The Digital Divide Among High School Students
A new study from the ACT's Center for Equity in Learning has found a critical gap in academic success between students who have access to more than one electronic device in their home and those who only have one. African Americans are far more likely than Whites to have access to only one device.
Black Male College Students Thrive When They Take Part in Black Male Initiative Programs
A new study led by Derrick R. Brooms, an associate professor of sociology and Africana studies at the University of Cincinnati, has found that Black male initiative programs enhance Black male students' sense of belonging and success in college.
Report Finds a Lack of Diversity Among Top Staff in the House of Representatives
Only 2 percent of White Democratic members’ top staffers are Black. The fact that African Americans and members of other racial and ethnic minority groups are having so little impact and influence in the hall of Congress, can have an impact on educational issues that come before the legislative body.
Do Universities Discriminate Against Black Political Activists in Their Admission Practices?
The study by researchers at Florida Gulf Coast University found that admissions counselors were 26 percent less likely to respond to emails from Black students interested in racial justice. White male counselors were twice as likely to respond to Black women interested in environmental studies compared to racial studies.
Study Finds That the Presence of Chief Diversity Officers Does Not Improve Faculty Diversity
After examining hiring date from 2001 to 2016 at major research universities, the authors concluded that even though there has been significant progress made in faculty diversity since 2001, the presence of a chief diversity officer does not appear to be a significant contributor to this progress.
Teens Stressed Out About Discrimination More Likely to Develop Behavioral Problems
A new study of more than 2,5000 high school students in Los Angeles led by researchers at the University of Southern California has found that teenagers who display high levels of stress over recent public acts of discrimination also show increased behavioral problems.
Study Finds Racial Bias Directed Against Women Basketball Players at HBCUs
The study examined personal foul data from 333 Division I women’s basketball teams that played every season from 2008 to 2017, 23 of which were from HBCUs. The top five most penalized teams were HBCUs, and eight out of the top fifteen teams were HBCUs.
University Research Finds the Racial Wealth Gap Grows in Areas Where Natural Disasters Occur
During the 1999-to-2013 period, Whites who lived in counties with $10 billion or more in damages from natural disasters gained $126,000 in wealth, while Blacks who lived in similar counties, lost $27,000.
University of Pittsburgh Study Finds Huge Racial Gap in K-12 School Suspensions
The research showed that Black students are suspended seven times as often as non-Black students at schools in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. Suburban districts tended to have some of the highest racial differences in school suspensions.
Study Finds That Historically Black Colleges and Universities Pay More to Issue Bonds
The authors determined that HBCU bond issuance costs were about 20 percent higher than those of non-HBCUs, apparently because the bond underwriters found it more difficult for find buyers for the HBCU bonds. The researchers concluded that this was due to racial discrimination.
Study Finds Young African American Males Feel Less Safe in White Neighborhoods
Researchers gave a large group of Black youths smartphones that tracked their locations for a week and asked the participants to rate how safe they felt (among other questions) five times per day. When they traveled to areas with more Whites, the participants felt less safe.
Good News! The Racial Gap in Computer and Internet Use in the Home Is...
In 2016, 89.9 percent of non-Hispanic White households had a computer in the home. For Blacks, 84.1 percent of all households had a home computer. This was up from 80.1 percent in 2015. Nearly 60 percent of White households had a tablet computer compared to 48.5 percent of Black households.
High School Graduations Increase But a Racial Gap Persists
In 2017, there were still 2.7 million African American adults that had not graduated from high school. Another 700,000 Black adults who were not born in the United States but now live here, also did not possess a high school credential.
University of Southern California Report Examines Race in the Hollywood Film Industry
The data shows that in 2017, 20 percent of the 100 top-grossing films had no Blacks whatsoever in speaking roles. There were 43 films in the 100 top-grossing films that had no speaking roles for Black women.
A Check-Up of Black Students In Nursing Degree Programs
Nationwide about 12 percent of the working nurses are African Americans. But data from the American Association of Colleges of Nursing shows that the Black percentage of students in bachelor's degree programs is declining. But there have been big gains by Blacks in graduate nursing programs.
University Study Finds Higher Tobacco Advertising in Ethnic Neighborhoods
The study lead by a researcher at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, found that tobacco products are more aggressively marketed in Black and Latino neighborhoods of the city of Milwaukee than is the case in White neighborhoods. It appears that children are often the targets of the marketing.
New Database to Document Poverty Rates by Race at the Neighborhood Level
The National Equity Research Database (NERD) will be able to show poverty rate data by rate for specific neighborhoods. Preliminary data for the Boston area has been analyzed by researchers at Brandeis University showing the Black poverty rate is as high as nine times the rate for Whites.
How Student Loan Debt Impacts the Racial Wealth Gap Years After Students Complete College
The study of nearly 1,500 young adults, led by a professor of social work at the University of Illinois, found that Black and Hispanic students who had accumulated student loan debt during their college years had, at age 30, $36,000 less in net worth than their peers who did not have student loan debt.
Researchers at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro Aim to Preserve Slave Records
The University of North Carolina at Greensboro has undertaken a research project entitled "People Not Property." The goal of the project is to digitize slave deeds in 26 counties across North Carolina. These deeds contain information about the slaves' names, age, family, and skills.
Scholar Looks to Improve Data Science for Analyzing the Language Used by African Americans
Su Lin Blodgett's research is focused on improving English language parsing tools relating to words, phrases, and alternate spellings used by millions of African Americans on social media.
Counties Where Lynchings Occurred Have Higher Mortality Rates Today for Blacks and Whites
The study estimates that living in a high-lynching county is associated with 34.9 additional deaths per hundred thousand per year for White males, 23.7 deaths for White females, and 31 deaths for African American females. African American male death rates today were not affected.
How Greater Diversity in the Physician Workforce Would Reduce Racial Health Disparities
After conducting a randomized clinical trial among 1,300 Black men in Oakland, the researchers found that the men sought more preventive services after they were randomly seen by Black doctors for a free health-care screening compared to non-Black doctors.
New Evidence That Early Child Education Programs Can Have Long-Term Positive Benefits
Early studies have shown that early childhood education programs have initial benefits but that the positive effects slipped away when children entered elementary school. But new data shows that the long-term effects may be positive.
Teacher Education Programs That Are Producing a Diverse Pool of Graduates
A majority of teacher education programs studied by researchers at the Urban Institute had a disproportionately large share of White students, relative to their universities, and a disproportionately small share of Black students.
Undergraduate Institutions That Feed the Most Black Students to U.S. Medical Schools
In the 2017 academic year, 118 graduates of Howard University in Washington, D.C., applied to U.S. medical schools. This was the most in the nation. Xavier University of Louisiana, with a much smaller number of total graduates, ranked second and had 103 students apply to medical schools.
University of Pittsburgh Study Documents Narrowing of Racial Gap in Premature Death
Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh's Graduate School of Public Health used “years of life lost” to measure premature death by summing the number of years each death occurs before a “target” age to which all people could be expected to live.
Ohio State University Study Finds Racial Differences in Media Coverage of Mass Shootings
The study by three doctoral students at Ohio State University examined media coverage of 219 mass shootings. The data showed that White shooters were 95 percent more likely to be described as mentally ill than Black perpetrators.
A Racial Employment Gap for Students Entering Two-Year Colleges
A new report from the U.S. Department of Education shows that slightly more than 14 percent of entering Black students at two-year colleges were employed full-time, compared to 20.5 percent of entering White students at these institutions. Whites were also more likely than Blacks to hold part-time jobs.
Huge Racial Disparities in Incarceration Rates Have Created a Public Health Crisis in Black...
A new study by researchers at the Ann and Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago finds that young adults whose parents have been incarcerated during their childhood are less likely to obtain quality healthcare and are more likely to participate in unhealthy behaviors.
Study Finds Link Between Residential Racial Segregation and Firearm Homicide Rates
A new study by researchers at the Boston University School of Public Health finds that states with a higher degree of residential racial segregation have higher racial disparities in homicide rates by firearms. This remains true even when other racial inequalities are accounted for, according to the authors.
New Report Reveals Racial Differences in Occupations Four Years After College
A new report from the U.S. Department of Education finds that 8 percent of African Americans who graduated from college in 2008 were employed in STEM fields in 2012. For Whites the figure was 11.4 percent.
University of Pennsylvania Research Uncovers Its Early Ties to Slavery
Research has shown that no fewer than 75 of the university’s early trustees owned at least one enslaved person. The labor of enslaved people was used to support and care for Penn faculty and students.
Academic Study Finds Church-Going African Americans Suffer Fewer Mental Health Issues
A new study by researchers at the University of Michigan and Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, finds that religion is a major beneficial factor for African Americans in helping them deal with the pressures of American life.
Racial Stereotypes Influence Teacher Perceptions of Parental Involvement in Children’s Education
A new study finds that school teachers believe that mothers and fathers of immigrant or minority students are less involved in their children's education. The authors believe that such perspectives hamper the academic trajectory of those students.
University of Massachusetts Study Examines Workforce Diversity in Silicon Valley Firms
The report found that on average, Black men make up less than 1.5 percent of employees in professional, managerial, and executive posts. Black women are rare in all professional, management and executive jobs. There are 10 firms with no Black women at all.
America’s Churches Are Becoming More Racially Integrated, But Have a Long Way to Go
A study by scholars at Baylor University and North Park University, finds that the percentage of multiracial church congregations in the United States nearly doubled between 1998 and 2012. Yet, one third of all congregations still were composed of worshipers from a single race or ethnic group.
