Beyond the Looking Glass: Exploring Fluidity in Racial Self-Identification and Interviewer Classification. (June 2014)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Saperstein, Aliya; Penner, Andrew M.
• Is Part Of: Sociological perspectives. Volume 57:Number 2(2014:Summer)
• Page Start: 186
• Page End: 207
• Publication Date: 2014-06
• Subjects: racial classification -- racial identification -- racial fluidity; Sociology -- Periodicals; 301.05
• DOI: 10.1177/0731121414523732
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0731-1214

Abstract

Research has demonstrated the fluidity of racial self-identification and interviewer classification, but how they influence each other over time has not been systematically explored using national, longitudinal data. A typical theoretical prediction, consistent with theories of a "looking-glass self, " is that people calibrate their self-identification in accordance with how they are perceived by others. We examine the degree to which this and other symbolic-interactionist processes account for the dynamics of racial categorization among young adults in the United States. To do so, we deploy a conceptual framework focused on three key dimensions of variation—concordance, stability, and influence—that capture both inconsistency in racial categorization at a given point in time and fluidity in either measure of race over time. We find that while the standard looking-glass self-perspective accounts for the majority of racial fluidity, a substantial proportion of changes in both measures of race remain unexplained by existing theory.