FORMS OF RACISM AND THE CUMULATIVE DIMENSION OF ETHNIC-ATTITUDES

In this paper, biological, symbolic, and aversive racism are conceptualized on the basis of their most characteristic components. In a survey of 1, 760 Dutch secondary school students, the empirical basis for this conceptualization was examined. It is hypothesized that the forms of racism are steps in a single cumulative dimension of ethnic attitudes. This hypothesis is based on Myrdal's rank order of discrimination and Blumer's idea of the color line. The validity of the forms of racism is tested by relating the steps of the ethnic attitude to intentions regarding discriminatory behavior, stereotyping, and attitudes toward affirmative action. It was found that 1) the distinguished forms of racism, operationalized on the basis of literature research, were largely corroborated by our empirical data; 2) the forms of racism can be arrayed on one underlying Guttman-type dimension; and 3) egalitarians, aversive racists, ethnocentrists, symbolic racists, and biological racists scored significantly differently on the variables measuring various expressions of prejudice.