African Americans In White Suburbia

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African Americans in White Suburbia

Author : Ernest McGowen III
Publisher : University Press of Kansas
ISBN 13 : 0700624171
Total Pages : 216 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (6 download)

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Book Synopsis African Americans in White Suburbia by : Ernest McGowen III

Download or read book African Americans in White Suburbia written by Ernest McGowen III and published by University Press of Kansas. This book was released on 2017-06-09 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite decades of progress, African Americans living in largely white affluent suburbs still often find themselves caught between the two worlds of race and class. High economic status has afforded them considerable employment opportunities and political resources—but not necessarily neighbors, coworkers, or local candidates or office holders who share or even understand their concerns. How does such an environment affect the political behavior of African Americans who have strong racial identifications and policy preferences? This is the question Ernest B. McGowen III asks in African Americans in White Suburbia. With Philadelphia as his primary case, McGowen uses a combination of surveys to understand the attitudes of affluent suburban African Americans, compare these attitudes to those of their white neighbors, and to African Americans in the city and so-called “black ring” suburbs. This detailed study—which ranges from participation in black churches and other institutions to attitudes towards government and affirmative action—reveals that suburban African Americans feel their minority status acutely. As a result, they tend to seek out more agreeable networks that reinforce their racial identity, such as churches, fraternal organizations, and charities in black neighborhoods they've left behind. Though Philadelphia is McGowen's focus, broader surveys suggest that his findings reflect a nation-wide pattern. Arriving at a moment of great controversy over racial disparities and division, his timely study offers invaluable insight into the complex nexus of race and class in America.

Places of Their Own

Author : Andrew Wiese
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 0226896269
Total Pages : 425 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (268 download)

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Book Synopsis Places of Their Own by : Andrew Wiese

Download or read book Places of Their Own written by Andrew Wiese and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2009-04-24 with total page 425 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On Melbenan Drive just west of Atlanta, sunlight falls onto a long row of well-kept lawns. Two dozen homes line the street; behind them wooden decks and living-room windows open onto vast woodland properties. Residents returning from their jobs steer SUVs into long driveways and emerge from their automobiles. They walk to the front doors of their houses past sculptured bushes and flowers in bloom. For most people, this cozy image of suburbia does not immediately evoke images of African Americans. But as this pioneering work demonstrates, the suburbs have provided a home to black residents in increasing numbers for the past hundred years—in the last two decades alone, the numbers have nearly doubled to just under twelve million. Places of Their Own begins a hundred years ago, painting an austere portrait of the conditions that early black residents found in isolated, poor suburbs. Andrew Wiese insists, however, that they moved there by choice, withstanding racism and poverty through efforts to shape the landscape to their own needs. Turning then to the 1950s, Wiese illuminates key differences between black suburbanization in the North and South. He considers how African Americans in the South bargained for separate areas where they could develop their own neighborhoods, while many of their northern counterparts transgressed racial boundaries, settling in historically white communities. Ultimately, Wiese explores how the civil rights movement emboldened black families to purchase homes in the suburbs with increased vigor, and how the passage of civil rights legislation helped pave the way for today's black middle class. Tracing the precise contours of black migration to the suburbs over the course of the whole last century and across the entire United States, Places of Their Own will be a foundational book for anyone interested in the African American experience or the role of race and class in the making of America's suburbs. Winner of the 2005 John G. Cawelti Book Award from the American Culture Association. Winner of the 2005 Award for Best Book in North American Urban History from the Urban History Association.

Black Power in the Suburbs

Author : Valerie C. Johnson
Publisher : State University of New York Press
ISBN 13 : 0791487792
Total Pages : 240 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (914 download)

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Book Synopsis Black Power in the Suburbs by : Valerie C. Johnson

Download or read book Black Power in the Suburbs written by Valerie C. Johnson and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2012-02-01 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The country's largest concentration of African American suburban affluence represents a unique laboratory to study the internal factors associated with African American political ascendancy and the convergence of race and class. Black Power in the Suburbs chronicles Prince George's County, Maryland, and the twenty-three year quest by African Americans to influence educational policy and become equal partners in the county's governing coalition. Johnson challenges conventional notions of a monolithic community by addressing the manner in which class cleavages among African Americans affect their representation and policy interests in suburbia. She also documents white resistance to power sharing and the impact of school desegregation on white population trends.

Surrogate Suburbs

Author : Todd M. Michney
Publisher : UNC Press Books
ISBN 13 : 1469631954
Total Pages : 351 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (696 download)

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Book Synopsis Surrogate Suburbs by : Todd M. Michney

Download or read book Surrogate Suburbs written by Todd M. Michney and published by UNC Press Books. This book was released on 2017-02-08 with total page 351 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The story of white flight and the neglect of Black urban neighborhoods has been well told by urban historians in recent decades. Yet much of this scholarship has downplayed Black agency and tended to portray African Americans as victims of structural forces beyond their control. In this history of Cleveland's Black middle class, Todd Michney uncovers the creative ways that members of this nascent community established footholds in areas outside the overcrowded, inner-city neighborhoods to which most African Americans were consigned. In asserting their right to these outer-city spaces, African Americans appealed to city officials, allied with politically progressive whites (notably Jewish activists), and relied upon both Black and white developers and real estate agents to expand these "surrogate suburbs" and maintain their livability until the bona fide suburbs became more accessible. By tracking the trajectories of those who, in spite of racism, were able to succeed, Michney offers a valuable counterweight to histories that have focused on racial conflict and Black poverty and tells the neglected story of the Black middle class in America's cities prior to the 1960s.

White Fragility

Author : Dr. Robin DiAngelo
Publisher : Beacon Press
ISBN 13 : 0807047422
Total Pages : 194 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (7 download)

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Book Synopsis White Fragility by : Dr. Robin DiAngelo

Download or read book White Fragility written by Dr. Robin DiAngelo and published by Beacon Press. This book was released on 2018-06-26 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The New York Times best-selling book exploring the counterproductive reactions white people have when their assumptions about race are challenged, and how these reactions maintain racial inequality. In this “vital, necessary, and beautiful book” (Michael Eric Dyson), antiracist educator Robin DiAngelo deftly illuminates the phenomenon of white fragility and “allows us to understand racism as a practice not restricted to ‘bad people’ (Claudia Rankine). Referring to the defensive moves that white people make when challenged racially, white fragility is characterized by emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt, and by behaviors including argumentation and silence. These behaviors, in turn, function to reinstate white racial equilibrium and prevent any meaningful cross-racial dialogue. In this in-depth exploration, DiAngelo examines how white fragility develops, how it protects racial inequality, and what we can do to engage more constructively.

Black Picket Fences

Author : Mary Pattillo
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 022602122X
Total Pages : 349 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (26 download)

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Book Synopsis Black Picket Fences by : Mary Pattillo

Download or read book Black Picket Fences written by Mary Pattillo and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2013-07-02 with total page 349 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First published in 1999, Mary Pattillo’s Black Picket Fences explores an American demographic group too often ignored by both scholars and the media: the black middle class. Nearly fifteen years later, this book remains a groundbreaking study of a group still underrepresented in the academic and public spheres. The result of living for three years in “Groveland,” a black middle-class neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side, Black Picket Fences explored both the advantages the black middle class has and the boundaries they still face. Despite arguments that race no longer matters, Pattillo showed a different reality, one where black and white middle classes remain separate and unequal. Stark, moving, and still timely, the book is updated for this edition with a new epilogue by the author that details how the neighborhood and its residents fared in the recession of 2008, as well as new interviews with many of the same neighborhood residents featured in the original. Also included is a new foreword by acclaimed University of Pennsylvania sociologist Annette Lareau.

Sundown Towns

Author : James W. Loewen
Publisher : The New Press
ISBN 13 : 1620974541
Total Pages : 594 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (29 download)

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Book Synopsis Sundown Towns by : James W. Loewen

Download or read book Sundown Towns written by James W. Loewen and published by The New Press. This book was released on 2018-07-17 with total page 594 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Powerful and important . . . an instant classic." —The Washington Post Book World The award-winning look at an ugly aspect of American racism by the bestselling author of Lies My Teacher Told Me, reissued with a new preface by the author In this groundbreaking work, sociologist James W. Loewen, author of the classic bestseller Lies My Teacher Told Me, brings to light decades of hidden racial exclusion in America. In a provocative, sweeping analysis of American residential patterns, Loewen uncovers the thousands of "sundown towns"—almost exclusively white towns where it was an unspoken rule that blacks weren't welcome—that cropped up throughout the twentieth century, most of them located outside of the South. Written with Loewen's trademark honesty and thoroughness, Sundown Towns won the Gustavus Myers Outstanding Book Award, received starred reviews in Publishers Weekly and Booklist, and launched a nationwide online effort to track down and catalog sundown towns across America. In a new preface, Loewen puts this history in the context of current controversies around white supremacy and the Black Lives Matter movement. He revisits sundown towns and finds the number way down, but with notable exceptions in exclusive all-white suburbs such as Kenilworth, Illinois, which as of 2010 had not a single black household. And, although many former sundown towns are now integrated, they often face "second-generation sundown town issues," such as in Ferguson, Missouri, a former sundown town that is now majority black, but with a majority-white police force.

African American Suburbanization and the Consequential Loss of Identity

Author : Hoffman-Miller, Patricia H.
Publisher : IGI Global
ISBN 13 : 1522578366
Total Pages : 258 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (225 download)

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Book Synopsis African American Suburbanization and the Consequential Loss of Identity by : Hoffman-Miller, Patricia H.

Download or read book African American Suburbanization and the Consequential Loss of Identity written by Hoffman-Miller, Patricia H. and published by IGI Global. This book was released on 2019-06-28 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: African Americans migrated from southern regions of the United States, the Caribbean, and Africa during the early 20th century, settling in large urban communities in the Midwestern, Northern, and Western regions of the United States. During the early 21st century, African Americans continued their post-industrialized transition from their initial urban locations to suburban and exurban locations, with class, income, and education being the predominant factors in determining locations of choice. However, the result of this 21st century exodus gave rise to an increased sense of isolation, loss of identify, and the gradual erosion of political power unique to urban communities in the late 20th century. African American Suburbanization and the Consequential Loss of Identity is a critical scholarly resource that examines the experiences of African Americans and the development of African American identities. It represents an important opportunity for an examination of the implications of this 21st century exodus, giving voice to all aspects of African American-lived experiences in suburban communities. Featuring a wide range of topics such as higher education, criminal justice, and social media, this book is ideal for professionals, educators, social scientists, political leaders, law enforcement, students, and researchers.

Black American Students in An Affluent Suburb

Author : John U. Ogbu
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1135625530
Total Pages : 330 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (356 download)

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Book Synopsis Black American Students in An Affluent Suburb by : John U. Ogbu

Download or read book Black American Students in An Affluent Suburb written by John U. Ogbu and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2003-02-26 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: John Ogbu has studied minority education from a comparative perspective for over 30 years. The study reported in this book--jointly sponsored by the community and the school district in Shaker Heights, Ohio--focuses on the academic performance of Black American students. Not only do these students perform less well than White students at every social class level, but also less well than immigrant minority students, including Black immigrant students. Furthermore, both middle-class Black students in suburban school districts, as well as poor Black students in inner-city schools are not doing well. Ogbu's analysis draws on data from observations, formal and informal interviews, and statistical and other data. He offers strong empirical evidence to support the cross-class existence of the problem. The book is organized in four parts: *Part I provides a description of the twin problems the study addresses--the gap between Black and White students in school performance and the low academic engagement of Black students; a review of conventional explanations; an alternative perspective; and the framework for the study. *Part II is an analysis of societal and school factors contributing to the problem, including race relations, Pygmalion or internalized White beliefs and expectations, levelling or tracking, the roles of teachers, counselors, and discipline. *Community factors--the focus of this study--are discussed in Part III. These include the educational impact of opportunity structure, collective identity, cultural and language or dialect frame of reference in schooling, peer pressures, and the role of the family. This research focus does not mean exonerating the system and blaming minorities, nor does it mean neglecting school and society factors. Rather, Ogbu argues, the role of community forces should be incorporated into the discussion of the academic achievement gap by researchers, theoreticians, policymakers, educators, and minorities themselves who genuinely want to improve the academic achievement of African American children and other minorities. *In Part IV, Ogbu presents a summary of the study's findings on community forces and offers recommendations--some of which are for the school system and some for the Black community. Black American Students in an Affluent Suburb: A Study of Academic Disengagement is an important book for a wide range of researchers, professionals, and students, particularly in the areas of Black education, minority education, comparative and international education, sociology of education, educational anthropology, educational policy, teacher education, and applied anthropology.

Race and the Suburbs in American Film

Author : Merrill Schleier
Publisher : State University of New York Press
ISBN 13 : 1438484488
Total Pages : 334 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (384 download)

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Book Synopsis Race and the Suburbs in American Film by : Merrill Schleier

Download or read book Race and the Suburbs in American Film written by Merrill Schleier and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2021-07-01 with total page 334 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is the first anthology to explore the connection between race and the suburbs in American cinema from the end of World War II to the present. It builds upon the explosion of interest in the suburbs in film, television, and fiction in the last fifteen years, concentrating exclusively on the relationship of race to the built environment. Suburb films began as a cycle in response to both America's changing urban geography and the re-segregation of its domestic spaces in the postwar era, which excluded African Americans, Asian Americans, and Latinx from the suburbs while buttressing whiteness. By defying traditional categories and chronologies in cinema studies, the contributors explore the myriad ways suburban spaces and racialized bodies in film mediate each other. Race and the Suburbs in American Film is a stimulating resource for considering the manner in which race is foundational to architecture and urban geography, which is reflected, promoted, and challenged in cinematic representations.

Race, Place, and Suburban Policing

Author : Andrea S. Boyles
Publisher : Univ of California Press
ISBN 13 : 0520282388
Total Pages : 268 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (22 download)

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Book Synopsis Race, Place, and Suburban Policing by : Andrea S. Boyles

Download or read book Race, Place, and Suburban Policing written by Andrea S. Boyles and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2015-08-01 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Relying on compelling interviews from the Meacham Park neighborhood--a marginalized Black enclave located in a predominately white affluent St. Louis suburb, this book brings to life the everyday interactions of disadvantaged suburban Blacks as they faced annexation, aggressive policing, two nationally profiled shootings, and intervention from the United States Department of Justice (USDOJ)"--Provided by publisher.

The New Noir

Author : Orly Clerge
Publisher : Univ of California Press
ISBN 13 : 0520969138
Total Pages : 315 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (29 download)

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Book Synopsis The New Noir by : Orly Clerge

Download or read book The New Noir written by Orly Clerge and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2019-10-29 with total page 315 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The expansion of the Black American middle class and the unprecedented increase in the number of Black immigrants since the 1960s have transformed the cultural landscape of New York. In The New Noir, Orly Clerge explores the richly complex worlds of an extraordinary generation of Black middle class adults who have migrated from different corners of the African diaspora to suburbia. The Black middle class today consists of diverse groups whose ongoing cultural, political, and material ties to the American South and Global South shape their cultural interactions at work, in their suburban neighborhoods, and at their kitchen tables. Clerge compellingly analyzes the making of a new multinational Black middle class and how they create a spectrum of Black identities that help them carve out places of their own in a changing 21st-century global city. Paying particular attention to the largest Black ethnic groups in the country, Black Americans, Jamaicans, and Haitians, Clerge’s ethnography draws on over 80 interviews with residents to examine the overlooked places where New York’s middle class resides in Queens and Long Island. This book reveals that region and nationality shape how the Black middle class negotiates the everyday politics of race and class.

Uninvited Neighbors

Author : Herbert G. Ruffin
Publisher : University of Oklahoma Press
ISBN 13 : 080614582X
Total Pages : 369 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (61 download)

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Book Synopsis Uninvited Neighbors by : Herbert G. Ruffin

Download or read book Uninvited Neighbors written by Herbert G. Ruffin and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2014-03-28 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the late 1960s, African American protests and Black Power demonstrations in California’s Santa Clara County—including what’s now called Silicon Valley—took many observers by surprise. After all, as far back as the 1890s, the California constitution had legally abolished most forms of racial discrimination, and subsequent legal reform had surely taken care of the rest. White Americans might even have wondered where the black activists in the late sixties were coming from—because, beginning with the writings of Fredrick Jackson Turner, the most influential histories of the American West simply left out African Americans or, later, portrayed them as a passive and insignificant presence. Uninvited Neighbors puts black people back into the picture and dispels cherished myths about California’s racial history. Reaching from the Spanish era to the valley’s emergence as a center of the high-tech industry, this is the first comprehensive history of the African American experience in the Santa Clara Valley. Author Herbert G. Ruffin II’s study presents the black experience in a new way, with a focus on how, despite their smaller numbers and obscure presence, African Americans in the South Bay forged communities that had a regional and national impact disproportionate to their population. As the region industrialized and spawned suburbs during and after World War II, its black citizens built institutions such as churches, social clubs, and civil rights organizations and challenged socioeconomic restrictions. Ruffin explores the quest of the area’s black people for the postwar American Dream. The book also addresses the scattering of the black community during the region’s late yet rapid urban growth after 1950, which led to the creation of several distinct black suburban communities clustered in metropolitan San Jose. Ruffin treats people of color as agents of their own development and survival in a region that was always multiracial and where slavery and Jim Crow did not predominate, but where the white embrace of racial justice and equality was often insincere. The result offers a new view of the intersection of African American history and the history of the American West.

Black in White Space

Author : Elijah Anderson
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 0226826414
Total Pages : 299 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (268 download)

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Book Synopsis Black in White Space by : Elijah Anderson

Download or read book Black in White Space written by Elijah Anderson and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2023-04-05 with total page 299 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the vital voice of Elijah Anderson, Black in White Space sheds fresh light on the dire persistence of racial discrimination in our country. A birder strolling in Central Park. A college student lounging on a university quad. Two men sitting in a coffee shop. Perfectly ordinary actions in ordinary settings—and yet, they sparked jarring and inflammatory responses that involved the police and attracted national media coverage. Why? In essence, Elijah Anderson would argue, because these were Black people existing in white spaces. In Black in White Space, Anderson brings his immense knowledge and ethnography to bear in this timely study of the racial barriers that are still firmly entrenched in our society at every class level. He focuses in on symbolic racism, a new form of racism in America caused by the stubbornly powerful stereotype of the ghetto embedded in the white imagination, which subconsciously connects all Black people with crime and poverty regardless of their social or economic position. White people typically avoid Black space, but Black people are required to navigate the “white space” as a condition of their existence. From Philadelphia street-corner conversations to Anderson’s own morning jogs through a Cape Cod vacation town, he probes a wealth of experiences to shed new light on how symbolic racism makes all Black people uniquely vulnerable to implicit bias in police stops and racial discrimination in our country. An unwavering truthteller in our national conversation on race, Anderson has shared intimate and sharp insights into Black life for decades. Vital and eye-opening, Black in White Space will be a must-read for anyone hoping to understand the lived realities of Black people and the structural underpinnings of racism in America.

The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America

Author : Richard Rothstein
Publisher : Liveright Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1631492861
Total Pages : 246 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (314 download)

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Book Synopsis The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America by : Richard Rothstein

Download or read book The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America written by Richard Rothstein and published by Liveright Publishing. This book was released on 2017-05-02 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New York Times Bestseller • Notable Book of the Year • Editors' Choice Selection One of Bill Gates’ “Amazing Books” of the Year One of Publishers Weekly’s 10 Best Books of the Year Longlisted for the National Book Award for Nonfiction An NPR Best Book of the Year Winner of the Hillman Prize for Nonfiction Gold Winner • California Book Award (Nonfiction) Finalist • Los Angeles Times Book Prize (History) Finalist • Brooklyn Public Library Literary Prize This “powerful and disturbing history” exposes how American governments deliberately imposed racial segregation on metropolitan areas nationwide (New York Times Book Review). Widely heralded as a “masterful” (Washington Post) and “essential” (Slate) history of the modern American metropolis, Richard Rothstein’s The Color of Law offers “the most forceful argument ever published on how federal, state, and local governments gave rise to and reinforced neighborhood segregation” (William Julius Wilson). Exploding the myth of de facto segregation arising from private prejudice or the unintended consequences of economic forces, Rothstein describes how the American government systematically imposed residential segregation: with undisguised racial zoning; public housing that purposefully segregated previously mixed communities; subsidies for builders to create whites-only suburbs; tax exemptions for institutions that enforced segregation; and support for violent resistance to African Americans in white neighborhoods. A groundbreaking, “virtually indispensable” study that has already transformed our understanding of twentieth-century urban history (Chicago Daily Observer), The Color of Law forces us to face the obligation to remedy our unconstitutional past.

Blue-Chip Black

Author : Karyn R. Lacy
Publisher : Univ of California Press
ISBN 13 : 0520251164
Total Pages : 302 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (22 download)

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Book Synopsis Blue-Chip Black by : Karyn R. Lacy

Download or read book Blue-Chip Black written by Karyn R. Lacy and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2007-07-03 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Publisher description

The Black-White Test Score Gap

Author : Christopher Jencks
Publisher : Brookings Institution Press
ISBN 13 : 9780815746119
Total Pages : 546 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (461 download)

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Book Synopsis The Black-White Test Score Gap by : Christopher Jencks

Download or read book The Black-White Test Score Gap written by Christopher Jencks and published by Brookings Institution Press. This book was released on 2011-01-01 with total page 546 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: " The test score gap between blacks and whites—on vocabulary, reading, and math tests, as well as on tests that claim to measure scholastic aptitude and intelligence--is large enough to have far-reaching social and economic consequences. In their introduction to this book, Christopher Jencks and Meredith Phillips argue that eliminating the disparity would dramatically reduce economic and educational inequality between blacks and whites. Indeed, they think that closing the gap would do more to promote racial equality than any other strategy now under serious discussion. The book offers a comprehensive look at the factors that contribute to the test score gap and discusses options for substantially reducing it. Although significant attempts have been made over the past three decades to shrink the test score gap, including increased funding for predominantly black schools, desegregation of southern schools, and programs to alleviate poverty, the median black American still scores below 75 percent of American whites on most standardized tests. The book brings together recent evidence on some of the most controversial and puzzling aspects of the test score debate, including the role of test bias, heredity, and family background. It also looks at how and why the gap has changed over the past generation, reviews the educational, psychological, and cultural explanations for the gap, and analyzes its educational and economic consequences. The authors demonstrate that traditional explanations account for only a small part of the black-white test score gap. They argue that this is partly because traditional explanations have put too much emphasis on racial disparities in economic resources, both in homes and in schools, and on demographic factors like family structure. They say that successful theories will put more emphasis on psychological and cultural factors, such as the way black and white parents teach their children to deal with things they do not know or understand, and the way black and white children respond to the same classroom experiences. Finally, they call for large-scale experiments to determine the effects of schools' racial mix, class size, ability grouping, and other policies. In addition to the editors, the contributors include Claude Steele, Ronald Ferguson, William G. Bowen, Philip Cook, and William Julius Wilson. "