How pervasive is reverse discrimination in the United States today? What exactly is ""affirmative action""? Fred Pincus investigates the nature and scope of reverse discrimination, questioning what effect affirmative action actually has on white men. Beginning with the early opposition to the 1964 Civil Rights Act, Pincus traces the evolution of the idea that affirmative action in itself amounts to a form of discrimination. He then examines the empirical evidence. He finds that, contrary to conventional wisdom, white males' experiences of discrimination have little relation to affirmative action policies. Certainly, there are white men who have been victims of discrimination. But, as Pincus demonstrates, the concept of reverse discrimination is primarily a social construct generated by traditional beliefs about race and gender relations. In the end, it is people of color and white women who continue to carry the burden of bias.

Invisibility persists throughout the Asian American story. On the one hand, xenophobia has long contributed to racism and discrimination toward Asian Americans. On the other hand, terms such as perpetual foreignerand honorific whites have been thrust upon Asian Americans, minimizing their plight with racism and erasing their experience as racial minorities. Even more indiscernible in America's racial landscape are Asian American women. The compounded effects of a patriarchal Asian culture and a marginalizing American culture are formidable, steadily removing the recognition of these women's lives, voices, and agency. Invisibility is not only a racial and cultural issue, but also a profound spiritual issue. The Western church--and its theology--has historically obscured the concerns of Asian Americans. The Asian American church relegates women to domestic, supportive roles meant to uplift male leaders. In Invisible, Grace Ji-Sun Kim examines encounters with racism, sexism, and xenophobia as she works toward ending Asian American women's invisibility. She deploys biblical, sociological, and theological narratives to empower the voices of Asian American women. And she shares the story of her heritage, her family history, her immigration, and her own experience as an Asian American woman. Speaking with the weight of her narrative, she proclaims that the histories, experiences, and voices of Asian American women must be rescued from obscurity. Speaking with the weight of a theologian, she powerfully paves the way for a theology of visibility that honors the voice and identity of these women. As Asian American women work toward a theology of visibility, they uplift the voiceless and empower the invisible, moving beyond experiences of oppression and toward claiming their space in the kin-dom of God.

Blood is messy, dangerous, and charged with meaning. By following it as it circulates through people and institutions, Jenny Bangham explores the intimate connections between the early infrastructures of blood transfusion and the development of human genetics. Focusing on mid-twentieth-century Britain, Blood Relations connects histories of eugenics to the local politics of giving blood, showing how the exchange of blood carved out networks that made human populations into objects of medical surveillance and scientific research. Bangham reveals how biology was transformed by two world wars, how scientists have worked to define racial categories, and how the practices and rhetoric of public health made genetics into a human science. Today, genetics is a powerful authority on human health and identity, and Blood Relations helps us understand how this authority was achieved.

Previous critics have documented the damaging effects of the current exploitative sporting and education structures in the United States on Black males and the broader Black community. However, largely missing from scholarly literature and popular discourses on this topic is a comprehensive analysis of the heterogeneity among Black male athletes' lived experiences and outcomes over their lifespans. From Exploitation Back to Empowerment: Black Male Holistic (Under)Development Through Sport and (Mis)Education by Joseph N. Cooper addresses three major issues: (1) the under theorization of Black male athletes' socialization processes, (2) the preponderance of deficit-based theories on Black male athletes, and (3) the lack of expansive analyses of Black male athletes from diverse backgrounds. Grounded in empirical research, this text outlines five socialization models of Black male holistic (under)development through sport and (mis)education. The five socialization models include: (a) illusion of singular success model (ISSM), (b) elite athlete lottery model (EALM), (c) transition recovery model (TRM), (d) purposeful participation for expansive personal growth model (P2EPGM), and (e) holistic empowerment model (HEM). Using ecological, race-based, gender-based, psychological, and athletic-based theories, each of the proposed models incorporates critical sociological insights whereby multi-level system factors (sub, chrono, macro, exo, meso, and micro) along with various intersecting identities and additional background characteristics are taken into account. In addition, historical, sociocultural, political, and economic conditions are examined in relation to their influence on Black males' socialization in and through sport and (mis)education. This nuanced analysis allows for the development of a systematic blueprint for Black male athletes' holistic development and more importantly collective racial and cultural uplift.

Drawing on a rich ethnographic study conducted in first grade classrooms in the US, this book reveals the potentially invisible, yet significant ways that race and social class impact student success in the earliest years of their schooling. The Hidden Academic Curriculum and Inequality in Early Education: How Class, Race, Teacher Interactions, and Friendship Influence Student Success explores key differences observed between the classroom interactions and academic behaviors of racially, socially, and ethnically diverse first grade students. Chapters offer in-depth analysis of the ways in which classed and racialized coaching by families, differentiated teacher-student interactions, and racially segregated friendships play out in the school environment, and ultimately influence a child's ability to decode the academic hidden curriculum. This in turn, dictates a child's understanding and ability to perform the specific skills associated with academic success. Ultimately, the text highlights the critical need for improved understanding of how in- and out-of-school factors impact child behaviors, and offers key recommendations to prevent the perpetuation of racial and socioeconomic inequalities in schools and classrooms. This insightful volume will be of particular interest to postgraduate students, researchers, and academics in the fields of Early Childhood Education and the Sociology of Education. Those with a focus on racial, ethnic, and social inequalities more broadly, will also find the book of interest.

Blacks, Indians, and Spaniards in the Eastern Andes examines the little known province of Mizque and its colonial populations from 1550 to 1782. African slaves brought in to supplement the rapidly declining indigenous labor force further contributed to demographic and economic change beyond the control of the Spanish imperial state. Lolita Gutiérrez Brockington's work also analyzes how imperial control met with resistance and how Africans, Indians, and Spaniards, and their descendants interacted with one another. Her study uncovers an intersection and cross-fertilization of sociocultural measurements identifiable in the workplace, courts, church, and private lives. Brockington innovatively uses Spanish colonial documentary sources, including serial financial accounts of wealthy orphans, court cases, parish records, and census information of hacienda workers to elucidate race, ethnic, class, and gender issues within the colonial reality of contradiction and ambiguity.

This book examines socioeconomic inequality and student outcomes across various Western industrialized nations and the varying success they have had in addressing achievement gaps in lower socioeconomic status student populations. It presents the national profiles of countries with notable achievement gaps within the respective school-aged student populations, explains the trajectory of achievement results in relation to both national and international large-scale assessment measures, and discusses how relevant education policies have evolved within their national contexts. Most importantly, the national profiles investigate the effectiveness of policy responses that have been adopted to close the achievement gap in lower socioeconomic status student populations. This book provides a cross-national analysis of policy approaches designed to address socioeconomic inequality.