Affirmative Action Attitudes of Whites: Evidence from a List Experiment Survey in Brazil

Abstract

Recently in Brazil, public policies have begun to be implemented to reduce discrimination and promote the inclusion of excluded social groups based on a specific individual characteristic: race. However, there is little public consensus about such policies, especially among whites. In this work, I look at the racial attitudes towards affirmative action among white college students. I make use of new research methods for the empirical study of socially sensitive issues and ask whether these attitudes stem from prejudice, conflicts between social groups or individual political predispositions. Furthermore, I ask what is the relationship between political knowledge and such racial attitudes. I use the list experiment method because of its potential to offset the under-representation of opinions and attitudes. This approach allows respondents to be indirectly questioned, ensuring greater sincerity in their answers and, hence, providing more accurate portrayal of attitudes. This study shows that white respondents' answers on affirmative action policies are strongly affected by social desirability. Only 6% of white respondents agreed that it is important to have a quota policy for blacks at the Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC). Individuals with greater political knowledge tend to express greater support for affirmative action and hold more coherent racial attitudes Results also reveal that negative racial attitudes and political predispositions are both determinants of the white student's attitudes towards affirmative action policies. Keywords: Affirmative action; racial attitudes; public opinion; political knowledge; experiment. he implementation of affirmative action policies in Brazil to promote the inclusion of social groups excluded specifically based on race are a recent development. These policies vary from the creation of quotas that promote access of blacks to higher education to universalist efforts to reduce the impoverished Brazilian populations composed mostly of blacks (TELLES and BAILEY, 2002) 1 . However, the perception of these policies by white individuals is not well understood.In this article, I present a study of racial attitudes among white college students at the Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC) and their opposition to affirmative action. Attitudes against affirmative action encompass a variety of arguments and values, which include some of the following notions: affirmative action consists of an unfair preferential policy; the policy is reverse discrimination; and the policy stigmatizes the people they want to help (BOBO, 1999;SEARS et al., 1997).The purpose of this article is to advance our understanding of white opposition to affirmative action in Brazilian federal public universities. I draw on the literatures of the three main schools of thought explaining opposition to racial policies in the UnitedStates, all of which propose competing theories. However, these theories are often discussed in the context of race being a discrete, or even binary, entity. How can these t...

Use of Experimental Methods in the Field of Migration Studies

“…Göç çalışmaları alanında özellikle liste deneyi olarak adlandırılan anket deneyleri etnik ve göçmen azınlıkların sosyal haklara erişimlerini kolaylaştıracak politika düzenlemelerine ve liberal göç politikalarına kamuoyu desteğinin boyutlarının araştırılması için sıklıkla başvurulan bir yöntem olmuştur (Creighton ve Jamal, 2020;Kuklinski vd., 1997;Vidigal, 2018). Arzu edilebilirlik yanlılığı nedeniyle gözlemsel çalışma yöntemleriyle kamuoyu görüşü hakkında sağlıklı veri elde etmenin zor olduğu ırkçılık ve ayrımcılık gibi konuların yanı sıra kısıtlayıcı göç politikası tercihlerinin incelenmesi için de liste deneyleri kullanılmaktadır.…”

Ciências Sociais Hoje: Sociologia

“…Ainda com foco no Sul do Brasil, outro artigo analisou as atitudes raciais em relação às PAA entre universitários brancos na Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina (UFSC), colocando no centro da análise a branquitude, que é um conceito emergente na produção mais recente no campo. O estudo apontou que apenas 6% dos entrevistados brancos concordam que é importante ter uma política de cotas para negros na UFSC, associando tal resultado ao fato de os entrevistados serem afetados pela "conveniência social" (Vidigal, 2018).…”

Attitudes on Affirmative Action in University Students: Effects of Race, Political Beliefs and Prejudice

“…Non-whites, for their part, may under-represent their true support when asked directly, by fear of being judged as unconcerned about questions of merit and fairness. When social desirability bias is expected, scholars have frequently adopted indirect measures of attitudes like the list and endorsement experiments to circumvent this social desirability bias in attitude report (Kim & Kim, 2016;Sniderman & Grob, 1996;Vidigal, 2018). Turgeon, Chaves and Wives (2014), for example, used a list experiment to measure attitudes about racial quotas in university admissions in Brazil.…”