Deracializing Social Statistics: Problems in the Quantification of Race

Tukufu Zuberi
Additional contact information
Tukufu Zuberi: University of Pennsylvania

The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 2000, vol. 568, issue 1, 172-185

Abstract: Race is usually defined as an individual attribute fixed at birth and is employed by researchers as a variable with potential for causing change in some other aspect of that same individual. When an individual's race can change (as in Brazil), race is not an attribute but a dynamic characteristic dependent on other social circumstances. In the United States, an individual's race cannot change and thus is considered an individual attribute. As such, social statisticians may have measured racial classification correctly. The major error is in how race has been interpreted. The author suggests a new language to express things that our current language handles inadequately. This new language attempts to increase the efficiency of communication about the statistical analysis of race.

Date: 2000
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/000271620056800113 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:anname:v:568:y:2000:i:1:p:172-185

DOI: 10.1177/000271620056800113

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().