224 S.Afr. Tydskr. Sielk. 1995,25(4) The empirical relationship between the constructs of traditional and symbolic racism

The theory of symbolic racism contends that white resistance to social policies such as affirmative action is rooted in prejudiced attitudes towards black people, and represents a more sophisticated form of racism than traditional or red-necked racism. However, the notion of symbolic racism has been severely criticized on theoretical and empirical grounds. The present study sought to clarify the nature of the empirical relationship between symbolic and traditional racism. The Subtle Racism Scale (Duckitt, 1991) and Heaven and Moerdyk's adaptation of Ray's anti-black scale were administered to 150 school-children. The findings revealed no significant difference in mean scores obtained on the measures of symbolic and traditional racism. A series of factor analyses consistently yielded four factors, accounting for 54 % of the variance, suggesting that racism involves hitherto unaccounted for components in addition to traditional and subtle expressions of racial prejudice. Simboliese rassisme teorie verklaar wit weerstand teen beleidsrigtings soos regstellende aksie in terme van bevoor-oordeelde houdings teenoor swartmense, en verteenwoordig 'n meer gesofistikeerde vorm van rassisme as tra-disionele rassisme. Die konsep 'simboliese rassisme ' is egter skerp gekritiseer op teoretiese en empiriese gronde. Die huidige ondersoek het probeer om die aard van die empiriese verhouding tussen simboliese en tradisionele rassisme te verhelder. Die 'Subtle Racism Scale ' (Duckitt, 1991) en Heaven en Moerdijk se aanpassing van Ray se 'anti-black scale ' is op 150 skoolkinders toegepas. Geen beduidende verskille in gemiddelde tellings van simboliese en tradisio