This article compares agreement among racial classification schemes in Brazil, considering measurement methodologies with three categories (white, brown, and black) and two (white and black). The racial taxonomic uncertainty is illustrated by the statistically reliable estimates of the probabilities of being white or black, adjusting for individual characteristics, parents' color, and categorization schemes. The findings show that if different data collection methods were used to construct the color variable, only half of the respondents would report their color consistently in all of them. The data come from the Brazilian Social Survey conducted by UFF in 2002. The survey is representative of the country as a whole and is the first to allow the study proposed here.
uncertainty; race; Brazil
