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This research effort explores attitudes toward interracial marriage and related behavior patterns in the United States. These patterns are examined longitudinally from the perspective of the general public over a 25-year period. Specifically, responses to whether one favors or opposes laws prohibiting marriages between Blacks and Whites are combined with a measure of social distance (whether one had a member of the opposite race over for dinner in the past year) to produce a hierarchy of responses that include both attitudes and corresponding behaviors, and in essence reflect varying degrees of racial prejudice. These attitudes and behaviors are analyzed using ordinal logistic regression from 1973 through 1996. Through the application of race relations and differential assimilation theories, the impact of racial group membership, age, and socio-economic status on interracial marriage attitudes and behaviors in contemporary American society is assessed. Our findings suggest that while there have been some dramatic shifts in racially patterned attitudes and behaviors across all groups, barriers to assimilation persist, and non-Blacks engage in a greater degree of social closure. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

American society is undergoing unprecedented cultural changes in the 21st century. This social transformation began with the civil rights movement in the 1960s. As the United States becomes more diverse, both racially and ethnically, equal access to a variety of social institutions and organizations becomes more challenging. With respect to marriage, popular media continually report the blurring of boundaries between racial and ethnic groups. As a result, there has been a tremendous increase in interracial dating and marriage over the past several decades. There are considerable differences between the occurrence of interracial dating and interracial marriage. Data suggest that there is a much higher level of interracial dating in comparison to interracial marriage. This research effort focuses on trends in interracial marriages in the United States between 1980 and 2006. Information from the U.S. Census Bureau was used to analyze changes in the number and frequency of interracial marriages in American society over a 22-year time frame. Differential assimilation is employed for understanding interracial marriage trends and distinguishing important statistical differences between marriages with a Black1 spouse and those interracial marriages not involving a Black spouse. This exploration provides important empirical findings for assessing the progress of assimilation in America. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]