Environmental determinants of racial attitudes redux: The critical decisions related to operationalizing context

Although scholars have long been interested in how context shapes racial attitudes, research in this area has fallen short of a consensus. Instead, the results span a wide range, with some studies finding that racial understanding is promoted by intergroup contact whereas others claim that racial and ethnic outgroups are perceived as a threat to economic and political interests. These varying results arise from research rooted in different conceptualizations of context. Our analysis is unique in the attention we pay to the measure of context for our particular data set. Employing a sociodemographic definition of neighborhood social context, we find that contextual socioeconomic status plays a critical role in mediating the effects of intergroup contact on racial attitudes. These contacts are more likely to produce racial harmony in high-status neighborhoods than in neighborhoods marked by low income and low levels of education.