This book analyses how racism is reproduced through everyday talk and how ethnic prejudices become shared and may form the cognitive basis of ethnic or racial discrimination in intergroup interaction. The study, based on interviews conducted in California and Amsterdam, focuses on how ethnic attitudes expressed in discourse exhibit sociocultural, historical, political, and economic dependencies. The book is divided into seven major chapters. Chapter 1, "Introduction," discusses the background and goals of the study, the data methodology, and the structure of the problem. Chapter 2, "Structures of Prejudiced Discourse," clarifies how ethnic attitudes, especially prejudice, are represented and strategically used in memory, and how such representations and strategies affect intergroup perceptions, evaluations, and interactions. Chapter 3, "Sources of Prejudiced Talk," analyzes how ethnic prejudice becomes manifest in discourse. Chapter 4, "The Cognitive Dimension: Structures and Strategies of Ethnic Prejudice," examines how discourse about ethnic minority groups is monitored by interaction strategies, social goals, norms, and values. Chapter 5, "The Interpersonal Communication of Racism," analyzes how prejudiced discourse is understood, evaluated, and represented by in-group recipients who participate in such talk. Chapter 6, "The Social and Ideological Context of Prejudice Reproduction," discusses how the communication and diffusion of prejudiced group attitudes transcend the level of single, isolated, interpersonal conversations. Chapter 7 presents general conclusions and considers areas for future research. An appendix provides information about data collection. (KH)