Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Many probation and parole departments utilize actuarial instruments to identify offender risk/need factors and to develop assessment-based supervision strategies. To evaluate the effectiveness of a specific risk/need assessment tool, it is important for departments to validate their instrument on their correctional population to determine if it is predictive of recidivism across the various offenders that they supervise. As part of the Travis Community Impact Supervision Initiative, the Travis County Community Supervision and Corrections department has focused on utilizing risk/need assessment appropriately as part of a larger “top to bottom” re-engineering of the department. In a previous evaluation of the Wisconsin Risk Instrument in Travis County Community Supervision and Corrections, the department found that this instrument predicted re-arrest and incarceration for both male and female offenders over a two-year follow-up period. The current study builds on this earlier study by examining the ability of the instrument to predict specific types of probation violations, re-arrest, and incarceration across various racial/ethnic samples. The discussion will focus on the study results, implications for future evaluations of risk/need assessment tools, and suggestions for developing appropriate data-driven supervision policies.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Newly implemented Office of Management and Budget regulations regarding the classification of race and ethnicity on federal surveys (i.e. using a “mark all that apply” question methodology) may more accurately capture the complexity of respondents’ race and ethnicity than the previous “mark only one” methodology. But the new schema may also produce racial/ethnic classifications that disrupt long-established longitudinal trends.

Using longitudinal data on a highly specific population—doctorate recipients and the science and engineering workforce as surveyed in the federally sponsored Survey of Earned Doctorates and Survey of Doctorate Recipients—this paper will analyze trends in racial/ethnic reporting, comparing the “mark only one” and the “check all that apply” methodologies. The paper will assess the stability of estimates of race/ethnicity in these two surveys, comparing racial/ethnic profiles of respondents before and after the OMB-mandated change in racial/ethnic classification.

A particular focus of this paper will be the impact of the “multiracial” category on the counts of racial/ethnic minority subpopulations, particularly among African-Americans, Asians, and American Indians. Do the new “check all that apply” methods have the unintended consequence of depressing counts of these groups because of decisions to classify those who select multiple ancestries as “multiracial”? With respect to the American Indians/Alaskan Natives subpopulation, the SED data are noteworthy in the collection of verbatim tribal affiliation information, and we will also examine these data to assess further the possible under-reporting of American Indians/Alaskan Natives.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: The extent to which immigrants develop primary relations with members of the majority group has traditionally formed the keystone of classical assimilation theory. However, lack of data has led most empirical examination of this idea to rely on the study of patterns of spatial assimilation focusing on the foreign-born and not the later generations of immigrant groups. This paper compares the level of racial and ethnic homogeneity in strong ties between the foreign-born and native-born of two immigrant groups in Los Angeles County. It finds that the native-born of these groups have a significantly higher proportion of interethnic and interracial ties, but that these differences are largely confined to the native-born living outside ethnic enclaves and in wealthier areas. It further finds that for those of Mexican origin, the foreign-born have a higher proportion of strong ties with neighbors than with people living farther away. The paper discusses the implications for new theories of assimilation or incorporation.

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.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This paper investigates the impact that educational institutions and family memory have on Mexican Americans’ racial identity formation. Based on original research, I use interviews with twenty-nine three-generation Mexican American families in California (sixty-seven total interviews) to answer the questions: how does the educational system treat second and third generation Mexican Americans? How does this treatment influence what it means to be Mexican American? How do parents’ experiences with school shape their ideologies and practices regarding their children’s education? Using a family-oriented “racial-generational approach,” I seriously investigate the linkages between the first (immigrant), second, and third generations. I make three inter-related arguments. First, educational institutions discriminate according to race in a manner befitting the particular historical moment (“Jim Crow” style segregation in the second generation and institutional discrimination in the third generation). Second, I document how family beliefs and practices concerning education are transferred inter-generationally in a family. Finally, I suggest that each generation crafts it’s own racial identity strategy that is born of the twin influences of family history and historical moment. Highlighting the experiential level, I demonstrate how the significant sociological concepts of race, identity, and culture are created through the institutions of family and society, in conjunction with historical social movements.