The Challenge to Racial Stratification


Book Description

The National Political Science Review is the official publication of the National Conference of Black Political Scientists. This series, now entering its fourth volume, includes significant scholarly research reflecting the diverse interests of scholars from various backgrounds who use different models, approaches, and methodologies. The central focus is on politics and policies that advantage or disadvantage groups because of race, ethnicity, gender, and other major variables. In his introduction to this volume, Matthew Holden describes the rationale for the creation of American racial stratification, and boldly shows how American intellectuals have helped reinforce that stratification. Several chapters discuss conflicts in contemporary views of the United States, ranging from a belief in its being a free society to the historical reality of the nation's background as a slave society. Other chapters address the international problem of racial stratification, concentrating on Nigeria and South Africa.




The Hidden Rules of Race


Book Description

This book explores the racial rules that are often hidden but perpetuate vast racial inequities in the United States.




Communities in Action


Book Description

In the United States, some populations suffer from far greater disparities in health than others. Those disparities are caused not only by fundamental differences in health status across segments of the population, but also because of inequities in factors that impact health status, so-called determinants of health. Only part of an individual's health status depends on his or her behavior and choice; community-wide problems like poverty, unemployment, poor education, inadequate housing, poor public transportation, interpersonal violence, and decaying neighborhoods also contribute to health inequities, as well as the historic and ongoing interplay of structures, policies, and norms that shape lives. When these factors are not optimal in a community, it does not mean they are intractable: such inequities can be mitigated by social policies that can shape health in powerful ways. Communities in Action: Pathways to Health Equity seeks to delineate the causes of and the solutions to health inequities in the United States. This report focuses on what communities can do to promote health equity, what actions are needed by the many and varied stakeholders that are part of communities or support them, as well as the root causes and structural barriers that need to be overcome.




Critical Perspectives on Racial and Ethnic Differences in Health in Late Life


Book Description

In their later years, Americans of different racial and ethnic backgrounds are not in equally good-or equally poor-health. There is wide variation, but on average older Whites are healthier than older Blacks and tend to outlive them. But Whites tend to be in poorer health than Hispanics and Asian Americans. This volume documents the differentials and considers possible explanations. Selection processes play a role: selective migration, for instance, or selective survival to advanced ages. Health differentials originate early in life, possibly even before birth, and are affected by events and experiences throughout the life course. Differences in socioeconomic status, risk behavior, social relations, and health care all play a role. Separate chapters consider the contribution of such factors and the biopsychosocial mechanisms that link them to health. This volume provides the empirical evidence for the research agenda provided in the separate report of the Panel on Race, Ethnicity, and Health in Later Life.




Challenging Perceptions of Africa in Schools


Book Description

This book challenges educational discourse in relation to teaching about Africa at all levels of the education system in the Global North, with a specific case study focusing on the Republic of Ireland. The book provides an interrogation of the proliferation of negative imagery of and messages about African people and African countries and the impact of this on the attitudes and perceptions of children and young people. It explores how predominantly negative stereotyping can be challenged in classrooms through an educational approach grounded in principles of solidarity, interdependence, and social justice. The book focuses on the premise that existing educational narratives about the African continent and African people are rooted in a preponderance of racialised perceptions: an ‘impoverished’ continent dependent on the ‘benevolence’ of the North. The cycle of negativity engendered as a result of such portrayals cannot be broken until educators engage with these matters and bring critical and inquiry-based pedagogies into classrooms. Insights into three key pedagogical areas are provided – active unlearning, translating critical thinking into meaningful action, and developing a race consciousness. This book will appeal to academics, researchers, and post-graduate students in the fields of education and teacher education. It will be of interest to those involved in youth work, as well as intercultural and global citizenship youth trainers.




America Becoming


Book Description

The 20th Century has been marked by enormous change in terms of how we define race. In large part, we have thrown out the antiquated notions of the 1800s, giving way to a more realistic, sociocultural view of the world. The United States is, perhaps more than any other industrialized country, distinguished by the size and diversity of its racial and ethnic minority populations. Current trends promise that these features will endure. Fifty years from now, there will most likely be no single majority group in the United States. How will we fare as a nation when race-based issues such as immigration, job opportunities, and affirmative action are already so contentious today? In America Becoming, leading scholars and commentators explore past and current trends among African Americans, Hispanics, Asian Americans, and Native Americans in the context of a white majority. This volume presents the most up-to-date findings and analysis on racial and social dynamics, with recommendations for ongoing research. It examines compelling issues in the field of race relations, including: Race and ethnicity in criminal justice. Demographic and social trends for Hispanics, Asian Americans, and Native Americans. Trends in minority-owned businesses. Wealth, welfare, and racial stratification. Residential segregation and the meaning of "neighborhood." Disparities in educational test scores among races and ethnicities. Health and development for minority children, adolescents, and adults. Race and ethnicity in the labor market, including the role of minorities in America's military. Immigration and the dynamics of race and ethnicity. The changing meaning of race. Changing racial attitudes. This collection of papers, compiled and edited by distinguished leaders in the behavioral and social sciences, represents the most current literature in the field. Volume 1 covers demographic trends, immigration, racial attitudes, and the geography of opportunity. Volume 2 deals with the criminal justice system, the labor market, welfare, and health trends, Both books will be of great interest to educators, scholars, researchers, students, social scientists, and policymakers.




Race and Ethnicity in America


Book Description

Contributors highlight issues in education, health, and employment for US racial and ethnic minorities, acknowledging the factors of social class and gender as well, and describe the implications of minority group status for US race relations and for the general well-being of the country. Subjects include tribally controlled schools, bilingual education, infant mortality, and black entrepreneurship. Of interest to educators, researchers, sociologists, policymakers, and students. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR




Power, Racism and Privledge


Book Description

From Simon & Schuster, Power, Racism, and Privilege is William J. Wilson's exploration of race relations in theoretical and sociohistorical perspectives. As described by Contemporary Sociology, Power, Racism, and Privilege is "a useful work in which history, theory and comparative analysis are uniquely brought together to provide a provocative application of theory to empirical materials in the are of race relations."




The Changing Racial Regime


Book Description

The National Political Science Review is the official publication of the National Conference of Black Political Scientists. The Review's purpose, as described by Matthew Holden in his introduction, is to "lead to new information, insights, and findings" into the social and political status of African Americans. The volume is not exclusionist or narrow. It integrates essays that could stand alone, as they initially were written, according to the method and theory of the author in question. As presented here, however, they also lend themselves to a broader treatment of race and the political order. The present volume combines essays expressly focused on African Americans, Africa, and the African diaspora. At the same time, it contains essays about broad generic subjects such as budgeting and interest groups, written with no explicit racial relevance. Holden integrates these essays under the theme of the changing racial regime. The integrating concept is the old word "regime," which political scientists have used in many situations before to define such more or less persistent, though not necessarily permanent, orders of precedence. If no significant benefits and no significant burdens could be forecast by knowledge of the social identity called race, then the regime could be seen as non-racial. In American experience, the regime was, at one time, purposeful and sustained white advantage. The "white race" and its preferential standing, was central to virtually all institutional practice - public and private. The significant contemporary question is the degree of change in the racial regime. Some proceed with the assumption that a large degree of change has occurred in the American political system. The view of other contributors is that the system still sustains racial stratification. In its very internal dialogue, this volume presents a panorama of current work by political scientists, African American and other, on the character of the American political system. The Changing Racial Regime is an essential resource for political scientists, black studies specialists, and scholars and policy analysts of race relations in the United States.




Race, Racial Attitudes and Stratification Beliefs


Book Description

Barack Obama's election as the forty-fourth president of the United States reinvigorated discussions of race, ideology and inequality in America. This debate occurs in an era when scholarly attention on the intersections in these key areas has been growing in tandem with the expanding racial and ethnic diversity of American society. To broaden our understanding of these complex convergences, this volume of the ANNALS continues the discussion by showcasing a set of cutting-edge papers by leading scholars of race and inequality, with special focus on racial attitudes and stratification beliefs research. Utilizing a mix of methodological and theoretical approaches, the contributors highlight four primary themes: (1) intersections of race, inequality, and ideology in specific institutional domains (e.g., crime, religion, work, immigration/national inclusion); (2) the meaning, measurement, and implications of "racial resentment"; (3) the role of social context and stereotypes in shaping racial (and non-racial) policy support; and (4) the operation of racial prejudice and stratification ideology in the context of Obama's presidency. This volume will appeal to a multidisciplinary scholarly audience, including policy-makers interested in current public opinion regarding the American occupational structure and its associated inequalities.