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PETER B. WOOD and NANCY SONLEITNER. Department of Sociology, University of Oklahoma. ABSTRACT. Since the mid-1950s, and through both formal and ...
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IHI. J. Intrrcultral Rel. Vol. 20, No. I, Pp. I-17. 1996 Copyright Q 1996 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd Printed in Great Britain. All rights reserved 0147-1767/96 $15.00+0.00

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THE EFFECT OF CHILDHOOD INTERRACIAL CONTACT ON ADULT ANTIBLACK PREJUDICE PETER B. WOOD and NANCY

SONLEITNER

Department of Sociology, University of Oklahoma ABSTRACT. Since the mid-1950s, and through both formal and informal means, American government has strived to promote tolerance and equality between races. Among the most obvious of these strategies have been policies and laws promoting desegregation in schools, neighborhoods, and elsewhere. Designed to provide equal access to education and shelter, they also allowed greater interracial contact in a sanction-free environment, ostensibly with the goal of promoting greater racial tolerance. It was believed that equal-status contact, particularly during the formative years, would engender more positive racial attitudes among young persons that would endure into adulthood. We test this assumption on 292 white adults participating in the 1991 Oklahoma City Survey. Findings show that childhood interracial contact in schools and neighborhoods not only disconfirms negative racial stereotypes, but has a direct, sign$cant eflect on levels of adult antiblack prejudice even controlling for other relevant factors. Results suggest continued support for the desegregation of American schools and neighborhoods as a means ofpromoting more positive racial attitudes through interracial contact.

Research into racial attitudes has been popular for decades, and work on antiblack prejudice has gathered momentum since the 1960s. Treiman (1966) introduced a scale of “traditional prejudice” which has been used in various forms to measure whites’ desire to maintain a degree of social distance from blacks (Greeley & Sheatsley, 1971, 1974; Tuch, 1981, 1984; Schuman, Steeh, & Bobo, 1985; Wilson, 1986). Recent work suggests a gradual but steady decline in traditional antiblack prejudice through the mid 1980s (Firebaugh & Davis, 1988). However, blacks still face substantial discrimination that limits their access to economic security and retards their full participation in American society. Of more recent concern is an increase in opposition to affirmative action programs and policies among both the general public and legislators themselves. Legislation during the 5Os, 6Os, and 70s was intended to promote equality for blacks in nearly every sphere of life. Desegregation was

Requests for reprints University of Oklahoma,

should be sent to Dr Peter B. Wood, Norman, OK 73019. U.S.A.

Department

of Sociology,

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P. B. Wood and N. Sonleitner

designed in part to generate contact between whites and blacks with the goal of reducing prejudice and enhancing blacks’ opportunities. Busing, equal employment opportunity laws, fair housing legislation, and affirmative action initiatives improved the probability of interracial contact and the potential for attitude change among both races. However, the impact of school and neighborhood desegregation on racial prejudice has not been well studied. It is not clear how much of the decline in traditional prejudice is attributable to interracial contact as a result of desegregation. In fact, one might rightly ask whether desegregation has had any measurable effect on racial prejudice and whether childhood interracial contact has any lasting effect on adult prejudice. Accordingly, in this paper we examine the impact of childhood interracial contact first on adult stereotype adherence and then on adult traditional prejudice using a sample of 292 white adults from the 1991 Oklahoma City Survey.

CONTACT

AND ANTIBLACK

PREJUDICE

The contact hypothesis of race/ethnic relations states that interracial contact will lower prejudice provided that certain conditions are present. These conditions include contact which is: (1) equal status; (2) noncompetitive; (3) approved by relevant authorities; and (4) sustained and one-to-one as opposed to a brief, transient duration (Allport, 1954; Wilner, Walkley, & Cook, 1955; Slavin, 1985; Robinson & Preston, 1976). The effects of contact on prejudice have been tested in a variety of settings that include schools and colleges (Slavin, 1985; Smith, 1982; Mann, 1959) the workplace (MacKenzie, 1948; Gundlach, 1950), the armed forces (Brophy, 1945; Mannheimer & Williams, 1949), public places like stores and parks (Molotch, 1969; Wilner, Walkley & Cook, 1952) and community affairs (Yarrow, Campbell, & Yarrow, 1958; Bjerstedt, 1962). Previous research has generally concluded that equalstatus, non-competetive contact erodes racial stereotypes, and contributes to a moderation in racial prejudice. Most recently, Sigelman and Welch (1993tusing data from a 1989 ABC News/Washington Post Pollconclude that “Personal contact between whites and blacks is associated with positive white attitudes.” (1993:793) While some of the effects noted by Sigelman and Welch are appreciable, questions remain, however, about whether this contact has any lasting impact on racial attitudes or whether the effect is short-lived. Regarding race relations, the contact hypothesis holds that stereotypical beliefs about another race are based on ignorance, which maintains the sharp division between the lives of whites and blacks. The

Eflect of Childhood Interracial

Contact

3

concept of stereotype disconfirmation is central to the research presented here. A stereotype is defined as an exaggerated belief directed toward a group which serves to justify conduct toward that group (Allport, 1954). This conduct takes the form of traditional prejudice (refusing to eat with blacks, refusing to go to school with blacks, refusing to live with blacks) as well as more subtle forms of prejudice expressed in “abstract, moralistic resentments of blacks.” These resentments are based in the belief that “blacks violate such traditional American values as individualism and self-reliance, the work ethic, obedience, and discipline” (Kinder & Sears, 1981:416). This relatively new form of prejudicetermed “symbolic racism” by Kinder and colleagues-is most evident in white opposition to programs like busing, fair housing, or affirmative action, and in white refusal to vote for black political candidates (Sears & Kinder, 1971; McConahay & Hough, 1976; Kinder & Sears, 1981; Schuman et al., 1985; Simpson & Yinger, 1985; Kluegel, 1990; Firebaugh & Davis, 1988; Essed, 1991). Turner and Musick (1985) outline the presumed causal association between stereotyping and prejudice. When individuals interact under the favorable conditions mentioned above, stereotypes are disconfirmed and prejudice is expected to decrease. Changes in stereotypes-and subsequently in prejudice itself-are facilitated by the frequency, intimacy, duration, and context within which interracial contact occurs (Allport, 1954). Contact may vary in degree of intimacy, from formal and institutionalized with little personal affect, to close and multifaceted, resulting in friendships and further interaction. No one could deny that opportunities for black/white interaction satisfying the contact hypothesis have increased in recent years. These increased opportunities are due in part to several structural trends that should erode high levels of segregation in American society. One powerful force for integration is believed to be economic gains among minorities. Legislation providing for improved access to education and employment translates to greater socioeconomic equality and mobility for minorities. This results in more chances for equal-status contact with whites. As blacks move up the socioeconomic ladder, racial barriers and antagonisms should diminish (Farley, 1984; Turner & Musick, 1985). Further, normally high levels of residential mobility across the U.S. should help break down older patterns of discrimination and promote new patterns of majority/minority accommodation (Turner & Musick, 1985). The long-run consequence of high geographic and social mobility is increased exposure to different types of people and a presumed erosion of stereotypes. According to contact theory, exposure to and interaction with other groups should serve to modify inaccurate stereotypes and undermine justifications for prejudice and discrimination.

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P. B. Wood and N. Sonleitner

PROBLEMS

OF CAUSAL ORDER IN CONTACT RESEARCH

Perhaps the most serious criticism of contact research is the contention that a selection bias operates to promote interaction between whites and blacks who are already relatively unprejudiced toward one another. This interpretation alters the causal sequence surrounding attitude change. Contact theorists view contact as an independent variable influencing attitudes. Critics argue that initially tolerant attitudes often lead persons to engage in or even seek interracial contact. If this were true, the observed attitude differences between those who have experienced contact and those who have not would be due to a predisposition toward racial tolerance rather than contact. We control for this possibility by focusing on past (childhood) contact to predict present (adult) stereotype adherence and ultimately prejudice itself. We argue that childhood interracial contact in schools, neighborhoods, and churches is not voluntary-that is, children don’t usually choose to attend a desegregated school or church, or decide to live in an integrated neighborhood (although sometimes their parents may choose for them). This means the effect of childhood interracial contact on adult stereotyping and prejudice of the sort examined here is not confounded, at least not to the same extent that adult contacts and attitudes may be causally intertwined. Therefore, we believe it is safe to assume any childhood interracial contact a respondent may have had pre-dates a personal selection factor like that described above. This aspect of the current study offsets a major theoretical complication of earlier research.

RESEARCH

HYPOTHESES

The present research proposes that if individuals have equal-status, non-competetive contact in a sanctioned environment, stereotypes will be disconfirmed and prejudice will be reduced. We focus on childhood and adolescent contact in schools and neighborhoods to form a measure of past contact. Our model controls for gender, age, education, occupational prestige, and income. Stereotyping is our main intervening variable. Past contact is predicted to have both a direct, and an indirect, negative effect on prejudice-partly mediated through stereotype adherence, but powerful enough in its own right to claim some independent effect even when controlling for other relevant factors. Should the model prove accurate, it would provide empirical support for continued efforts to desegregate schools and neighborhoods as a means of promoting racial tolerance beginning in childhood.

EfSect of Childhood Interracial Contact

THE RESEARCH

SITE

Shortly after the 1954 Brown decision Oklahoma state leaders began to implement a gradual plan for the desegregation of urban school districts. By October 1959, 246 black students-about one-fourth the total black school population in Oklahoma-were attending mixed-race classes, compared to 8351 the previous year (The Daily Oklahoman, 1959). Despite this seeming progress, OKC schools-like schools in other urban centers across the U.S.--experienced substantial resegregation due to white flight from racially-mixing areas. Subsequently, a series of Federal District Court rulings during the middOs mandated integration of both students and teachers and ruled that the OKC Board of Education must take positive steps to eliminate racial segregation in public schools (The Black Dispatch, 1965). Like other cities across the U.S., desegregation in Oklahoma City was greeted by strong opposition in some school districts and the creation of several all-white private schools in others.’ Despite efforts to desegregate, Oklahoma City Schools remain segregated to a great degree. Nevertheless, a substantial proportion of our sample did experience busing and had significant interracial contact in schools, in addition to contact in neighborhoods and other locations. Regarding our 1991 sample of white adults, 28% of respondents 40 yr of age and older went to desegregated schools when growing up, compared to nearly 80% of those under the age of 40. Oklahoma City is usually categorized as a southern city by most urban researchers, though compared to other southern cities it experienced less than average white flight from racially-mixed areas during the decade of the 70s. Recent work on neighborhood racial change determines that of all racially mixed tracts in 17 large southern cities in 1970, 67.7% experienced white-to-black succession by 1980, 20% experienced racial stability, and 12.3% experienced black displacement-a decline in percent black. In Oklahoma City, 53.3% of racially-mixed tracts in 1970 underwent racial succession by 1980, while 33.3% of such neighborhoods remained racially stable and 13.3% experienced black displacement. From 1970 to 1980, the average change in percent black in racially-mixed neighborhoods in Oklahoma City was +9.5%, compared to the Southern average of +13.6% (Lee & Wood, 1991). Compared to most large or deep-South SMSAs, Oklahoma City had a smaller percent black in both the central city and the SMSA (in 1970, 8.5% of the SMSA population ‘Though a federal judge ruled m 1977 that OKC schools were fully Integrated. by 1985 racial segregation was on the rise once again, introducing the issue of whether oncesegregated schools districts are under any continuing obhgdtion to maintain racial balance once a federal court says they have achieved total integration. A recent Supreme Court decision relieved Oklahoma City Public Schools of further responsibility for forced busing. in effect acknowledging defeat rn the fight to promote school integration.

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P. B. Wood and N. Sonleitner

and 13.9% of the central city population was black, up from 8.1 and 11.6%, respectively, in 1960) a smaller magnitude and slower pace of white out-migration, and a greater likelihood that integrated neighborhoods would remain racially stable (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1961, 1972). There was apparently less reason for whites in OKC to be upset about either school or neighborhood integration and to guard against their children’s experiencing much of it. Further, blacks are not the largest minority group in Oklahoma-that honor goes to Native Americans who make up about 9% of the state population while blacks account for 78% of the total. The above information regarding Oklahoma City sets the context within which the racial dynamics of contact, stereotyping, and prejudice are acted out, and provides some possible reasons for why interracial contact in Oklahoma City schools and neighborhoods might be expected to erode antiblack attitudes. The large, black population that does exists in many southern SMSAs is for the most part absent from Oklahoma City, thus lowering the perceived threat and concern felt by whites. Therefore, it is possible that whites in Oklahoma City may be more amenable to interracial contact than whites in cities with a greater proportion black. It may be, then, that our findings cannot be generalized to other cities with a context less favorable to both the likelihood and positive impact of interracial contact.

DATA, SAMPLE, AND METHODS Data were collected as part of the 12th annual Oklahoma City Survey conducted by the Department of Sociology. The survey is the primary research training tool for graduate students entering the Sociology Graduate Program at the University of Oklahoma. A simple random sample of 389 adults (18 and older) was drawn from the R.L. Polk Directory for Oklahoma City, OK. Initial contact was made with a pre-contact letter sent to prospective respondents stating that a member of the research team would try to schedule an appointment for an interview. Attempts to schedule appointments were made in person by trained interviewers. Members of the target sample who refused to participate or could not be located were replaced through random selection until a total of 389 face-to-face interviews were conducted. The sample drawn does not differ significantly from 1990 census figures for the community in percent male (46% in the sample, 47% in the population) or percent white (83% in the sample, 84% in the population). However, the mean age of the sample (46.5 yr) is significantly higher than the mean age of the total OKC population since only persons over 18 qualified for the survey. Education level of the respondents did not differ significantly from that of the general population, while occupational prestige and income

Efect of Childhood Interracial Contact

7

were slightly higher in the sample compared to the population. Interviews were conducted by trained interviewers in a face-to-face interview setting during March 1991. When prospective respondents declined to participate, replacements were chosen randomly from the Polk Directory. Because the items we used to operationalize anti-black prejudice (our primary dependent variable) were not asked of blacks, nonwhites and persons for whom race was unknown were excluded from the research presented here, limiting our analysis to 292 white respondents. In constructing our predictors and our dependent variable, we used both factor analysis and reliability analysis. Factor analysis (Varimax rotation) generated a series of single factor solutions and all eigenvalues exceeded 1.00. Two primary predictor variables are presented in the analysis that follows. They consist of multiple survey items that were standardized and summed. Our primary predictors include past contact, and stereotype adherence. As illustrated in Table 1, past contact is a three item scale combining responses about childhood interracial contact. Items include having attended the same school with blacks when growing up, living in the same neighborhood with blacks when growing up, and belonging to the same church or organization when growing up, It might be argued that these items do not directly measure amount of contact, but more likely reflect a potential for interracial contact in a context conducive to such interaction. This potential is precisely what policy-makers were trying to enhance in promoting desegregation in schools, neighborhoods, and voluntary organizations, with the hope that the contact sparked by such interracial proximity would generate attitude modification. While measures of the intimacy, duration, priority, and intensity of interracial contact are surely desirable, we are somewhat constrained by the limitations of our data. Future research should aim at establishing a variety of measures of interracial contact, both potential and actual. Factor analysis of the three contact items we use yielded a one-factor solution, eigenvalue=2.004. Cronbach’s alpha for the scale was 0.75. Stereotype adherence operates as both a predictor variable and an intervening variable and consists of four items reflecting the degree to which white respondents agree with popular black stereotypes. In Table 1 these stereotypes are: blacks are more involved in criminal activity than whites, blacks are more involved in drugs than whites, blacks are more dependent on welfare than whites, and blacks are more violent than whites. We recognize that some critics might suggest these items are facts rather than stereotypes. However, a stereotype is a generalization, an exaggerated belief directed toward a group, such that all members of the group are labeled or imbued with that characteristic. While some blacks are more involved than some whites in drug use, criminal activity, and violence, a stereotype implies that all blacks are violent, drug-using criminals, and this simply is not the case. Therefore, we are comfortable

P. B. Wood and N. Sonleitner

TABLE 1 Factor Analysis of Childhood Contact, Stereotyping, and Antiblack Prejudice Items. Varimax Rotation (N= 292) Eigenvalue

2.004

CHILDHOOD CONTACT When you were growing up: Did you ever live in a neighborhood

Factor loading

in which blacks also

lived? Did blacks belong to any of the organizations belonged to like churches or clubs?

0.746 you 0.844

Did you ever attend a school that also had blacks attending? STEREOTYPING

0.857 2.645

On the average: Blacks are more involved in criminal activity than are whites Blacks are more involved in drugs than whites

0.829 0.829

Blacks are more dependent on the welfare system than are whites Blacks are more violent than whites

0.795 0.770

TRADITIONAL ANTIBLACK PREJUDICE There should be laws against interracial marriage I would object if a member of my family wanted to bring a black friend home to dinner Blacks shouldn’t push themselves where they are not wanted White people have a right to keep blacks out of their neighborhoods if they want to, and blacks should respect that right

2.222 0.776 0.683 0.747

0.772

in calling the scale which combines these items a stereotype scale. Factor analysis of this four-item stereotype scale generated a single-factor solution with an eigenvalue of 2.645 and Cronbach’s alpha of 0.83. High scores on this scale reflect greater agreement with demeaning racial stereotypes. Finally, the dependent variable, traditional antiblack prejudice, consists of four Likert response items commonly used in prejudice research (Treiman, 1966; Greeley & Sheatsley, 1971, 1974; Condran, 1979; Tuch, 1981, 1984; Schuman et al., 1985; Wilson, 1986; Firebaugh, & Davis, 1988). These items are represented in Table 1 and reflect a belief in social distance between races. The items address the extent to which subjects respond favorably to: laws against black/white intermarriage, bringing a black home to dinner, blacks living in the same neighborhood, and blacks pushing themselves where they are not wanted. Like the stereotype

EfSect of Childhood Interracial Contact

9

adherence scale, a high score indicates greater antiblack prejudice. The four prejudice items generate a single factor with an eigenvalue of 2.222 and an alpha reliability of 0.73 (See Appendix). We regret that the OKC Survey did not ask questions regarding the racial attitudes of respondent’s parents. Indeed, of any variable omitted from our analysis, parental attitudes are the most troubling since one might suspect that children of pro-integration parents would be more likely to have had more interracial contact when growing up and to be less prejudiced themselves because of their parents’ attitudes. Thus, there is a competing interpretation of our findings, the impact of childhood contact on adult attitudes is spurious, and depends either wholly or somewhat on the racial attitudes of one’s parents. While respondent’s evaluations of their parents’ racial attitudes would have been retrospective and often speculative, it would have allowed us to control for that potentially influential factor, at least to some degree. Clearly the choice to attend integrated schools or churches, or live in integrated neighborhoods was not their own, and children may have been placed in that situation by parents, or even indirectly by real estate agents or agencies-a case of racial steering. However, in that situation parents or institutional actors are doing the selection, not the children, so the children can not be said to have chosen to interact with blacks. While we are unable to control for parent’s racial attitudes, we recommend that this potentially spurious explanation be addressed in subsequent research that includes data on parents’ attitudes. OLS regression is used to determine the effect of our predictors on antiblack prejudice controlling for gender, age, education (years), family income (in thousands of dollars) and occupational prestige (Duncan SEQ. In Table 3 stereotype adherence is treated as a dependent variable while in Table 4 it is used as the primary intervening variable mediating the impact of childhood contact on adult prejudice. ANALYSIS

AND FINDINGS

Table 2 presents bivariate correlations among control, predictor, and dependent variables. As illustrated, past contact has a significant negative association with both antiblack prejudice ( - 0.235) and stereotype adherence ( - 0.184). Interracial contact appears to reduce both stereotype adherence and prejudice. Stereotype adherence is significantly related to age, with older respondents registering higher than younger ones. Table 2 indicates that higher income whites hold slightly more stereotypical racial beliefs than lower income whites (rz0.154). Though this might appear surprising given the negative association between education and both stereotyping and prejudice, we suggest that very affluent white respondents live and work at a significant social and spatial distance from

prejudice adherence contact

(7) Occupational prestige (8) Family income

(4) Age (5) Male (6) Education

(1) Traditional (2) Stereotype (3) Childhood

0.401(0.000) -0.235(0.000) 0.302(0.000) 0.032(0.293) -0.366(0.000) -0.175(0.001) -0.114(0.026)

-

(1) (2)

(k292,

-0.184(0.001) 0.167(0.002) 0.134(0.011) -0.051(0.193) -0.001(0.493) 0.154(0.004)

Bivariate Correlations

0.050(0.197) -0.140(0.008) 0.021(0.361) -0.11 O(O.030)

(4)

Tests of Significance

-0.507(0.000) -0.075(0.102) -0.028(0.320) -0.062fO.173) 0.022(0.353)

(3)

One-tailed

TABLE 2

0.166(0.024) -0.014(0.405) 0.121(0.019)

-

(5)

in Parentheses)

0.429(0.000) 0.307(0.000)

(6)

.305( .OOO)

(7)

*cl

f+

!z % 2

>

9

3 K

per

Efect of Childhood Interracial Contact

11

most blacks in general (Massey, 1990; Massey, Condran, & Denton, 1987) and are subject to fewer equal status contacts than educated, but less affluent, whites. Should this proposition be accurate, we might expect high education to be negatively associate with stereotyping and prejudice while high income would have a more ambiguous effect. Regarding antiblack prejudice, by far the strongest associations are with stereotype adherence (0.401), and education ( - 0.366). Other notable associations include prejudice with age (0.302), and with occupational prestige ( - 0.175). The zero-order relationships suggest that stereotype adherence is most influenced by past contact, age, and family income, respectively. Antiblack prejudice seems most influenced by stereotype adherence, education, age, and past contact in descending order of importance. These findings support our decision to treat stereotype adherence as the major intervening variable between our predictors and antiblack prejudice. The association between past contact and age ( - 0.507) is the strongest bivariate correlation in Table 2 and indicates that childhood interracial contact has increased significantly over the past 20-30 yr. Older respondents seem to be less likely to have had such contact than younger ones, though as noted previously 28% of respondents over 40 years of age went to desegregated schools. Oklahoma City, like many other urban centers across the nation, instituted a desegregation plan in the late 60s and 70s which forced interracial childhood contact on both whites and blacks who are now young adults in our sample. Older respondents were raised in primarily segregated schools and neighborhoods with less opportunity for interracial contact. The strong, negative correlation between past contact and age suggests that structural barriers may explain why older persons are routinely more prejudiced than younger ones (see Firebaugh & Davis, 1988, and Ryder, 1965, for comments regarding the efficacy of cohort analysis). Table 3 presents OLS regression analysis and examines the effect of childhood contact on stereotype adherence--our primary intervening variable. Absent controls (Table 3, Equation I), past contact registers a significant effect on stereotyping (beta= - 0.184). After controls are added (Equation II), income becomes the primary predictor (beta = 0.19 1) followed by past contact (beta= - 0.127). Equation II demonstrates that with controls added, the effect of childhood interracial contact on adult adherence to negative racial stereotypes remains significant at PcO.028. While Table 3 demonstrates the impact of childhood contact on stereotype adherence, Table 4 presents three models, each predicting variance in antiblack prejudice. Equation I uses only past contact to explain about 5% of the variance in prejudice. Equation II adds age and education, both powerful control variables. Equation III includes stereotype adherence-our primary intervening variable, to explain nearly 33% of the variance in antiblack prejudice.

P. B. Wood and N. Sonleitner

12

TABLE 3 OLS Regression of Stereotype Adherence on Independent Variables (N=292, One-Tailed Tests of Significance) Equation

I

Equation II

b

Beta

P

-.244 -

-.184 -

,001 -

-

-

Family income Intercept

5.194

-

Re

0.034

Predictor*

Childhood Male

contact

Age Education

-

Beta

P

-.169 0.775

-0.127 0.119

0.028 0.019

0.021 -0.135

0.109 -0.111

0.051 0.033

0.017 -0.101

0.190

0.001

b

0.092

*Occupational prestige was dropped (P-CO. 10) in any equation.

from Table 3 as it did not approach

significance

In Table 4, Equation I indicates that past contact exherts a significant impact on antiblack prejudice (beta= - 0.235). When age and education are added in Equation II, the influence of childhood contact declines but remains significant, and the variance explained increases to nearly 22%. Even when stereptype adherence is added in Equation III past contact still registers a significant impact on prejudice (beta= - 0.111, P=O.O27). In sum, OLS regression identifies only four independent variables significant at P~0.05: stereotype adherence, education, age, and past contact (betas of 0.341, - 0.332, 0.140, and - 0.111 respectively in Equation III, Table 4). Equation III implies that regardless of the intervening effect of stereotype adherence, past contact exerts a significant, direct effect on antiblack prejudice. Of our control variables, only education and age maintain a direct, significant effect on prejudice when stereotyping. is added to the model (Equation III in Table 4).

DISCUSSION Aside from family income, past contact exerts the strongest influence on stereotype adherence (see betas in Equation II, Table 3). Previous work has suggested a causal relationship between stereotyping and prejudice (Turner & Musick, 1985), though it appears from our analysis that both are subject to alteration by interracial contact matching the conditions described earlier (equal-status, non-competetive, approved by authorities, and sustained over time). Findings presented in Tables 3 and 4 provide empirical verification of this relationship. Our research seems to support the Turner and Musick (1985) framework which predicts a

‘Gender,

occupational

-

-

-0.235

Beta

I

-

b

0.168 -0.347 -

0.003 0.000

0.005

P

from Table 4 as they did not approach

3.900 0.215

0.030 -0.386 -

-0.160

Beta

II

(P