A Content Analytic Study of Interracial Conflict-Producing Situations and Roles. Illinois Studies of the Economically Disadvantaged Series, Technical Report Number 9.

This study is an exploratory attempt to discover how blacks perceive their interactions with whites, in this country. For this purpose it was necessary to examine materials written by black authors and aimed at black readers. It was decided to select such magazines appearing between 1965 and 1969 that had a wide circulation among black readership. The study was restricted to 36 short stories which contained some interactions between black and white characters. Each interaction was viewed as involving an initiator (Actor) and an object (Recipient) toward whom the interaction was directed. The Actor and Recipient together constituted a role-pair. The results indicate that blacks perceived whites initiating the interactions more in general than the blacks. However further analysis revealed that the blacks were seen as initiating more interactions when they were in the role-pairs of female-male, employee-employer, person helped-helping profession, citizen-police official, citizen-public official, and female-female; whereas whites initiate more interactions when they are in the role-pairs of male-female, employer-employee, helping profession-person helped, police official-citizen, public official-citizen, teacher-student, and male-male. (Author/JM)