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Just Plain Data Analysis : Measuring Racial And Ethnic Inequality

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Just Plain Data Analysis: Measuring Racial and Ethnic Inequality Measuring racial and ethnic equality is not a simple or straightforward task. As Gary M. Klass points out in the “Measuring Racial and Ethnic Inequality” chapter of his book Just Plain Data Analysis:Finding, Presenting, and Interpreting Social Science Data, “Numbers never speak for themselves.” Klass’s purpose for this chapter is to demonstrate the range of data that is derived from social indicators that can be used to analyze racial and ethnic disparities in different spheres such as income and wealth, health, education, and criminal justice. After summarizing the chapter, Klass’s methodology and findings can be discussed and evaluated. Klass introduces the chapter by telling a brief anecdote about Bill Cosby and how he responded to criticism he received regarding a speech he gave to commemorate the Brown v. Board of Education case. In his speech, Cosby made a lot of claims about issues such as African Americans dropping out of school in such high percentages and the incarceration rates of blacks being a result of a lack of parenting or inadequate parenting. Cosby’s claim was that “numbers speak for themselves” on issues such as teen pregnancies among blacks and the issues mentioned above, but Klass explains that numbers alone never tell the full story. While the statistics Cosby used may have indicated things such as high rates of dropping out of school and of teen pregnancies among blacks, the

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