Alumni Association Home > Past Issues > 2006 > November-December 2006	Print View

White Americans do not consider their racial identity to be as relevant to their lives as Americans of color do, but scholars have been wrong to assume that racial identity is not at all important to whites. That is one key finding by researchers in the University of Minnesota sociology department in their pioneering nationwide survey of 2,000 households that explored what it means to be a white American.

The survey attempted to quantify the core assumptions of “whiteness theory,” an emerging area of study within ethnic and racial studies that maintains that the way whites view their racial identity and the privileges that go with it is key to understanding fully the dynamics of race in America.

The assumption behind prior scholarship was that whites overlooked their own race. “It’s sort of like having an accent. For some white Americans, racial identity is so fixed, so taken for granted, that race becomes something other people have,” said the study’s co-author, associate professor Doug Hartmann.

Hartmann and his colleagues, however, found that the question of racial identity was richly nuanced among white respondents. Racial identity was important to a majority (74 percent) of the survey respondents (37 percent called it “very important” and 37 percent called it “somewhat important”), and a similar number were able to see prejudice and discrimination as important in explaining white advantage.

Yet, whites tended to be more aware of inequalities toward people of color than they were of the privileges attendant to being white; most whites were likely to say that whites are better off than others because of their own effort and hard work as well as differences in upbringing. Nonetheless, whites were notably less willing to say that the same factors have held African Americans back.

Another key finding of the survey was that all Americans, regardless of color, adhere strongly to colorblind ideologies, defined as the belief that hard work and individual effort determine success. Researchers were surprised to find that 81 percent of non-whites viewed effort and hard work as important in explaining white advantage. “Clearly, the effects of American ideals and individualism are strong for people across all racial groups in our society,” the researchers note.

Among the study’s other findings:

• Age and income have little impact on a white person’s awareness of his or her own racial identity. But Southerners and social conservatives place more emphasis on their racial identity than other white Americans, while those with more education place less.
• Males and Republicans are less likely than others to believe that laws and institutions are important in explaining why whites are better off than others.
• While 37 percent of whites considered their racial identity “very important,” 72 percent of non-whites did.
• Seventy-seven percent of white respondents said they felt their own racial group has a culture that ought to be preserved; 91 percent of non-whites said the same thing. However, only 4 percent of white respondents was involved in an organization based on racial or ethnic identity, and the percentage for non-whites was 14.

The survey was part of the American Mosaic Project, a three-year project funded by the Minneapolis-based David Edelstein Family Foundation that looks at race, religion, and cultural diversity in the United States.

Early Warning Sign

Teens who show insulin resistance as early as age 13 may be at increased risk for cardiovascular disease by age 19, according to a study at the University of Minnesota Medical School. The study is the first to show that insulin resistance alone, independent from obesity, is a significant predictor of cardiovascular disease, beginning in childhood. Insulin is a hormone that regulates sugars, starches, fats, and proteins in the blood.

Insulin resistance means that the cells do not use insulin properly, causing the body to produce more of it and thereby increasing the risk of type 2 diabetes, a major cardiovascular disease risk factor. The study involved 224 Minneapolis public school students in grades five through eight.

Superbug Challenge

An interdisciplinary team of researchers from the University of Minnesota and the University of Michigan has discovered a new method of developing antibiotics that may be an important step in fighting the growing number of drug-resistant infections, or “superbugs.” Once found only in hospital settings, superbugs are now being found in community settings, including schools, nursing homes, and locker rooms.

The researchers say the new approach is more efficient and environmentally friendly than that used in traditional drug development because it does not rely on chemical manipulation of an existing antibiotic. The new approach instead utilizes the bacteria itself to produce new compounds that may lead to new drugs. Officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have called antibiotic resistance one of the world’s most pressing public health problems.

To Sleep, Perchance to . . . Rehash the Day

Sharing a bed is a complicated, changing, and sometimes challenging experience for couples, according to a University of Minnesota family social science professor who interviewed 42 bed-sharing couples about the pleasures and pains of sleeping together. While volumes have been written about sleep as an individual phenomenon, professor Paul Rosenblatt is the first to examine what it means to share a bed with someone else, how it affects the couple’s relationship, how the relationship affects the bed sharing and how couples dealt with the complexities of sharing a bed.

Among other findings, Rosenblatt discovered that couples use the time before drifting off to sleep to catch up on what’s going on with one another, plan, make decisions, deal with disagreements, and solve problems. Rosenblatt noted that as life changes—for example, if one partner has an injury or chronic illness or when the couple has children—people have to learn over and over how they sleep together. Rosenblatt’s study is the basis for his new book Two in a Bed: The Social System of Couple Bed Sharing.

The Secret Lives of Insects

In a discovery that furthers the quest to understand why the tropics have so much biodiversity, scientists have found that insect appetites near the equator aren’t all that different from those of insects in temperate climates, but the more diverse tropical menu brings a larger number of species to the table.

A study spearheaded by University of Minnesota plant biologist George Weiblen confirms what biologists since Darwin have suspected: that the vast number of species in rain forests accounts for the equally vast number of plant-eating insects. The study rejected a theory that tropical insects are actually picky eaters that prefer fewer host plants than insects in temperate climates. Identical experiments on tropical and temperate insects were unknown until Weiblen developed a technique to control for differences in food plant diversity. Researchers collected insect species feeding on 22 tree species in the Czech Republic and 22 species in Papua New Guinea.

Wanted: Family-Friendly Jobs

Young women who aspire to careers in male-dominated professions frequently switch tracks because they do not believe their jobs will allow them the flexibility to have a family, according to a study by researchers at the University of Minnesota and three other institutions.

The study looked at 137 female high school seniors in 1990 who aspired to male-dominated careers, such as engineering. Seven years later, 83 percent of those women had changed their occupational aspirations to female-dominated or neutral jobs. The most significant predictor for a young woman to change her career plans was a desire to have a job that allowed family time.

The authors said that initiatives encouraging girls to take classes in math and science are not an adequate response to the problem of too few women in science and technology fields. They suggested that employers need to provide child care and a flexible working schedule to employees without compromising promotions or other career opportunities. They also recommended creating programs for young men that focus on taking on equal responsibility for child care and homemaking.

Stem Cells Mend Fragile Hearts

People whose hearts are too compromised to undergo conventional surgery may one day benefit from research under way at the University of Minnesota that repairs pig hearts using stem cells and robotic surgery techniques. A team of researchers has improved the function of pig hearts by injecting stem cells into precisely targeted areas of the heart using robotic surgical equipment. In six out of seven cases, the cells successfully established themselves in the hearts, which were damaged in a way similar to what happens when a person has a heart attack. Subsequent tests showed that the cells had integrated themselves into heart tissue.

—Edited by Cynthia Scott