These are all essential aspects of American life, and all have been shown to have a racialized component.

It is unfortunate that other equally important topics were not discussed. For example, there is no paper on race and politics because the author who agreed to address that topic had to withdraw from the conference. Other important topics not discussed, that nevertheless evince relevant racial and ethnic nuances, include transportation, rural communities, and disability. None of these yet has a strong enough research base to warrant the commissioning of papers.

Nonetheless, the scholarly papers produced for discussion covered a wide range of issues. They summarized key trends, described gaps in research and data, and suggested research directions for the next decade. These volumes contain updated versions of selected conference papers and, in the case of criminal justice, two discussants’ comments.

At the end of this introduction, the key findings are briefly summarized. Preceding that summarization, however, there is a discussion of two issues that are important to bear in mind in any overall assessment of racial trends in America: (1) the methodological considerations affecting the study of race and ethnicity, and (2) the complexity of the different social and cultural foundations of inequalities and other racial and ethnic group outcomes.

Some incipient idea of race goes back as far in history as ethnocentrism itself. For our times, the most relevant heritage is found in the concept of “race” produced by nineteenth-century colonialism and anthropology. Human classifications varied, but were largely associated with the world’s regional distribution of populations; in some cases races were named for skin color—white, black, yellow, brown, and red. The widely accepted definitional basis was biological—skin color, distinctive facial characteristics, height, build, hair texture, and other physical features, as well as temperamental and psychological traits. Above all, this concept of race connoted that groups could be arrayed on a scale from biologically superior to biologically inferior; consequently, the biological basis for race has an ugly and tragic past, invoked as it has been to justify racial discrimination, colonial domination, slavery, genocide, and holocaust.

One of the great accomplishments of the behavioral and social sciences in the twentieth century has been to logically discredit the nineteenth-century conception of race by amassing evidence on millennia of

Front Matter (R1-R30)

1. Introduction (1-20)

2. An Overview of Trends in Social and Economic Well-Being, by Race (21-39)

3. An Overview of Racial and Ethnic Demographic Trends (40-102)

4. Hispanics in a Multicultural Society: A New American Dilemma? (103-134)

5. Trends Among American Indians in the United States (135-169)

6. Political Trends and Electoral Issues of the Asian Pacific American Population (170-199)

7. Contemporary Immigration and Dynamics of Race and Ethnicity (200-242)

8. The Changing Meaning of Race (243-263)

9. Racial Attitudes and Relations at the Close of the Twentieth Century (264-301)

10. Racial Trends and Scapegoating: Bringing in a Comparative Focus (302-317)

11. Affirmative Action: Legislative History, Jhudicial Interpretations, Public Consensus (318-347)

12. Test Score Trends Along Racial Lines, 1971 to 1996: Popular Culture and Community Academic Standards (348-390)

13. Residential Segregation and Neighborhood Conditions in U.S. Metropolitan Areas (391-434)

14. Geography and Apportunity (435-468)

Appendix A: Acronyms (469-471)

Appendix B: Agenda: Research Conference on Racial Trends in the United States (472-476)

Appendix C: Biographical Sketches (477-484)

Index (485-530)