Self-reported Race and Ethnicity in School Surveys

• Activity Number: 406
• Type: Contributed
• Date/Time: Wednesday, August 10, 2005 : 10:30 AM to 12:20 PM
• Sponsor: Section on Survey Research Methods
• Author(s): James G. Ross*+ and Ronaldo Iachan and William H. Robb and Katherine H. Flint and Alan Bloch and Pedro J. Saavedra
• Companies: ORC Macro International, Inc. and ORC Macro International, Inc. and ORC Macro International, Inc. and ORC Macro International, Inc. and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and ORC Macro International, Inc.
• Keywords: race ; ethnicity ; multiple-responses ; Hispanicity ; schools ; youth

Abstract

This paper investigates patterns of reported race and ethnicity categories as a function of how the questions are asked. The analysis draws from data from the National Youth Tobacco Survey (NYTS) cycles in 2000, 2002, and 2004, taking advantage of the changes in the two questions asked during this period. Prior to 2004, two questions were included, one a multiple response for race/ethnicity (combined, with Hispanic as one of the response options); the other was a best-classification choice for combined race/ethnicity. In the 2004 survey, these questions were changed to a question about Hispanic origin and a separate question about race with multiple responses allowed. The analysis compares response patterns in terms of the possible pairs of race/ethnicity categories reported in 2000, 2002, and 2004. In addition, the probability of each response and of nonresponse is modeled as a function of other student characteristics. Finally, we generate conditional probabilities for a single-race response given each combination of multiple-race responses.