Residential Integration and Interethnic Friendship in Houston

Close Together but Worlds Apart? Residential Integration and Interethnic Friendship in Houston Marcus L. Britton∗ Department of Sociology, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Why—and under what conditions—is residential integration positively associated with interethnic friendships between adults in large, diverse metropolitan areas? Both macrostructural and contact theories predict such an association. Yet integrated neighborhoods sometimes resemble “worlds of strangers” (Lofland, 1973), in which much interaction involves fleeting contacts that may increase the salience of stereotypes. Some prior research suggests that a positive association between integration and interethnic friendship may obtain even under such less than ideal circumstances. By analyzing how the association between integration and friendship varies among Anglos, Blacks, and Latinos, this article offers a more nuanced perspective informed by group position theory. Net of selection bias and more intensive forms of intergroup contact, living in an integrated area is only positively associated with having interethnic friendships when integration provides exposure to groups that occupy privileged positions in the larger society’s racial–ethnic hierarchy relative to a resident’s own group. Despite small decreases in segregation between Anglos and Blacks since 1980, residential segregation remains a central fact of life in metropolitan America (Charles, 2003). Scholars have long believed that the spatial segregation of racial–ethnic minorities, particularly urban Blacks, contributes to their social isolation and economic marginalization. While segregation between Anglos and other racial–ethnic minorities is not as extreme, large-scale immigration has facilitated the growth of suburban ethnic enclaves and increased the spatial isolation of metropolitan Asians and Hispanics in recent years, potentially hindering the structural assimilation of these groups into the mainstream of American society. Conversely, prior research suggests that increasing residential integration would significantly reduce racial–ethnic inequalities, particularly those that adversely affect Blacks and Latinos. Some scholars also suggest that integration improves race and ethnic relations and reduces hostility toward immigration among the native born (Oliver and Wong, 2003; Sigelman and Welch, 1993; Stein, Post, and Rinden, 2000). Yet, many of the benefits attributed to residential integration depend on presumed opportunities for friendly intergroup contact and, ultimately, on the integration of networks of interpersonal relationships. Some prior research suggests that residential integration is in fact positively associated with both casual intergroup contact and interethnic friendship (Briggs, 2007; Sigelman et al., 1996).1 Among adolescents in high school ∗ Correspondence

should be addressed to Marcus L. Britton, Department of Sociology, University of WisconsinMilwaukee, Bolton Hall 760, P.O. Box 413, Milwaukee, WI 53201; [email protected].

City & Community 10:2 June 2011 doi: 10.1111/j.1540-6040.2010.01352.x C 2011 American Sociological Association, 1430 K Street NW, Washington, DC 20005 

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settings, however, the strength of the positive association between integration and interethnic friendship varies across specific combinations of racial–ethnic groups (Quillian and Campbell, 2003). One reason may be that prejudice and intergroup conflict reduce the attractiveness of potential friends who are identified with specific outgroups, thereby preserving a racial–ethnic social hierarchy even in integrated settings. Prior research has not examined whether—and, if so, why—the association between residential integration and interethnic friendships between adults varies in a similar fashion. Yet compared to the social interaction that takes place in formal organizational settings like schools and workplaces, much of the intergroup contact that takes place in integrated urban neighborhoods remains relatively fleeting, superficial, and dependent on readily observable visual cues like skin color and manner of dress (Anderson, 1990; Britton, 2008; Lofland, 1973). As such, many neighborhood-based cross-ethnic interactions may well be influenced by stereotypes and prejudice to an even greater extent than interactions in integrated organizational settings. While a handful of prior studies have examined the correlates of interethnic friendship among adults, most of this research has relied on aggregate measures of contact across a range of different settings (e.g., schools, workplaces, and neighborhoods) to predict interethnic friendships, leaving the distinctive role of residential areas largely unexamined (Ellison and Powers, 1994; Emerson, Kimbro, and Yancey, 2002). Moreover, many studies that have examined the predictors of interethnic friendships among adults either focus exclusively on Blacks and Anglos (Ellison and Powers, 1994; Sigelman et al., 1996) or examine whether members of any other racial–ethnic group are included in an individual’s circle of friends (Emerson, Kimbro, and Yancey, 2002). Consequently, these studies do not explain differences in the factors predicting adult friendships across the range of specific racial–ethnic combinations possible in contemporary American metropolitan areas (e.g., Black/Hispanic or Asian/Anglo). An important exception is Briggs’ (2007) study, which finds that neighborhood-level residential integration is associated with a higher incidence of friendships with both Blacks and Latinos among Anglos and of friendships with Anglos among Blacks. Yet Briggs (2007, p. 269) is quick to acknowledge that the association he finds between residential exposure and interethnic friendship may be “a matter of selection effects.” In other words, individuals who are favorably disposed toward intergroup contact may be more likely to move into or remain in integrated neighborhoods, thus insuring that those who experience residential exposure to specific outgroups represent a nonrandom sample of their own racial–ethnic group. As such, the observed positive correlation between outgroup exposure and having outgroup friends may be spurious. To date, however, prior research provides no evidence as to whether selection bias contributes to the positive association between residential exposure and interethnic friendship. The present study thus builds on prior research on interethnic friendships in three closely related ways. First, this study focuses more narrowly than most prior research on understanding the association between residential exposure and interethnic friendship, while controlling for or otherwise holding constant other influences on interpersonal networks identified by prior studies. In particular, my empirical focus on a single urban area, Harris County (which includes the City of Houston), allows me to hold relative group size constant (see Blau, 1977; Briggs, 2007). Second, this study employs a two-equation model that permits an explicit evaluation of whether the observed association between residential exposure and interethnic friendship is influenced by selection 183

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bias. Finally, this study moves beyond existing research by examining friendships between members of different racial–ethnic minority groups (e.g., friendships between Hispanics and Blacks), as well as relationships between Anglos and racial–ethnic minorities. As I detail further below, this approach highlights the importance of the hierarchical structure of race and ethnic relations in metropolitan America in a manner largely obscured by focusing exclusively on majority–minority ties. In order to understand why—and under what conditions—residential integration is positively associated with interethnic friendship, I analyze data from the 2003 Houston Area Survey. By combining data provided by survey respondents about their friends’ racial–ethnic identities with Census data on the racial–ethnic composition of their residential areas, I examine the factors contributing to the association between residential exposure and interethnic friendship. Before describing my analysis of these data and presenting the results, I first discuss four theoretical perspectives that offer specific predictions about how and why the association between residential exposure and interethnic friendship is likely to vary under specified conditions.

MACROSTRUCTURAL THEORY AND THE CONTACT HYPOTHESIS Blau’s (1977) macrostructural theory offers an explanation for variation in rates of all forms of intergroup contact, ranging from anonymous encounters to close interpersonal ties. Most relevant to the present study, Blau argues that members of spatially segregated groups will have fewer opportunities for contact with one another than those residing in the same areas. Although this claim has been supported by empirical research on some forms of intergroup contact (e.g., street crime—see South and Messner, 1986), the available evidence raises questions about its relevance to relatively intimate interpersonal relationships. Research confirms the common-sense notion that individuals interact more frequently with others who live nearby, but ties with neighbors are typically weaker and less durable than relationships with friends and immediate family members (Wellman, 1996). Guest, Matsueda, and Kubrin’s (2006) data from Seattle suggest that only about one-fifth of urban residents report knowing all or most of their neighbors by their first names. Similarly, Lee and Campbell (1999) found that residents of South Nashville reported being close or very close to less than one-third of their neighbors and reported socializing with even fewer of their neighbors outside the neighborhood. Moreover, a number of studies suggest that casual contact arising from sheer proximity is at best weakly related to friendship and that this has become increasingly true in recent decades (Caplow and Forman, 1950; Guest and Wierzbicki, 1999; McPherson, Smith-Lovin, and Brashears, 2006). Nevertheless, the opportunities for casual contact provided by residential propinquity may continue to play a relatively important role in facilitating interethnic friendships, since the latter remain rare compared to within-group relationships. Given their rarity, interethnic friendships are presumably less likely to form as a result of shared friendship ties to third parties (i.e., by virtue of being “friends of friends”). Indeed, Louch (2000) demonstrates that even individuals who do have ties to a common third party are less likely to know each other if they do not belong to the same racial–ethnic group, especially if they are not also coworkers or neighbors. Similarly, Nahemow and Lawton (1975) found that the relationship between proximity and friendship was stronger among elderly 184

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residents of a Manhattan housing project when they belonged to different racial–ethnic groups. As such, residential proximity may assume greater importance in accounting for interethnic ties than is the case for within-group ties. Accordingly, macrostructural theory predicts a positive association between residential exposure to specific racial–ethnic outgroups and having friends who belong to those outgroups. However, this general prediction is consistent with two somewhat different sociopsychological theories that have been developed in connection with the so-called contact hypothesis, which predicts that exposure to members of other racial–ethnic groups will reduce prejudice, foster more favorable perceptions of intergroup relations, and increase openness to intimate social ties that cross racial–ethnic lines. Some analysts emphasize that contact should only have this beneficial effect on attitudes when the resulting interaction occurs under several facilitating conditions. Allport’s (1954) influential early formulation of what might be called the weak form of the contact hypothesis emphasizes the importance of equal status, shared goals, intergroup cooperation, and support from authority figures, and suggests that, absent these facilitating conditions, contact is unlikely to lead to more favorable attitudes. Some studies further emphasize the importance of contact that is relatively frequent and intimate (Cook, 1957; Dixon, 2006). Such considerations suggest that the often superficial interactions that occur by virtue of sheer residential propinquity are unlikely to affect attitudes toward members of other racial–ethnic groups favorably. Accordingly, the weak form of the contact hypothesis implies that living near members of other racial–ethnic groups will be unrelated to whether individuals have friends who belong to those groups unless living in integrated areas is also positively associated with more intensive interactions that take place under the sort of facilitating conditions emphasized by Allport (1954). But because the contact hypothesis emphasizes the role of attitudes, even the weak version implies that, given that residential integration is positively associated with interactions that take place under these facilitating conditions, residents of integrated areas will be more likely to have interethnic friendships regardless of whether any of their friends live in the same neighborhood. Accordingly, I propose the following hypothesis: Hypothesis 1a, weak version of the contact hypothesis: Residential exposure to a given outgroup is positively associated with having one or more friends who belong to that outgroup; however, there is no association net of more intensive forms of contact in settings such as workplaces, places of worship, and intimate family relationships. Some empirical research has supported what might be called the strong form of the contact hypothesis, which places much less emphasis on the importance of facilitating conditions. Indeed, Pettigrew (1998, p. 68) concludes from his extensive review that “most studies report positive contact effects, even in situations lacking” the facilitating conditions noted above. From this perspective, residential proximity to members of other racial–ethnic groups can be expected to increase openness to more intimate social ties with members of those groups, even if residential integration only leads to casual intergroup contacts. Thus, the strong form of the contact hypothesis predicts that residential exposure and interethnic friendship will be positively associated even net of any association there may be between living in an integrated area and engaging in more intensive interactions with members of other racial–ethnic groups. Like the weak version, then, the strong form of the contact hypothesis predicts a positive association between residential exposure and 185

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interethnic friendship. The strong version, however, adds that this positive association should persist net of any association that may exist between living in an integrated area and interacting with members of other racial-ethnic groups in settings such as families, workplaces, and houses of worship that foster relatively intensive contact, intimacy, and cooperation. Consistent with this assertion, Sigelman and Welch (1993) find that Blacks and Anglos who live in integrated neighborhoods perceive race relations more favorably, though only Anglos are more likely to express support for Black–Anglo social interaction under these circumstances (primarily since Black support for this form of interracial contact is uniformly high). More generally, Oliver and Wong (2003) find consistent evidence among Anglos, Blacks, and Latinos that residential integration is associated with lower levels of prejudice and perceived competition. While these studies did not specifically investigate whether the effects of neighborhood integration were mediated by specific forms of intergroup contact, an older study found that white residents of suburban neighborhoods developed more favorable attitudes toward blacks after living near a black family for 1 year, even though most had at most only “brief and casual” contact with the black family (Hamilton and Bishop, 1976, p. 65). These findings suggest that individuals living in integrated residential areas may indeed be more open to relatively intimate interethnic contact and thus more likely to have friends who belong to other racial–ethnic groups, even when most interethnic contact does not involve extensive intergroup socializing, cooperation, or intimacy. Accordingly, I propose the following alternative hypothesis: Hypothesis 1b, strong version of the contact hypothesis: Net of its association with more intensive forms of contact, residential exposure to a given outgroup is positively associated with having one or more friends who belong to that outgroup. Other considerations suggest that the beneficial effects of residential integration may be more modest when Blacks are involved. In the US context, prejudice against Blacks often involves particularly negative stereotypes and unusually strong feelings of hostility. While Quillian and Campbell’s (2003) evidence on adolescent friendships suggests that exposure to other racial–ethnic groups is positively associated with friendships with members of those groups in school settings, they also find that, given the same structural opportunities, interethnic friendship ties to Blacks are significantly less common than interethnic friendships involving members of other racial–ethnic groups. Similarly, Dixon (2006) shows that although casual contact is associated with less prejudice among Anglos toward Asians and Latinos, casual contact—unlike close personal relationships— is not significantly associated with Anglos’ attitudes toward Blacks. Thus, prior research suggests the following hypothesis: Hypothesis 2, race and the contact hypothesis: Residential exposure is more weakly associated with interethnic friendships involving Blacks than with other kinds of interethnic friendships.

GROUP POSITION THEORY Drawing on insights from Blumer’s (1958) group position theory and extensions proposed by Bobo and Zubrinsky Charles (Bobo and Zubrinsky, 1996; Zubrinsky and Bobo, 1996; Charles, 2000, 2006), I argue that the nature of the association between 186

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residential integration and interethnic friendship can be expected to vary systematically, depending on the relative standing of groups in the American racial–ethnic hierarchy. In his original statement of group position theory, Blumer (1958) argues that “race prejudice” involves a collectively shared sense of belonging to the dominant group in a given society, a group defined in opposition to a subordinate racial–ethnic group believed to be intrinsically different and inferior. He argues that this shared sense of dominance only becomes prejudice, however, when accompanied by both a shared sense of entitlement “to certain areas of privilege and advantage” and a shared perception that a subordinate group poses a threat to those entitlements by refusing to stay in its place (Blumer, 1958, p. 5). While Blumer’s work provides a useful starting point for understanding the association between residential integration and interethnic friendship, Bobo and Zubrinsky have extended his theory by applying it in a series of studies examining the causes and consequences of attitudes toward residential integration in the multiethnic setting of late 20th century Los Angeles (Bobo and Zubrinsky, 1996; Zubrinsky and Bobo, 1996; Charles, 2000, 2006). In part, because they have tended to rely on data from less racially and ethnically diverse cities like Detroit and Atlanta, most studies concerned with attitudes toward residential integration have limited their focus to Anglos and Blacks (Adelman, 2005; Farley et al., 1978; Farley et al., 1994; Harris, 2001; Krysan and Farley, 2002; Krysan et al., 2009; Timberlake, 2000). In contrast, Bobo and Zubrinsky Charles’s work on Los Angeles reveals the hierarchical structure of expressed preferences for integration with different racial–ethnic groups much more clearly than has been possible in other research. Bobo and Zubrinsky (1996) argue that residential segregation constitutes an important example of the sort of dominant group privilege emphasized in Blumer’s theory. Members of the dominant racial–ethnic group expect to benefit from a system of place stratification that insulates some residential areas from the deleterious consequences of socioeconomic inequality, while disproportionately exposing other areas to those consequences (Massey and Denton, 1993). Given this expectation, members of the dominant group experience residential integration as an illegitimate encroachment on prerogatives rightfully reserved for them alone. Moreover, Bobo and Zubrinsky (1996, p. 887) argue that “what matters is the magnitude or degree of difference that ingroup members have socially learned to expect and maintain relative to members of specific outgroups.” As such, the dominant group’s hostility to integration can be expected to increase as the perceived social distance between the dominant group and the specific subordinate group involved increases. In the US context, evidence from a number of different social arenas suggests that Anglos enjoy a privileged, dominant position in American society; that Blacks are consistently viewed as a subordinate, threatening group; and that Asians and Latinos occupy intermediate positions (e.g., see Berry, 2006; Weaver, 2008; Weitzer and Tuch, 2004). Indeed, some observers have dubbed Asians and Latinos “honorary whites” (Bonilla-Silva and Glover, 2004). Yet while Asians’ claim on this intermediate position has been reinforced by their status as the “model minority” since World War II, a rapid influx of poor immigrants from Latin America has rendered Latinos’ position increasingly ambiguous and insecure, particularly since many of these immigrants neither identify as “White” nor are regarded as such by the native born (Lee and Bean, 2004; Steinberg, 1989). Anglos are more supportive on an average of having a close relative marry someone who is Latino or Asian than someone who is Black (Weaver, 2008). Similarly, Latinos are least 187

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supportive of intermarriage with Blacks, somewhat more supportive of intermarriage with Asians, and most supportive of intermarriage with Anglos. Along the same lines, Berry (2006) finds that, adjusting for the opportunity structure associated with relative group size, Anglo brides and grooms have Asians in their wedding parties half as often as Anglo bridesmaids and groomsmen, but have Black bridesmaids or groomsmen only one-tenth as often as they have Anglos in their wedding parties. Findings on racial residential preferences and residential segregation paint a similar picture of the hierarchical structure of race and ethnic relations. Residents of Los Angeles County are most likely to object to residential integration with Blacks and least likely to object to residential integration with Anglos, with reactions to potential integration with Latinos and Asians falling in between (Bobo and Zubrinsky, 1996; Zubrinsky and Bobo, 1996; Charles, 2000, 2006). In fact, Anglos in US metropolitan areas are least integrated with Blacks, followed by Latinos and then Asians (Charles, 2003); Asians are also more integrated with Anglos than with Latinos and especially more than with Blacks (S4 2010). Accordingly, the empirical implication of group position theory for residential integration and intergroup relations is clear: for Anglos, “maintaining their status advantages and privilege requires a certain amount of social distance from nonwhites—particularly blacks and Latinos, the groups at the bottom of the racial queue—since more than token integration would signal an unwelcome change in status relations” (Charles, 2006, p. 159). Ethnographic research provides vivid examples of how the heightened salience of racial–ethnic distinctions and perceived threat presented by outgroups in integrated residential areas can hinder the development of interethnic friendships. Anderson (1990, p. 183) observes that the Anglo residents of an integrated neighborhood “may pass right by black ‘friends’ and simply fail to see them because they are concentrating not on the friend but on the social context,” with the result that many would-be interethnic friendships degenerate into frustration and resentment “before they have a chance to begin.” Prior research further suggests that Anglos are typically in a better position to satisfy their racial residential preferences than is the case among other racial–ethnic groups, especially Blacks. Studies consistently show that discrimination in rental, sales, and mortgage markets constrain housing choices among Asians, Latinos, and Blacks relative to Anglos (Massey and Lundy, 2001; Squires and Kubrin, 2006; Turner, Frieberg et al., 2002; Turner, Ross et al., 2002). Moreover, Anglos are more likely than members of other racial– ethnic groups to prefer homogenous residential areas that limit contact with outgroups (Bobo and Zubrinsky, 1996; Zubrinsky and Bobo, 1996; Charles, 2000, 2006), and studies of “white flight” confirm that Anglos routinely act on these preferences (Crowder, 2000; Quillian, 2002). As such, individual Anglo residents are more likely than members of other racial–ethnic groups to move out of integrated residential areas, unless they either lack the financial means to do so or are more favorably disposed toward exposure to other racial–ethnic groups than is typical among their Anglo counterparts. Accordingly, selection bias may contribute more to the association between residential exposure and interethnic friendship among Anglos than among members of other racial–ethnic groups. Therefore, I propose the following hypothesis: Hypothesis 3, group position: Net of selection bias, residential exposure to outgroups is negatively associated with having friends who belong to those outgroups among Anglos. Moreover, the strength of this negative association is stronger where 188

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residential integration with Asians, with Latinos, and with Blacks, respectively, is concerned.

DATA AND METHODS In order to test the predictions derived from the theories discussed above, I analyzed data from the 2003 Houston Area Survey. The Houston Area Survey (hereafter, HAS) collects data annually from a sample of adult Harris County residents reached by random-digit dialing. In addition to the initial sample of approximately 650 respondents, additional computer-assisted, telephone interviews are conducted with oversamples of Anglo, Black, and Hispanic respondents. The cooperation rate for the 2003 survey was approximately 50 percent (Klineberg, 2005). My analysis focuses on the 545 Anglos, 488 Blacks, and 487 Hispanics who responded to the 2003 survey and answered the survey items used to construct my dependent variables (only 11 Anglo, 12 Black, and 13 Hispanic respondents did not answer these questions). Harris County provides a particularly appropriate setting to examine the issues discussed above. Harris County is one of a growing number of “majority–minority” counties in the United States (Berstein, 2007), with 2003 estimates indicating that its population was roughly one-third Anglo (39.4 percent) and one-third Hispanic (36.3 percent) and included sizeable proportions of non-Hispanic Blacks (17.7 percent) and Asians (5.4 percent), as well. Levels of residential segregation are relatively moderate by national standards (Charles, 2003), insuring that the HAS data provide ample variation in the level of residential exposure to specific outgroups experienced by respondents (see Table 1 below for specifics).

DEPENDENT VARIABLES The dependent measures used in the analyses below are four indicator variables denoting whether each respondent had at least one friend who was Anglo, Asian, Black, or Hispanic (derived from “ETHFRS” variables in the 2003 HAS—see http://has.rice.edu/ content.aspx?id=114). Table 1 gives the estimated rates of interethnic friendships among Anglo, Black, and Hispanic respondents. A comparison of opportunity-adjusted rates derived from those shown in Table 1 with those reported by prior studies (not shown, but available from the author upon request) suggests that explicitly limiting respondents to their “three closest friends in Houston” reduced the influence of the expansive, highly variable understandings of friendship elicited by measures that ask respondents more generally whether any of their friends belonged to another racial–ethnic group (see Smith, 2002). Nevertheless, the HAS questions do not provide precise measures of the level of interpersonal intimacy or the specific types of interactions (confiding, social support, etc.) involved in these relationships. Given that the focus of the present research is on understanding the association between residential integration and interethnic friendship rather than providing precise estimates of the prevalence or closeness of interethnic friendships, measurement error should not significantly undermine the validity of the results of the analyses presented below. 189

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Table 1. Descriptive Statistics for Anglo, Black, and Hispanic Respondents Variable 1+ outgroup friends 1+ Anglo friends 1+ Asian friends 1+ Black friends 1+ Hispanic friends % Anglo in block group % Asian in block group % Black in block group % Hispanic in block group Anglo median income Asian median income Black median income Hispanic median income Works mostly with Anglos Works mostly with Asians Works mostly with Blacks Works mostly with Hispanics Partner is Anglo Partner is Asian Partner is Black Partner is Hispanic Attends diverse church Nonresidential exposure to Anglos Nonresidential exposure to Asians Nonresidential exposure to Blacks Nonresidential exposure to Hispanics Language ability Volunteered in past year Completed high school Completed some college Completed 4-year degree Completed advanced degree Household income Employed full-time Married Female Age Homeowner Family Size Suburban residence Born in the United States

Anglo 0.492 0.884 0.067 0.251 0.332 62.7 (25.0) 5.01 (5.61) 8.74 (14.4) 21.7 (20.2) 5.37 (1.58) 5.13 (2.04) 4.67 (1.99) 4.61 (1.76) 0.296 0.006 0.045 0.051 0.561 0.007 0.020 0.046 0.161 1.01 (0.762) 0.171 (0.393) 0.217 (0.462) 0.254 (0.495) 0.463 (0.680) 0.606 0.203 0.344 0.268 0.134 5.32 (2.00) 0.542 0.616 0.525 48.5 (15.7) 0.797 2.73 (1.34) 0.601 0.957

Black 0.521 0.365 0.057 0.846 0.336 23.2 (26.6) 3.89 (6.03) 47.7 (33.8) 24.1 (21.3) 4.00 (1.77) 4.14 (1.92) 3.32 (1.55) 3.47 (1.49) 0.223 0.004 0.116 0.088 0.036 0.000 0.371 0.016 0.089 0.352 (0.555) 0.101 (0.309) 0.578 (0.645) 0.200 (0.427) 0.376 (0.613) 0.572 0.220 0.380 0.210 0.078 3.99 (2.03) 0.566 0.396 0.604 42.0 (14.7) 0.591 3.03 (1.54) 0.347 0.962

Hispanic 0.322 0.281 0.025 0.123 0.865 34.1 (26.1) 4.73 (7.51) 14.5 (18.8) 45.0 (28.0) 3.91 (1.60) 4.17 (2.03) 3.69 (1.75) 3.51 (1.39) 0.143 0.011 0.039 0.253 0.070 0.004 0.016 0.519 0.180 0.391 (0.615) 0.192 (0.400) 0.223 (0.443) 0.964 (0.720) 2.96 (1.46) 0.394 0.289 0.227 0.133 0.022 3.53 (1.80) 0.533 0.563 0.544 34.8 (12.4) 0.518 3.95 (1.57) 0.436 0.423

Hispanic Immigrant 0.176 0.158 0.000 0.054 0.946 31.0 (25.3) 4.29 (6.20) 17.0 (21.1) 46.2 (27.4) 3.81 (1.59) 3.97 (1.99) 3.46 (1.65) 3.31 (1.26) 0.083 0.008 0.015 0.371 0.035 0.007 0.014 0.608 0.091 0.202 (0.431) 0.099 (0.313) 0.107 (0.323) 1.07 (0.707) 2.26 (1.55) 0.322 0.265 0.171 0.098 0.017 3.11 (1.55) 0.542 0.576 0.524 34.0 (10.8) 0.427 4.10 (1.51) 0.404 0.000

Note: Table 1 gives proportions for dichotomous variables and means with standard deviations in parentheses for ordinal and continuous variables. Outgroup income is an ordinal measure of median household income for households with a head of household belonging to the focal outgroup in the respondent’s block group (see household income below for categories). Volunteering is set equal to one for respondents who reported “contribut[ing] any of [their] time to a volunteer activity” in the 12 months prior to the survey. Language ability is coded as follows: 0 = speaks no Spanish (English); 1 = “a little”; 2 = “fairly well,” and 3 = “very well” (and, for Hispanic respondents, 4 = interview conducted in English). The household income variable was reported on an eight-point scale as follows: 1 = $100,000. Missing values were imputed, resulting in a continuous variable ranging from 1 to 8.6. Missing values on age were replaced by the group mean.

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INDEPENDENT VARIABLES The main independent variables used in the analyses below are measures of residential exposure to specific racial–ethnic groups. I use the percent non-Hispanic White alone, percent non-Hispanic Black alone, percent non-Hispanic Asian alone, and percent Hispanic/Latino from the 2000 Census (Summary Tape File 3) for the block group where the respondent lived at the time of the interview. In addition, I also control for the median household income of the focal outgroup at the block-group level, since racial–ethnic composition is correlated with the group-specific median incomes in block groups. Some of the models presented below also include a control for nonresidential outgroup exposure. This variable captures more intensive contacts that take place under conditions that approximate those emphasized by the weak form of the contact hypothesis. Following prior research on interethnic friendship (Ellison and Powers, 1994; Emerson, Kimbro, and Yancey, 2002), I operationalized nonresidential exposure as the sum of three indicator variables, denoting (1) whether the majority of the respondent’s coworkers belonged to the focal outgroup, (2) whether the respondent attended a religious service whose congregation was less than 80 percent co-ethnics during the last 30 days, and (3) whether the respondent’s spouse or domestic partner belonged to the focal outgroup. I also include a number of additional control variables in each of the models presented below. First, I include a measure of Spanish-language ability in models predicting Hispanic friends and a similar measure of English-language ability in models predicting whether Hispanic respondents had interethnic friendships. Given Briggs’ (2007) findings on the importance of civic engagement and socioeconomic status, I also control for volunteering activity, household income, education, and work status. Finally, I include controls for three demographic variables typically included in studies of interethnic friendship: marital status, age in years, and gender (see Ellison and Powers, 1994; Emerson, Kimbro, and Yancey, 2002, Sigelman et al., 1996). Descriptive statistics for these variables are shown in Table 1. STATISTICAL MODELS AND ESTIMATION I estimated a series of probit models to examine the association between residential exposure and interethnic friendship. One limitation of conventional probit models is that they do not take selection effects on the association between residential exposure and interethnic friendship into account. For example, relatively favorable attitudes toward intergroup contact might result in both high levels of residential exposure and interethnic friendships (and thus a positive correlation between the two variables) even if the correlation between exposure and friendship net of their association with these attitudes is zero. One solution would be to control for attitudes toward residential integration, preferably using longitudinal data in which measures of both attitudes toward residential integration and the composition of each respondent’s friendship network were collected both before and after moving into the respondent’s current residence. To my knowledge, however, no existing dataset provides this information. Moreover, experimental studies cast doubt on the validity of survey measures of attitudes toward residential integration, which are significantly influenced by social desirability bias (Emerson, Yancey, and Chai, 2001; Lewis and Emerson, 2005). 191

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Thus, a better approach to assessing whether selection effects may be contributing to the observed association in the absence of appropriate longitudinal data is to use a full information maximum likelihood (FIML) estimator that treats both residential exposure and interethnic friendship as endogenous variables (Bollen, Guilkey, and Mroz, 1995). This approach involves estimating two equations, one that predicts the level of residential exposure and a second that predicts interethnic friendship. While FIML analysis of cross-sectional data does not enable one to discriminate as definitively between selection effects and a causal relationship between residential integration and interethnic friendship or to determine the causal direction of any such relationship in the manner that longitudinal data might, this analytical approach does offer a means of assessing whether the positive association between these two variables persists net of unmeasured factors that are significantly associated with both. Respondent age and socioeconomic status are used to predict both residential exposure and interethnic friendship. However, the model imposes an identification restriction, according to which three additional variables, the number of persons in the household, homeownership, and suburban residence (along with a dummy variable for foreign born in models for Hispanic respondents), only affect interethnic friendship indirectly through their influence on residential exposure. χ 2 tests of the difference in the log likelihoods for these models provided statistical evidence for the validity of these identifying restrictions (Bollen, Guilkey, and Mroz, 1995). To estimate this model, I used the probiv program developed by Filmer (1999) for Stata 7. Filmer’s program estimates two parameters that provide statistical tests for endogeneity bias: α and ρ. To the extent that the estimates of both α and ρ reach conventional levels of statistical significance, this provides robust evidence that the estimated effect of residential exposure obtained from a conventional probit model will be biased.

RESULTS Table 2 shows the point biserial correlations between residential exposure and specific types of interethnic friendships. Consistent with hypotheses 1a and 1b, seven of the nine correlations between outgroup residential exposure and interethnic friendship are positive, though only five are significantly greater than zero. Moreover, even the positive, statistically significant correlations are relatively modest, ranging from the 0.12 correlation between percent Asian in the block group and having Asian friends among Black respondents to the 0.276 correlation between percent Anglo and having Anglo friends among Hispanic respondents.

Table 2. Correlations between Interethnic Friendship and Residential Exposure Outgroup Respondent’s Ethnicity Anglo Black Hispanic Note: ∗ p < 0.05; ∗∗ p < 0.01.

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Anglo 0.172∗∗ 0.276∗∗

Asian −0.037 0.120∗ 0.238∗∗

Black 0.132∗∗ −0.067

Hispanic 0.070 0.048

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Table 3. Tests for Selection (Endogeneity) Bias in Conventional Probit Models Respondent’s Ethnicity Parameter

Outgroup

α

Anglo Asian Black Hispanic Anglo Asian Black Hispanic

ρ

∗∗

∗

Anglo 0.029 (0.074) 0.067 (0.032)∗ 0.031 (0.012)∗ 0.233 (0.392) 0.692 (0.237)∗∗ 0.529 (0.164)∗∗

Black 0.000 (0.008) 0.010 (0.119) 0.017 (0.018) 0.030 (0.209) 0.217 (0.624) 0.760 (0.229)∗∗

Hispanic −0.005 (0.012) −0.020 (0.067)† −0.009 (0.030) −0.217 (0.272) −0.271 (0.475)† −0.340 (0.887)

†

Note: p < 0.01; p < 0.05; Foreign-born Hispanics respondents are excluded from the models predicting Asian friends among Hispanic respondents, since none of the foreign-born Hispanic respondents reported having Asian friends (see Table 1). Standard errors are shown in parentheses.

SELECTION BIAS Table 3 summarizes the evidence for selection bias in conventional probit models. The top portion of Table 3 lists the estimates of α. Positive values of α indicate that the estimated effect of residential exposure from the conventional probit model is biased upward, while negative values indicate a downward bias (Bollen, Guilkey, and Mroz, 1995). For example, the positive, statistically significant coefficient of 0.067 in the first column indicates that, among Anglos, unmeasured factors such as attitudes toward residential integration bias the observed association between residential exposure to Blacks and having Black friends upward. More generally, the α coefficients in the first column indicate that estimates of the association between residential exposure to both Blacks and Latinos, but not Asians, and having friends in the corresponding group will be upwardly biased in a conventional probit model. Conversely, the second and third columns present the estimates of α for Black and Hispanic respondents, none of which provides evidence of significant selection bias. The bottom portion of Table 3 presents the FIML estimates of ρ. With one exception, the results are substantively consistent with the estimates of α. The estimate of ρ is positive and significant in the models predicting whether Anglos had Black and Hispanic friends, but insignificant in the model predicting friendships with Asians. Similarly, few of the estimates provide any evidence of selection bias in models predicting whether Black and Hispanic respondents had friends from other racial–ethnic groups. However, the model predicting whether Black respondents had Hispanic friends suggests that selection bias may have influenced the estimated effect of percent Hispanic. As such, I discuss the results from alternate specifications of the model predicting Hispanic friends among Black respondents in the next section. More generally, I proceed by presenting and comparing the results of both the conventional probit and the FIML estimates in those cases where there is clear, consistent evidence of selection (i.e., endogeneity) bias, namely, for Anglo respondents when predicting Black and Hispanic friends. Conversely, I present only the conventional probit results in all other cases (see Table 5). PROBIT RESULTS Table 4 presents conventional probit and FIML models predicting Black and Hispanic friends among Anglo respondents. Consistent with macrostructural theory and the 193

194 Probit

−0.307∗ (0.139) 0.061 (0.136) 0.001 (0.004) −0.985∗∗ (0.340) −232.2 450

−0.076 (0.171) −0.488∗ (0.194) −0.472∗ (0.239) 0.101 (0.147)

−0.373 (0.193)

0.329∗ (0.145)

0.010∗ (0.005) 0.063 (0.036)

−0.289 (0.153) 0.016 (0.148) 0.003 (0.005) −1.214∗∗ (0.362) −197.6 400

−0.159 (0.183) −0.525∗ (0.207) −0.530∗ (0.265) 0.057 (0.161)

−0.490∗ (0.224)

0.294 (0.155)

0.008 (0.006) 0.095∗ (0.039) 0.497∗∗ (0.161)

FIML

−0.273∗ (0.112) 0.038 (0.097) 0.001 (0.004) −0.269 (0.414) −1,852.9 412

0.064 (0.155) −0.309 (0.183) −0.323 (0.214) 0.195 (0.131)

−0.332 (0.170)

0.224 (0.120)

−0.047∗∗ (0.014) 0.036 (0.028)

−0.300∗ (0.130) 0.013 (0.113) 0.002 (0.004) −0.467 (0.598) −1,629.2 369

−0.059 (0.170) −0.318 (0.212) −0.489∗ (0.240) 0.109 (0.145)

−0.385 (0.214)

0.224 (0.140)

−0.046∗ (0.022) 0.070 (0.040) 0.384∗ (0.176)

Probit

0.055 (0.135) −0.034 (0.130) −0.005 (0.004) −0.522 (0.356) −263.6 449

0.268 (0.167) −0.180 (0.184) −0.269 (0.229) 0.272 (0.141)

0.011 (0.169)

0.291∗∗ (0.091) 0.006 (0.137)

0.005 (0.004) −0.036 (0.042)

−0.050 (0.150) 0.053 (0.143) −0.005 (0.005) −0.603 (0.383) −213.7 399

0.178 (0.181) −0.212 (0.202) −0.322 (0.256) 0.122 (0.158)

0.042 (0.194)

0.004 (0.004) −0.018 (0.046) 0.888∗∗ (0.165) 0.166 (0.102) −0.037 (0.152)

FIML

0.002 (0.132) −0.080 (0.123) −0.004 (0.005) 0.009 (0.443) −2,022.6 411

0.157 (0.185) −0.386∗ (0.186) −0.273 (0.225) 0.331∗ (0.146)

−0.151 (0.178)

0.262∗∗ (0.091) 0.031 (0.131)

−0.016 (0.010) −0.030 (0.040)

Hispanic Friends

−0.113 (0.137) −0.033 (0.128) −0.001 (0.005) 0.073 (0.431) −1,797.5 368

0.045 (0.190) −0.364 (0.195) −0.305 (0.242) 0.197 (0.154)

−0.130 (0.194)

−0.021∗ (0.009) −0.029 (0.042) 0.753∗∗ (0.165) 0.127 (0.095) 0.003 (0.136)

Notes: ∗ p < 0.05; ∗∗ p < 0.01 (two-tailed tests). Probit coefficients are shown with standard errors listed immediately below in parentheses. The estimation samples were somewhat smaller than the full oversamples, primarily since the main independent variable was only available for 86 percent of respondents. Cases with missing values on outgroup median household income in the block group were assigned the sample mean value (resulting in very slight reductions in the correlation between% outgroup and outgroup median income).

Log Likelihood N

Constant

Age

Female

Demographic characteristics Married

Employed full-time

Graduate/professional degree

B.A./B.S.

Education Some college (any college)

Socio-economic status Household income > $100K

Volunteering

Language ability

Nonresidential exposure

Outgroup income (block group)

% Outgroup (block group)

Exposure Measures

Black Friends

Table 4. Conventional Probit and FIML Models Predicting Black and Hispanic Friends Among Anglo Respondents

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0.087 (0.162) −0.048 (0.144) 0.008 (0.005) −1.101 (0.329) −229.8 372

−0.346∗ (0.155)

0.434∗ (0.176) 0.122 (0.217)

0.012 (0.046)

0.034 (0.146)

0.006∗ (0.003) 0.024 (0.050) 0.266 (0.138)

0.155 (0.164) −0.023 (0.144) 0.001 (0.005) −0.577 (0.360) −229.5 370

−0.138 (0.152)

−0.049 (0.172) −0.274 (0.217)

−0.022 (0.046)

0.003 (0.003) −0.002 (0.050) 0.436∗ (0.174) 0.207 (0.123) 0.216 (0.146)

Hispanic Friends

Black Respondents Anglo Friends

0.062 (0.185) 0.129 (0.192) 0.002 (0.007) −3.624∗∗ (0.494) −153.2 361

0.314 (0.191)

0.412 (0.210) 0.470∗ (0.235)

0.171∗∗ (0.059)

0.001 (0.004) 0.079 (0.067) 0.168 (0.144) 0.385∗∗ (0.093) 0.291 (0.170)

0.131 (0.238) 0.456∗ (0.229) 0.009 (0.008) −4.869∗∗ (0.972) −102.4 361

0.806∗∗ (0.243)

0.038 (0.259) 0.250 (0.272)

−0.074 (0.072)

−0.006 (0.007) 0.072 (0.064) 0.555∗∗ (0.200) 0.627∗∗ (0.214) 0.293 (0.212)

Black Friends

Hispanic Respondents Anglo Friends

0.505 (0.275) −0.145 (0.234) −0.027∗∗ (0.008) −0.468 (0.445) −75.7 400

−0.107 (0.295) −0.116 (0.333) 0.518 (0.345) −0.258 (0.235)

−0.475 (0.345)

−0.034 (0.243)

0.483∗ (0.242)

−0.016 (0.022)

Anglo Respondents

−0.113 (0.271) 0.417 (0.252) −0.003 (0.008) −2.383∗ (0.515) −78.6 372

0.195 (0.243)

0.238 (0.300) 0.093 (0.363)

0.027 (0.074)

0.348 (0.243)

−0.089 (0.379)

0.033∗ (0.016)

Black Respondents

Asian Friends

−0.912 (0.535) 0.123 (0.438) −0.006 (0.015) −1.647∗ (0.782) −28.1 168

−0.236 (0.440)

0.623 (0.481) 0.796 (0.552)

−0.039 (0.128)

−0.326 (0.418)

0.494 (0.437)

0.039∗ (0.015)

Hispanic Respondents

Notes: ∗ p < 0.05; ∗∗ p < 0.01 (two-tailed tests). Probit coefficients are shown with standard errors listed immediately below in parentheses. The estimation samples were somewhat smaller than the full oversamples, primarily since the main independent variable was only available for 84 percent of respondents. Cases with missing values on outgroup median household income in the block group were assigned the sample mean value (resulting in very slight reductions in the correlation between % outgroup and outgroup median income), except in models predicting Asian friends, where these measures were excluded (see note 4).

Log likelihoood N

Constant

Age

Female

Demographic characteristics Married

Employed full−time

Graduate/professional degree

B.A./B.S.

Education Some college

Socio-economic status Household income

Volunteering

Language ability

Non-residential exposure

Outgroup income (block group)

% Outgroup (block group)

Variables Exposure Measures

Table 5. Probit Models Predicting Interethnic Friendship Among Anglo, Black, and Hispanic Respondents

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contact hypothesis, the first conventional probit model in the table suggests that Anglo respondents who live in block groups that provide greater exposure to Blacks are significantly more likely to have Black friends. However, the coefficient for percent Black decreases from 0.01 to 0.008 and becomes statistically insignificant (p = 0.116) once the control for nonresidential exposure is added to the model. Results were substantively identical when the same estimation sample (n = 400) was used for each specification. This result is consistent with the weak form of the contact hypothesis (hypothesis 1a), which emphasizes the importance of facilitating conditions such as cooperation, equal status, and intimacy, but not with the strong form (hypothesis 1b). Interestingly, controlling for nonresidential exposure increases the coefficient for Black median income in the respondent’s block group from 0.063 to 0.095, rendering the coefficient statistically significant (p < 0.05). This result suggests that, while residential exposure to Blacks generally is not positively associated with having Black friends among Anglo respondents net of its association with more intensive forms of intergroup contact, residential exposure to relatively high socioeconomic status Blacks is. Notably, residential exposure to Blacks (i.e., percent Black) and Black median income are negatively correlated in Anglo respondents’ block groups (r = −0.27, p < 0.001), meaning that residential exposure to high socioeconomic status Blacks typically involves exposure to a small minority of relatively well-to-do Black neighbors. As noted above, there is evidence that the estimated coefficient for percent Black may be biased upward in these conventional probit models. Consistent with this evidence, FIML estimates suggest that, net of selection bias, higher levels of residential exposure to Blacks are associated with a significantly lower probability of having Black friends among Anglos. While this result is consistent with group position theory (hypothesis 3), the R 2 for the equation predicting Anglos’ residential exposure to Blacks (not shown) is only 0.045, well below the 0.10 threshold needed to obtain reliable estimates (Bollen, Guilkey, and Mroz, 1995). Accordingly, this result does not provide conclusive support for the prediction derived from group position theory (hypothesis 3). The last four columns of Table 5 present similar models predicting whether Anglos have Hispanic friends. The coefficients for percent Hispanic in the conventional probit models are positive, but statistically insignificant. Adding the control for nonresidential exposure does not substantially alter the coefficient for percent Hispanic, but nonresidential exposure is independently associated with a significantly higher predicted probability of having at least one Hispanic friend. As in the models predicting whether Anglos have Black friends, the results shown in Table 3 provided robust evidence that conventional probit estimates of the percent Hispanic coefficient are upwardly biased. Moreover, unlike in the FIML models predicting Black friends, the equation predicting percent Hispanic (not shown) explains a substantial proportion of the variation in residential exposure to Hispanics among Anglo respondents (R 2 = 0.147). Accordingly, the FIML models shown in the last two columns of Table 4 provide reliable estimates of the percent Hispanic coefficient net of selection bias. This coefficient is negative in both of these models, but is only statistically significant after controlling for nonresidential exposure, which changes the coefficient from −0.016 (p = 0.108) to −0.021 (p < 0.05). This result suggests that residential exposure may actually have a detrimental influence on relations between Anglos and Hispanics net of its association with more intensive cross-group interactions between spouses, 196

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coworkers, and comembers of religious congregations. As such, this result is consistent with the prediction derived from group position theory (hypothesis 3).2 Table 5 presents the results of probit models predicting interethnic friendships among Black and Hispanic respondents, as well as models predicting interethnic friendships with Asians. Unlike Table 4, Table 5 does not present models without the control for nonresidential exposure, since omitting this control did not result in any substantive change in the estimated effect of residential exposure (i.e., the sign and significance levels of the coefficients remained as shown in the table). The first two models in the table predict whether Black respondents have Anglo and Hispanic friends. Consistent with macrostructural theory and the strong form of the contact hypothesis, Black respondents who live in block groups that provide greater exposure to Anglos are significantly more likely to have at least one Anglo friend, even controlling for nonresidential exposure. The predicted probability of having at least one Anglo friend increases from approximately 0.38 among Black respondents who lived in block groups that were 2 percent white (the 25th percentile) to 0.47 among those residing in block groups that were 38 percent white (the 75th percentile) and to 0.55 among those residing in block groups that were 70 percent white (the 90th percentile).3 Consistent with hypothesis 1b, this result suggests that sheer residential propinquity is associated with a higher probability of having Anglo friends among Black respondents even net of its association with more intensive contacts in the workplace, places of worship, and families. The coefficient for percent Hispanic suggests that residential exposure at the blockgroup level is not a statistically significant predictor of whether Black respondents had one or more Hispanic friends. Moreover, as noted above, the evidence on selection bias was mixed in models predicting whether Black respondents had Hispanic friends (see the discussion of Table 3 above). While only one of the two indicators of selection bias (namely, ρ) was statistically significant, the FIML estimate of the effect of percent Black (not shown) was negative and statistically significant (b = −0.036, p < 0.05). While the inconsistency of the results on selection bias renders this finding inconclusive, neither the conventional probit nor the FIML results provide any evidence of a significant positive association between residential exposure to Hispanics and having Hispanic friends among Blacks. Conversely, nonresidential exposure to Latinos is associated with a significantly higher probability of having at least one Hispanic friend. The next two columns of Table 5 present the results for models predicting whether Hispanic respondents had Anglo or Black friends. As shown in the first of the two columns, the coefficient for percent Anglo is positive (b = 0.001), but provides no evidence of a statistically significant association between residential exposure to Anglos and having Anglo friends net of the control variables (p = 0.741). As one might expect from the moderately large positive and statistically significant correlation between residential exposure to Anglos and having Anglo friends shown in Table 2 (r = 0.276, p < 0.001), models without controls for socioeconomic status (not shown) suggest that higher levels of residential exposure to Anglos are associated with a significantly higher probability of having Anglo friends among Hispanic respondents, even controlling for nonresidential exposure. Yet the result shown in Table 5 (estimated with these controls in the model) clearly indicates that this correlation reflects the importance of socioeconomic status among Hispanic respondents as a predictor of both residential exposure to Anglos and having Anglo friends. The model shown in the next column, predicting whether Hispanic 197

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respondents had Black friends, does not provide any evidence that the probability of having such friendships varies significantly with the respondent’s level of residential exposure to Blacks. Conversely, nonresidential exposure to Blacks is associated with a significantly higher probability of having Black friends among Hispanics respondents. The last three columns of Table 4 present the results of models predicting whether Anglo, Black, and US-born Hispanic respondents had Asian friends.4 (Foreignborn Hispanic respondents are not included in the analysis, since none of the foreignborn Hispanic respondents reported having Asian friends, as shown in Table 1.) Overall, these models suggest that both Black and US-born Hispanic, but not Anglo respondents are more likely to have Asian friends when they live in block groups that provide relatively high levels of exposure to Asians. The positive associations between residential exposure to and friendship with Asians among Blacks and US-born Hispanic respondents are modest. The predicted probability of having at least one Asian friend increases from 0.01 among Black respondents who lived in block groups with no Asian residents (true of about 38 percent of Black respondents) to 0.04 among those living in block groups that were 11% Asian (the 90th percentile). Similarly, the model predicting whether US-born Hispanic respondents had Asian friends suggests that the predicted probability increases from 0.02 among these who lived in block groups that had no Asian residents (true of about 29 percent of US-born Hispanic respondents) to 0.07 among those residing in block groups that were 13 percent Asian (the 90th percentile). (See note 3 on the assumptions used to calculate these predicted probabilities.) While these increases in predicted probability are relatively small, they are nonetheless revealing. The coefficient for percent Asian in the model predicting whether US-born Hispanic respondents had Asian friends is significantly greater than the percent Black coefficient in a corresponding model (not shown) predicting whether US-born Hispanics had Black friends (df = 1, χ 2 = 10.54, p < 0.01). Consistent with hypothesis 2, these results suggest that exposure to Asians is positively associated with interethnic friendship to a greater extent than exposure to Blacks among US-born Hispanic respondents.

DISCUSSION This article proposed to examine why—and under what conditions—residential integration is positively associated with interethnic friendships among adults. The results do not provide strong, consistent support for any one of the four theoretical perspectives discussed above. Yet they do suggest that a comprehensive explanation of the association between residential integration and interethnic friendship must be informed by insights drawn from each theory. In general, net of more intensive interethnic contact and selection effects, residents of integrated areas are only more likely to have friends who belong to other racial–ethnic groups to the extent that their residential areas provide exposure to outgroups that enjoy a relatively privileged position in the American racial–ethnic hierarchy compared to the resident’s own group. Specifically, both Blacks and Hispanic residents of the Houston area are significantly more likely to have Anglo and Asian friends when they live in residential areas that provide exposure to these relatively privileged groups, even net of the association between residential exposure and more intensive forms of intergroup contact (though the relationship between residential exposure to Anglos and having Anglo friends is accounted 198

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for by socioeconomic status among Hispanic residents). Conversely, net of selection and more intensive intergroup contact, Anglos, as the dominant group in the racial–ethnic hierarchy, are consistently, if anything, less likely to have friends who belong to racial– ethnic minorities when they live in integrated residential areas.5 Finally, net of its association with more intensive forms of intergroup contact, residential exposure to Blacks and Latinos, who occupy the least privileged positions in this hierarchy, is never positively and significantly associated with interethnic friendships among Anglo, Black, or Hispanic respondents. As such, the analyses presented in this article suggest that group position conditions the relationship between residential integration and interethnic friendship. When residential integration provides exposure to groups that clearly enjoy privileged positions in the American racial–ethnic hierarchy, the observed association between integration and friendship is generally consistent with the predictions of macrostructural theory and the strong version of the contact hypothesis. It remains for future research, perhaps using qualitative methods, to provide more direct evidence of the mechanisms (macrostructural, social–psychological, or otherwise) that generate the positive associations observed under these circumstances in my data. Conversely, when integration provides exposure to groups in less privileged positions in this hierarchy, the facilitating conditions emphasized by the weak version of the contact hypothesis take on greater importance in accounting for interethnic friendship. To the extent that residential integration is not associated with intergroup contacts in settings like workplaces, churches, and families, the exposure it provides to racial–ethnic groups in relatively subordinate positions either is unrelated to interethnic friendship or—in the case of Anglos—may actually heighten perceived threat and thereby prevent the development of friendships with members of those groups, as group position theory predicts. To be sure, the analysis presented in this article provides no direct evidence that the social–psychological mechanisms emphasized by group position theory actually generate the negative association it predicts between residential exposure to racial–ethnic minorities and friendships with members of those groups among Anglos. But the analysis does establish that group position matters and, more specifically, that it conditions the nature of the association between residential exposure and interethnic friendship in a manner that is not entirely reducible to group-level differences in socioeconomic status. Were group position merely a function of socioeconomic status, controlling for group-specific median incomes would eliminate differences in the relationship between residential exposure and interethnic friendship across specific combinations of racial–ethnic groups. But while group position does not appear to be reducible to group-level differences in socioeconomic status, this does not mean that group position and socioeconomic status are unrelated. While group position theory emphasizes the consistently subordinate position of Blacks in the American racial–ethnic hierarchy, my results suggest that relatively high levels of socioeconomic status may, in effect, partially compensate for a subordinate position. Specifically, only residential exposure to high socioeconomic status Blacks is associated with having Black friends among Anglos, a finding analogous to Jackman and Crane’s (1986) conclusion that having Black friends is only associated with more favorable attitudes toward Blacks among Anglos when the friends are of relatively high socioeconomic status. Even so, the data provide no evidence on how Anglos would react to a large population of high socioeconomic status Black neighbors, given how seldom Houston-area Anglos experience this situation. 199

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What then are the broader implications of these findings? Clearly, the evidence presented in this article does not provide much basis for optimism that eliminating racial– ethnic residential segregation in large, ethnically diverse urban areas would be sufficient in and of itself to erode the social structural boundaries between distinct racial–ethnic groups, at least in the short term. In some cases, residential integration is at best unrelated to whether individuals who identify with different racial–ethnic groups have interpersonal ties. Moreover, the evidence presented in this article, while not conclusive on this point, suggests that residential integration may even increase social distance between some Anglos and members of some racial–ethnic minorities. In any case, residential integration does not appear to eliminate the significance of either racial–ethnic social hierarchies or socioeconomic inequalities for friendships among adults any more than prior research suggests that the integration of secondary schools does for social ties among adolescents (Moody, 2001; Quillian and Campbell, 2003). The findings presented in this article for Black residents of integrated areas are nonetheless encouraging and significant. Given the high levels of residential segregation typically experienced by Black residents of US metropolitan areas, particularly segregation from relatively privileged groups like Anglos and Asians, the significant association between residential exposure to and friendship with members of these groups among Blacks in the Houston area offers further evidence that increasing residential integration might well offer a promising avenue for reducing the relative social isolation of urban Blacks, perhaps even in cases where integration places lower income Blacks in close proximity to middle class Anglos neighbors. The positive association between residential exposure to Anglos and having Anglo friends among Black residents of the Houston area remained significant even when controlling for both their own socioeconomic status and the median household income of their Anglo neighbors. This finding is consistent with those presented in evaluations of the Gatreaux program in Chicago, which found that low-income Black mothers assigned to middle class suburbs formed friendships with Anglo neighbors (Rubinowitz and Rosenbaum, 2000). While the present study does not conclusively establish what the mechanism is that generates this positive association, it does move beyond prior research reporting a similar association in an urban sample (Briggs, 2007) by providing the first systematic evidence that this positive association does not merely reflect the influence of unmeasured factors that are associated with both where Blacks live and who their friends are. The question remains: How generalizable are these findings from the Houston area to other metropolitan regions in the United States? Like Bobo and Zubrinsky Charles’s research on Los Angeles, these results offer a valuable perspective on what race relations may look like in urban America as this nation becomes increasingly racially and ethnically diverse. Nevertheless, several distinctive features of the Houston area may contribute to the findings reported here. While levels of segregation are relatively moderate compared to several hypersegregated metropolitan areas in the Midwest and the Northeast, Houston also lacks the strong tradition of civil rights and fair housing activism that characterizes many other US cities and metropolitan areas (Fisher, 1992). Such activist traditions have facilitated the emergence of stable, biracial middle class neighborhoods in cities such as Milwaukee, Memphis, Denver, and Philadelphia (Nyden, Maly, and Lukehart, 1997). Conversely, in the “free enterprise city,” neighborhood integration has largely taken the form of unplanned, laissez-faire diversity (Eschback et al., 1998), and organized efforts to create and stabilize “self-consciously diverse” communities are likely to be 200

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complicated by Houston’s pronounced diversity (Nyden, Maly, and Lukehart, 1997, p. 515). Moreover, like a number of other metropolitan areas in the Southwest, the Houston area ranked below the 25th percentile in terms of the proportion of conventional home loans made by institutions covered under the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), and such relatively low levels of CRA coverage have been shown to impede Black home-buyers’ entry into predominantly Anglo residential areas (Squires and Kubrin, 2006). Houston has also experienced pronounced housing sprawl in recent decades, providing ample opportunity for white flight on an ever-increasing geographic scale. These aspects of the broader institutional and ecological environment of the Houston area may not only limit the prospects for achieving stable racial integration but also provide the necessary context for group position to condition the relationship between residential integration and interethnic friendship in the manner documented in this study. Future research should explore how differences regional ecological and institutional environments shape the effects of residential integration on interpersonal relationships in specific metropolitan regions.

Acknowledgments This research was supported by the Houston Area Survey Fund, coordinated by the Greater Houston Community Foundation. The author thanks the anonymous reviewers, Jenifer Bratter, Noelle Chesley, Michael Emerson, Pat Goldsmith, Stephen Klineberg, and Jason Shelton for helpful comments. Notes 1

Although recent studies more commonly refer to “interracial friendships” than “interethnic” ones, I take the

lead of scholars of race and ethnicity who argue that race constitutes a special case of ethnicity (Nagel, 1994). As such, I refer throughout the article to “racial-ethnic groups,” thereby denoting ethnic distinctions that may or may not also constitute racial distinctions. 2

Following the lead of research on defended neighborhoods (Green, Strolovitch, and Wong, 1998), I also re-estimated the conventional probit models predicting interethnic friendships among Anglo respondents with a measure of change in percent outgroup at the block group level derived from the Geolytics Neighborhood Change Database. The coefficients for these measures were not significant in any of the models. 3 These predicted probabilities assume a Black respondent with mean values on the continuous and ordinal variables, some college education, and zeroes for all other indicator variables. 4

Measures of Asian median household income in the block group are not included in these models because this variable was unavailable in approximately 25% of cases for which census data were available (either because there were no Asians in the block group or because there were sufficiently few Asians as to raise confidentiality concerns). Moreover, substituting the sample mean for Asian median household income would have dramatically increased the correlation with percent Asian (from −0.02 to 0.22). 5

The asymmetric pattern of associations between residential exposure and interethnic friendship found here for Anglo vs. Black and Hispanic respondents may be somewhat counterintuitive. One must bear two key considerations in mind here. Most importantly, the friendships reported by HAS respondents may not involve individuals who live in the same block group. Accordingly, a high proportion of Black (or Hispanic) respondents living in integrated residential areas might well have Anglo friends living elsewhere, whereas most of

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their Anglo neighbors have no Black (or Hispanic) friends anywhere in the Houston area. This would remain possible even if the overall proportion of Blacks and Anglos in the Houston area population were identical. In fact, however, the larger relative size of Anglos as a group also makes it possible for most Anglos living in some integrated neighborhoods to have no Black friends, even if many Blacks living in these same neighborhoods have Anglo friends who are also neighbors because many integrated areas still have proportionately more Anglo residents than Black residents.

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´ residencial y las amistades ¿Uno al lado del otro pero en mundos aparte? La integracion inter-´etnicas en Houston (Marcus L. Britton) Resumen ´ positiva entre la inte¿Por qu´e y bajo qu´e condiciones podemos encontrar una asociacion ´ residencial y las relaciones de amistad entre personas adultas en zonas metropoligracion tanas grandes y diversas? Tanto las teor´ıas macro-estructurales como la teor´ıa del contacto ´ positiva. Sin embargo, a veces los barrios racialvaticinan la existencia de dicha asociacion mente integrados parecen “mundos de extra˜ nos” (Lofland, 1973) en los cuales gran parte ´ entre vecinos no pasa de contactos casuales que pueden reforzar los esde la interaccion tereotipos existentes. Algunos estudios previos sugieren que puede existir una asociaci´on positiva entre integraci´on racial y e´ tnica y las amistades inter-´etnicas aunque las circun´ ´ entre los stancias no sean las m´as ideales. A partir de un an´alisis de como la asociacion ´ y de amistad var´ıa entre los grupos anglosajones, afro-americanos niveles de integracion e hispanos, este art´ıculo ofrece una perspectiva m´as detallada a partir de la teor´ıa de la ´ social de los grupos. Cuando se excluyen factores como el sesgo de selecci´on posicion ´ y las formas m´as intensivas de contacto intergrupal, vivir en una zona integrada solo est´a positivamente asociado con tener amistades inter-´etnicas cuando dicha integraci´on provee formas de contacto con los grupos que ocupan posiciones de privilegio en la jerarqu´ıa e´ tnico-racial de la sociedad en general con respecto a la posici´on del grupo al que pertenece el o la residente.

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