Article Review Paper (Choose any subject or topic)

College of Southern Maryland

Author Note

Instructor for SOC-1010-137028 - Introduction to Sociology is Leah A. Geiger, M. Ed

Abstract

This is the Abstract for the Article. “Since 2009, more Mexicans have been leaving rather than coming to the USA; likewise, illegal immigration from Mexico has declined. Yet, immigration remains a hotly contested issue in the 2016 presidential election, with a seemingly marked increase in anti-immigrant policy and rhetoric, much of which is directed at immigrants from Mexico. In this paper, we seek to explain how individual ethnocultural and civic-based conceptions of what it means to be an American influence attitudes towards immigration. Past theoretical research on national identity has framed the effects of these dimensions as interactive but past empirical work has yet to demonstrate an important interaction between race and ethnocultural identity. Failure to account for these interaction effects has led to inaccurate assumptions about the levels of hostility towards immigrants and how widespread anti-immigrant sentiment really is. We demonstrate a clear interactive effect between identification as white and ethnocultural dimensions of identity and show that this effect has masked the root of the most ardent anti-immigrant sentiment. We also show that while there is a sizeable minority of the population that identifies as both white and have high levels of ethnocultural identity, a majority of Americans prefer to keep immigration levels at the status quo and have an identity that is balanced between ethnoculturalism and civic-based conceptions of identity” (Byrne & Dixon, 2016).

Keywords: identity; immigration; public

A Review of the Article “Just Not Like Us: The Interactive Impact of Dimensions of Identity and Race in Attitudes towards Immigration

Introduction

Jennifer Byrne and Gregory C Dixon published their article “Just Not Like Us: The Interactive Impact of Dimensions of Identity and Race in Attitudes towards Immigration” on October 8th, 2016 in the Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute Journal. This article recognizes the bias in previous empirical research that has created a view that a majority of Americans have an anti-immigration sentiment and has sought to gather data to prove otherwise. The two authors had conducted a national random sample telephone survey in order to prove that there is in fact an interactive correlation between a person’s view on immigration policies and a person’s definition of what it mean to be an American. This empirical research was also sought out to find the relationships between race, ethnocultural identity, and immigration policy views due to the what was then, upcoming 2016 election (Byrne & Dixon, 2016).

Purpose of the Research

The beginning portion of this article shows the reader what the past empirical research results on immigration policy views reflected how Americans identified themselves. Normally those who had a definite and strong definition of an American also had a strong stance on their policy choice. Among the research several models had been developed in order to encase the broad spectrum of component that people will use in order to develop their definition for identity. From understanding the previous work done, the authors were able to construct a hypothesis for their experiment. This is what they wanted to see as a result from the sample survey. They wanted to prove that race, specifically whites in America, have a strong sense of ethnocultural identity and in turn are in favor of restrictions on immigration policy (Byrne & Dixon, 2016).

A major issue defined by Byrne and Dixon is that the previous research only focused only one independent variable at a time. While this makes experiments easy to prove a simple cause and effect, normal life in not black and white. This also allows easy manipulation of data in order to fit a person’s political agenda. The authors identified 14 indicators towards the topic that they wanted to record. By allowing different components for what a person includes in their definition of an American as well as different choices for answers, the article was able to draw more connections and more useful purpose from the data.

While extensive research was not performed during this research, it opened more doors for new perspectives and points of view of American culture. Overall, the main purpose of this study was to see the relationship between an American’s definition of what is an American and policy views in order to answer the question, how does a person’s conception of identity correlate with attitudes towards immigration policies? The research performed prior to the experiment enabled the authors to collect useful data and see if the results would prove their hypothesis, that whites with a high sense of ethnoculturalism are not in favor of immigration, was correct (Byrne & Dixon, 2016).

Theories

No theories or models were explicitly defined in this article. The article does divide up the concept of Identity into three models that all relate. National Identity, Ethnocultural Identity, and Ethnic Identity. National Identity is how a person defines their identity based on ascriptive traits and ideological values. This includes race, birthplace, language, political rights, duties, as well as civic based values. Ethnocultural Identity is very firm in its definition because its components are comprised of aspects of a person that are very hard to change. The thought that America is comprised of mainly W.A.S. P’s (White Anglo-Saxon Protestants) is due to this identity dimension model. The research conducted showed that despite having a large minority sample size, being Christian, white, and speaking English were considered main components while defining who a typical American is perceived. Ethnic Identity is associated with negative attitudes towards others; some could say extreme patriotism at times. This can be seen in xenophobic nationalism. This can also include those who agree that America’s success was built off of immigrants, but question whether or not todays immigrants really want to be or fit in their definition of what an American is (Byrne & Dixon, 2016).

Concepts about sampling and how different types of questions yield different results is discussed within the article. The Likert Scale was the format of the survey questionnaire that was conducted for the experiment. Using multiple options allowed variability to enter the experiment, which is what the authors wanted to incorporate. In order to draw bigger connections, they had to be get a lot of data with variables and find where the connections between the answers given and the background of the person answering occurred. A problem that can occur in these types of questionnaires is confusion through formatting. The textbook identifies this as problematic because sometimes people may become confused and give impaired answers. The authors improved question wording in order to receive more precise data. With a clearer question the hope is to get a clearer and more definitive answer (Ferris & Stein, 2008).

A plausible concern for this experiment could have been the Hawthorne effect. During the year of the survey illegal immigration was at an all-time high. 11.6 million illegal immigrants (ProCon.org, 2016). In 2016 the population had fallen below 11 million, continuing the decade-long downward trend (Markon, 2016). The people who were contacted might behave differently due to reactivity. They may feel more pressure to act or answer a certain way instead of answering on their own accord. This could make the hypothesis true, but the data collected would represent a false notion due to those being surveyed reacting to the process of the questionnaire (Ferris & Stein, 2008).

Research Method

The survey performed to retrieve the data was done randomly nationwide and over telephone. 2800 people responded to the phone call and gave their opinions as well as information. Of those 2800 respondents 1,040 people were white; 300 were African-American, 441 were Latino, and 299 were Asian-Americans. The number of minorities (1,760) surpassed the number of whites by 720 people. This created an oversample of minority respondents.

There is some bias in the survey that occurred. A majority of the people contacted were politically engaged as well as informed of civic republicanism. This gives another skew to the data. Most people would not answer the survey unless they felt a strong way towards the topic, this could be either a very negative or a very positive view (Byrne & Dixon, 2016).

This survey was an experiment because a hypothesis was made, a group was selected, data was collected, and observations based upon the data were reviewed. Not much is mentioned in the article about how the survey was constructed. The paper is comprised of mainly the research done previously and the results synthesized from the phone survey. In this experiment the only ethical issues that could have arisen would be people’s personal views about immigrants. Everything done over the phone was done willingly, the respondent could have hung up at any moment or decide to not even answer the call. No private or details about the respondents were released apart from what they told the person on the other end of the line. In most research experiment going over privacy rights and addressing any concerns on the sample group is a good way to ensure that the volunteers fully understand what they are signing up for. The caller would have informed the respondent that this is a survey and the results would be published.

The major dependent variable in this study was the response given to the questionnaire by the respondent. Independent variables included race, gender, and ethnicity. Many questions were asked to the respondents in order to determine their hostility to immigration as well as to get a grasp on their dimensional concept of their American Identity definition. The answers given were measured on a Likert Scale with normally three to four components; 0 being “increased,” 1 being “left the same”, 2 being “decreased.”

Results

The major findings of the study showed that while there is a portion of whites who are strongly in favor of immigration their numbers are very low. Most people who were contacted and responded held a strong commitment to their political institutions. This gave some of the graphs a skew at the ends of spectrums. Although there were some issues with the survey such as focusing in on one topic and not repeating the experiment, the data proved the hypothesis to be right. The data showed “the expected—that whites with a strong sense of ethnocultural identity are likely to favor restrictions on immigration” (Byrne & Dixon, 2016). A good point shown by the data is that although some people hold very strong views, their numbers are a small number of America’s population (Byrne & Dixon, 2016).

Since no theory was discussed in great detail in the Article no theory was supported. A contrasting opinion was revealed in relation to previous empirical research. The data from the survey as able to support the notion that most Americans are okay with the rate of immigrant and are neither for the increase of decrease of their numbers by immigration policies. By allowing more variability into the experiment, the authors were able to see that policy preference does indeed arise from factors that are related rather than independent to each other (Byrne & Dixon, 2016).

Summary

Overall, this random national phone survey only shows the reader the view of America at that particular time. As immigration numbers are declining in 2016 rather than increasing in 2009 many different opinions have overtaken America throughout the years. By using a small sample size directed toward a specific group of people bias was introduced into the experiment. Although the Hawthorne Effect did not occur (the data showed a contrast to previous studies), specific people will react to these types of surveys. Instead of getting the local soccer mom the survey included people who had strong, unmovable opinions on the policy of immigration. With enough people like this, this the data can get skewed very drastically and reveal the wrong conclusions. The sample base used in the research is more able to reflect America’s population currently. Each year America becomes more diverse; by including more races into studies like this the public can grasp an actual representative view of society’s stance on important political topics. Although America may have been saturated with W.A.S.P. ‘s at one point in history America is now changing and so has its opinion on immigration policy.

References Byrne, J. C., & Dixon, G. C. (2016). Just Not Like Us: The Interactive Impact of Dimensions of Identity and Race in Attitudes towards Immigration. Social Sciences: MDPI, Pages From 1 To 23. Ferris, K., & Stein, J. (2008).  The Real World: An Introduction to Sociology. (5th ed). (pp. 50-65). New York: W.W. Norton Markon, J. (2016). U.S illegal immigrant population falls below 11 million, continuing nearly decade-long decline, report says. The Washington Post. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/federal-eye/wp/2016/01/20 ProCon.org. (2016, March 18). Illegal Immigration, Population Estimates in the United States, 1969-2014. Retrieved from http://immigration.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=000844