Moving from Prejudice to Privilege: Breathing New Life into Survey Research by Taking Whiteness Seriously.

Survey research on racial attitudes has played a key role in the study of race in America for the past several decades. However, recent work within whiteness studies has suggested that survey research may be limited in its ability to explore and understand the complexities of the racialized system that exists today. I believe that survey research can still be a useful tool by incorporating ideas from whiteness, specifically white privilege. Whiteness studies have addressed questions of white privilege, but these studies are lacking in strong, empirical evidence on a national level. The American Mosaic Project, a nationally representative telephone survey, provides new data and insights into white privilege. New survey questions were asked about whites and racial advantage, along with traditional questions about minorities and racial disadvantage. Preliminary results from this study show that a surprising number of Americans are aware of white privilege. A majority of Americans believe that whites have distinct advantages in our society. Results also show that there are significant differences in the levels of awareness of whiteness between whites, blacks, and Hispanics. These findings show that survey research can be used within a whiteness framework and provide important quantitative, empirical evidence for whiteness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]