Measuring self-perceived racial and ethnic discrimination in social surveys

The aim of this article is to encourage a research agenda that attends to m ethodological considerations regarding measuring self-perceived racial and ethnic discrimination in social surveys. Toward this end, the author compar ed validity of alternative measures of discrimination. The first measure as ks whether something unfair or bad has happened because of race and ethnici ty, whereas the second measure asks about generic unfair events independent of attribution to race or ethnicity. In a probability sample of 586 Black respondents living in the Detroit metropolitan area interviewed in 1995, it was found that the prevalence of self-perceived racial and ethnic discrimi nation depended on question framing. Moreover, different respondents were l ikely to respond affirmatively to explicit versus generic measures of discr imination; importantly, the mental health consequences of self-perceived ra cial and ethnic discrimination varied by question framing. The results conf irmed that the prevalence, correlates, and psychological impact of self-per ceived discrimination should be evaluated on the basis of measurement sensi tivity.