Reconstructing Race in Science and Society: Biology Textbooks, 1952–2002

Abstract

How has growing knowledge about human genetics affected how American textbooks present race? This article analyzes 80 biology textbooks published from 1952 to 2002 to reveal that U.S. biology texts have pursued the topic of race with renewed vigor in recent years. Moreover, textbooks have redefined race as genetic without furnishing empirical evidence for this framing. The textbooks' transformation sheds light on the broader relationship between race and science in the United States, where claims about racial difference have not only drawn instrumentally and selectively from empirical research, but at times forgo scientific grounding altogether. As the textbooks show, both the tight and the loose linkage of race to science can preserve the cultural authority of the race concept. The texts also make clear that race is not a one-time construct or a relic of centuries past. Instead, it is continually remade -- and is being reworked today -- suggesting its dynamic adaptation for ongoing use as a fundamental tool of social stratification.

The Genomic Revolution and Beliefs about Essential Racial Differences

“…First, a content analysis of news articles published between 1985 and 2008 revealed that articles about race, genetics, and health in general, and more specifically articles resembling our Backdoor Vignette, which focused on a specific health-related genetic difference between blacks and whites, increased significantly over the study period. These findings cohere with those of Morning (2008), who found that messages such as those described by Duster largely account for the reemergence of the subject of race in high school biology textbooks in the 1990s. Remarkably, indirect discussions of race in the context of medical disorders (i.e., backdoor messages) appeared in 0 percent of textbooks from 1952 to 1962 but appeared in 93 percent of textbooks from 1993 to 2002.…”

“…First, these reports communicate, with the authoritative voice of science and medicine (Morning 2008), that race is a valid and useful way of categorizing humans. In addition, rather than focusing on similarities among racial groups, these reports alert us to critical, even life-threatening differences.…”

The Continuing Significance of Race

“…The problem today is no different, except that the idea of race as biological is pervasive in our culture. Research finds that the idea of race as biology is again alive and well in high school biology textbooks (Morning 2008(Morning , 2011. Mainstream media reproduce the notion of race as biology in TV shows such as Gates' Finding Your Roots and African American Lives, in which genetic ancestry testing is used to presumably identify the racial makeup of people or to identify what region of Africa one's ancestors descended from.…”

Enforcing the Colorline and Counting White Races: Race and the Census in North America, 1900–1941

“…Racial categories are neither normative nor universal. On the contrary, all forms of racial classification are social constructions (Omi and Winant 1994;Hollinger 2006;Haney-López 2006;Morning 2008).…”