ESRA 2027 sessions by theme

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Session Details

Racial discrimination remains a pervasive issue in many societies. Survey research on this topic provides crucial insights into social inequalities but also poses significant methodological challenges. This session focuses on the empirical investigation of racist attitudes and beliefs. Its aim is to bring together contributions that advance survey research on the measurement and reporting of racist attitudes and beliefs. The measurement differs from concepts such as old-fashioned racism (e.g., beliefs about biological differences) and modern racism (e.g., perceptions that minority groups make excessive demands) as well as ultramodern racism (e.g., beliefs that race and racism are no longer relevant). This may reflect societal changes as well as methodological developments and may significantly affect prevalence estimates. At the same time, the way racialized groups are defined and operationalized can substantially influence findings on racist attitudes and beliefs: whether survey items refer to a specific racialized group (e.g., Arabs, Asians, Muslim, East-European, Jewish or Black people) or aim to capture more general racist attitudes without referencing a particular target group may influence prevalence estimates.
Relevant topics for this session include, but are not limited to:
- Methodological advances in measuring racist attitudes and beliefs, including implicit and explicit measures, data linkage procedures, and comparisons of survey instruments
- Contributions that integrate open-ended survey responses, social media comments, or other unstructured text data using AI-based methods
- Experimental designs for studying racist attitudes and beliefs
- Measurement invariance testing of racist attitudes and beliefs instruments
- Longitudinal studies of racist attitudes and beliefs, including trends over time, changes in prevalence, and shifts in forms of discrimination
- The influence of operationalizing key concepts, such as racialized group membership, on estimates of racist attitudes and beliefs