A Research Proposal on Prejudice in Asian Interracial Relationships

This research proposal aims to investigate the prejudice and discrimination faced by Asian individuals from interracial couples, addressing gaps in existing literature. It critically reviews past research, identifies limitations, and poses the research question: Are Asian women in interracial couples exposed to higher prejudice and discrimination compared to their male counterparts? The proposal outlines a qualitative methodology involving participant selection from diverse locations, utilizing self-administered questionnaires and focus groups to gather data. Ethical considerations are addressed to ensure participant well-being and confidentiality. The study seeks to identify specific prejudices, assess their severity, and evaluate gender differences in discriminatory attitudes, contributing to a deeper understanding of the challenges faced by Asian individuals in interracial relationships.

Running head: RESEARCH PROPOSAL
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Abstract
Couples of different race and ethnicities have been commonly found to talk about
disapproval, discrimination and hostility from the community members. Being a biracial
couple is difficult for most people due to the fact that they have to deal with prejudices in
their daily lives. Challenges are also faced by biracial couples from people hailing from
ethnicities and races that are different from those of the former. Commonly prevalent
discriminating outlooksmet by these couples comprise ofbullying and open unfriendliness,
negative typecasting, and diversetypes of offensive comments at communal places.
Furthermore, kids of these pair are also exposed to insults, stares, and jibes. This results in a
subsequent state of isolation and rejection from the community. Not much studies have been
conducted with the aim of determining the prejudice that Asian children of biracial couples
face in their daily lives. This qualitative research will aim to determine the differences in
discrimination and prejudice among Asian females and males of interracial couples.
Keywords- interracial, biracial, marriage, prejudice, discrimination

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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
Literature discussion and gaps...............................................................................................4
Research question...............................................................................................................5
Research aim......................................................................................................................6
Research objective.............................................................................................................6
Methodology..........................................................................................................................6
Participants.........................................................................................................................6
Design................................................................................................................................7
Materials.............................................................................................................................9
Procedure..........................................................................................................................11
Ethical considerations..........................................................................................................12
References................................................................................................................................13

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Introduction
Marriage outside the specific social group, commonly known as exogamy most
commonly involve spouses belonging to varied socially distinct racial ethnicities (Hou&
Myles, 2013). Previous reports show that these kinds of marriage were outlawed in South
Africa and the United States. Centuries of diaspora, migration and assimilation, in addition to
cultural diversity have resulted in these kinds of marriage between people with cultural
differences (Wang, 2015). Hofstede’s cultural dimensions theory act like
anoutlinecoveringcultural communication. The index of individualism and collectivism
explores the extent to which societal members are integrated in groups. Individualists like the
non-Asians have loose ties related to their immediate family only. Conversely. Their
counterparts, the Asian collectivists stay in a tightly-integrated society with strong ties and
rapport with their extended families as well (Mazanec et al., 2015). Their cultures are
underpinned by support and loyalty towards each other.
Research evidences have well established the fact that Asian cultures have the
collectivist trait that encompasses social rules focusing on the promotion of selflessness and
considering the needs of the community, ahead of the individuals (Hsu, Woodside &
Marshall, 2013). Furthermore, the collectivist nature of the Asian societies can be attributed
to the presence of ethnically diverse communities in it. Thus, the nature of members of such
communities to behave appropriately in a manner that is more conducive to all, is in contrast
to the Western societies based on individualism (Venaik& Brewer, 2013). Translation of
family values and beliefs into the intergenerational households are often identified as the
reason of collectivism. This proposal aims to delve deeper into the discrimination faced by
Asian men and women, having interracial parents (Koleśnik, 2013).

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Literature discussion and gaps
Not much studies have been done to study the impact of interracial relationships and
marriages on the spouses and their children. Analysis from a study revealed that multicultural
couples were typicallyexposed to cultural disputes and discernmentbased on their race, while
they interact with affiliates of other culture. The study defined race in the form of some kind
of social identification pattern associated with skin, hair colour and other factors. It
accurately took into consideration the different aspects of culture namely, beliefs, traditions,
and meanings (Seshadri& Knudson‐Martin, 2013). A grounded theory analysis of interviews
was conducted in this study among 17 couples. It aimed to explore the responses of diverse
couples to the changes that are frequent in the social environment. The fact that the study
investigated interracial marriage on the basis of a strength based perspective was a major
advantage. Furthermore, it recruited participants who were defined as interracial couple and
grew up in a society with a range of customs, expectations and traditions. Developing the
research on the basis of grounded theory helped in the conceptualization of social structures
and patterns of interest (Charmaz, 2014). Additionally, the outcomes were less likely to be
affected by researcher bias in such an approach. This resulted in the production of a diverse
set of answers that were different from traditional research (Cho & Lee, 2014). However, it
did not design the interviews in a manner that could access the marital quality, success,
happiness and satisfaction of the couples. Furthermore, the grounded theory also failed to
identify the researcher’s embeddedness, thereby obscuring the considerable agency of the
researcher in the construction and interpretation of valid data.
Reports from another trial focused on the discrimination displayed towards interracial
romance and the bias that such biracial couple commonly face due to repulsion and disgust.
The chief research includes three dissimilar studies,where the first study determined the
relationship between disgust a well as reception in mixed-race couples (Skinner &Hudac,

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2017). In the second study, the intention of the researcher is to define antipathy among these
pairs, in connotation with sexual prohibitions. Besides, the third study suggested that
multicultural couples were exposed to implicit practices of dehumanization by the
civilization. This research has expanded upon the insufficient texts that concentrated on
determining the feelings and attitudes underlying potential prejudice against interracial
marriages and relations. Furthermore,thisstate of mindencompassing disgust was found most
accountable for brutalisation of the pairs.
The major gaps in such exploration lies in the point that they did not emphasise on the
discrimination and prejudice faced by biracial children, specifically those fitting in the Asian
communities. Besides, the second study primarily focused on White participants, which in
turn might have resulted in bias owing to the fact that interracial romance and relationships
are found to differ by race (Skinner &Hudac, 2017). Furthermore, little or no studies have
been conducted to investigate the gender differences in these discriminating attitudes towards
children.Moreover, there are several limitations in the number of empirical studies that have
elaborated on bias and discrimination involving children of interracial couples. Given the
scarce psychological literature that focuses on prejudice explained by children who are
interracial, there is a need to conduct additional research for understanding the bias.
Research question
Are Asian women who belong to interracial couple exposed to higher prejudice as
well as discrimination than their male equivalents?
Research aim
Are Asian women of multiethnic couple subjected to more bias and discernment than
their male equivalent?

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Research objective
 Identify the prejudices faced by Asian children of multiethnic couple
 Recognize the severity of the discriminating acts
 Evaluate the differences in such bias towards males and females
Methodology
Participants
The participants for this research will be Asian men and women of interracial couples.
Asian interracial couples and their families are located throughout the nation. Thus,
participants will be selected from multiple locations across three districts to represent the
population. Brochures will be circulated across universities, colleges, clinics, and community
centres from where the applicants will learn about the objective of the venture. They should
not be less than 18 years of age, and should be able to recognise themselves as Asians and
belonging to interracial couples. The sample of participants will be obtained following
soliciting of individuals who will meet the criteria of the study. Furthermore, they will also be
selected on the basis of their frequency of visiting websites that focus on interracial marriage
and culturally diverse couples. Following shortlisting the names of the Asian respondents,
telephonic interviews will be held, in addition to sending them sealed envelopes with the
informed consent forms. The envelopes will contain documents that would help them gain a
comprehensive understanding of the purpose and benefits of the research. They will then be
asked to willingly participate in the research process that would encompass a self-reported
survey and interview. Help will also be taken from the participants to solicit other Asian men
and women who meet the selection critieria. 50 participants will be selected for the research.
Inclusion criteria
 Must have Asian origin

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 Parents must be interracial or multi-raced
 Must be aged 18 years or more
 Must have been a resident of the country for at least 5 years
 Having a sound mental state to provide informed consent
Exclusion criteria
 Other than Asian origin
 Parents are not mixed-raced
 Aged below 18 years
 Currently relocated to the country
Design
The study will be grounded on a qualitative inquiry design that will emphasise on
recording observations, with the purpose of gainingnon-numerical data. This exploratory
research will help in attainmentof a sound understanding of the opinions, and sensitivities of
the Asian respondents (both males and females). Conducting a qualitative investigationwill
support in the course of uncovering tendenciesin the views and thoughts of people having
mixed-race parents and will also facilitate diving deeper into the problem (O’reilly& Parker,
2013). The primary aim of the qualitative research would be to seek an in-depth
understanding of human behavior and the reasons that are responsible for governing major
changes. The research design will focus on systematically using a predefined set of processes
for obtaining an answer to the research question and will also produce a wide range of
findings that will not be initially determined (Lewis, 2015). Of the three common qualitative
data collection methods, this project would focus on focus groups and self-administered
questionnaire (Berger, 2015).

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These self-administered questionnaires refer to set of questions that will be
specifically designed with respect to the respondents recruited for the study, who will be
made to provide answers without the intervention of any researcher. The questionnaires will
be comprised of questions in a definite format that the respondents would have to answer.
Most of the questions will be close ended that will make them pick their responses from the
provided options. These response options would be mutually exclusive and exhaustive. The
response scales for the questions will be either dichotomous, ordinal-polytomous or
continuous (Belisario et al., 2015). The questionnaire will be constructed in a way that
maintains the order of screens, warm-up, transition, skip, difficult and classification.
Furthermore, the statements will be used in a way that will allow the people to give different
answers, and will be based on comprehensible and clear wordings. The electronic surveys
will be managed with the assistance of a webpage. This will simplify the conveyance and
eradicate any type of interaptions(Kristal et al., 2014). This data collection method will
reduce the cost of both the investigator as well as applicants. Additionally, data collection
process will not demand extensive labour and the questions will beoutlined in a more
comprehensive approach unlike the telephone based or paper based approach.
Another approach would compriseof focus setsthat refer to a demographically
miscellaneous group of persons who are engaged with the intention of learning their
feedbacks during open debates about a specific examination question. This data gathering
method will depend on interviews in communicating group surroundings, where the
applicants will exchange dialogues with each other and the essential topics will be noted
down. The project will incorporate group focused on a double moderator where one
moderator confirm smooth advancement of the session, and the other one will
warrantreporting of all vitalthemes during the sessions (Silverman, 2016). Consequently, the
moderators will share their accountabilities, and areas of argument,and might also fragment

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the sets for managing the responsibilities. The focus group will listen to the oral experiences
of other participants that would kindle the thoughts and recollections within the participants.
Frequently referred to as group outcome, the Asian samples having mixed-race parents will
be made to participate in some type of flowing effect, where their negotiations might move
out of the earlier expressions and themes (Alexander et al., 2018). A occasion for revelation
in the enquiry setting will also be provided by the focus group, where the responses of the
participants will be endorsed.
Materials
Self-administered questionnaires will be planned as well as submitted with the use of
computer technology. The online opinion poll will permit all 50 respondents to be responsible
for their responses, with the use of insignificant human assistance. The material that will be
utilized for this project will involve a web based survey that has been identified as cheaper
and simpler modes of surveys. This questionnaire will target the Asian males and females
belonging to interracial couples and will have separate sections for each hypothesis or
question. The keybenefit of gaininganswers through CSAQ is that the technique is
comparatively simple, even for participantswith limited computer literacy. The questions will
be exhibited in the form of check-boxes and pull-down menus. This method will be realtively
cheaper to administer among the Asian participants due to lack of costs associated with
purchase of printing materials or papers. Telephone and postal charges will also get mitigated
(Christensen et al., 2013). Several paradigms that will be taken into account while designing
the questionnaires include ordering necessary information in the order of their significance,
beginning with a short introduction and explaining the purpose of conducting the CSAQ.
Smart branching will be followed while preparing the questions (Brace, 2018). Upon
selection of the response ‘yes’ by the respondents, the questionnaires would be built in a way
that automatically jumps to the relevant question. The questions will comprise of radio

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buttons where the respondents will be required to click on a circle that corresponds to their
desired answers. The online questionnaire will comprise of domains, some of which are given
below:
 Are their parents an interracial couple
 Whether their parents have been victimized due to their mixed-raceassociation
 Whether they have been laughed at or criticized due to their cultural diversity
 Whether they themselves practice prejudice against other children of interracial
couple
 Do they face bias on every instances
 Impact of discrimination on their educational attainment
 Impact of discrimination on employment prospects
 Competenceto sharing hurtful views
 Conflict with others due to multiethnic background
 Hard to overcome prejudice
 Justified discrimination
 Judged on the basis of skin colour
 Woundedcultural and religious beliefs
 Ignorance of others towards their interracial origin
 First encounter with racial discrimination
Five focus groups, each including of 10 Asian applicants, who met the standards of
inclusion will be included. These 10 persons will be located in a room where reaction
regarding the discernment that they have been faced by them will be offered, due to the fact
that they belong to parents who are multicultural. The sets will consist of equal number of
males as well as females, five each, to obtain a deeper understanding of the stereotypic
opinions and attitudes that they have been exposed to, due to their cultural variances. A

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qualified moderator, blinded to the investigation will be enlisted to lead the sittings, which
will last for aprojected 45 minutes. A list of 10 questions will be delivered to the moderator
and disseminated in the group, with the purpose of provoking thoughtful replies from all
participants (Croonen et al., 2016). All the perticipants wll be inspired to share their thoughts.
The contributors will be put through three categories of questions:
 Engagement questions
These will be informal and inquired during the early steps for familiarizing the
participants as well as acquainting them with the exploration topic
 Exploration questions
 These questions will inquire deeper into the problem by assessing what Asian men
and women feel about the discernment and wheather there are any variances between
them
 Exit questions-
These questions will approve that all necessary things have been talked about.
Procedure
The applicants will be initially made to submit the CSAQ where they will be informed
of the tentative dates within which the online questionnaire needs to be completed. A sample
of the questionnaire will be distributed to all recruited respondents, prior to its online
publication. The period of this self-administered surveywould not exceed 5 minutes and there
would be a total of 20 multiple choice questions, 4 of which generally get completed in a
minute. Upon completion of this form, participant feedback would also be taken whether they
understood the main objective of gathering information on discrimination and racial prejudice
faced by them due to their interracial parents. The feedbacks will be taken into account for

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bringing about necessary changes in the question sets. The questionnaires will be completed
over a period of two weeks.
This will be followed by their randomization into the focus groups. The participants
will be collected in a region which can be accessed by them effortlessly. They will be given
leaflets that will offer them comprehensive facts about the focus group as well as govern their
suitability for the same. During the time the moderator familiarizes everyone and begins the
discussion, an audio tape recorder will be used for recordingproceedings of the conversation,
while they are copied verbatim later. Intricate and ambiguous answers will be abridged and
clarified to get a clear understanding of the sentiments. A thematic investigation will be
directed to categorise the answers of the survey and the talk in the form of certain data groups
and patterns, applicable to the question of the research.
Ethical considerations
The cultural relativism will be exercised and the values of the contributors will be
agreed upon. Accepting the customs of their culture will be perfect to prevent disregard. The
central human ideals will be honoured in order to keep accordance with the goal of the
research (Wardale, Cameron & Li, 2015). Genaration of the provisions for privacy will be
enabled with the usage of study codes that will avertdocumentation of the participants and
guard their answers. Topics that are culturally sensitive can also be stabilized by devloping
intercultural proficiency and being mindful of the self-idea on partialities and cultural variety
(Burnette et al., 2014). Engaging in the exercise of intercultural conversation and developing
sensitivity towards the outlooks of the participants as well as other contemplations which are
crucial for this study.

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