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What race and gender stand for: using Markov blankets to identify constitutive and mediating relationships

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Abstract

A growing body of research points to the limitations of conceptualizing and measuring race and gender using a single, time-invariant categorical variable. Researchers have argued that the complex processes underlying race and gender cannot meaningfully be reduced into these categories, and that these measures tend to generate essentialist misconceptions. Yet even if more nuanced measures of race and gender have been developed, most datasets in social sciences still contain single categorical variables to measure these constructs. In this paper, I argue that one way of empirically investigating the meaning and role that these variables play in a specific system is by identifying their Markov blanket, which is composed of the variables carrying all information about the variable of interest. I illustrate this exploratory approach by searching for the Markov blanket of race and gender in a nationally representative dataset containing a wide range of factors related to child development.

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Notes

  1. As Bollen and Diamantopoulos [29] explain, the constitutive elements (what they call “causal-formative indicators”), require “conceptual unity” in the sense that they need to correspond to the concept’s meaning, and as a consequence can be considered measures of a latent variable. For example, genetic ancestry, skin color and self-identification exhibit conceptual unity, as they are part of the meaning of race. On the other hand, the mediating factors of a variable need not be conceptually related to that variable. For example, parental socioeconomic status might affect the child’s academic achievement through the child’s self-efficacy beliefs, and these beliefs are not conceptually related to socioeconomic status (i.e., they are not part of the meaning of socioeconomic status). I will argue that in the case of race and gender this latter point does not necessarily hold, as the mediating elements can also be part of the meaning of the latent variable.

  2. The co-parents of \(X\) are in \({\text{Mb}}\left( X \right)\) due to the dependencies generated by conditioning on a collider. Consider the relationship between \(X\), the child of \(X \left( C \right)\) and the spouse of \(X \left( S \right)\) represented by the following DAG: \(X \to C \leftarrow S\). Based on the d-separation criterion, we know that \(P(X|C) \ne P(X|C,S).\) Now, the predictive power of S on X will depend on the coefficients of the paths \(X \to C\) (\(a\)) and \(C \leftarrow S\) (\(b\)). Specifically, the partial covariance \(\sigma_{XS.C} = \sigma_{XS} - \frac{{\sigma_{SC} \sigma_{CX} }}{{\sigma_{C}^{2} }}\), and given that \(X\) and \(S\) are marginally independent we can simplify this expression as \(\sigma_{XS.C} = 0 - \frac{ab}{1} = - ab\) [38]. In other words, the covariance between \(X\) and \(S\) given \(C\) will depend on the two structural coefficients (\(a\), \(b\)) in the model.

  3. It is worth noting that exploratory factor analysis can only be used with effect (reflective) indicators rather than causal (formative) indicators [29], which is how the latent variables are defined in this study.

  4. The choice of the dependent variables is based on the well-documented differences on reading achievement across racial groups [18] as well as differences on mathematics achievement across gender categories [54]. These differences can be perceived in the dataset used in this study. A regression of reading achievement in fifth grade on race yields a F-statistic of 121.5 (p < 0.001), and a regression of mathematics achievement on gender yields a F-statistic of 26.6 (p < 0.001). This indicates that there is strong evidence in the data that both race and gender are associated with reading and mathematics achievement, respectively. However, it is important to note that these predictive models are implemented primarily for illustrative purposes, and that I could have chosen other outcome variables. As a robustness check, Table S1 in the Supplementary Appendix presents the results of models using race to predict mathematics achievement and gender to predict reading achievement (rather than vice versa). I also present models using two unrelated outcomes (behavioral engagement and externalizing behaviors) with both race and gender as predictors.

  5. Researchers disagree on the existence of a gender gap in mathematic achievement [56]. However, researchers generally agree about the existence of a gender gap in reading achievement, which can also be found using historical as well as international data [57]. The gender gap in mathematic typically favors men, while the gender gap in reading favors women. Several reasons have been provided to explain these gaps, many of which emphasize how socialization and cultural influences associate gender stereotypes to particular behaviors [57, 58].

  6. The dataset used in the empirical analysis is publicly available and can be downloaded here https://nces.ed.gov/ecls/dataproducts.asp. Code to reproduce the prediction and mediation models can be found in the Supplemental materials. Pseudo-code of the FGES algorithm can be found in Ramsey et al. [49].

  7. This example also illustrates the difficulty of clearly differentiating between constitutive and mediating relationships, as play can be considered both an effect (or mediating factor) of gender, as well as part of the meaning of gender (i.e., a constitutive element). That is, one can at the same time claim that gender has an effect on how children play, and that how children play is integral to the social and cultural differences contributing to the meaning of gender.

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  1. Department of Educational Psychology, School of Education and Human Sciences, University of Kansas, Joseph R. Pearson Hall, Rm. 621, 1122 West Campus Rd, Lawrence, KS, 66045-3101, USA

    Rafael Quintana

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Table 5 Description of the 77 variables included in the analysis
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Quintana, R. What race and gender stand for: using Markov blankets to identify constitutive and mediating relationships. J Comput Soc Sc 5, 751–779 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42001-021-00152-6

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