Is Measuring Interracial Contact Enough? Racial Concentration, Racial Balance, and Perceptions of Prejudice among Black Americans Is Measuring Interracial Contact Enough? Racial Concentration, Racial Balance, and Perceptions of Prejudice among Black Americans

RACE relations; AFRICAN American social conditions; SURVEYS; NEIGHBORHOODS & society; PREJUDICES; RACE discrimination; RACE relations in the United States; UNITED States social conditions

Objectives Contact theory posits that interracial contact can reduce racial prejudice and perceptions of prejudice. This relationship typically has been looked at from the perspective of whites' views regarding race and racial relations, but few studies have examined the implications of interracial contact for blacks' perceptions regarding the extent of prejudice and discrimination. Methods With data from the National Survey of Black Workers, I examine whether opportunities for contact in settings with varying racial concentrations in youth and adulthood are associated with blacks' perceptions of prejudice. I use racial concentration-measured here as mostly black settings, half-black (racially balanced) settings, and mostly white settings (compared to all-black settings)-as an indicator of opportunities for interracial contact. Results Multivariate analyses offer some evidence of the benefits of opportunities for contact in mixed-race and mostly white settings for blacks' perceptions of prejudice. Conclusion Although having opportunities for contact can be beneficial, this evidence is limited to noncompetitive childhood environments, namely residential neighborhoods. Findings highlight the important of accounting for the racial balance of settings where interracial contact takes place. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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