Associate Professor of Sociology at New York University Ann Morning yesterday delivered the second lecture in a four?part series sponsored by the Transnational Studies Working Group that will bring experts involved with race and ethnic studies in academia to the Hill.
In the lecture titled "The Nature of Race: Exploring Concepts of Human Difference," Morning discussed the conceptualization of race and shared her research on how different groups put into practice varying definitions of race. These topics are the central themes of her recent book, "The Nature of Race: How Scientists Think and Teach about Human Difference."
The lecture, sponsored by a grant from the Office of the Dean of Faculty Arts and Sciences, was organized by Assistant Professor of Sociology Ryan Centner, Assistant Professors of English Ichiro Takayoshi and Radiclani Clytus and Assistant Professor of History Kris Manjapra. These four professors make up the Transnational Studies Working Group.
"We were paying attention to [Dean of Arts and Sciences Joanne Berger?Sweeney's] new initiative and trying to explore possibilities for a new curriculum related to studies of race and ethnicity," Centner said. "We thought we can help foster further discussion around that topic by bringing in four speakers who have either some institutional experience related to that, or [whose] research is extremely relevant to race and ethnicity."
Morning's research focused on whether Americans' definitions of race are rooted in biological or socially constructed differences, she explained.
Morning investigated two different definitions of race - "essentialist" definitions, through which races are thought about as biologically distinctive clusters within the species, and "constructivist" notions of race, through which races are considered artificially made groups defined by human beings.
She conducted interviews with biologists and anthropologists to determine how experts define race, she explained. Morning also analyzed the content of high school biology and social science textbooks and conducted interviews with college students to learn more about how race is portrayed to the public.
Her research indicated that there remains vast uncertainty about whether race is a biological or ideological phenomenon, she explained.
She found that varying conceptions existed not only between biologists and anthropologists, but also among experts within the same discipline.
"Within each of these disciplinary groupings there is a lot of disagreement, a lot of confusion, a lot of debate about how to best understand race," she said. "This is variation that is intradisciplinary."
Morning explained that this divide exists even though constructivists have countered essentialist arguments with biological evidence that there is at least as much biological variation within racial groups as there is between groups.
The way people view race impacts their actions, she explained, citing evidence from social psychologists that people who employ a biological lens to view race generally have more negative attitudes toward members of other racial groups.
"The ways in which people think differences are manifested affects the kinds of practices we put into place," she said.
She emphasized the importance of defining what race truly is in order to facilitate better dialogue about race relations.
"We study things other than people's definitions or concepts of race," she said. "We pay attention to race relations; we care a lot about racial attitudes and racism. In the midst of all this, we haven't stopped to ask ourselves what race is."
