HOW WHITE ATTITUDES VARY WITH THE RACIAL COMPOSITION OF LOCAL-POPULATIONS - NUMBERS COUNT

This research focuses on whites' reactions to the racial composition o f the local population. Multilevel modeling is applied to a micro/macr o data file that links 1990 General Social Survey responses to census information about respondents' localities. On summary scales represent ing traditional prejudice, opposition to race-targeting, and policy-re lated beliefs, white negativity swells as the local black population s hare expands. Among non-Southern whites, a 10-point rise in the local percentage of blacks brings an increase in traditional prejudice great er than the decrease in prejudice that comes with three additional yea rs of education. South/non-South differences in whites' views about bl acks are generally reduced to about one-half of their original size an d fall short of statistical significance when local racial composition is controlled. Interestingly, concentrations of local Asian American and Latino populations do not engender white antipathy toward these gr oups. If whites' reactions To the presence of blacks is a threat respo nse, the specific dynamics of this threat await description.