Race, Racism, and Discrimination: Bridging Problems, Methods, and Theory in Social Psychological Research

Bobo, L. D., & Fox, C. (2003). Race, Racism, and Discrimination: Bridging Problems, Methods, and Theory in Social Psychological Research. Social Psychology Quarterly, 66(4), 319–332. https://doi.org/10.2307/1519832

Abstract

The basic social processes invoked by the terms race, racism, and discrimination are quintessentially social psychological phenomena. These concepts concern the meanings of social groupings and how those meanings come to guide patterns of relations among individuals recognized as members of particular groups. A key challenge for scholarship in this area is to reach beyond the boundaries of customary and specific research problems, methodologies, and theories. To further advance the impetus toward “bridging,” this special issue now unites three goals in seeking to increase social psychology’s understanding of processes of race, racism, and discrimination: to encourage bridges across major subareas, methods, and theories; encourage work of multiethnic scope; and to highlight work that adopts a target-group or minority-group frame of reference.