Neighborhood Racial Integration and Perceived Discrimination

Sapna Swaroop, University of Michigan

Although racial residential integration has been shown to benefit minorities by providing safer and economically advantaged environments, little previous research has examined the potential challenges that integration could pose for minority residents. This study explores how neighborhood integration influences one such challenge: the experience of discrimination. Through analysis of recent survey data from Chicago neighborhoods, I investigate whether 1) perceived discrimination differs across neighborhood racial compositions, 2) the relationship between integration and discrimination can be attributed to differences in the structural characteristics of integrated and non-integrated neighborhoods, and 3) this relationship differs for African Americans and Latinos. Initial results suggest that there are significant differences in two forms of perceived discrimination across neighborhoods, where African Americans and Latinos report higher levels of discrimination in integrated neighborhoods than in more segregated contexts. Future analysis will estimate multilevel models to assess both individual- and neighborhood-level effects on perceived discrimination.