ETHNICITY IN 25 YEARS OF PUBLISHED SEXUALITY RESEARCH - 1971-1995

We investigated the degree to which ethnicity has been a focus of sexu ality research by coding all research reports published in The Journal of Sex Research (n = 454) and Archives of Sexual Behavior (n = 673) b etween 1971 and 1995 with regard to the ethnic composition of the samp le and whether ethnicity was a variable used in the research. Overall, only about one quarter of the articles even included a description of the ethnic composition of the sample; however, likelihood of describi ng the ethnicity of research participants increased over the 25-year s pan. Of those articles in which ethnicity of research participants was described, the ethnic diversity of samples used in sexuality research increased over time. Overall, ethnicity was considered a relevant var iable in. only 7.3% of published research articles. Such ethnically-fo cused research most often was based on community samples and was equal ly as likely to be race homogeneous as race comparative in approach. O ur results are discussed with regard to future research on ethnicity a nd human sexuality.