When sociologist Brian Powell and his team asked more than 1,500 Americans to define what counts as family, he found that respondents fell into three broad categories:

•Exclusionists (roughly 45 percent of his sample) strongly privilege the traditional heterosexual family;
• Moderates (roughly 29 percent) place more primacy on children and extend family status to any arrangement with children;
• Inclusionists (25 percent) have a broad conception of family that is flexible and expansive.

Digging deeper, Powell analyzed the themes and reasons each group invoked to explain why they believed certain living arrangements counted (or did not count) as family. Here are the themes used by people in the 'exclusionist' category:

In his RSF book, Counted Out: Same-Sex Relations and Americans' Definitions of Family, Powell elaborates:

The transcripts of our interviews are replete with phrases such as "the marriage vow," "the marriage covenant," "ceremonial arrangements," "legal marriage," "legal connection," and "legally binding." In their references to marriage, exclusionists also often mentioned the gender of the marital partners—most notably specifying them as "man and wife," "man and wife living together," or "marriage between a man and a woman"—thus making it explicit that their definition excluded gay and lesbian couples.

The Trayvon Martin shooting has called into question Florida's 'stand your ground' law, which allows a person to claim self-defense even if a plausible opportunity to escape harm exists. In a recent interview, former President Bill Clinton called for a review of the statute, saying that it could mean "anyone...can basically be a part of a neighborhood watch when they have a concealed weapon whether they had proper law enforcement training or not. And whether they've had any experience in conflict situations with people or not." Since research has shown that racial stereotypes play a significant role in our perception of who carries weapons (see our previous post), Clinton's argument raises a difficult question: what difference does "law enforcement training" make? Are civilians more likely than trained police officers to make errors in "shoot/don't shoot" scenarios, and will they show higher levels of racial bias in these errors? Conversely, can training and practice reduce the probability of mistaking, say, a bag of Skittles on a black teenager for a weapon?

A verdict has been reached in the Dharun Ravi trial. The ex-Rutgers student faced a series of charges, including bias intimidation and invasion of privacy, after he used a webcam to watch his college roommate Tyler Clementi kissing a man. The incident drew international attention after Clementi killed himself, raising difficult questions about homophobia, bullying, and the level of tolerance and diversity in American colleges. This week, we spoke with RSF Visiting Scholar Elizabeth Paluck about the Ravi trial and its implications. Paluck, a social psychologist at Princeton, studies prejudice and intergroup conflict reduction and has used large-scale field experiments to test theoretically driven interventions.

Q: A large part of the Dharun Ravi trial centered on the intentions and actions of Tyler Clementi’s peers—what they thought about his homosexuality, what they said to him and others about it and how they acted around him. What do we know about the importance of peer influence on prejudice and attitudes in school settings?

A: We think that peers have a strong influence, especially because much of the behavior that we care about unfolds in situations that are dominated by peers. Peers exert their influence by setting a standard, through their own behavior or expressions of belief, about what is appropriate and typical to do in that situation. In my field, that is what we call a social norm--a perception of what is appropriate and typical to do in the situation. Sometimes these peer-based social norms are so pervasive across situations that students internalize them as private attitudes. But the powerful thing about peer influence is that it can exert a pressure on students to behave in ways that they normally would not, or that go against the student's private attitudes.

More on Prejudice Reduction
• Website: Elizabeth Paluck
• Study: Peer Pressure Against Prejudice: A High School Field Experiment Examining Social Network change
• Study: What’s in a Norm? Sources and Processes of Norm Change
• Study: Diversity Training and Intergroup Contact: A Call to Action Research

Students report in surveys that they believe if they stand up against prejudice or bias then their peers will not like them as much. Other research shows that they are right! In those studies, students who object to teasing and harassment lose a bit of face, of their reputation, and are liked a little bit less. This is not to say that being an active bystander is a lost cause. Students have ways of shooting down prejudice or bias that can preserve their reputation, and in fact many of them do this every day, by supporting the target of harassment, or calming down someone who is doing the harassment. Many programs that urge students to stand up, speak out, are a bit less sensitive to this fact than they should be. Students can have a major positive influence on one another, and I think they have some great strategies for doing this in a sustainable way.

Q: In a 2011 paper, you looked at whether tolerance could be spread through student leaders who were trained confront expressions of prejudice. Give us a snapshot of some of the major findings and their implications for combating bullying.

More from RSF's U.S. 2010 Project
• Unauthorized Immigrant Parents: Do Their Migration Histories Limit Their Children's Education?
• Separate and Unequal: The Neighborhood Gap for Blacks, Hispanics and Asians in Metropolitan America
• How Changes in Employment, Earnings and Public Transfers Make the First Two Years of the Great Recession (2007-2009) Different from Previous Recessions and Why It Matters

The Foundation's U.S. 2010 project has released a new report on the major structural changes in the American economy between 1979 and 2010. Written by Harry Holzer and Marek Hlavac, the study includes data on labor market trends for the past decade and the Great Recession. Here are some of the report's main findings:

• In general, between 1979 and 2010, women and/or more-educated workers gained the most in earnings and employment while men and/or less-educated workers gained the least (or actually lost groundin some cases). Within these groups, workers at the top of the earnings distribution gained the most compared to those at the middle or bottom, reflecting dramatic increases in inequality.

• Dramatic decreases in employment in manufacturing and in production and clerical jobs, relative to higher and lower-paying categories, further reflect important structural shifts in the demand for labor. But significant employment growth in other industries (such as construction and health services) and occupations (such as technicians) indicate a still substantial middle of the job market exists for those with appropriate skills.

• Of the four recessions that occurred during these three decades, two were quite mild while the other two were quite severe – especially the Great Recession of 2008 and beyond. Very large increases in unemployment rates and durations have occurred in the recent downturn, and were experienced primarily by less-educated, younger and/or minority workers – who had already experienced relative declines in their earnings and employment over the past three decades.