Racial Diversity or Cultural Safety?: Utilizing Social Identity to Understand the Choice of Racially Segregated Neighborhoods among Middle Class African-Americans

ABSTRACT

Adding to a growing body of work on the psychology of neighborhood choice, the present research examined middle class black attitudes regarding owning homes in majority white and majority black communities. The principal source consisted of interviews with 35 black middle class homeowners which were subjected to narrative analysis to identify (i) whether and to what extent participants identified with the county in which they lived; (ii) features of their perceived experience responsible for any such identification; and (iii) any attitudes about living in predominately white and predominately black counties that acted as limits to identification. Although homeowners from each county (majority white and majority black) typically favored the county in which they lived, results point to complex motivations that were influenced by negative racial experiences, conceptually different understandings about the value of diversity, and other factors.

KEYWORDS:

• Identity
• racial diversity
• neighborhood choice
• residential segregation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Because she lived in PGC at the time of data collection, Vanessa was included among the PGC participants (n = 20).