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The theory of symbolic racism contends that white resistance to social policies such as affirmative action is rooted in prejudiced attitudes towards black people, and represents a more sophisticated form of racism than traditional or rednecked racism. However, the notion of symbolic racism has been severely criticized on theoretical and empirical grounds. The present study sought to clarify the nature of the empirical relationship between symbolic and traditional racism. The Subtle Racism Scale (Duckitt, 1991) and Heaven and Moerdyk's adaptation of Ray's anti-black scale were administered to 150 school-children. The findings revealed no significant difference in mean scores obtained on the measures of symbolic and traditional racism. A series of factor analyses consistently yielded four factors, accounting for 54% of the variance, suggesting that racism involves hitherto unaccounted for components in addition to traditional and subtle expressions of racial prejudice.

The construction of gender and gender interactions is examined through the discourse of men's only groups. Two discourses are identified: Gender as Social Norm and Gender as Natural. These discourse can be seen, through rhetorical strategies, to construct gender in ways that are problematic for women. Of particular concern is the finding that the discourses and explanations used to construct gender generally are the same as those used to explain, and justify, gender aggression. This finding and some of it's implications are discussed.