The professional context of accepting racial minorities as part of the French national community

Rahsaan Maxwell University of Massachusetts, Amherst Department of Political Science rahsaan@polsci.umass.edu Draft January 24, 2013

ABSTRACT This article examines how the willingness of majority individuals in France to accept black minorities as part of the national community may vary according to minorities professions. My results indicate substantial variation according to whether minorities are athletes, businessmen, chefs, or politicians. For each profession, majority individuals are more likely to give positive responses about whites as opposed to blacks but the largest acceptance gap in favor of whites is for chefs, followed by businessmen, then athletes, and finally politicians. To account for this variation, I use existing literature about perceived threat and minority distinctiveness. Evidence supports both perspectives as explanations of individual-level variation in acceptance of minorities but not as explanations of why that acceptance should vary across professions. Instead, I argue that the relationships between threat, distinctiveness, and minority acceptance are conditional on the extent to which respondents feel professions are important for France. When respondents feel that specific professions are unimportant for France, their acceptance of minorities in those professions is fairly stable irrespective of their views on threat or distinctiveness. When respondents feel that specific professions are very important, their acceptance of minorities increases as they feel minorities are less threatening and less distinctive in those professions. This has numerous implications for our understanding of majority-minority relations.

Under what conditions are majority individuals more or less likely to accept minorities as part of the national community? The answer can be a matter of life or death when conflict between majority and minority groups leads to violence (Horowitz 1985; Petersen 2002). In other cases, a lack of acceptance of minorities can lead majority groups to enact repressive policies or a range of informal discriminatory practices that heighten social tensions (Blumer 1958; Woodward 1955). More broadly, the extent to which majority individuals accept

minorities has implications for a range of policy debates (e.g. citizenship policy, immigration policy, welfare policy, or affirmative action) that cut across the political system (Bail 2008; Feldman and Huddy 2005; Schaffner 2011; Sniderman et al. 2000; Sniderman and Hagendoorn 2007; Valentino, Hutchings, and White 2002). Understanding the conditions under which

members of the majority are more or less likely to accept minorities is a concern with broad social and political implications. This article examines the willingness of majority individuals in France to accept black minorities as part of the national community. France is a useful site for this study because like many European countries it experienced a rapid rise in ethnic and racial diversity during the second half of the twentieth century due to migration from Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean (Castles and Miller 2009; Messina 2007). France now has a range of ethnic and racial minorities who have lived in the country for several generations, acquired citizenship, and can objectively claim full membership in the French community (Maxwell 2012a; Weil 2008). French popular myth highlights its republican tradition of offering integration possibilities to anyone of any origin who accepts mainstream civic values (Noiriel 1988; Schnapper 1991). However the place of non-whites in contemporary French society is highly controversial. Many native French whites complain that non-white migrant communities have not sufficiently assimilated to
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mainstream French norms. Others claim that non-white minorities are stigmatized, discriminated against, and not accepted in mainstream French society (Chapman and Frader 2004; Hargreaves 2007; Simon 2011). 1 This contestation makes France an excellent location for examining the conditions under which the majority accepts minorities as part of the national community. I examine the acceptance of minorities across four occupations: athletes, businessmen, chefs, and politicians. My results indicate that majority respondents are most likely to accept chefs as good representatives of France, followed by athletes, then businessmen and finally politicians. These patterns are the same whether they are judging black or white individuals. In addition, for each profession majority individuals are more likely to give positive responses about whites as opposed to blacks. Yet, the acceptance gap between whites and blacks varies across professions. Majority individuals have the largest gap in favor of whites for chefs, followed by businessmen, then athletes, and finally politicians. To account for variation in acceptance gaps across professions, I explore two strands of research about the conditions under which individuals are more or less likely to emphasize their similarities or differences with other people. The first examines distinctiveness and the second highlights perceived threat. My findings suggest that both factors are important for individuallevel variation in acceptance of French racial minorities however neither can account for the variation in acceptance across professions. Instead, I argue that the importance of threat and distinctiveness is conditional on the extent to which majority individuals feel a particular profession is important for France. When respondents feel that specific professions are

unimportant for France, their acceptance of minorities in those professions is fairly stable
Another line of critique is that French republicanism is not a cohesive intellectual project but instead has changed its specific focus numerous times over recent decades (Bertossi 2012). I accept these critiques but leave their detailed exploration to other research. For the purposes of this article I refer to the broad French republican trend towards emphasizing assimilation of minorities.
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irrespective of their views on threat or distinctiveness. However, when respondents feel that specific professions are very important, their acceptance of minorities increases as they feel minorities are less threatening and less distinctive in those professions. My argument offers a new perspective on minority integration. In particular, my finding of variation in the acceptance of minorities across professions suggests that politics may be a limited perspective of how minorities are accepted in society. In some respects, high levels of acceptance in politics may seem like a positive sign of minority inclusion in French society. However, my results find lower levels of acceptance of minorities in sports, business, and gastronomy, which suggests that merely being accepted in politics is not enough to facilitate meaningful integration in the broader society. Moreover, my argument is that levels of

acceptance in politics are fairly high because politics are seen as less important for France than the other occupations, which is a less sanguine interpretation of minority integration in general. More generally, my findings suggest a new approach for studying the contextual politics of minority integration. The dominant contextual approaches analyze variation across time (e.g. different political or economic conditions) and variation across space (e.g. different neighborhoods, cities, or countries) (Hale 2004; Lijphart 2004; Oliver and Mendelberg 2000; Posner 2005). My focus on the symbolic content of minority occupations provides a different lens for examining these issues and suggests that views towards minorities may fluctuate considerably according to the specific situation. In the next section I review existing literature on majority attitudes towards minorities. I then expand on my argument about the conditional importance of threat and distinctiveness. I then present information about the data and measures used in this article. The fifth section presents results for acceptance of minorities across different professional contexts. The sixth
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section analyzes the relationships between perceived threat and minority distinctiveness and variation in the acceptance of minorities across professions. In the seventh section I expand that analysis to the interactions of threat, distinctiveness, and how important specific professions are for France. I then explore several robustness checks and the final section concludes.

Existing literature on contextual factors that shape identity Existing research on the contextual determinants of identity has two broad strands about the conditions under which individuals should be more or less likely to emphasize their similarities or differences with other people. The first strand examines distinctiveness and the second highlights perceived threat. Research on category salience claims that when identities are more distinctive they are more likely to be salient. Individuals can always emphasize numerous identities but they will be cognitively drawn to the categories that are most distinct in any given situation (Brewer 1991; Tajfel 1974; Turner et al. 1987). For example, a black man is most likely to emphasize his racial identity when surrounded by white people but most likely to emphasize his gender identity when surrounded by women. According to category salience research, we would expect majority individuals to be more likely to accept black minorities as French in professions where the racial distinctiveness is less salient. In addition, we would expect majority individuals to be less likely to accept black minorities as French in professions where the racial distinctiveness is higher. Literature on perceived threat takes a different approach and argues that specific identities are more likely to be salient when they are the basis for competition and conflict in a given situation. This literature highlights several kinds of competition and conflict including economic competition, cultural conflict over competing social norms, and fear of physical
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insecurity. In each case, the logic is that when individuals feel more threatened they will be less likely to emphasize their commonality with the source of that threat (Bobo and Hutchings 1996; Blumer 1958; Stephan, Ybarra and Bachman 1999; Valentino, Hutchings, and White 2002; Varshney 2002; Wilkinson 2002; Wimmer 2002). According to this research, we would expect majority individuals to be more likely to accept black minorities as French in professions where black minorities pose less of a threat to the status quo. In comparison, we would expect majority individuals to be less likely to accept black minorities as French in professions where black minorities are seen as more threatening to the status quo. 2

My argument: The importance of threat and distinctiveness is conditional on the importance of a profession for France Existing research on threat and distinctiveness offers many insights but I claim that it cannot account for variation in the acceptance of minorities across professions. Instead, I argue that the relationships between threat and distinctiveness and acceptance of minorities across professions are conditional on the extent to which majority individuals feel specific professions are important for France. When respondents feel that specific professions are unimportant for France, their acceptance of minorities in those professions is fairly stable irrespective of their views on threat or distinctiveness. In comparison, when respondents feel that specific

professions are very important, their acceptance of minorities increases as they feel minorities are less threatening and less distinctive in those professions.

It is important to note that this literature often cannot distinguish between the extent to which individuals perceive threats and the extent to which they are actually vulnerable to threats. However, since the focus is on identity as a subjective and contextual dynamic, most researchers examine the subjective perception of threat.

My approach builds on research about how occupations have different symbolic content that shapes how individuals in those occupations are perceived (Bourdieu 1987; Corneo and Jeanne 2010; Humlum, Kleinjans and Nielsen 2012). However, I do not attempt to codify universal ways of interpreting professions. Instead, I focus on the extent to which professions are seen as important for France and I allow different majority individuals to have different views on the importance of specific professions. My approach contrasts with the existing literature on how minority occupation relates to acceptance of minorities by the mainstream society. That literature is primarily a debate over the extent to which high or low skill minorities generate more of a perceived labor market threat to majority individuals. 3 The assumption is that when majority individuals feel threatened (either by high or low skilled minorities) they will be less likely to accept minorities as part of the national community (Citrin et al. 1997; Dustmann and Preston 2001; Malhotra, Margalit and Mo Forthcoming). In comparison, I argue that threat and distinctiveness do not have an automatic relationship to minority acceptance but have different ramifications in different contexts. This offers a new way of viewing the relationship between occupation and minority acceptance and suggests a more nuanced way of understanding views about minority threat and distinctiveness.

Data and measures

Different studies find different results for the relative importance of labor market threats in predicting majority acceptance of minorities. One side argues that low-skill minorities are more threatening because they are often willing to work for low wages and may take jobs away from the most vulnerable members of the majority. The other side argues that high-skill minorities are more threatening because they are more employable, more likely to succeed in the labor market, and therefore may eventually crowd out the majority.

The data in this article are from an online survey conducted from June 11 19, 2012 by YouGovFrance. 4 YouGovFrance has a panel comprising almost 70,000 individuals from which they were able to draw a sample of 1,066 respondents that is nationally-representative in terms of gender, age, region, education and occupation. 5 The data are then weighted to account for any potential imbalances in political affiliations. My goal is to study majority attitudes towards racial minorities so the subject population of interest is white French people. However, YouGovFrance does not collect data on the racial or ethnic identity of its panel members so it was unable to target the survey at white respondents. To make the most efficient use of my sample and to maximize the number of white respondents, the sample was limited to panel members born in metropolitan France. 6 However, I needed an additional step to distinguish between racial majority and minority individuals born in metropolitan France. This posed a methodological challenge because racial and ethnic Many French people (racial majority and minority

categories are controversial in France.

individuals alike) believe the use of racial categories in official surveys is illegitimate because such categories are socially constructed, subjective, and do not represent real underlying differences in the population (Simon 2008). Therefore, I decided not to ask respondents to directly state their ethnic or racial category because of the potential for large amounts of nonresponse or even hostile dissimulation. Instead, I posed a question about whether respondents

The survey was designed by the author in French and conducted in French. All references to the survey in this article are in English from translations made by the author. The original French text is available upon request. 5 Response rates are calculated differently for YouGovFrance than for conventional surveys. YouGovFrance uses a turbo sampling method in which respondents from their panel are randomly invited to participate in a survey and then assigned to a specific survey once they have accepted the invitation. The overall panel response rate is approximately 25%. Of those who started taking the survey, 10.2% did not complete the survey and were not included in the final sample. 6 Most non-whites in metropolitan France are either migrants or have parents or grandparents who were migrants.

consider themselves visible minorities. I then restricted the sample to those who do not consider themselves visible minorities: 986 of the 1,066 overall respondents. 7 To explore attitudes towards minorities, I present all respondents with a series of four vignettes and ask their opinion about the main character in the vignette. To examine whether attitudes vary across professional contexts, one vignette is about an athlete, another is about a businessman, a third is about a chef, and a fourth is about a politician. 8 These four professions were chosen to cover a wide range of occupations. The texts of the vignettes are as follows: Jean-Franois Reynard is a passionate athlete. He trains four times per week and maintains strict discipline, despite a busy schedule. In 2005 he placed fourth in the French Athletics Championships. On the weekend he leads an athletic club for children in a city near his home. Claude Morin is an accountant in a small-medium sized company. He was unemployed in 2010 but he found a new job and now manages a small team of two employees. He works very well and recently received a promotion and a salary increase. Michel Jobard is a young chef who has cooked in many restaurants and one day hopes to open his own restaurant. His cuisine combines a classical sensibility with the creativity of modern techniques. His goal is to attract a broader clientele to high-level restaurants. Sylvain Martel is a young political activist who has participated in many electoral campaigns. Sylvain hopes, one day, to run for city councilor, but for the moment he is happy to work for political parties and improve their relationship with the public.

Visible minority is a term currently used in France to apply to all non-white minorities who can be phenotypically distinguished from the white majority. This question included four response options: Yes (11%), No (64%), I do not know (19%), and I prefer not to respond (3%). Three percent of respondents skipped the question. If respondents answered Yes they were presented with a follow-up question that asked them to specify their visible minority category and which included an open textbox option for them to state their own category. The main analysis in this paper classifies the majority population as those who did not answer Yes to the visible minority question, with the exception of those who then specified that their visible minority category was something clearly not related to being non-white (e.g. Breton, communist, or working class). Sensitivity analyses use more limited definitions of the white majority (e.g. only those who answered No) and do not change the overall results in this article. 8 The people mentioned in the vignettes are fictional.

The order of the questions was randomized across respondents and after each question the survey asks how well the person corresponds to the image you have of French people? 9 To measure the extent to which attitudes are racialized there are two versions of each question, one accompanied by a photo of a black man and one accompanied by a photo of a white man. 10 A straight-forward and explicit way of examining the extent to which each respondents attitudes are racialized would involve presenting each respondent with one vignette about a black man and one vignette about a white man, for each profession. However, providing both photos to the same respondent would clearly indicate that the purpose of the survey was to compare attitudes towards black and white French people. This could introduce social desirability bias because subjects with negative attitudes towards blacks might feel pressured to hide their true feelings and respond more positively than they truly felt. Therefore, I split the sample into two random halves and one was presented with the series of black faces and another was presented with the series of white faces. The only difference across the two sub-samples is whether or not they were presented with a black or a white photo. This allows me to compare responses across the two sub-samples and make inferences about the extent to which subjects accept blacks as part of the French community according to the professional context. Although the subjects who

received black faces may have realized that race was part of the survey, they had no way of knowing that their responses were being compared to another sub-sample with different photos. In addition, even if the subjects who received black faces responded more positively than they

Response options are: Very well, Well, Neither poorly nor well, Poorly, Very poorly, I do not know. The photos were obtained from the Eberhardt Face Database, maintained by Professor Jennifer Eberhardt of the Department of Psychology at Stanford University. Each photo was rated by participants in an online study across three dimensions: age, attractiveness, and racial stereotypicality. The photos selected for my survey were matched at the same age, attractiveness, and racial stereotypicality across black and white and across questions to reduce any variance other than race. Due to privacy concerns these photos cannot be presented in publication. For more information please contact Professor Eberhardt (jleberhard@stanford.edu) or the Mind, Culture, & Society Laboratory at Stanford University (mcslab@gmail.com).
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truly felt because they knew the survey was examining racial attitudes, there is no reason to believe that this bias would vary across the professional contexts. Finally, non-response rates were similar across black and white photo conditions. 11 This suggests that subjects who received black photos did not opt out at a higher rate because of the potentially-sensitive question. To measure views on minority distinctiveness in particular professions I use responses to a question about how well integrated minorities are in various professions in France. The list includes the four professions of interest in this article as well as eight additional professions that were included to reduce the likelihood of subjects consciously connecting their response to this question with their response to the dependent variable photo questions. For views about

minority threat in specific professions, I use responses to a question about whether minorities are not sufficiently represented or are overrepresented in various professions in France. 12 As with the distinctiveness question, this question includes the four professions of interest in this article as well as eight additional professions. To measure attitudes about the importance of different professions for France I include two series of questions. One asks about the extent to which various professions are important for Frances future prosperity and the other asks about the extent to which various professions are part of Frances unique cultural strength. More details can be found in the appendix.

Results: Acceptance of minorities across professional contexts

For the photos of athletes and businessmen, 5% of respondents in each condition did not respond. For the photos of chefs, 6% of those with white photos and 5% of those with black photos did not respond. Finally, for the photos of politicians, 7% of those with white photos and 6% of those with black photos did not respond. 12 Asking questions about minority threat is always a sensitive issue as some respondents may not answer truthfully to avoid appearing prejudiced. To minimize this problem, I avoided language like threat which forces respondents to explicitly acknowledge their opposition to minorities and tried a more neutral formulation. Nonetheless, the nonresponse rate among majority subjects was 15% for minority threat in politics, 20% in business, 15% in sports, and 18% in gastronomy. More detailed analyses of these non-responses can be found later in the article.

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Figure 1 provides an overview of responses to the black and the white black photo conditions about the extent to which people with different professions are good representatives of France. 13 The results suggest a common pattern across racial conditions in the acceptance of professions as good representatives of France. Majority individuals are most likely to give positive responses to chefs, followed by athletes, businessmen, and then politicians, whether they are judging blacks or whites. The results in figure 1 also indicate that for each profession the responses are more positive for whites as opposed to blacks. 14 This bias in favor of whites supports the literature critiquing contemporary French society as racially discriminatory. Yet, the white-black gaps are far from enormous. In addition, a true test of the relative colorblindness of French republicanism would involve parallel studies in other countries, which is beyond the scope of this article. More central to this article is the fact that figure 1 indicates that white-black gaps in being good representatives of France vary across professions. The largest white-black gap is for chefs and the smallest is for politicians, with athletes and businessmen in-between. Figure 1 about here

Can distinctiveness or perceived threat account for variation in acceptance across professions? To explore whether existing literature on distinctiveness and perceived threat can account for variation in white-black acceptance across professions, I begin by estimating a series of

These and all subsequent analyses are limited to respondents who do not consider themselves visible minorities. Additional analysis was conducted restricting the majority sample to those who actively declared themselves nonvisible minorities and all of the results were substantively similar to those presented in this article. 14 The difference between responses to black and white chefs is statistically significant at p<.001, for athletes and businessmen it is statistically significant at p<.01. For responses to politicians, the black-white difference is not statistically significant at p<.05.

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ordered logistic regression models. 15

For each profession, I regress the extent to which

respondents accept individuals as representatives of France on the extent to which respondents feel minorities are distinctive and the extent to which respondents feel minorities are threatening in the respective profession. Each model is with all respondents who do not claim to be visible minorities and includes a control variable for whether respondents received the black or the white photo. To explore how views about minority distinctiveness and minority threat relate to evaluations of blacks as opposed to whites, I include interaction terms for views about minority distinctiveness and whether respondents received the black or the white photo and for views about minority threat and whether respondents received the black or the white photo. Figure 2 presents graphs based on predicted probabilities calculated from these models. 16 The graphs plot gaps between the predicted probabilities of responding that the white as opposed to the black photos very well correspond to the image of France according to different responses to the minority distinctiveness and the minority threat questions for that particular profession. 17 The left graph in figure 2 plots white-black gaps in very well corresponding to the image of France according to how distinctive minorities are in a particular profession and the right graph plots the gaps according to how threatening minorities are in a particular profession. Based on existing literature, we would expect the white-black acceptance gap to be larger when
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All models presented in the article use weighted data, which do not support tests of whether the parallel regression assumption is violated. However, the same models were run on unweighted data and Brant Tests with chi-square statistics that were not statistically significant suggest that the models do not violate the parallel regression assumption. In addition, I estimated all models using generalized ordered logistic regression (gologit2 in Stata) with weighted data and Wald Tests with chi-square statistics that were not statistically significant provide further evidence that the models do not violate the parallel regression assumption. 16 Full regression results are available in the appendix. 17 It is important to remember that due to the research design these calculations are comparisons of two different subsamples, i.e. respondents who received the white as opposed to the black photos. Therefore, these are technically not calculations of the difference in predicted probabilities for any one individual according to responses to the distinctiveness and threat questions. However, due to random assignment into the white and black photo conditions, there should be no systematic differences between two individuals across those conditions with the same response for the distinctiveness or the threat question.

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respondents feel that minorities are less (as opposed to more) integrated in that profession and when respondents feel that minorities are more (as opposed to less) threatening in that profession. The results generally support those expectations. If those relationships alone could account for variation in white-black gaps across professions, we would expect most people to find minority chefs threatening and distinctive and few people to find minority politicians threatening and distinctive, with athletes and businesspeople in-between. However, the data do not support this view. Survey respondents are most likely to find minorities threatening as athletes and least likely to find them threatening as chefs. In addition, respondents are most likely to find minorities distinctive as politicians and least likely to find them distinctive as athletes. 18 Another way in which threat and distinctiveness might be able to account for variation in white-black acceptance gaps across professions is by having different relationships with the acceptance gaps across professions. Figure 2 suggests that both distinctiveness and threat have the strongest relationships with the acceptance gap for chefs and the weakest relationship with the acceptance gap for politicians, with athletes and businessmen in-between. As a result, there is not much variation in black-white acceptance across professions when majority individuals feel minorities are either well integrated in a profession or not very threatening in a profession. But when majority individuals feel minorities are either poorly integrated or very threatening, the variation in acceptance across professions is greater due to the varying strength of the relationships between threat or distinctiveness and acceptance across professions. The varying strength of these relationships appears to be important, but it is not apparent why the relationships should be stronger for minority chefs and weaker for minority politicians?
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More details can be found in the appendix.

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Figure 2 about here

The importance of specific professions for France I claim that the relationships between minority acceptance and threat and distinctiveness vary across profession because professions are not viewed as equally important for France. In the survey, I ask about two forms of importance. One is the material concern of whether various professions are important for Frances future prosperity. The other is cultural importance and asks whether France is uniquely successful in comparison to other European countries in various professions. 19 The box plots in figure 3 provide an overview of how respondents view the professions importance for France. The top left graph indicates that gastronomy and the

economy are seen as the most important areas for Frances material concerns, with sports being the least important just behind politics. However, the top right graph indicates that gastronomy is by far the most central to respondents view of Frances unique cultural strengths. The bottom graph presents an average of the two measures and suggests that the most positive responses are for chefs and the most negative responses are for politicians, which is roughly in line with the pattern of white-black acceptance gaps across the professions. 20 The results in figure 3 provide support for my claim that gastronomy is seen as the most important occupation and politician is seen as the least important profession for France. Figure 3 about here To investigate how the importance of professions may be related to white-black acceptance gaps across professions, I estimate a new series of ordinal logistic regression models.
The question compares Frances cultural strengths in comparison to other European countries as a way of isolating the national element. If the question compared France to the rest of the world, responses would confound things that are unique to France with things that are unique to Europe in general in comparison to the rest of the world. 20 For the purposes of this graph, the two questions have been recoded to a common 0-1 scale.
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For each profession I include covariates for views on minority distinctiveness, minority threat, and the importance of the profession for France. 21 To explore whether the relationship between distinctiveness, threat, and white-black acceptance gaps is conditional on different views about importance, I also include interaction terms for distinctiveness x importance and threat x importance. Figure 4 presents graphs with predicted probabilities calculated from these

models. 22 As in the graphs from figure 2, these graphs plot gaps in the predicted probabilities of very well corresponding to the image of France in the white as opposed to the black photo condition across different levels of minority distinctiveness and minority threat. Unlike the graphs in figure 2, those in figure present the calculations at low and high levels of material importance and cultural uniqueness for each profession. 23 Figure 4 about here Figure 4 indicates that when respondents find professions to be of little importance for France, there is virtually no change in the white-black acceptance gap across the values of either distinctiveness or threat. 24 Moreover, the white-black acceptance gaps all hover around zero under these circumstances. This suggests that when majority individuals feel that a profession is not important for France there is no racial element in their evaluation, irrespective of the specific profession and irrespective of the extent to which they feel minorities are threatening or

In the interest of parsimony, I present results for the average material and cultural importance score. Results for the two separate importance indicators can be found in the appendix and are consistent with the results presented here. 22 Full regression results can be found in the appendix. Unlike the regressions that formed the basis of the graphs in figure 2, in this case I estimate separate models for respondents in the white and black photo conditions rather than include three-way interaction terms for photo condition x threat/distinctiveness x importance. 23 Low levels are calculated at the bottom fifteenth percentile and high levels are calculated at the top fifteenth percentile. For each profession, only the two covariates of interest are manipulated and all other covariates are set at their mean values. 24 The large confidence interval in the bottom left graph is for low levels of minority threat in sports. The reason is that there are very few respondents who feel that sports are unimportant for France and that minorities do not have enough influence in sports.

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distinctive in that profession. In comparison, when respondents find professions to be of great importance there are more dramatic changes in the white-black gaps across both distinctiveness and threat and there is variation in those gaps across professions. The variation across

professions corresponds to the patterns found earlier, with the most pro-white attitudes for chefs, the least pro-white attitudes for politicians, and athletes and businessmen in-between. The relationships between white-black gaps and distinctiveness and threat are the same as those found earlier in the results from figure 2, however they are more dramatic in figure 4. For example, in figure 2 the white-black gap in the predicted probability of chefs very well corresponding to the image of France increases from 0.02 to 0.15 as respondents feel minorities are more distinctive in gastronomy. In figure 4, when that same change in distinctiveness is calculated among respondents who feel that gastronomy is important for the France, the whiteblack gap in predicted probability increases from -0.03 to 0.29. In summary, my findings suggest that the larger white-black gap in acceptance for chefs and the smaller gap in acceptance for politicians are not just a function of the extent to which minorities are threatening or distinctive in particular professions. The results in figure 4 suggests that the relationships between threat, distinctiveness, and the white-black gap in acceptance for specific professions are conditional on the extent to which those professions are seen as important for France. Given the findings in figure 3 about gastronomy being seen as most important and politics being seen as the least important, these conditional relationships may help explain why the overall relationships between threat, distinctiveness and the white-black gap in acceptance are stronger for chefs than for the other professions.

Robustness checks
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One alternative to my argument is that the variation in white-black acceptance gaps across professions reflects different levels of interest in the professions. In fact, the interest in different professions corresponds directly to the white-black acceptance gaps across professions. Among majority French respondents there is the most interest in gastronomy, followed by the economy, then sports, and finally politics. 25 It is therefore possible that majority individuals may be less willing to accept minorities in professions that are of greater interest because those professions are seen as symbolically special, irrespective of the extent to which majority individuals consider minorities to pose an existing threat or be distinctive in those areas. To address this concern I use a series of items from the survey that ask respondents about the extent to which they are interested in a variety of themes. Twelve themes are presented, four of which are used to gauge interest in the four occupations under consideration in this article: sports, the economy, gastronomy, and politics. I estimate a series of ordinal logistic regression models similar to those used for the graphs in figure 2, with an additional covariate for the extent to which respondents are interested in the particular occupation. 26 I recalculate the predicted probabilities of very well corresponding to the image of France across different values of minority threat and distinctiveness and the results are the same as in figure 2, despite the addition of new controls for personal interest. I then calculate a series of predicted probabilities of very well corresponding to the image of France across different levels of personal interest, with the results presented in the top graph of figure 5. The top graph in figure 5 indicates no consistent relationship across the four occupations between interest in an occupation and the white-black acceptance gap. This suggests that

although interest in different professions corresponds to the white-black acceptance gaps across
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Descriptive statistics can be found in the appendix. Full regression results can be found in the appendix.

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professions, personal interest alone cannot account for variation in the white-black acceptance gaps across professions. Majority respondents are most likely to have high levels of interest in gastronomy and having more personal interest in gastronomy is associated with larger gaps in favor of whites. Yet, having more interest in sports or the economy is associated with a reduction in the size of the gaps in favor of whites and leads to a convergence with the whiteblack gap for politicians, which is not consistent with the overall pattern across occupations. Moreover, the relative position of different occupations changes across different values of personal interest. At low levels of interest, the white-black gaps are larger for businessmen and for athletes than they are for chefs. All of these findings suggest that interest alone cannot account for variation in white-black gaps across professions. Figure 5 about here Another possibility is that the relationships between distinctiveness and threat and whiteblack acceptance gaps are conditional on the extent to which individuals have an interest in specific professions. The results in figure 4 provided evidence that threat and distinctiveness do not have consistent relationships with white-black gaps across different views about the professions importance for France. Yet personal interest in a profession may be an even more fundamental and deeply held concern than views about material and cultural importance for France. To examine this possibility, I estimate a new series of ordinal logistic regression models. For each profession I include covariates for views on minority distinctiveness, minority threat, and personal interest, along with interaction terms for distinctiveness x interest and threat x interest. 27 The bottom four graphs in figure 5 present a series of predicted probabilities

calculated from these models and suggest that the relationships between threat, distinctiveness
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Full regression results are available in the appendix.

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and white-black acceptance gaps are fairly consistent across different levels of personal interest. In short, personal interest in specific professions does not appear to be a significant alternative factor for understanding variation in white-black acceptance gaps across professions. Another issue is whether the sensitive nature of the subject matter led to biased results. The sample was randomly split into those receiving black photos and those receiving white photos in order to avoid biased responses about the extent to which whites and black are good representatives of France across different professions. However there was no manipulation to disguise the sensitive nature of the questions about the extent to which minorities are threating and distinctive in different professions. One point of reassurance is that even if respondents felt pressure to be more positive about minorities than they truly felt, there is no reason to believe that the social desirability bias would not operate similarly across professions, and the comparison across professions is the key point of interest in this article. A related concern is that receiving the black as opposed to the white photos may have introduced a new train of thought that influenced the rest of the survey and in particular the responses to the minority threat and distinctiveness questions. However, there is no evidence of substantial differences in the

answers to questions about minority threat and distinctiveness according to whether or not respondents had received a black or a white photo. 28 Of potentially greater concern is the evidence that subjects who did not respond to the questions about minority threat and distinctiveness are systematically different from subjects who did respond. The two groups have similar responses about white representatives of France
The one question with slight differences between those who received the black as opposed to the white photos is the question about minority distinctiveness in sports. 11% of respondents with white photos feel that minorities are poorly integrated (i.e. distinctive) in sports compared to 6% of respondents with black photos. In addition, 57% of respondents with white photos feel that minorities are well integrated (i.e. not distinctive) in sports compared to 66% of respondents with black photos. For the rest of the questions the difference between the two samples is smaller than five percentage points.
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but subjects who did not respond to the threat and distinctiveness questions were consistently more negative about accepting blacks as representative of France. 29 It is therefore likely that those who did not respond to questions about threat and distinctiveness would also have given more negative responses about threat and distinctiveness. This suggests that results on those items are probably biased in favor of more positive views about threat and distinctiveness than in the actual population. Yet, it is not clear whether this bias alters the main thrust of my analysis about the conditional importance of threat and distinctiveness for understanding white-black acceptance gaps. One question is whether the bias varies across professions. In the evaluation of black photos, the bias towards being more positive and less negative among those who answered the distinctiveness and threat questions is similar for businessmen, chefs, and politicians. Yet the bias is much greater (three to four times as large) when evaluating athletes. 30 This suggests the measures for distinctiveness and threat in sports suffer from greater bias than the other three professions and raises an important question for future research about why views about minorities in sports should elicit more non-responses than views about minorities in the other professions. 31 However, the key question is whether the relationship between views on threat and distinctiveness and acceptance of blacks as French is similar or different among those who

There is no difference in acceptance of whites between those who did not respond to threat and distinctive questions and those who did. This suggests that the white-black acceptance gaps are larger in the actual population than among the sample of those who responded to the threat and distinctive questions. Yet this does not affect the gaps presented in figure 1 as those include the full sample. 30 See the appendix for a graph with full details on these results. 31 One plausible answer is that minorities are often more closely associated with sports than with business, gastronomy, or politics and therefore respondents found that question to be more sensitive. Yet if minorities are more closely associated with sports than with the other three professions it is interesting that the smallest whiteblack gap in acceptance is not for athletes but for politicians. Nonetheless, further evidence of the uniqueness of sports was mentioned earlier as subjects who received the black photos were more likely than subjects with white photos to feel that minorities are well integrated in sports.

29

21

did answer and those who did not answer the questions about threat and distinctiveness. Unfortunately that is not answerable from the existing data. Another source of concern is whether I have adequately accounted for potential endogeneity among the concepts in my analysis. For example, I am unable to randomly assign views about minority threat and distinctiveness in different professions or about the importance of different professions for France. In addition, I am unable to account for all the unobserved variables that may be related to views about threat, distinctiveness, and importance across professions (e.g. respondents may have personally interacted with kind minorities in business but obnoxious minorities in politics, or vice versa). Therefore, my analysis does not lend itself to strict claims about the extent to which these views cause variation in acceptance of minorities as part of France. It is worth noting that the reverse is very unlikely to be true. It is hard to imagine how the extent to which one accepts minorities as part of France would cause variation in attitudes about different professions. Nonetheless, minority threat and distinctiveness are two concepts that may overlap substantially. It is possible that majority individuals are more likely to consider minorities distinctive when they are threatened by minorities. In addition, majority individuals may be more likely to consider minorities threatening when they find minorities to be distinctive. 32 My analysis may have found support for both dynamics because they often overlap, but a more rigorous investigation of how threat and distinctiveness relate to white-black acceptance gaps in the absence of the other dynamic might reveal that one is more important than the other. Figure 6 explores this possibility with predicted white-black gaps when majority individuals feel that
The correlation coefficients for views about minority distinctiveness and threat in a particular professor are rather small for businessmen (0.03), chefs (0.003), and politicians (0.02). The only profession for which the correlations between the two views are statistically significant at p<.05 is for athletes (0.12), although even this is a fairly modest association.
32

22

minorities are not threatening but highly distinctive and when majority individuals feel that minorities are threatening but not distinctive in each profession. 33 The results in figure 6 are mixed. For attitudes about athletes and chefs there is no change in the white-black gap across the two conditions, which suggests that the competing relationships between threat and distinctiveness may cancel each other out in these circumstances. However for attitudes about businessmen and politicians the gap increases in favor of whites in the condition of high threat, despite the low distinctiveness. This suggests that although threat and distinctiveness may be overlapping concepts, majority individuals may be more persuaded by the threat than the distinctiveness when evaluating minorities in business and politics. Yet it is not clear how this might account for variation in acceptance of minorities across professions. If threat were more important than distinctiveness for variation in the whiteblack gaps across professions, then we would expect greater variation in the white-black gaps across professions under conditions of high threat and low distinctiveness. However, the results in figure 6 indicate the opposite as variation in white-black gaps across professions is greatest under conditions of low threat and high distinctiveness. In the end, there is no evidence that disentangling threat and distinctiveness changes the overall thrust of my analysis. Figure 6 about here Finally, I have focused exclusively on the relationship between professional context and white-black acceptance gaps and ignored the vast literature on individual-level explanations. For example, higher levels of education may be associated with greater social tolerance and therefore correspond with more positive attitudes towards minorities in general (Bobo and Licari 1989;

33

Results were calculated from the models used to calculate predicted probabilities in figure 2. Results were calculated for the top and bottom fifteenth percentile of each category.

23

Jackman 1978; Jackman and Muha 1984). 34 In addition, when majority individuals have more friendly social contact with minorities they are more likely to view them a positive light (Allport 1954; McLaren 2003; Pettigrew 1997). 35 Majority individuals with low levels of self-esteem may be more likely to harbor negative attitudes towards minorities as a way of boosting their sense of self (Rubin and Hewstone 1998). Other research focuses on social dominance orientation (SDO) and claims that majority individuals who support stronger social hierarchies and who are less committed to egalitarianism will be more likely to have negative attitudes towards outgroups (in this case racial minorities) (Pratto, Sidanius and Levin 2006; Sidanius and Pratto 2001). Finally, research on right wing authoritarianism (RWA) measures the extent to which individuals support authority and believe in the power of existing traditions (Adorno et al. 1950; Altemeyer 1981). Individuals with stronger tendencies towards RWA should be less likely to accept minorities because minorities outsider status makes them a latent threat for altering the traditional social order (Duckitt and Farre 1994). Given this extensive literature on individual-level factors, it is useful to explore the relative importance of professional context as opposed to individual-level factors for understanding majority acceptance of minorities. To address this concern, I estimate a series of

It is worth noting that there is some disagreement in this literature and higher education may also be associated with less support for policies that benefit minorities because of greater awareness of how those policies would negatively affect the majority 35 This literature often operationalizes exposure to minorities via various measures of contact, but there are several debates about the conditions under which greater contact may also lead to greater conflict with minorities. In particular, one strand of research argues that when majority-minority contact occurs in conditions that are characterized by competition or perceived threat then it should lead to more negative attitudes (Quillian 1995; Rudolph and Popp 2010). The debate over the interaction between competition and perceived threat highlights demographic, economic, and political characteristics of the local environment which are unavailable in this particular study. The data for this study were obtained from YouGovFrance and due to privacy concerns YouGovFrance does not release information about respondents location of residence. In addition, many of the debates about majority-minority contact cite the importance of minority demographic concentration but these data are unavailable in France because of legal limitations on collecting such data as part of the Census. I am able to measure individual-level self-reported contact with minorities, although future extensions should look more closely at the detailed contextual factors.

34

24

ordinal logistic regression models similar to those used for the graphs in figure 2, with additional covariates for the individual-level factors. 36 I then recalculate the predicted probabilities of very well corresponding to the image of France across different values of minority threat and distinctiveness. The results are the same as in figure 2, despite the addition of new controls for various individual-level factors. My next step is to compare white-black gaps in the predicted probability of very well corresponding to the image of France across different values of the individual-level variables. These results are presented in figure 7 and they largely conform to expectations from existing literature. Lower levels of socializing with minorities, lower selfesteem, and higher scores on social dominance orientation and right wing authoritarianism scales are all associated with larger acceptance gaps in favor of whites as opposed to blacks. The education results are mixed, as having low and high levels of education are each associated with larger gaps in favor of whites. Figure 7 about here Of particular interest to my argument is how the changes in white-black gaps vary across professions. If variation in the white-black acceptance gap was much greater across individuallevel factors than across professional contexts, it would minimize the importance of my argument. However, from eyeballing the results in figure 7, that does not appear to be the case. Table 1 summarizes the information with three data points for each individual-level variable. The first row presents the average change in the black-white gap among the four professions as the individual-level variable changes from its minimum to its maximum. The next two rows

36

For education I include two dummy variables. One for whether or not respondents highest level of education is primary school and a second for whether or not respondents have some post-secondary education. For social dominance orientation and right wing authoritarianism I use latent variables derived from a series of five items (two of which load onto an SDO dimension and three of which on an RWA dimension). More details on the coding and full regression results can be found in the appendix.

25

present variation in the white-black gap across different professions at the minimum and the maximum point for each individual-level variable. These results show that in most cases there is greater variation in the white-black acceptance gap across professions as opposed to across values of the individual-level variable. The only two exceptions are for education and right-wing authoritarianism. For those variables, the change in white-black gaps from their minimum to their maximum values is greater than the variation in white-black gaps across professions for those who either do not only have primary school education or are low on right-wing authoritarianism. However, for both variables, the change in white-black gaps from their

minimum to their maximum values is smaller than the variation in white-black gaps across professions for those who either only have primary school education or are high on right-wing authoritarianism. In short, the data in figure 7 suggest that individual-level factors are useful for understanding acceptance of minorities but professional context adds a new dimension that may be even more important. For example, individuals with either high levels of social dominance orientation or right-wing authoritarianism are generally not very accepting of minorities with substantial biases in favor of the white photo condition for chefs, athletes, and businessmen, but for politicians there is almost no bias in favor of either the black or white photo. Table 1 about here

Conclusion This article has analyzed the conditions under which members of the majority are more or less likely to accept racial minorities as part of the national community. I have argued that variation in minority professional context is a new and important way of exploring that acceptance. In developing my argument, I acknowledge the importance of individual-level
26

variation in majority racial attitudes.

However, the overall message is that variation in

acceptance of minorities is greater across professional contexts than across the commonly-cited individual-level factors. I propose this argument as a new way of understanding majority

attitudes and for understanding the salience (or lack thereof) of the majority-minority identity boundary. In some respects, my findings support existing claims about the inclusive French republican framework as there is evidence that minorities will be accepted as representatives of France under certain circumstances. In addition, my finding that white-black acceptance gaps increase as minorities are seen as less well integrated in a specific profession could be interpreted as evidence that acceptance is related to the extent to which majority individuals feel that minorities have successfully integrated in a specific profession, which is a core tenet of French republicanism. However, there is also evidence that when professions are seen as more

materially and culturally important for France, the relationships between threat, distinctiveness, and minority acceptance are heightened, with decreased likelihood of acceptance. This suggests that racial minorities are still far from being generally accepted as part of mainstream French society. Future research could expand upon my findings in several ways. A wider range of professions could be explored in a variety of country contexts. A more direct examination of the importance (or lack thereof) of minority skill level would vary the skill level of minorities across occupations. Other variations could include analyzing attitudes towards different types of

minorities (e.g. religious minorities) or women.

27

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Figures and Tables Figure 1: How well do the following people correspond to your image of French people? A comparison of White and Black photo conditions.
Athletes Businessmen

50

40

30

20

10

V Poorly

10
Poorly NP/NW Chefs Well V Well V Poorly

20

30

40

50

Poorly

NP/NW Politicians

Well

V Well

50

40

30

20

10

V Poorly

10
Poorly NP/NW V Well V Poorly

20

30

40

50

Well

Poorly

NP/NW

Well

V Well

Note: Respondents are limited to those who do not claim to be visible minorities. There are five response options: Very poorly, Poorly, Neither poorly nor well, Well, Very Well. The y-axis of each graph indicates the percentage of respondents selecting the response option. Black bars indicate responses for the sub-sample with photos of black men, grey bars indicate responses for the sub-sample with photos of white men.

34

Figure 2: Gaps in the predicted probability of very well corresponding to the image of France between the white and the black photos
.2 .2
V well Minority integration in occupation

.1

-.1

-.2

V poorly

-.2
Low Minority threat in occupation

-.1

.1

High

Athlete Chef

Businessman Politician

Note: Weighted data. Lines are surrounded by 95% confidence intervals. Positive values on the y-axis indicate higher predicted probabilities of very well corresponding to the image of France for the white as opposed to the black photo. Negative values on the y-axis indicate lower predicted probabilities of very well correspondign to the image of France for the white as opposed to the black photo. The x-axis plots views about minority integration and minority threat in the respective professions.

35

Figure 3: Box plots of attitudes about the material and cultural importance of different professions among majority French individuals
Material importance for France Cultural importance for France

Low Athletes Chefs Businessmen Politicians

High

Low Athletes Chefs Businessmen Politicians

High

Material and Cultural Average

Low Athletes Chefs Businessmen Politicians

High

Note: Weighted data

36

Figure 4: Gaps in the predicted probability of very well corresponding to the image of France between the white and the black photos according to minority integration and minority threat and whether occupation is important for France
.4 .4
V Poorly V Well Minority integration (High importance for France)

.2

-.2

-.4

V Poorly V Well Minority integration (Low importance for France)

.4

.2

-.2

-.4

-.4
Low Minority threat (High importance for France)

-.2

.2

.4

-.4

-.2

.2

Low Minority threat (Low importance for France)

High

High

Athlete Chef

Businessman Politician

Note: Weighted data. Lines are surrounded by 95% confidence intervals. Positive values on the y-axis indicate higher predicted probabilities of very well corresponding to the image of France for the white as opposed to the black photo. Negative values on the y-axis indicate lower predicted probabilities of very well corresponding to the image of France for the white as opposed to the black photo. The x-axis plots views about minority integration and minority threat in the respective professions.

37

Figure 5: Gaps in the predicted probability of very well corresponding to the image of France between the white and the black photos according to personal interest in the occupation
.2 -.2
Low Personal interest in occupation

-.1

.1

High

.4

.2

-.2

-.4

V Poorly Minority integration (Low personal interest)

V Well

V Poorly Minority integration (High personal interest)

-.2

.2

.4

.6

V Well

.4

.2

-.2

-.4

Low Minority threat (Low personal interest)

High

-.4
Low Minority threat (High personal interest)

-.2

.2

.4

High

Athlete Chef

Businessman Politician

Note: Weighted data. Lines are surrounded by 95% confidence intervals.

38

Figure 6: Gaps in the predicted probability of very well corresponding to the image of France between the white and the black photos
.2 -.2
Low

-.1

.1

High

Low threat/Low integration vs. High threat/High integration

Athlete Chef

Businessman Politician

Note: Weighted data Lines are surrounded by 95% confidence intervals

39

Figure 7: Gaps in the predicted probability of very well corresponding to the image of France between the white and the black photos according to individual-level factors
.2 .2 -.1
No Highest degree: post-secondary

.1

-.1

.1

No Highest degree: primary school education

Yes

Yes

.2

.1

-.1

Low Social interaction with minorities

High

-.1
Low Self esteem

.1

.2

High

.2

.1

-.1

-.1
Low Social dominance orientation High
Low

.1

.2

High Right wing authoritarianism

Athlete Chef

Businessman Politician

Note: Weighted data Lines are surrounded by 95% confidence intervals

40

Table 1: Summary of variation in black-white gaps in the predicted probability of very well corresponding to the image of France according to individual-level factors
Avg. in whiteblack gap Variation in whiteblack gap at Low/No Variation in whiteblack gap at High/Yes Secondary educ only 0.09 0.07 Higher education 0.04 0.08 Minority socializing -0.05 0.09 Self esteem -0.04 0.13 SDO 0.08 0.11 RWA 0.10 0.08

0.16

0.11

0.08

0.07

0.10

0.18

41

APPENDIX Variable descriptions Dependent variable: Jean-Franois Reynard is a passionate athlete. He trains four times per week and maintains strict discipline, despite a busy schedule. In 2005 he placed fourth in the French Athletics Championships. On the weekend he leads an athletic club for children in a city near his home. Claude Morin is an accountant in a small-medium sized company. He was unemployed in 2010 but he found a new job and now manages a small team of two employees. He works very well and recently received a promotion and a salary increase. Michel Jobard is a young chef who has cooked in many restaurants and one day hopes to open his own restaurant. His cuisine combines a classical sensibility with the creativity of modern techniques. His goal is to attract a broader clientele to high-level restaurants. Sylvain Martel is a young political activist who has participated in many electoral campaigns. Sylvain hopes, one day, to run for city councilor, but for the moment he is happy to work for political parties and improve their relationship with the public. How well does [Jean-Franois/Claude/Michel/Sylvain] correspond to the image you have of French people? 0-Very poorly, 1-Poorly, 2-Neither poorly nor well, 3-Well, 4-Very well Education: Highest degree obtained 0-Primary school, 1-Vocational school, 2-High school, 3-Some higher education Contact: Normally, how often do you interact with visible minorities outside of work (with friends, or in your daily life)? 0-Never, 1-One time per year or less, 2-Rarely, 3-Occasionally, 4-Daily Self-esteem: Would you say that you generally have a very good image of yourself, a somewhat good image of yourself, a neither good nor bad image of yourself, a somewhat bad image of yourself, or a very bad image of yourself? 0-Very bad image/somewhat bad image, 1-A neither good nor bad image, 2-A somewhat good image, 3-A very good image Social Dominance Orientation and Right Wing Authoritarianism These are latent variables derived from factor analysis that included items for each concept and which loaded clearly onto two dimensions. The following descriptions include the scoring coefficients in parentheses after each item
42

Social Dominance Orientation: a latent variable derived from the following items: To what extent do you agree or disagree with the following statements? Generally speaking, social and economic equality benefits society (0.33) Certain races are less skilled than others (0.30) 0-Completely disagree, 1-Somewhat disagree, 2-Neither agree nor disagree, 3-Somewhat agree, 4-Completely agree Right Wing Authoritarianism: a latent variable derived from the following items: To what extent do you agree or disagree with the following statements? To avoid decline, France must protect its cultural heritage (0.31) Things would be better if people had more respect for authority (0.31) Traditional lifestyles and values are the key to a happy life (0.32) 0-Completely disagree, 1-Somewhat disagree, 2-Neither agree nor disagree, 3-Somewhat agree, 4-Completely agree Material importance to France: According to you, which of these areas will assure, or ought to assure, Frances prosperity and influence. On a scale of 0 to 10 where 0 represents not important at all and 10 represents extremely important please answer for each of these areas: Politics Economy Sports Gastronomy and the art of living Cultural importance to France: For each of the following themes, do you think France succeeds much better, better, neither better nor worse, worse, or much worse than its European partners: Politics Economy Sports Gastronomy and the art of living 0-Much worse, 1-Worse, 2-Neither better nor worse, 3-Better, 4-Much better Personal interest: For each of the following areas, would you say that you are very interested, somewhat interested, a little interested, or not interested at all? Politics Economy Sports Gastronomy and the art of living 0-Not interested at all, 1-A little interested, 2-Somewhat interested, 3-Very interested

43

Minority threat: Some people think that visible minorities have too much influence in French society and others think that they are not sufficiently represented. For each of the following themes, do you think visible minorities are too represented, neither too nor not enough represented, not enough represented: Politics Economy Sports Gastronomy and the art of living 0-Not enough represented, 1-Neither too nor not enough represented, 2-Too represented Minority distinctiveness: Some people think that visible minorities are sufficiently integrated in French society and others think that they are not. For each of the following themes, do you think visible minorities are very well integrated, well integrated, neither well nor poorly integrated, poorly integrated, or very poorly integrated: Politics Economy Sports Gastronomy and the art of living 0-Very poorly integrated, 1-Poorly integrated, 2-Neither well nor poorly integrated, 3-Well integrated, 4-Very well integrated.

44

Descriptive statistics Min Max Mean SD Athlete (white) 0 4 2.74 0.97 Businessman (white) 0 4 2.64 0.91 Chef (white) 0 4 2.94 0.78 Politician (white) 0 4 2.38 0.92 Athlete (black) 0 4 2.58 0.93 Businessman (black) 0 4 2.46 0.94 Chef (black) 0 4 2.69 0.91 Politician (black) 0 4 2.28 0.93 Highest deg: Primary school 0 1 0.20 0.40 Some post-secondary educ. 0 1 0.32 0.47 Contact 0 4 2.49 1.33 Self-esteem 0 3 1.56 0.73 SDO -0.97 1.79 0.01 0.51 RWA -3.13 1.38 -0.01 0.75 Ethnic diversity 0 4 2.23 1.19 Material importance sport 0 10 6.15 2.54 Material imp. economy 0 10 7.45 2.26 Material importance gastro 0 10 7.27 2.31 Material imp. politics 0 10 6.50 2.48 Cultural importance sport 0 4 1.97 0.81 Cultural imp. economy 0 4 1.80 0.85 Cultural importance gastro 0 4 2.97 0.89 Cultural imp. politics 0 4 1.81 0.88 Personal interest sport 0 3 1.51 1.00 Personal interest econ 0 3 1.77 0.86 Personal interest gastro 0 3 2.06 0.84 Personal interest politics 0 3 1.72 0.93 Min distinctiveness sport 0 4 2.74 0.99 Min distinctiveness econ 0 4 1.87 0.92 Min distinctiveness gastro 0 4 1.94 1.05 Min distinctive. politics 0 4 1.81 1.00 Min threat sport 0 2 1.23 0.57 Min threat econ 0 2 0.92 0.54 Min threat gastro 0 2 0.85 0.50 Min threat politics 0 2 1.03 0.65 Note: Unweighted data Respondents are limited to those who do not claim to be visible minorities.

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Table: Ordinal logistic regression results How well does [x] correspond to the image you have of French people?
Black vs. White photo Minorities integrated Minorities threatening Min. integrated * b/w photo Min. threatening * b/w photo Cut 1 Cut 2 Cut 3 Cut 4 Pseudo R2 N Athlete .345** (.131) Business .378** (.131) Chef .573*** (.134) Politics .176 (.133) Athlete .338 (.561) .375** (.120) -.624*** (.178) -.183 (.156) .394 (.256) -2.95 (.463) -1.90 (.446) .089 (.466) 1.84 (.486) 0.02 885 Business .146 (.439) .116 (.129) -.060 (.202) -.034 (.172) .293 (.267) -2.99 (.362) -1.83 (.314) .197 (.298) 2.19 (.307) 0.01 886 Chef .548 (.375) .239* (.121) -.593* (.238) -.246 (.150) .551 (.290) -4.11 (.435) -2.85 (.348) -.436 (.294) 1.56 (.299) 0.01 889 Politics -.212 (.404) .156 (.116) -.711*** (.180) -.108 (.159) .543* (.238) -3.54 (.355) -2.25 (.302) .033 (.280) 1.91 (.292) 0.01 879

-3.13 (.202) -2.05 (.129) -.163 (.097) 1.53 (.115) 0.00 933

-3.11 (.222) -1.98 (.136) .054 (.098) 1.98 (.123) 0.00 934

-3.86 (.288) -2.71 (.176) -.383 (.103) 1.64 (.120) 0.01 933

-3.02 (.193) -1.74 (.121) .481 (.101) 2.34 (.148) 0.00 920

Note: Weighted data Respondents limited to those who do not consider themselves visible minorities Each cell provides the estimated coefficient with robust standard errors in parentheses *=p<.05, **=p<.01, ***=p<.001

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Appendix Figure: Gaps in the predicted probability of very well corresponding to the image of France between the white and the black photos according to minority integration and minority threat and whether occupation is materially important for France
.4 .4
V Well V Poorly

.2

-.2

-.4

V Poorly Minority integration (Low importance for France)

-.4

-.2

.2

V Well

Minority integration (High importance for France)

.4

.2

-.2

-.4

Low Minority threat (Low importance for France)

High

-.4
Low Minority threat (High importance for France)

-.2

.2

.4

High

Athlete Chef

Businessman Politician

Note: Weighted data. Lines are surrounded by 95% confidence intervals. Positive values on the y-axis indicate higher predicted probabilities of very well corresponding to the image of France for the white as opposed to the black photo. Negative values on the y-axis indicate lower predicted probabilities of very well corresponding to the image of France for the white as opposed to the black photo. The x-axis plots views about minority integration and minority threat in the respective professions.

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Appendix Figure: Gaps in the predicted probability of very well corresponding to the image of France between the white and the black photos according to minority integration and minority threat and whether occupation is culturally important for France
.4 .4
V Poorly V Well Minority integration (High importance for France)

.2

-.2

-.4

V Poorly V Well Minority integration (Low importance for France)

.4

.2

-.2

-.4

-.4
Low Minority threat (High importance for France)

-.2

.2

.4

-.4

-.2

.2

Low Minority threat (Low importance for France)

High

High

Athlete Chef

Businessman Politician

Note: Weighted data. Lines are surrounded by 95% confidence intervals. Positive values on the y-axis indicate higher predicted probabilities of very well corresponding to the image of France for the white as opposed to the black photo. Negative values on the y-axis indicate lower predicted probabilities of very well corresponding to the image of France for the white as opposed to the black photo. The x-axis plots views about minority integration and minority threat in the respective professions.

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Appendix Figure: Percent differences in positive and negative evaluations of black photos among those who responded to minority threat and distinctiveness questions compared to those who did not respond
Minority threat Minority distinctiveness

40

20

-20

% more positive

-20

20

40

% more negative
Athlete Chef

% more positive
Businessman Politician

% more negative

Note: Positive evaluations are very well and well corresponds to the image of France. Negative evaluations are poorly and very poorly corresponds to the image of France. Positive values in the graphs indicate that subjects who responded to minority threat and distinctiveness questions were more likely than those who did not respond to have that evaluation of the photo. Negative values in the graphs indicate that subjects who responded to minority threat and distinctiveness questions were less likely than those who responded to have that evaluation of the photo.

49