The Social Construction of Prejudice among Black and White College Students

"Why has the black unemployment rate in the United States been more than twice that of whites over the past three decades? This article builds on earlier efforts to explain this conundrum using a discrimination framework, but it refocuses the explanation onto indirect cultural factors that motivate discriminatory behavior. Consistent with a call for using social phenomena to explain economic outcomes, the article reveals that "infotainment" (information and entertainment) contributes to increases in the black-white unemployment rate gap and to higher black unemployment". ("JEL "J164, J71, Z10) Copyright (c) 2008 Western Economic Association International.

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Realizing Race

Ritter

Roth

Advances in Human Resources Management and Organizational Development

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Media representations are for most of us a window on the world. We hear, see, or otherwise experience forms of culture through mass distributed imagery, music, news, fashion, and film, among other media. The U.S. is the global leader in the distribution of media, accounting for one-third of more than $30 billion annually in worldwide film distribution alone. Media representations from the U.S. are distinctive and carry signs of the country's long struggle with race and equality. International college students with little exposure to the U.S. outside of its depiction in exported media come here with racial perceptions that can be detrimental to their own and the college experiences of others, namely African American men. Girded by two qualitative studies at the University of California, Los Angeles, this chapter examines how media representations can flavor cross-cultural interactions, and what implications these interactions may have for campus climate, as well as cross-cultural learning opportunities for both international and underrepresented domestic student groups.

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The Social Construction of Prejudice among Black and White College Students

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Nine themes in campus racial climates and implications for institutional transformation

Nine themes in campus racial climates and implications for institutional transformation

Black Unemployment and Infotainment

Realizing Race

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