I'm wondering if the reason whites and men list race and gender as less defining is because in our culture, those are considered normative. Our culture makes white and male the default in many instances, so if you are those you don't need to think about them. (I don't think it's right that they are normative, I'm just describing our culture). As for Gen Z making all three less important, I wonder if for the youngest generation, there is a shift in what is considered normative, less cis-gender, white, male, and so there is less need for them to define themselves against a perceived normative.
Try reading the Religion of Whiteness, a book full of statistics from nearly 3000 interviewees. The book definitely points out that race is an all important subject for evangelicals, so much that they aren't really worshiping Jesus, their worshiping Whiteness. https://www.amazon.com/Religion-Whiteness-Racism-Distorts-Christian/dp/0197746284
Ryan, are you familiar with compositional data analysis? If data like this collected appropriately, you could view the *relative* importances of race, gender, and religion as simplex data. Then see how they varied by other demographics.
This loses the ability to distinguish someone who thinks identity markers super important from those who don't care (but which could be another, complementary analysis). But can distinguish the relative importances of the three variables. It also completely alleviates the issue of trying to ordinally rank groups, as the proper space for this trio of variables is really in 2D and not in 1D.
Then maybe the form of your data won't allow it, but just a thought. Keep up the good work.
"All Tied" strikes me as a strange non-answer. These are three very different categories! Something tells me that a certain kind of survey responder is always going to be drawn to "all of the above" type answers, in order to avoid having to think too hard or search themselves too hard.
It should be uncontroversial among Christians that it at least ought to be that religion>sex>race. Though prior to the eschaton, that will not always be so in terms of how we relate to people on this earth. So I can see religious people are basically divided between that answer and religion=sex>race.
Though I think the opinion I have the most trouble relating to here is not thinking gender/sex matters that much. Religion is central to my life, but I can understand someone not thinking it matters that much. And I can go days at a time without thinking about race. But the fact I'm a man is relevant every day of my life, to every relationship in my life, whether I want it to be or not.
As Reid Cunningham notes, people don't think a lot about characteristics of themselves that are considered the norm in a society. So it's not surprising that, in the USA, whites don't think a lot about their race contributing to their identity, and men don't think a lot about their sex contributing to their identity.
I also note that, in the US, mainline Protestantism was the norm for most of the 20th century. So I wonder if you were to be able to ask this question in, say, 1965, whether United Methodists would not think much about religion as part of their identity, while perhaps Catholics would. You don't have to think a lot about how much something is a marker of your identity when it is just what one does in your society.
Now fast forward to today, when "no religion/nothing in particular" is the norm. "Nothing in particular" is not an identity I have to think about; it's just what one does. Being Evangelical, on the other hand, is countercultural--it definitely marks one as the "other." So you can't help making it a big part of your conscious identity; you're always being reminded of it in a way similar to how I am always being reminded that I am a woman.
RE: So it's not surprising that, in the USA, whites don't think a lot about their race contributing to their identity...
I think, given where we are demographically (i.e. birth cohort), it would be better to say that there are specific groups* of whites who, due to post Civil War settlement patterns, don't think about their race (i.e. pigment) contributing to their identity.
Hi, Eileen. I think it's more complex than that--and that race is a social construct that's not just about pigmentation. It's about what's socially defined as the "default*" category. Anyone who is not in the "default" category has no choice but to think about their category much more than anyone who is in the default category. The classic example is how virtually all societies for which we have records have treated men as the default, so men don't have to think about their identity as men--but the non-default women do. (This is pretty much the point of Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex.)
But racial identity is much more malleable in a society, and who gets to be in the default group changes over time. This is clearly something that's happened in US history.
For instance, you back 100 years in American history, and Italians were were considered a separate race, complete with legal language establishing the separateness of "Mediterranean races," and a set of racial slurs specific to Italians. But by the second half of the 20th century, Italian gets incorporated into the default umbrella of "white." Earlier, and I think informing what you're pointing to, there were a whole set of legal constructs establishing degrees of African ancestry to keep people of enslaved African descent from being accepted into the default category. (The "one-drop rule" underlying laws forbidding interracial marriage prior to Loving vs. Virginia is a good example.)
So I agree that there are features unique to US history that keep, in particular, people of enslaved African descent out of the "default" category, and this is more true in some parts of the United States than others. The more the default category expands its membership, the less anyone has to think about that aspect of their identity. The more the default category fragments, the more everyone thinks about that aspect of their identity. I think that fragmentation of the default category may be happening now in the United States, leading to more conscious consideration of identity (both along racial lines and along gender lines.)
*N.B., by "default" I am not saying "good" or "bad" or "normal," or even "statistically the most common." It's just "default," the way that Arial is the default font on my word processor so I don't have to think about using Arial but I do have to make a decision to change to Calibri, for instance.
RE: The more the default category fragments, the more everyone thinks about that aspect of their identity.
That was my point, but you have said it MUCH better.
A comment: I worked with a woman from Puerto Rico who said that in PR, where pretty much everyone was of African descent, African descent was the default umbrella.
And that economic status had become a primary "them-us" socialtal sorter.
The way she explained it, that made a lot of sense to me.
I’ve been unsubscribed to this substack for over six months but I am still being charged for it. I have tried many ways, including messaging Ryan Burge himself, to stop being charged. So I am resorting to the comment lines to try to reach someone who can find a way to stop charging me. It’s beginning to feel very unpleasant. huneven@me.com
Another good article but it felt like it missed the opportunity to break down the "race is important", "gender is important", etc questions *by* race and gender. I suspect that for black women they think about, and hence give more *conscious* importance to, those categories than white men. Not because those categories aren't important to white men - just being the privileged norm we don't have to spend time thinking about it.
"What combinations show up a bunch? Race and gender was fairly popular, but notice the huge partisan gap on this one. While 24% of Democrats said race and gender were key to their identity, it was only 12% of Republicans. I think this is pretty strong evidence of why the Democrats seem to be constantly talking about identity politics."
I wonder whether Dems' relative downplay of religious identity in this comparison also informs conservatives' view that universities are hostile places for them and their views. Amid a Left-leaning campus cultural consensus, religion is relegated to specific spaces on campus--to spiritual life centers, Religion departments, student groups, and cranks proclaiming on the quad--while gender and race have become matters deemed worth serious study across disciplines and have gained, in at least some disciplines, vocal support from activist scholars. (Hence Marsden's title, 'The Outrageous Idea of Christian Scholarship.')
Amid a seventy-year arc of identity politics, does the difference in the ways these identities are treated in academe explain the reactionary politics of our moment?
I wonder what the crosstab of Zoomers (ugh, people born between 1997 to 2012) that stated "views on religion" (not religion itself) is important. I know that Atheist/Agnostic get a bump because if people ID that way, they usually have some identity around having no religion. I appreciate that with a n=1000 we might be splitting a grain of sand but just curious; ID's around view of religion go both ways.
EDIT: corrected to use the real sample size letter
I'm wondering if the reason whites and men list race and gender as less defining is because in our culture, those are considered normative. Our culture makes white and male the default in many instances, so if you are those you don't need to think about them. (I don't think it's right that they are normative, I'm just describing our culture). As for Gen Z making all three less important, I wonder if for the youngest generation, there is a shift in what is considered normative, less cis-gender, white, male, and so there is less need for them to define themselves against a perceived normative.
I came here to say something similar, Reid. I'll elaborate more in a separate comment.
I was thinking something completely different, more along the lines of a counter-culture rather than acceptance.
Me, too....if the parents are all for "it" they aren't.
Try reading the Religion of Whiteness, a book full of statistics from nearly 3000 interviewees. The book definitely points out that race is an all important subject for evangelicals, so much that they aren't really worshiping Jesus, their worshiping Whiteness. https://www.amazon.com/Religion-Whiteness-Racism-Distorts-Christian/dp/0197746284
Look at all the pictures/paintings/whatevers of Jesus. He is a white (looking) guy in most of them.
Jesus was Aramaic
The book mentions that very point.
Haven't read/didn't know about the book....thanks for the heads-up.
🙄
A possible takeaway: Gen Z is divided. Faiths that "get" Gen Z have a future, whereas those who do not ....
Ryan, are you familiar with compositional data analysis? If data like this collected appropriately, you could view the *relative* importances of race, gender, and religion as simplex data. Then see how they varied by other demographics.
This loses the ability to distinguish someone who thinks identity markers super important from those who don't care (but which could be another, complementary analysis). But can distinguish the relative importances of the three variables. It also completely alleviates the issue of trying to ordinally rank groups, as the proper space for this trio of variables is really in 2D and not in 1D.
Then maybe the form of your data won't allow it, but just a thought. Keep up the good work.
"All Tied" strikes me as a strange non-answer. These are three very different categories! Something tells me that a certain kind of survey responder is always going to be drawn to "all of the above" type answers, in order to avoid having to think too hard or search themselves too hard.
It should be uncontroversial among Christians that it at least ought to be that religion>sex>race. Though prior to the eschaton, that will not always be so in terms of how we relate to people on this earth. So I can see religious people are basically divided between that answer and religion=sex>race.
Though I think the opinion I have the most trouble relating to here is not thinking gender/sex matters that much. Religion is central to my life, but I can understand someone not thinking it matters that much. And I can go days at a time without thinking about race. But the fact I'm a man is relevant every day of my life, to every relationship in my life, whether I want it to be or not.
Neither. Nationality is the most important identity criteria.
Why do you think this, please?
As Reid Cunningham notes, people don't think a lot about characteristics of themselves that are considered the norm in a society. So it's not surprising that, in the USA, whites don't think a lot about their race contributing to their identity, and men don't think a lot about their sex contributing to their identity.
I also note that, in the US, mainline Protestantism was the norm for most of the 20th century. So I wonder if you were to be able to ask this question in, say, 1965, whether United Methodists would not think much about religion as part of their identity, while perhaps Catholics would. You don't have to think a lot about how much something is a marker of your identity when it is just what one does in your society.
Now fast forward to today, when "no religion/nothing in particular" is the norm. "Nothing in particular" is not an identity I have to think about; it's just what one does. Being Evangelical, on the other hand, is countercultural--it definitely marks one as the "other." So you can't help making it a big part of your conscious identity; you're always being reminded of it in a way similar to how I am always being reminded that I am a woman.
RE: So it's not surprising that, in the USA, whites don't think a lot about their race contributing to their identity...
I think, given where we are demographically (i.e. birth cohort), it would be better to say that there are specific groups* of whites who, due to post Civil War settlement patterns, don't think about their race (i.e. pigment) contributing to their identity.
Hi, Eileen. I think it's more complex than that--and that race is a social construct that's not just about pigmentation. It's about what's socially defined as the "default*" category. Anyone who is not in the "default" category has no choice but to think about their category much more than anyone who is in the default category. The classic example is how virtually all societies for which we have records have treated men as the default, so men don't have to think about their identity as men--but the non-default women do. (This is pretty much the point of Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex.)
But racial identity is much more malleable in a society, and who gets to be in the default group changes over time. This is clearly something that's happened in US history.
For instance, you back 100 years in American history, and Italians were were considered a separate race, complete with legal language establishing the separateness of "Mediterranean races," and a set of racial slurs specific to Italians. But by the second half of the 20th century, Italian gets incorporated into the default umbrella of "white." Earlier, and I think informing what you're pointing to, there were a whole set of legal constructs establishing degrees of African ancestry to keep people of enslaved African descent from being accepted into the default category. (The "one-drop rule" underlying laws forbidding interracial marriage prior to Loving vs. Virginia is a good example.)
So I agree that there are features unique to US history that keep, in particular, people of enslaved African descent out of the "default" category, and this is more true in some parts of the United States than others. The more the default category expands its membership, the less anyone has to think about that aspect of their identity. The more the default category fragments, the more everyone thinks about that aspect of their identity. I think that fragmentation of the default category may be happening now in the United States, leading to more conscious consideration of identity (both along racial lines and along gender lines.)
*N.B., by "default" I am not saying "good" or "bad" or "normal," or even "statistically the most common." It's just "default," the way that Arial is the default font on my word processor so I don't have to think about using Arial but I do have to make a decision to change to Calibri, for instance.
RE: The more the default category fragments, the more everyone thinks about that aspect of their identity.
That was my point, but you have said it MUCH better.
A comment: I worked with a woman from Puerto Rico who said that in PR, where pretty much everyone was of African descent, African descent was the default umbrella.
And that economic status had become a primary "them-us" socialtal sorter.
The way she explained it, that made a lot of sense to me.
I’ve been unsubscribed to this substack for over six months but I am still being charged for it. I have tried many ways, including messaging Ryan Burge himself, to stop being charged. So I am resorting to the comment lines to try to reach someone who can find a way to stop charging me. It’s beginning to feel very unpleasant. huneven@me.com
So sorry to hear this.
I suspect the issue is "tech," which is great when it worksl, mind-bogglingly frustrating when it doesn't.
I suspect Dr. Burge will address this issue muy pronto.
Looking forward to seeing this broken down by race of respondents!
https://i.imgur.com/YYD7AuH.png
... that was really fast! ... At the risk of asking for too much... broken down by race AND age?
Nope. Top level N == 1000.
Out of curiosity, how much money does it cost to conduct a study with enough N for race + age?
A relatively good cost for a survey is around $6 per complete.
If you wanted five race categories and five age buckets, it's gonna be at least $50K.
Another good article but it felt like it missed the opportunity to break down the "race is important", "gender is important", etc questions *by* race and gender. I suspect that for black women they think about, and hence give more *conscious* importance to, those categories than white men. Not because those categories aren't important to white men - just being the privileged norm we don't have to spend time thinking about it.
"What combinations show up a bunch? Race and gender was fairly popular, but notice the huge partisan gap on this one. While 24% of Democrats said race and gender were key to their identity, it was only 12% of Republicans. I think this is pretty strong evidence of why the Democrats seem to be constantly talking about identity politics."
I wonder whether Dems' relative downplay of religious identity in this comparison also informs conservatives' view that universities are hostile places for them and their views. Amid a Left-leaning campus cultural consensus, religion is relegated to specific spaces on campus--to spiritual life centers, Religion departments, student groups, and cranks proclaiming on the quad--while gender and race have become matters deemed worth serious study across disciplines and have gained, in at least some disciplines, vocal support from activist scholars. (Hence Marsden's title, 'The Outrageous Idea of Christian Scholarship.')
Amid a seventy-year arc of identity politics, does the difference in the ways these identities are treated in academe explain the reactionary politics of our moment?
I'm a fan of the "shoveling clouds" metaphor.
I wonder what the crosstab of Zoomers (ugh, people born between 1997 to 2012) that stated "views on religion" (not religion itself) is important. I know that Atheist/Agnostic get a bump because if people ID that way, they usually have some identity around having no religion. I appreciate that with a n=1000 we might be splitting a grain of sand but just curious; ID's around view of religion go both ways.
EDIT: corrected to use the real sample size letter
I have my students read this essay for Research Methods called, "Clouds, Clocks, and the Study of Politics" which is a real banger.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/2010037?seq=1