The Gap Within the Gap: Using Continuous Measures of Racialization to Study School Racial Segregation

• In Event: Advances in Social Science Genomics (Co-sponsored by Sociology of Population Section)

Abstract

Past school segregation research has treated race as a discrete characteristic. However, doing so can obscure meaningful within-group inequalities and thus underestimate true levels of segregation. In contrast, we conceptualize processes of racialization as complex and continuous: that is, there exists substantial variation in how individuals with the same racial identity present race and its consequences. In this paper, we use detailed longitudinal survey data on ~15,000 high school students to explore intragroup variation in experiences of segregation among Black and Hispanic children. Using exploratory factor analysis, we construct an individual-level ‘racialization index’ that combines information on skin tone, interviewer racial classification, and genetic ancestry into a single variable. We then explore whether Black and Hispanic children across the racialization continuum are systematically exposed to different schoolmates. Among both racial groups, students with higher racialization indexes are exposed to fewer White schoolmates and greater economically disadvantaged schoolmates.

Authors

• Varsha Menon, Princeton University

• Sam Trejo, Princeton University