What Race Is Lacey? Intersecting Perceptions of Racial Minority Status and Social Class

M. Rose Barlow and Joanna Lahey

Social Science Quarterly, 2018, vol. 99, issue 5, 1680-1698

Abstract: Objective We examine how naïve raters’ perception of first name socioeconomic status (SES) is related to the name's perceived race. Methods Student volunteers rate the perceived race and SES of first names. We use a logit model to analyze the data. Results Participants are four times as likely to say a “White” name is Black when they perceive the mother as uneducated, compared to highly educated. While most raters accurately predict a name's race, a substantial minority of college students believe that names given by low‐SES White parents are Black names. Conclusion Examining the presence and mechanisms of bias is a vital step in fair and just decision making. This new study adds to the literature by taking an intersectional experimental approach combining ratings of racial and SES categories in a large sample of names.

Date: 2018
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