R Ghoshal
Biographic Data
| ID | 68169 |
|---|---|
| NAME | R Ghoshal |
| GIVEN NAMES | R |
| FAMILY NAME | Ghoshal |
| SIGNATURE | GHOSHAL R |
| AFFILIATIONS | Elon University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-6745-0127 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 15 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 146 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 15 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2009 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Americans’ Race Concepts as Categorical and Continuous
Do Americans conceive of race categorically, continuously, or both? This question matters because redressing racial inequality hinges on understanding the racial schemas embedded in minds and social institutions. Drawing on a survey of over 1,000 respondents, I find significant contradiction, ambivalence, and flexibility in conceptions of membership as a yes/no binary (one is or is not part of a racial group) and as a continuum (people are member…
Who Is Black? Black Americans on Multiraciality and Black Identity
In his classic Who is Black? One Nation’s Definition , James Davis examined the construction of Blackness from the country’s roots through the close of the twentieth century. In this article the author extends Davis’s project by drawing on original survey data that examines present-day Black Americans’ own understandings of Black identity. The author also examines how self-classification as Black alone, Black-White, and Black-other relates to the…
Who Sees Race as a Choice
Due to shifting understandings of race and identity, the number of people who see one's race as rooted fully or partly in self‐identification, rather than solely in ancestry or social appraisals, may be on the rise. This study uses a survey of over 1100 Americans to map the prevalence and distribution of “racial voluntarism”—that is, the view that a person's race is up to that person. I find that support for racial voluntarism is modest, but not …
Racial Appraisals by White, Black, Hispanic, and Multiracial Americans
Racial appraisals, defined as people's judgments of other people's race, influence racial inequality and discrimination, anti-discrimination efforts, and collective identity. I conduct a survey of 1,102 American adults of all races that builds on recent scholarship about how Americans assess others' race, in two ways. First, I examine a wider range of cues for race than prior studies. I uncover novel evidence that self-identification and small gr…
Teaching Civic Engagement through an Op-Ed Writing Assignment
This teaching note presents an assignment in which students write an op-ed on a course-related issue and submit it to a newspaper. I argue that an op-ed assignment dovetails with pedagogical goals around democratic citizenship and public sociology. I explain the project’s objectives, instructions, and timeline. I present evidence from three courses showing that the assignment fostered understanding of op-eds’ form and function; deepened engagemen…
Searching for a Roommate: A Correspondence Audit Examining Racial/Ethnic and Immigrant Discrimination among Millennials
Survey research finds that millennials have less prejudiced views of racial/ethnic minorities than other generations, leading some to label millennials as postracial. However, attitudinal survey research may be subject to social desirability bias because it documents statements or beliefs instead of actions. Moreover, most audit studies focus on people who make hiring decisions or own rental property and are therefore often older than millennials…
Call Your Representatives: Connecting Classroom Learning to Real-world Policy Action
This article presents an in-class exercise that teaches students how to call elected officials about a course-related issue of their choice. The goals are to connect classroom learning with real-life action, to show that contacting elected officials need not be difficult or intimidating, and to help students develop a sense of efficacy that can contribute to ongoing engagement. I describe the exercise and present evidence that it led students to …
Testing for Discrimination: Teaching Audit Studies in Quantitative Methods Courses
This article demonstrates a method for teaching students to conduct audit studies of discrimination. The assignment can be used in courses on quantitative methods, race, gender, or other topics. Audit studies test for unequal treatment by having otherwise identical pairs of people who vary on a single trait, such as race or gender, apply for the same sets of opportunities, such as apartment vacancies or job openings. Once intricate and expensive …
Arab American Housing Discrimination, Ethnic Competition, and the Contact Hypothesis
This study uses a field experiment to study bias against living with Arab American women, a group whose position in the U.S. race system remains uncertain. We developed fictitious female white and Arab American identities and used the audit method to respond to 560 roommate-wanted advertisements in four metro areas: Los Angeles, New York, Detroit, and Houston. To focus on social-rather than purely economic-biases, all responses identified the sen…
Beyond Bigotry: Teaching about Unconscious Prejudice
Researchers have demonstrated that unconscious prejudices around characteristics such as race, gender, and class are common, even among people who avow themselves unbiased. The authors present a method for teaching about implicit racial bias using online Implicit Association Tests. The authors do not claim that their method rids students of biases. Instead, the authors show that this approach helps students recognize that they and many other peop…
States Make Movements? The Material and Discursive Influence of State-Sponsored Community Organizing in Puerto Rico
The authors examine the interaction between an emergent community movement in Puerto Rico and a poverty program implemented by the Puerto Rico government to deal with poverty in a self-claimed radical way. The authors explain the development of this movement, showing how state sponsorship shaped the material and discursive opportunities and constraints faced by movement leaders and participants. The authors then examine three discursive themes th…
Transforming collective memory: Mnemonic Opportunity Structures and the Outcomes of Racial Violence Memory Movements
A Social Movement Generation: Cohort and Period Trends in Protest Attendance and Petition Signing
This project explores cohort and period trends in political participation in the United States between 1973 and 2008. We examine the extent to which protest attendance and petition signing have diffused to different kinds of actors across multiple generations; we test claims central to understanding trends in social movement participation. Using aggregated, cross-sectional survey data on political involvement from 34,241 respondents, we examine c…
Transnational Civil Society: An Introduction Contested Citizenship: Immigration and Cultural Diversity in Europe
Argument Forms, Frames, and Value Conflict: Persuasion in the Case of Same-Sex Marriage
Is telling stories politically effective? Recent debates around the efficacy of storytelling have challenged the view that narratives are an effective means of political persuasion. This article empirically examines the persuasiveness of narratives through the lens of recent controversies over same-sex marriage. Through a survey-experiment, I test the effects of different kinds of arguments on heterosexuals' views on same-sex marriage. I find som…
A Social Movement Generation: Cohort and Period Trends in Protest Attendance and Petition Signing
This project explores cohort and period trends in political participation in the United States between 1973 and 2008. We examine the extent to which protest attendance and petition signing have diffused to different kinds of actors across multiple generations; we test claims central to understanding trends in social movement participation. Using aggregated, cross-sectional survey data on political involvement from 34,241 respondents, we examine c…
Arab American Housing Discrimination, Ethnic Competition, and the Contact Hypothesis
This study uses a field experiment to study bias against living with Arab American women, a group whose position in the U.S. race system remains uncertain. We developed fictitious female white and Arab American identities and used the audit method to respond to 560 roommate-wanted advertisements in four metro areas: Los Angeles, New York, Detroit, and Houston. To focus on social-rather than purely economic-biases, all responses identified the sen…
Transforming collective memory: Mnemonic Opportunity Structures and the Outcomes of Racial Violence Memory Movements
Searching for a Roommate: A Correspondence Audit Examining Racial/Ethnic and Immigrant Discrimination among Millennials
Survey research finds that millennials have less prejudiced views of racial/ethnic minorities than other generations, leading some to label millennials as postracial. However, attitudinal survey research may be subject to social desirability bias because it documents statements or beliefs instead of actions. Moreover, most audit studies focus on people who make hiring decisions or own rental property and are therefore often older than millennials…
Argument Forms, Frames, and Value Conflict: Persuasion in the Case of Same-Sex Marriage
Is telling stories politically effective? Recent debates around the efficacy of storytelling have challenged the view that narratives are an effective means of political persuasion. This article empirically examines the persuasiveness of narratives through the lens of recent controversies over same-sex marriage. Through a survey-experiment, I test the effects of different kinds of arguments on heterosexuals' views on same-sex marriage. I find som…
Testing for Discrimination: Teaching Audit Studies in Quantitative Methods Courses
This article demonstrates a method for teaching students to conduct audit studies of discrimination. The assignment can be used in courses on quantitative methods, race, gender, or other topics. Audit studies test for unequal treatment by having otherwise identical pairs of people who vary on a single trait, such as race or gender, apply for the same sets of opportunities, such as apartment vacancies or job openings. Once intricate and expensive …
Beyond Bigotry: Teaching about Unconscious Prejudice
Researchers have demonstrated that unconscious prejudices around characteristics such as race, gender, and class are common, even among people who avow themselves unbiased. The authors present a method for teaching about implicit racial bias using online Implicit Association Tests. The authors do not claim that their method rids students of biases. Instead, the authors show that this approach helps students recognize that they and many other peop…
Call Your Representatives: Connecting Classroom Learning to Real-world Policy Action
This article presents an in-class exercise that teaches students how to call elected officials about a course-related issue of their choice. The goals are to connect classroom learning with real-life action, to show that contacting elected officials need not be difficult or intimidating, and to help students develop a sense of efficacy that can contribute to ongoing engagement. I describe the exercise and present evidence that it led students to …
Who Sees Race as a Choice
Due to shifting understandings of race and identity, the number of people who see one's race as rooted fully or partly in self‐identification, rather than solely in ancestry or social appraisals, may be on the rise. This study uses a survey of over 1100 Americans to map the prevalence and distribution of “racial voluntarism”—that is, the view that a person's race is up to that person. I find that support for racial voluntarism is modest, but not …
Transnational Civil Society: An Introduction Contested Citizenship: Immigration and Cultural Diversity in Europe
Argument Forms, Frames, and Value Conflict: Persuasion in the Case of Same-Sex Marriage
Is telling stories politically effective? Recent debates around the efficacy of storytelling have challenged the view that narratives are an effective means of political persuasion. This article empirically examines the persuasiveness of narratives through the lens of recent controversies over same-sex marriage. Through a survey-experiment, I test the effects of different kinds of arguments on heterosexuals' views on same-sex marriage. I find som…
A Social Movement Generation: Cohort and Period Trends in Protest Attendance and Petition Signing
This project explores cohort and period trends in political participation in the United States between 1973 and 2008. We examine the extent to which protest attendance and petition signing have diffused to different kinds of actors across multiple generations; we test claims central to understanding trends in social movement participation. Using aggregated, cross-sectional survey data on political involvement from 34,241 respondents, we examine c…
Beyond Bigotry: Teaching about Unconscious Prejudice
Researchers have demonstrated that unconscious prejudices around characteristics such as race, gender, and class are common, even among people who avow themselves unbiased. The authors present a method for teaching about implicit racial bias using online Implicit Association Tests. The authors do not claim that their method rids students of biases. Instead, the authors show that this approach helps students recognize that they and many other peop…
States Make Movements? The Material and Discursive Influence of State-Sponsored Community Organizing in Puerto Rico
The authors examine the interaction between an emergent community movement in Puerto Rico and a poverty program implemented by the Puerto Rico government to deal with poverty in a self-claimed radical way. The authors explain the development of this movement, showing how state sponsorship shaped the material and discursive opportunities and constraints faced by movement leaders and participants. The authors then examine three discursive themes th…
Transforming collective memory: Mnemonic Opportunity Structures and the Outcomes of Racial Violence Memory Movements
Arab American Housing Discrimination, Ethnic Competition, and the Contact Hypothesis
This study uses a field experiment to study bias against living with Arab American women, a group whose position in the U.S. race system remains uncertain. We developed fictitious female white and Arab American identities and used the audit method to respond to 560 roommate-wanted advertisements in four metro areas: Los Angeles, New York, Detroit, and Houston. To focus on social-rather than purely economic-biases, all responses identified the sen…
Testing for Discrimination: Teaching Audit Studies in Quantitative Methods Courses
This article demonstrates a method for teaching students to conduct audit studies of discrimination. The assignment can be used in courses on quantitative methods, race, gender, or other topics. Audit studies test for unequal treatment by having otherwise identical pairs of people who vary on a single trait, such as race or gender, apply for the same sets of opportunities, such as apartment vacancies or job openings. Once intricate and expensive …
Call Your Representatives: Connecting Classroom Learning to Real-world Policy Action
This article presents an in-class exercise that teaches students how to call elected officials about a course-related issue of their choice. The goals are to connect classroom learning with real-life action, to show that contacting elected officials need not be difficult or intimidating, and to help students develop a sense of efficacy that can contribute to ongoing engagement. I describe the exercise and present evidence that it led students to …
Searching for a Roommate: A Correspondence Audit Examining Racial/Ethnic and Immigrant Discrimination among Millennials
Survey research finds that millennials have less prejudiced views of racial/ethnic minorities than other generations, leading some to label millennials as postracial. However, attitudinal survey research may be subject to social desirability bias because it documents statements or beliefs instead of actions. Moreover, most audit studies focus on people who make hiring decisions or own rental property and are therefore often older than millennials…
Teaching Civic Engagement through an Op-Ed Writing Assignment
This teaching note presents an assignment in which students write an op-ed on a course-related issue and submit it to a newspaper. I argue that an op-ed assignment dovetails with pedagogical goals around democratic citizenship and public sociology. I explain the project’s objectives, instructions, and timeline. I present evidence from three courses showing that the assignment fostered understanding of op-eds’ form and function; deepened engagemen…
Racial Appraisals by White, Black, Hispanic, and Multiracial Americans
Racial appraisals, defined as people's judgments of other people's race, influence racial inequality and discrimination, anti-discrimination efforts, and collective identity. I conduct a survey of 1,102 American adults of all races that builds on recent scholarship about how Americans assess others' race, in two ways. First, I examine a wider range of cues for race than prior studies. I uncover novel evidence that self-identification and small gr…
Who Is Black? Black Americans on Multiraciality and Black Identity
In his classic Who is Black? One Nation’s Definition , James Davis examined the construction of Blackness from the country’s roots through the close of the twentieth century. In this article the author extends Davis’s project by drawing on original survey data that examines present-day Black Americans’ own understandings of Black identity. The author also examines how self-classification as Black alone, Black-White, and Black-other relates to the…
Who Sees Race as a Choice
Due to shifting understandings of race and identity, the number of people who see one's race as rooted fully or partly in self‐identification, rather than solely in ancestry or social appraisals, may be on the rise. This study uses a survey of over 1100 Americans to map the prevalence and distribution of “racial voluntarism”—that is, the view that a person's race is up to that person. I find that support for racial voluntarism is modest, but not …
Americans’ Race Concepts as Categorical and Continuous
Do Americans conceive of race categorically, continuously, or both? This question matters because redressing racial inequality hinges on understanding the racial schemas embedded in minds and social institutions. Drawing on a survey of over 1,000 respondents, I find significant contradiction, ambivalence, and flexibility in conceptions of membership as a yes/no binary (one is or is not part of a racial group) and as a continuum (people are member…
Sociology (13 works) · Law (10 works) · Political science (10 works) · Psychology (9 works) · Gender Studies (8 works) · Law (6 works) · Social and Intergroup Psychology (6 works) · Social Psychology (6 works) · Gender Studies (5 works) · Names, Identity, and Discrimination Research (5 works)