International Journal of Public Opinion Research Vol.  No.   ß The Author(s) . Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The World Association for Public Opinion Research. doi:./ijpor/edy RESEARCH NOTE The Impact of Interviewer Effects on Skin Color Assessment in a Cross-National Context Alexandru Cernat  , Joseph W. Sakshaug  , and Javier Castillo   The University of Manchester, England;  Institute for Employment Research & University of Mannheim, Germany Introduction There is a growing trend in national and international studies to measure respondents’ skin color as a supplement to traditional race classifications. Skin color measurements are often used as an explanatory variable in studies of social and racial inequalities (Bailey, Saperstein, & Penner, ; Flores & Telles, ; Hutchings, Jefferson, Lewis, & Yadon, ; Lerman, McCabe, & Sadin, ; Perreira & Telles, ; Telles & Paschel, ; Telles & Steele, ). Given its broad appeal, skin color is now collected in several large-scale surveys, such as the General Social Survey, the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, the American National Election Studies, and the Latin American Public Opinion Project AmericasBarometer study. 1 There are multiple ways to measure skin color, including reflectance spectrometers, which measure the amount of light reflected on an area of skin. However, for cost and other reasons, many surveys rely on interviewer assessments of respondents’ skin color (Telles & Lim, ; Villarreal, ). Skin color palettes or guides are often used to help anchor interviewer judgments (Dixon & Telles, ). Two of the most popular guides are the Massey-Martin () scale and the Project on Ethnicity and Race in This work was partially financed by the UK National Centre for Research Methods/Economic and Social Research Council grant [R121711]. Further financial support was provided by the German Institute for Employment Research (IAB). All correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Alexandru Cernat, The University of Manchester, G15 Humanities Bridgeford St Building, Manchester M13 9PL, England. E-mail: alexandru.cernat@manchester.ac.uk 1 Early examples of using interviewers to ascribe respondents’ skin color in national surveys can be traced back to the  National Survey of Black Americans and the  Chicano Survey, both U.S. surveys designed at the University of Michigan (Garcia & Abascal, ). Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/ijpor/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/ijpor/edy030/5306638 by guest on 29 July 2019