Du Bois, Criminology, and the Calculus of Race: A Mathematical Heuristic for Interpreting Social Constructs

In this essay, we use Du Bois's conceptualization of race as a social construction to motivate the development of a heuristic tool to understand the social processes race envelopes. Our essay uses criminology as its case; thus, we set the stage by discussing the lineage of criminology, and describing key characters that furthered biological determinism and crime. We then use the work of Du Bois, other scholars in criminology, and the history of race in the United States to provide a counternarrative, demonstrating the dynamic nature of race. Indeed, racial categories vary across space and time. Routine statistical modeling, however, typically presents researchers with a discrete estimate (e.g., coefficient) of social constructs, which fails to capture the dynamic nature of race and the racialization in populations. Instead, the customary use and interpretation of race overlooks the underlying processes of subordination upon which the social construction rests. Building on Du Bois and the Atlanta University's pictorial depiction of the shifting character of race, we demonstrate the usefulness of integral calculus as a visual heuristic to interpret socially constructed variables. By performing this visual exercise, we move toward treating social constructs as continuous and dynamic, reflecting the history embedded in their construction.