also included debriefings and opportunities to reflect as a group on current events, recent activities, personal attitudes, and perceptions of societal issues.

Our guiding principles

At the conclusion of our course, we reflected on what allowed us to have such productive, sustained conversations. We determined that during our conversations, there were key guiding principles that led us to have discussions that resulted in a change in our hearts, minds, and actions (Table  2 ).

Reflections and broader impacts

On ourselves.

This course had a direct impact on how we, as the students, viewed discussions about race. Prior to participating in this course, many fellows mentioned experiencing acute discomfort and hesitancy in engaging in conversations centered on race. One fellow reflected, “I recently realized how far I’ve come when I saw how uncomfortable my white colleagues were when discussing race. Similar to me before taking the course, they didn’t want to say the wrong thing and feared offending someone or facing their white privilege.” After this course, participants gained the confidence and courage to overcome this discomfort and engaged in these conversations with colleagues, friends, and family. The course also created a space for fellows to extend conversations about race with diverse groups of all backgrounds, whereas before, “I predominantly discussed matters of race and academia with other people of color. The academic environments I had been a part of had made me feel that discussions around race were either inappropriate, irrelevant, and/or unwelcome… Being able to bring these pertinent conversations to the fore and making plans for lasting change within the classroom, research group, department, and the university has shifted my perception of academia. I am starting to feel welcome and that I belong here too.” The course has also allowed fellows to confront microaggressions and other injustices within academic spaces, such as having “the courage to call in a mentor/director on issues of scientific neutrality with regards to race and social justice. It took a lot of courage to overcome the fear that I might be penalized for it in some way, directly or indirectly. But I have come to learn that my active voice is needed and valued in the space that I occupy. As a Black woman in academia, I found the courage to speak up and speak out.” Lastly, this course allowed for fellows to see from diverse perspectives, with one fellow indicating the course “has significantly developed and improved my patience towards colleagues, students, and friends who have different views than mine on racial injustice and social inequities in the United States.”

On our students

We have also taken these experiences back to our classrooms. Two fellows, with feedback from cohort members, included diversity statements in their syllabi and intentionally read them aloud on the first day of class to demonstrate their commitment to fostering inclusive and equitable learning environments. It also motivated other fellows to address barriers minority students face in STEM. One fellow “dedicated class time to talk about Black scientists for Black history month and to acknowledge the lack of representation in academia which stems from the challenges Black Americans face in the sciences” and another became “comfortable addressing the historic whitewashing of science in the chemistry and biochemistry classes I taught at an HBCU. Celebrating and highlighting the contributions of diverse peoples to science has become a key aspect of my inclusive teaching and mentorship.”

In our academic communities

Lastly, the impact of participating in this course extended beyond its impact on us as individuals, to our departments and training programs. One fellow brought the cohort-based model of discussing race and social justice to enhance his department’s ongoing DEI initiatives. Another fellow served as a trainee on a faculty search committee and worked with a graduate student to develop a rubric by which to assess candidates’ DEI statements. There was initial resistance to having trainees serve on the search committee and a reluctance to using a rubric to weigh DEI statements as part of the faculty application package. However, following the search, the Chair of the Department stated:

All of us hold opinions that are shaped by our past experiences and, certainly, a trainee would never have been put onto a Search Committee for new faculty when I was either a graduate student or a postdoctoral fellow. For our recent faculty search, initially, my fear was that the inexperience of trainees would make their opinions of limited utility. Furthermore, I thought that trainees would be put into a tough spot if they found themselves at odds with the prevailing opinion of faculty on the Search Committee, so part of my reluctance was driven by my desire to protect our trainees. Nonetheless, I agreed to give it a test, partly at the urging of my younger colleagues, and both of my reservations proved to be unfounded. I saw our trainees rise to the challenge to provide both valuable input and a useful perspective that would have been missing had they not participated. This included the DEI rubric they developed that provided a useful framework for evaluating candidate DEI activities in a reasonably objective fashion, focusing attention on actual accomplishments and not just words.

Our course also impacted the Fellowships in Research and Science Teaching (FIRST) IRACDA program at Emory, which has a primary mission of fostering relationships with partner minority-serving institutions. Despite this goal, the training did not include explicit preparation in cultural competence and race and social justice. Therefore, we pushed for this course to be formalized as a requirement for future FIRST fellows through numerous conversations with FIRST administration. Similar to the reluctance that faculty had about trainees serving on a search committee, there was hesitancy to formally adopt this cohort-based approach to addressing race and social justice in academia. One co-director of FIRST acknowledged:

While the leadership of FIRST was a bit skeptical about a fellow-designed and led course at the outset, the value to the individual participants and to the program is now clear. We have formally added this course as part of the permanent FIRST curriculum, however, the impact is broader than one program. As a leader of multiple programs, I plan to build on this course either by asking FIRST fellows to provide specific modules or by asking them to work with other trainees to implement their own personalized course. Such an approach allows trainees to take ownership and personalize their experiences. The process of designing and teaching themselves also strengthens the cohort, which is key to building an inclusive environment.

Before this class, conversations on the topic of the race would make many of us uncomfortable, often afraid to speak up in fear of saying something wrong. This course helped instill confidence and courage in engaging in these conversations with colleagues and family. Participants in the course now have the competence to facilitate and partake in these discussions in the future.

As a scientific community, we have reached a decisive moment to make a significant contribution towards achieving improved racial justice and equity in academia. Researchers and academics, who are interested in social equity, can no longer afford to just remain in our research silos or teach in our areas of specialization. Each of us have a responsibility to dismantle racism, in all forms, within our labs, classrooms, departments, institutions, and various communities. As a cohort, we recognized the need for a sustainable change in our training, agreed to take action, and committed to the process. As a result, members of our cohort reported that this class gave them the tools and also the courage to speak up against any form of witnessed injustice. Meanwhile, others reported including intentional discussions about racial injustices in their classes and becoming more in-tune with their students’ experiences. We were fortunate to have members of the group who could speak on racial injustice from experience. However, we believe that conversations around race and social injustice can and should take place in every community, regardless of their racial make-up. Having ongoing conversations focused on race and social justice within academia is a vital step towards creating anti-racist environments that are conducive to diverse and talented scientific communities.

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Acknowledgements

We want to warmly thank Drs. Mark Lee, Lisa Hibbard, and DeShawn Preston for their insights during the conceptualization of the course and writing of this manuscript. This manuscript would not have been possible without our mentors and students at Spelman College and Morehouse College. We want to thank Drs. Steven L’Hernault and Anita Corbett for providing quotes for the reflection. We are also thankful to the Emory Institutional Research and Academic Career Development Award (IRACDA) leadership and alumni. JMMK, ABKN, AAM, AOAM, SMN, KHN, and REVS were funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) IRACDA NIH/NIGMS (2K12GM000680). REVS was funded by NIH F32 (DK127848). ITF was funded by NIH T32 (DK-00756).

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JMMK and ITF conceived of this anti-racism framework as a peer-taught class. JMMK and SMN conceived of the Figure and SMN created it. JMMK, ABKN, AAM, AOAM, SMN, KHN, REVS, and ITF contributed equally to planning and syllabi (supplemental information). JMMK, ABKN, AAM, AOAM, SMN, KHN, REVS, and ITF wrote the manuscript, which was reviewed, revised, and improved by all authors. JMMK, ABKN, AAM, AOAM, SMN, KHN, REVS, and ITF read and approved the final manuscript.

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Miller-Kleinhenz, J.M., Kuzmishin Nagy, A.B., Majewska, A.A. et al. Let’s talk about race: changing the conversations around race in academia. Commun Biol 4 , 902 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s42003-021-02409-2

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How epidemiology researchers discuss race and ethnicity

September 28, 2022

How do you study race and racism when there’s no consensus on how these terms are used in research? New research from  a collaborative team of doctoral students at the Carolina Population Center (CPC), three of which are also students at the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health, tackles this question and provides guidance for researchers across disciplines.

The doctoral students – who come from the fields of epidemiology, sociology, anthropology and health policy – were inspired by Thomas LaVeist’s 1996 article , “Why we should continue to study race… but do a better job: an essay on race, racism and health,” and began to look at how race was conceptualized, operationalized and used in academic research journals.

Their  findings were published recently  in the  American Journal of Epidemiology . Authors Rae Anne Martinez (Epidemiology), Nafeesa Andrabi (Sociology), Andrea Goodwin (Sociology), Rachel Wilbur (Anthropology), Natalie  Smith (Health Policy and Management) and Paul Zivich (Epidemiology) recently answered questions  in an interview with CPC about their work, which was also the subject of a six-part series on thoughtfully using race and ethnicity in population health research on the Interdisciplinary Association for Population Health Science (IAPHS)’s blog.

How were  authors defining (or not defining) race and ethnicity?

We reviewed United States human-subject research from five epidemiology journals: American Journal of Epidemiology, Annals of Epidemiology, Epidemiology, Journal of Clinical Epidemiology, Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health , published between 1995 and 2018. Of all the articles we found, 329 included data on participants’ race and/or ethnicity, and only four of these studies defined race and/or ethnicity. One case combined race and ethnicity into an ethnoracial construct and defined using it as a proxy measure of respondent culture. Two studies referenced the U.S. Census Office of Management and Budget’s definitions, and another conceptualized ethnicity as a marker of cultural beliefs about health. But the remaining 325 studies included race and/or ethnicity data without providing any definitions of the constructs.

Why does that matter?

We believe that the profound absence of definitions of race and/or ethnicity is indicative of a few key issues within the field and, broadly, U.S. society.

First, we may not define race and ethnicity because we believe that what these constructs mean is obvious… but it isn’t. There are competing perspectives on what race “is,” ranging from biologically essentialist views that wrongfully deem race an innate, biological characteristic to social constructionist views that deem race a categorizing system created by people in the last few centuries primarily to enact and establish white Christian supremacy. If we don’t define what race means or say why we’re including it in our research, we assume that it means the same thing to everyone and that it means the same thing across time. This allows for interpretations of the findings that can be biologically essentialist and cause further harm to racialized and minoritized people in the U.S.

There was a stark difference in how race and ethnicity data were treated in comparison to other data, which may represent a broader sense that race and ethnicity exist in the background but don’t matter enough to get words on the page. In contrast, we often found robust definitions for other variables like diabetes, which included information about the use of biomarker data or physician diagnosis, clinical or diagnostic cut-offs, type of diabetes studied, and justification for that type.

Second, we may not define race and/or ethnicity or explain mechanistically why we include them in our study design because we, in fact, don’t know the answer. Instead, we may be participating in the act of ritualistic regression. Increasingly, people living in the U.S., especially people racialized as white, are having to confront the notion of race and racism, yet the extent to which people understand the ideology and systems of racism and race may be limited. This is coming across in our science. What we find are study designs that go through the motion of including race and ethnicity data because we know we should, rather than engaging in meaningful reflection to ask how would race and ethnicity impact the outcomes we are looking at, what measure of race and ethnicity would best be suited for the kinds of research questions we are asking and the extent to which we are actually able to include the dimensions of race and/or ethnicity that are relevant to our studies (i.e., skin tone versus closed-ended self-identification).

How did you get the idea for doing this research?

We are all members of the inaugural “Biosocial” T32 training program cohort here at CPC. Through shared training in the T32 program, we had many discussions regarding our own disciplines and research. We noticed that, across our discipline-specific training, we had all been exposed to critiques, commentaries and recommendations for incorporating race and ethnicity thoughtfully into population health scholarship. These commentaries largely called for population health researchers to abandon practices of ritualistic regression and critically examine and explain the role of these constructs in health scholarship, though differed across subjects. In an early group meeting we discussed Thomas LaVeist’s 1996 article, “Why we should continue to study race… but do a better job: an essay on race, racism, and health,” and thought it was particularly motivating as an early call to action in better conceptualizing, operationalizing and interpreting race in health scholarship.

However, we also noticed a big discrepancy. The larger body of literature we were being exposed to as students didn’t seem to be matching the changes or actions these commentaries were calling for in terms of thoughtfully engaging with race and ethnicity. So, in this project, we set out to understand if our own disciplines – epidemiology, clinical medicine and medical sociology – had risen to these calls for action and if we were doing “a better job” conceptualizing, operationalizing, and using race and ethnicity in health scholarship. (Spoiler – we weren’t – and likely still aren’t.)

What are some of the complications in coding race and ethnicity?

There are a lot, and while we won’t go into detail here, we can share a bit about what stood out.

In the studies we reviewed, racial coding schemes centered whiteness through coding schemes like “white, non-white.” This ties back to the value of defining race and ethnicity and justifying the inclusion of this data in study designs. What is the value of a non-white group, and what can we meaningfully infer about this group within this study design?

We commonly saw an ambiguous “other” category, where authors did not describe who was included in “other” or how to interpret this category within the analyses. The continued reliance and inclusion of this “other” category may systematically be excluding and leading to the erasure of smaller racial and ethnic groups that ultimately may not get attention or distribution of resources despite vulnerabilities or health disparities.

We also found that most studies that included data on participants’ race and ethnicity often collapsed this data into an ethnoracial construct. Again, this is largely happening without defining race and ethnicity and without describing why it’s theoretically appropriate to combine these into one construct. Collapsing race and ethnicity for the purposes of analyses assumes that these two constructs are capturing similar information and have similar relationships to health outcomes such that we can make meaningful comparisons between groups. In the absence of definitions and justifications, it’s unclear whether the decision to use an ethnoracial construct is intentional and motivated by theory or the study question, or unintentional in that it’s a limitation of the data structure or perhaps just ritualistic practice.

What should researchers think of as they do this work?

The elements we examined in our study – construct definitions, measures, coding and scientific rationale – we consider to be “core” or “base” methods. These correspond to relatively simple questions, like “what is this construct? Why is it important to the study question and population? How do I measure it? How do I code it?” We answer these all the time for our exposures, outcomes and primary effect measure modifiers, even if it is not a formalized part of our research practice or analysis plan. That’s just how fundamental they are.

However, these simple questions can be really difficult with respect to constructs that are normalized to be “common sense” or a natural part of the world (i.e., race, ethnicity, gender). We learn race over our lifetimes through interactions and social, political and educational institutions. What “race” is, the number of and boundaries between “racial groups,” and the scientific relevancy of race may all seem so obvious that we rarely, if ever, attempt to explicitly answer these questions. Ultimately, that impacts our science. When we do attempt to answer them, it may be so uncomfortable we are dissuaded from continuing. We may feel overwhelmed in not knowing where to start, we may feel shame in not having started earlier, or we may feel unsure in how to do so “correctly.”

So, more than anything else, we think it is about  actually doing   work to answer these seemingly simple questions. Answering these questions explicitly can help us identify or address internalized misconceptions. Moreover, omitting construct definitions, measures, coding and scientific rationale from publications is a threat to scientific rigor and reproducibility. We do recognize that not everyone is going to be a race scholar, but this is where we can lean on the strength of interdisciplinary teams.

We’ve presented more of these thoughts in an academic blog series: “Thoughtfully Measuring and Interpreting Race In Population Health Research.” Find the full series online .

What are you planning to do next?

Well, we are still working to publish the results from the other disciplines (medicine and medical sociology)!

We also used the empirical evidence from our review to inform the development of interactive workshops for a range of audiences, which covers the theoretical considerations of race and ethnicity in health research, tools for communication, and highlights opportunities for improvement at the individual level. We’ve been offering the workshop to a variety of audiences this past year.

Our next virtual offering of the workshop will be in November hosted by IAPHS, which interested folks can check out on their website .

Is there anything else you’d like to add?

Since 2020, we’ve seen many population health researchers asking “what can I do” and “how do I improve?” when thinking about equitable and just research. There are many changes we can make as individuals and collectively. One of the small steps you can take right now is to take a look at your language. In the manuscript you are working on right now, you can examine the terms you use for racial and ethnic groups (e.g., “Hispanic” vs “Latino,” “Black” vs “African American”), what is being capitalized or not (e.g., “White” or “white”), or how we are describing communities (e.g., “vulnerable”) and the decisions behind these choices.

Language holds a lot of power and history. It can clarify or obscure, justify or delegitimize, and so we should be critical and thoughtful in all aspects of its use.

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When choosing a research topic related to the subject of race or racism, it's helpful to start out by thinking of specifics. Either specific instances or time periods of racism throughout history (slavery, apartheid, Japanese internment, etc.) or more modern day examples such as the disproportionate incarceration of people of color or use of deadly force against people of color by police officers. Next, think of a question regarding this specific instance that you would like to find more information about or an answer to. Browse the books and articles in this guide for inspiration or take a look at the short list below of possible research topic ideas, but the possibilities of topics are endless.

• Assimilation ability and historical versus modern racism. Immigrant groups, such as Irish or Italian, were historically discriminated against and are accepted today. Groups without a "white" appearance, however, still face discrimination.
• The idea of "ideal immigrants." 
• The recent resurgence of racism as a whole, especially immigrant discrimination and Islamophobia.
• The differences and similarities between racism in America and in the rest of the world.
• Different forms of racism and their varying impacts.
• Racism as a public health crisis.
• The trauma of racism causing mental health issues.
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Research: People Can Learn to Recognize Their Racial Privilege

• Ashleigh Shelby Rosette

Reflecting on our own experiences of being disadvantaged or marginalized can help us better empathize with our peers.

Recognizing privilege may be uncomfortable, but research shows that privilege denial can substantially hinder organizations’ DEI efforts, especially among the (overwhelmingly white and male) leaders whose support is most critical. The good news is that, with concerted effort, we can foster greater awareness of privilege in both ourselves and those around us. Specifically, research found that encouraging white men to reflect on their own experiences of disadvantage (for example, due to growing up poor, being gay, or any other marginalized identity or experience) helped them better empathize with their colleagues from underrepresented racial backgrounds, ultimately making them more likely to acknowledge their racial privilege and act as allies.

Structural racism is a reality in the American workplace. Studies have shown that all else being equal, white employees are more likely than their non-white peers to receive callbacks for job interviews , are less likely to be blamed for poor performance, earn significantly higher wages , and advance faster . But despite this substantial body of research, many white Americans continue to deny that they may benefit from racial privilege in work settings. In fact, a 2021 survey found that nearly half of white people in the U.S. believe that they are discriminated against — not privileged — due to their race.

• Anyi Ma , Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor of Management at Wisconsin School of Business, University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her research concerns topics related to employee motivations as well as diversity, equity, and inclusion at work.
• SF Sean Fath is an Assistant Professor of Organizational Behavior at Cornell’s ILR School. His research interests include managerial decision making, bias reduction in social evaluations, and perceptions of social and organizational hierarchy.
• AR Ashleigh Shelby Rosette is the James Vincent Professor of Leadership and Senior Associate Dean of Executive Programs at the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University. She studies intersecting identities, diversity-related perceptions of leadership, and social inequity in the workplace.

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The best 70 racism topics for research paper for you.

September 25, 2020

Racism is one of the most important themes in modern society. While it is true that days of slavery are well behind us, the problem of racism is still rampant in many countries, from the US to China. This is why it has become a common subject in academia.

So, when you have an assignment on racism, the best way to make it sparkle and get you the best grades is by selecting the best topics. Keep reading to identify 70 excellent racism topics for research paper.

History of Racism Topics for Research Paper

Although racism is painful, it started a long time ago and you can explore its history through the following topics on racism.

• How colonialism shaped aboriginal racism in Australia.
• Women’s movement of the 1960s: Did it manage to unite black and white women?
• Mexican American racism in the US: Why did it intensify in the 20 th century?
• Analyzing racial prejudice in the 1950s.
• Was Malcolm X racist? Justify your answer.
• Can we refer to the ancient Greeks racists?
• Were the antislavery ideas part of the causes of the Civil War?
• Exploring racist ideas in Charles Darwin’s work.
• National identity: Is it connected to racism?
• Do anthropological researchers fight or help racism?
• Black poverty and racism in the 20 th century: How are they connected?
• Analyzing the reactions following the assassination of Martin Luther King. Jr.
• How is racism depicted in colonialism literature?

Racism Argumentative Topics for Research Paper

Racism often turns into a heated subject of controversy and serious disputes. So, if you want to be part of the discussion, here are some great racism argumentative topics for research paper to consider.

• Why is racism immoral?
• Racism and hate crimes in the US: Are they connected?
• Should we consider Islamophobia racism?
• Racism: Can we refer to it as a mental disorder?
• Race: Does it serve any purpose in modern society?
• Irishness: Should it be considered a show of racism?
• Prejudice towards ladies in hijab: Is it baseless?
• Racism: Is it rooted in fear?
• What countries are the most racist in the EU?
• Do you agree with the statement, “there will always be color racism?”
• Prejudice and racism: Are they the same thing.
• Comic books: Can we consider it racist against black people?

Analytical Research Topics about Racism

Questions about “Why,” “How” and “What next” about racism always lingers in the mind of thoughtful. To get answers to these questions, here are some interesting topics about racism to consider:

• Explain how racism influenced the formation of the English language.
• Why do most people prefer marriage partners from the same race?
• How does racism impact prisoners in the US?
• Types of racism that exist in the EU?
• The impact of racism on the mental health of racial minorities.
• Racial discrimination and police brutality: How are they connected?
• What are the main effects of racism on the sports industry?
• A closer look at the use of anti-racist ideas in television commercials.
• Ageism and racism: Are they different?
• Analyzing racism in American pop culture.
• Assessing the racial prejudices in Oscar boycotts.
• Analyze segregation in the Novel “Sula” by Tula Morrison.
• Can the “Othello” by Shakespeare be considered racist?
• Affirmative action: Should it be class-based or group-based?

Interesting Racism Research Topics

Do you want to gain deeper insights into the topic of racism? Here are some great racism research paper topics that you should consider.

• Capitalism and racism in Japan.
• A closer look at the theory of protest by Socrates.
• Homophobic hip-hop music: How does it impact the social attitudes towards the LGBT community?
• Ten proofs that racism still exist in the United States.
• What are the different types of racism in the US?
• The implications of aboriginal discrimination in Australia.
• How are Muslims discriminated in the UK?
• Analyzing internalized racism.
• Authoritarian theory of prejudice.
• Scapegoat theory: Does it always explain racism? Explain.
• Is racism responsible for poor social progress?
• A closer look at the historical figures who fought against racism in history.
• Analyzing the anti-discrimination laws in Cuba by Fidel Castro.
• European colonialism: Was it responsible for the spread of racism?

Good Research Topics Dealing with Racism

We all agree that racism is bad, right? Here are some awesome research topics about race and racism and how to deal with it.

• Dealing with racial prejudices: What are the best strategies?
• How effective are the US laws in preventing racism.
• How can leaders deal with racism in their workplace?
• How can we reduce racial discrimination in education?
• Is it possible to have a world without racism?
• Confucianism: Can it help to address the problem of racism?
• Apartheid and progress in South Africa.
• Institutional racism: Why is it so difficult to address?
• Environmental racism: What is it and how can we fight it?
• Demystify the four types of group interactions: Assimilation, segregation, pluralism, and genocide.
• Can we justify racism at times?
• Suggest the main strategies that can be used to end racial discrimination in schools.
• Can art be used to fight racism?
• A deeper look at the history of affirmative action.
• Analyzing the Australia policies and their effectiveness in addressing xenophobia.
• Analyzing the US efforts to end discrimination against homeless people.
• Racism and U.S criminal justice system.

Once students have selected their preferred sociology racism topics, the writing journey commences. So, whether you selected a racism topic related to American History or methods of addressing the problem, you will need to have the right resources and top-notch writing skills. If you feel stuck with the paper because of one reason or another, the best option is seeking college research paper help from our experts.

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• 10 Research Question Examples to Guide Your Research Project

10 Research Question Examples to Guide your Research Project

Published on October 30, 2022 by Shona McCombes . Revised on October 19, 2023.

The research question is one of the most important parts of your research paper , thesis or dissertation . It’s important to spend some time assessing and refining your question before you get started.

The exact form of your question will depend on a few things, such as the length of your project, the type of research you’re conducting, the topic , and the research problem . However, all research questions should be focused, specific, and relevant to a timely social or scholarly issue.

Once you’ve read our guide on how to write a research question , you can use these examples to craft your own.

Note that the design of your research question can depend on what method you are pursuing. Here are a few options for qualitative, quantitative, and statistical research questions.

Other interesting articles

If you want to know more about the research process , methodology , research bias , or statistics , make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples.

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Research bias

• Optimism bias
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How teens and parents approach screen time, most teens at least sometimes feel happy and peaceful when they don’t have their phone, but 44% say this makes them anxious. half of parents say they have looked through their teen’s phone.

Pew Research Center conducted this study to better understand teens’ and parents’ experiences with screen time. 

The Center conducted an online survey of 1,453 U.S. teens and parents from Sept. 26 to Oct. 23, 2023, through Ipsos. Ipsos invited one parent from each of a representative set of households with parents of teens in the desired age range from its KnowledgePanel . The KnowledgePanel is a probability-based web panel recruited primarily through national, random sampling of residential addresses. Parents were asked to think about one teen in their household (if there were multiple teens ages 13 to 17 in the household, one was randomly chosen). At the conclusion of the parent’s section, the parent was asked to have this chosen teen come to the computer and complete the survey in private.

The survey is weighted to be representative of two different populations: 1) parents with teens ages 13 to 17 and 2) teens ages 13 to 17 who live with parents. For each of these populations, they survey is weighted to be representative by age, gender, race and ethnicity, household income and other categories.

This research was reviewed and approved by an external institutional review board (IRB), Advarra, an independent committee of experts specializing in helping to protect the rights of research participants.

Here are the questions among parents and among teens used for this report, along with responses, and its methodology ­­­.

Today’s teenagers are more digitally connected than ever. Most have access to smartphones and use social media , and nearly half say they are online almost constantly. But how are young people navigating this “always on” environment?  

To better understand their experiences, we surveyed both teens and parents on a range of screen time-related topics. Our questions explored the emotions teens tie to their devices, the impact of smartphones on youth, and the challenges parents face when raising children in the digital age.

Key findings from the survey:

• Phone-less: 72% of U.S. teens say they often or sometimes feel peaceful when they don’t have their smartphone; 44% say it makes them feel anxious.
• Good for hobbies, less so for socialization: 69% of teens say smartphones make it easier for youth to pursue hobbies and interests; fewer (30%) say it helps people their age learn good social skills.
• Parental snooping: Half of parents say they have looked through their teen’s phone.
• Smartphone standoffs: About four-in-ten parents and teens report regularly arguing with one another about time spent on their phone.
• Distracted parenting: Nearly half of teens (46%) say their parent is at least sometimes distracted by their phone when they’re trying to talk to them.

This Pew Research Center survey of 1,453 U.S. teens ages 13 to 17 and their parents was conducted Sept. 26-Oct. 23, 2023. 1

Jump to read about views among teens on: Screen time | Feelings when disconnected from phones | Thoughts on smartphones’ impact

Jump to read about views among parents on: Parenting in the smartphone age | Their own screen time struggles

Teens’ views on screen time and efforts to cut back

Fully 95% of teens have access to a smartphone, and about six-in-ten say they use TikTok, Snapchat or Instagram . But do teens think they spend too much time in front of screens?

More teens say they spend too much time on their phone or social media than say they don’t spend enough time on them. We found that 38% of teens say they spend too much time on their smartphone. About a quarter say the same regarding their social media use. 2

But the largest shares say the amount of time they spend on their phone (51%) or on social media (64%) is about right. Relatively few teens say they don’t spend enough time with these technologies.

Views on this differ by gender. Teen girls are more likely than boys to say they spend too much time on their smartphone (44% vs. 33%) or social media (32% vs. 22%).

Teens’ efforts to curb their screen time

A minority of teens have taken steps to reduce their screen time. Roughly four-in-ten teens (39%) say they have cut back on their time on social media. A similar share says the same about their phone (36%).

Still, most teens have not limited their smartphone (63%) or social media (60%) use.

How teens’ behaviors vary by gender

About four-in-ten or more girls say they have cut back on their smartphone or social media use. For boys, those figures drop to roughly one-third.

How teens’ behaviors vary based on their screen time

Teens who report spending too much time on social media and smartphones are especially likely to report cutting back on each. For instance, roughly six-in-ten teens who say they are on social media too much say they have cut back (57%). This is far higher than the 32% among those who say they are on social media too little or the right amount.

How teens feel when they don’t have their phone

Teens encounter a range of emotions when they don’t have their phones, but we asked them about five specific ones. Roughly three-quarters of teens say it often or sometimes makes them feel happy (74%) or peaceful (72%) when they don’t have their smartphone.

Smaller but notable shares of teens equate not having their phone with more negative emotions. Teens say not having their phone at least sometimes makes them feel anxious (44%), upset (40%) and lonely (39%).

It is worth noting that only a minority of teens – ranging from 7% to 32% – say they often feel these emotions when they’re phone-less.

Teens’ feelings on this differ by some demographic factors:

• Age and gender: Older girls ages 15 to 17 (55%) are more likely than younger girls (41%) and teen boys who are younger (41%) and older (40%) to say they feel anxious at least sometimes when they don’t have their smartphone.
• Gender: 45% of teen girls say not having their phone makes them feel lonely regularly, compared with 34% of teen boys.

Do teens think smartphones are negatively impacting young people?

As smartphones have become a universal part of teen life, many have asked what impact, if any, phones are having on today’s youth.

Teens shared their perspectives on smartphones’ impact on people their age and whether these devices have made certain aspects of growing up more or less challenging.

Most teens think the benefits of smartphones outweigh the harms for people their age. Seven-in-ten teens say smartphones provide more benefits than harms for people their age, while a smaller share (30%) take the opposing view, saying there are more harms than benefits.

Teens’ views, by gender and age

Younger girls ages 13 and 14 (39%) are more likely than older teen girls (29%) and teen boys who are younger (29%) and older (25%) to say that the harms of people their age using smartphones outweigh the benefits.

The survey also shows that teens see these devices’ impacts on specific aspects of life differently.

More teens believe smartphones make it easier, rather than harder, to be creative, pursue hobbies and do well in school. Majorities of teens say smartphones make it a little or a lot easier for people their age to pursue hobbies and interests (69%) and be creative (65%). Close to half (45%) say these devices have made it easier for youth to do well in school.

Views are more mixed when it comes to developing healthy friendships. Roughly four-in-ten teens say smartphones make it easier for teens to develop healthy friendships, while 31% each say they make it harder or neither easier nor harder.

But they think smartphones have a more negative than positive impact on teens’ social skills. A larger percentage of teens say smartphones make learning good social skills harder (42%) rather than easier (30%). About three-in-ten say it neither helps nor hurts.

How parents navigate raising teens in the smartphone age

With the rise of smartphones, today’s parents must tackle many questions that previous generations did not. How closely should you monitor their phone use? How much screen time is too much? And how often do phones lead to disagreements?

We developed a set of parallel questions to understand the perspectives of both parents and teens. Here’s what we found:

It’s common for parents to look through their teen’s phone – and many of their teens know it. Half of parents of teens say they look through their teen’s phone. When we asked teens if they thought their parents ever look through their phones, 43% believed this had happened.

Whether parents report looking through their child’s smartphone depends on their kid’s age. While 64% of parents of 13- to 14-year-olds say they look through their teen’s smartphone, this share drops to 41% among parents of 15- to 17-year-olds.

Teens’ accounts of this also vary depending on their age: 56% of 13- to 14-year-olds say their parent checks their smartphone, compared with 35% of teens ages 15 to 17.

How often do parents and teens argue about phone time?

Parents and teens are equally likely to say they argue about phone use. Roughly four-in-ten parents and teens (38% each) say they at least sometimes argue with each other about how much time their teen spends on the phone. This includes 10% in each group who say this happens often .

Still, others say they never have these types of disagreements. One-quarter of parents say they never argue with their teen about this, while 31% of teens say the same.

Teens’ and parents’ views, by race and ethnicity

Hispanic Americans stand out for reporting having these disagreements often. While 16% of Hispanic teens say they often argue with their parent about how much time they’re spending on their phone, that share drops to 9% for White teens and 6% for Black teens. 3

A similar pattern is present among parents. Hispanic parents (19%) are more likely than White (6%) or Black (7%) parents to say they often argue with their teen about this.

Teens’ views, by frequency of internet use

The amount of time teens report being online is also a factor. About half (47%) of teens who report being online almost constantly say they at least sometimes argue with their parent about the amount of time they spend on their phone, compared with those who are online less often (30%). 

How much do parents prioritize tracking their teen’s phone use?

Most parents prioritize managing the amount of time their teen spends on the phone. Roughly three-quarters of parents (76%) say managing how much time their teen spends on the phone is an important or a top priority.  Still, 19% of parents don’t consider this a priority.

Parents’ views, by race and ethnicity

Majorities of parents across racial and ethnic groups think of this as a priority. But some groups stand out for how much they prioritize this. For example, Hispanic (25%) or Black (24%) parents are more likely to say managing how much time their teen is on the phone is a top priority. That share drops to 10% among White parents.

Parents’ views, by household income

We also see differences between the lowest and highest income households: 22% of parents whose annual household income is less than $30,000 consider managing the amount of time their teen is on the phone a top priority, compared with 14% of those whose household income is $75,000 or more a year. Those whose household income is $30,000 to $74,999 a year do not meaningfully differ from either group.

Do parents set time limits on their teen’s phone use?

There’s a nearly even split between parents who restrict their teen’s time on their phone and those who don’t. About half of parents (47%) say they limit the amount of time their teen can be on their phone, while a similar share (48%) don’t do this.

Parents’ views, by teen’s age

Parents of younger teens are far more likely to regulate their child’s screen time. While 62% of parents of 13- to 14-year-olds say they limit how much time their teen can be on their phone, that share drops to 37% among those with a 15- to 17-year-old.

How difficult is it for parents to keep up with their teen’s phone use?

Managing screen time can feel like an uphill battle for some parents. About four-in-ten say it’s hard to manage how much time their teen spends on their phone. A smaller share (26%) says this is easy to do. 

Another 26% of parents fall in the middle – saying it’s neither easy nor hard.

Higher-income parents are more likely to find it difficult to manage their teen’s phone time. Roughly half (47%) of parents living in households earning $75,000 or more a year say managing the amount of time their teen is on their phone is hard. These shares are smaller among parents whose annual household income falls below $30,000 (38%) or is between $30,000 and $74,999 (32%).

Parents’ own struggles with device distractions, screen time

Teens aren’t the only ones who can be glued to their phones. Parents, too, can find themselves in an endless cycle of checking emails , text messages and social media.

With that in mind, we asked parents to think about their own screen time – both the time they spend on their phone, and if it ever gets in the way of connecting with their teen.

Do parents think they spend too much time on their phone?

Like teens, parents are far more likely to say they spend too much rather than not enough time on their phone. About half of parents (47%) say they spend too much time on their smartphone. Just 5% think they spend too little time on it. And 45% believe they spend the right amount of time on their phone.

Parents’ views differ by:

• Household Income: 50% of parents with annual household incomes of $75,000 or more say they spend too much time on their phone. This share drops to 41% among those living in households earning $30,000 to $74,999 a year and 38% among those earning under $30,000.
• Race and ethnicity: 57% of White parents believe they spend too much time on their phone, compared with 38% of Black parents and 34% of Hispanic parents.

How often are parents distracted by their phone when talking with their teen?

When it comes to distracted parenting, parents paint a rosier picture than teens. Nearly half of teens (46%) say their parent is at least sometimes distracted by their phone when they’re trying to talk to them, including 8% who say this happens often.

But when parents were asked to assess their own behavior, fewer – 31% – say this happens regularly.

• Throughout this report, “teens” refers to those ages 13 to 17 and “parents” refers to those with a child ages 13 to 17. ↩
• A  2018 Center survey  also asked U.S teens some of the same questions about experiences and views related to smartphone and social media. Direct comparisons cannot be made across the two surveys due to mode, sampling and recruitment differences. Please read the Methodology section  to learn more about how the current survey was conducted. ↩
• There were not enough Asian respondents in the sample to be broken out into a separate analysis. As always, their responses are incorporated into the general population figures throughout the report. ↩

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About Pew Research Center Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world. It conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, media content analysis and other empirical social science research. Pew Research Center does not take policy positions. It is a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts .