STUDY 2: THE RELIABILITY AND VALIDITY OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN RACIAL JUSTICE SCALE
7.1 CLOSING DISCUSSION
To summarise, the development of the RJS aimed to achieve two main objectives. First, it intended to provide the South African context with a more modem, updated measure of racism reflecting the stylistic expression of contemporary theories of racism and the content of contemporary South Africans' concerns. Second, it aimed to ensure the scale had multi- racial value in that different race groups could provide responses to it. The following sections consider these overall objectives in light of the preceding studies' findings.
7.1.1 The RJS as a multi-racial response tool
The present research provided evidence to suggest that overall, the notion of racial justice was a successful thematic device through which to examine resistance to racial reform in South Africa, with the secondary factor analyses in study two providing a generally good indication of the scale's reliability. At the same time, however, the results from study two also suggest some inherent problems in applying the RJS meaningfully across race groups and that, although it proved a good measure for the white and Indian groups, overall, the RJS did not succeed as a multi-racial response tool. The ultimate lack of clarity in how factors were split by race group in the factor analyses, particularly for the black sample, suggests that the scale was not equivalent across race groups.
One possible problematic feature of the RJS may be the specific notion of racism and how this concept is interpreted by different race groups. In hindsight, those items in the RJS referring to the concept of racism; for example, items five to eight: "Racism is still very much alive and present in the new South Africa", "Drastic measures are needed to combat racism in South Africa", "Continual complaints about racism are causing racial tension in South Africa,
and,"Itis time to stop blaming the present problems of South Africa on racism"; these items may have proved ambiguous for different race groups on account of the fact the term racism may have meant different things to the different groups.
This possibility is reinforced in a study by Roefs (2006), which examined South African perceptions of racism. Itfound a large discrepancy between different race groups' ideas of what, how, and to whom the concept of racism affects in contemporary South African society. Itestablished that 63 per cent of a sample of black South Africans felt less discriminated against in contemporary South Africa than did 53 per cent of a sample of whites. Furthermore, 41 per cent of the white sample perceived that race relations in post
1994 South Africa had become worse. This was in contrast to the nine per cent of blacks, 11 per cent of coloureds, and 25 per cent of Indian South Africans. These findings suggest that the concept of racism is interpreted differently by different race groups. Thus, in retrospect, the use of the concept of racism, as in the above items, may have been problematic in that, responses to these items may have been inconsistent across race groups, compromising the scale's utility as a multi-racial tool. In light of these findings therefore, the present research casts doubt whether it is possible to create a single multi-racial response racial attitude measure.
7.1.2 South Africa and the relevance of contemporary racism
A further issue of equal relevance to this research is the notion of new or subtle racisms.
Overall, this research suggests that these concepts may be relevant to the South African context, with both studies providing evidence of similar patterns of contemporary racism findings. For example, study one found policy resistance from South Africans in the form of discursive expressions opposing affirmative action. Furthermore, in study two, the RJS and subtle scales and items did yield higher means than the old-fashioned items, suggesting this style of expression afforded more open responses. Similarly, differences were found on policy scores between competitive and non-competitive items. However, the relevance of old-fashioned racism among the South African white population in the present context cannot
The role of old-fashioned racism was also reinforced in this research, particularly in the white sample by the strong correlations with the more traditional racial attitude indicators of
stereotypes, negative affect and social distance. The total scores on these criteria also
provided evidence of the perpetuation of crude intra-racial assessments of racial groups, with out-group stereotyping, negative affect and social distance generally high for each race group, but particularly so for the white and Indian samples.
This suggests that, in spite of the contemporary racism argument, the traditional dynamics characterising old-fashioned racism are still present in contemporary South African society.
This research therefore reinforces Durrheim's (2003) and Pillay-Singh and Collins (2004) findings, which acknowledge the importance of old-fashioned racism, particularly for white South Africans. In sum then, it would seem there is value in utilising and comparing both styles of assessment in racial attitude studies in contemporary South Africa. In this sense, the RJS may serve to complement as opposed to replace the more traditional measures of racism.
7.2 CONCLUSION
Findings of these studies have indicated that the RJS is a useful supplement to Duckitt's (1990; 1991) subtle racism scale. However, the notion of racism in contemporary South Africa is complex. This complexity is further compounded by the fact it appears that both the traditional and more sophisticated styles of racist expression occur in post apartheid South Africa, which necessitates the use of both styles of assessment. As Duckitt and Foster (1991) noted some time ago: " ... there is no doubt that the currently changing political circumstances mean that a great deal more attention is going to have to be paid to validating and updating measures of prejudice than has thus far been the case" (p. 201). The present research, although conducted over 15 years since the above quotation was written, still reinforces this need.