Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: For 75 years, the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program has been a key source of crime data, used both as a social indicator and a means of testing criminological theories. It is an aggregate reporting system that collects counts of specific types of crime. The primary typology it employs is the Index Crime Classification, which includes seven types of common-law crime: homicide, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny, and motor vehicle theft. This classification emphasizes certain aspects of crime events and ignores others. As a result, very different types of crime events can be classified as the same. If there is substantial intra-class heterogeneity in these classes, they can present a distorted picture of crime problems and reduce the power of explanatory models of crime. This paper explores the internal heterogeneity of index crime classes and presents alternative crime classifications that are more internally homogeneous in terms of the moral evaluation of the act. This is done by using the crime seriousness scaling data collected by Wolfgang, Rossi, Berk and others.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: What happens when there’s an imperfect fit between everyday terms and the special definitions for them respondents are supposed to apply in a survey? Everyday concepts are often quite complicated and may allow for multiple senses, but surveys may impose definitions that depart from these everyday meanings. We examined two concepts — residence and disability — that appear in many surveys. Our first study used several methods to explore the everyday senses of these concepts. In our second experiment, respondents got definitions for residence and disability and classified vignettes describing concrete instances. For each concept, one definition reflected the everyday sense of the concept and the second departed from it. The vignettes varied in how well the instance matched each definition’s requirements. Participants who got the technical definition for residence applied it with reasonable accuracy, but those who got the technical definition for disability fell back on their everyday sense of the term. In addition, participants were better at classifying vignettes that closely matched the definition (central instances) than ones that matched it only partly (peripheral instances). Our third experiment encouraged participants to pay more attention to the definitions by giving the concepts unfamiliar labels (e.g., calling a residence an enumeration unit). Although the use of unfamiliar terminology increased the proportion of respondents who consulted the definitions, respondents still relied on their everyday sense of the concepts, especially for disability, and they were better at classifying central than peripheral instances. Respondents have difficulty using concepts in unfamiliar ways and, when they have to, they often make errors. Special definitions for everyday concepts are common in surveys; our results suggest that they can produce reporting errors because respondents don’t realize that the technical sense of a concept differs from the everyday sense and because some situations don’t map neatly onto either sense.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: In this paper, I explore the role of restaurants, as consumption spaces, in defining the consumptional identity of 243 American cities. Specifically, I ask whether, and how, U.S. cities can be classified on the basis of the local prevalence of specific types of restaurants - are some cities culinary deserts, while others are gastronomic oases? A two-stage cluster analysis revealed four distinct city types, which fall along two intersecting dimensions: a quantitative dimension of restaurant availability, and a qualitative cultural dimension. These four city types are characterized,then connected to the existing literature on consumption spaces. Additionally, a strong parallel between these city types and the communities discussed by Florida (2003) is explored.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This paper explores American conceptions of race, citizenship and national identity against the backdrop of the US colonial project in the Philippines c. 1898-1910. This article locates the racialization of Filipinos within the geo-politics of the capitalist world economy, exploring how intersecting discourses of national and racial supremacy bolstered colonial power relations between the United States and the Philippines. I argue that the politics of racial formation in the United States was dialectically linked to the process of nation building, demonstrating how the rituals of boundary construction and social closure inherent to both phenomena were mutually constitutive. This paper examines how racial ideology was mobilized by supporters and opponents of the American colonial project in the Philippines. The final section of the paper looks at attempts by American colonial officials to develop a rational system of racial classification in the Philippines based on American racial categories.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Enduring gaps in the educational achievement and attainment of subgroups within our public education system have spurred a new focus on educational reform. The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 emphasizes accountability through strict proficiency and progress requirements disaggregated by a variety of historically disadvantaged subgroups, including major racial and ethnic subgroups, to ensure that ‘no child is left behind’. Measuring proficiency and adequate yearly progress of subgroups requires strict and consistent racial/ethnic classifications. Changes in educational policy and accountability are occurring at a time when issues of multiracial identity and the validity and reliability of reports of race and ethnicity are highly contentious. Such issues have reaffirmed the notion that race and ethnicity are socially constructed, complex and fluid concepts that are not easily reducible to strict, mutually exclusive categories. Using linked race/ethnic school composition data obtained from school administrator reports and from student self-reports, we investigate the validity and reliability of the Department of Education’s racial and ethnic classification system and the possible impact of this on the identification of schools as ‘failing’ or ‘successful’ under NCLB. Results indicate mean differences between school administrator reported and student reported race/ethnic proportions within schools. Further analysis of such discrepancies points to the influence of multiracial populations and the confounding of race and ethnicity. These results raise questions regarding the validity of NCLB's accountability system.