Religious affiliation and beliefs about racial inequality: White college students’ attitudes about Black-White and Native American-White inequality

Financial assistance for this study was provided to the first author by Montana State University, ADVANCE Leadership grant and the National Science Foundation.

Abstract

Is religious affiliation associated with attitudes about racial inequality? While prior research has explored the relationship between religion and attitudes about Black-White inequality, studies exploring attitudes towards Native Americans are rare. Our study is the first to explore the association between religion and attitudes about Native American-White inequality. We find that religious subcultural differences do exist as Catholics, Protestants, and those with no religious affiliation tend to use different explanations for racial inequality, although the relationship between religious affiliation and attitudes is similar regardless of whether African Americans or Native Americans are the target. We also find that across religious groups there is a greater tendency to use person-centered or individual explanations for Native American-White inequality and structural explanations for Black-White inequality. We argue that consistent findings for the association of religious affiliation and attitudes for different racial groups provide support for the presence of religion specific cultural toolkits.

Notes

Financial assistance for this study was provided to the first author by Montana State University, ADVANCE Leadership grant and the National Science Foundation.

1 This comparison is not shown in Table 4, but the coefficients and standard errors required to compute these are available upon request.