Community Crime Rates and Values of the American Dream: A Multilevel Analysis of the Racial Convergence of Social Values in a Southern City

• In Event: Poster Session

Abstract

Research has found that Black Americans tend to have a deeper desire to achieve the American dream than whites. This is contradictory to theory and research examining the disproportionate social control of minorities, which has long focused on the complex relationship between race, racial stereotypes, and perceptions of group threat. Prior research has established that inequality in social control is an issue and researchers have been challenged to identify, assess, and address the underlying causes and potential remedies of such inequality. Prior studies have proposed that intergroup perceptions, stereotypes, and contact as well as certain community characteristics are integral to understanding racial variations in values and interracial trust; however, few data sources offer measures of such factors. The objective of this study is to address this gap in the existing literature by examining how race based perceptions, stereotypes, and attitudes are shaped by characteristics of individuals and communities (levels of crime, concentrated resource disadvantage, racial inequality, and collective efficacy). To accomplish this, we combine individual level survey data with Census data on communities to simultaneously examine the impact of individual and community level factors on indicators of interracial trust and perceptions of common values across race groups.

Authors

• Emily Renee Berthelot, University of Arkansas at Little Rock

• Shaun Thomas, University of Arkansas at Little Rock

• Timothy C. Brown, University of Arkansas at Little Rock

• Grant Drawve, University of Arkansas at Little Rock