Times Square, in its heyday, expressed American culture in the moment of vivid change. A stellar group of critics and scholars examines this transitional moment in Inventing Times Square, a study of the development of New York's central entertainment district. A fascinating visit to Times Square, from its christening in 1905 to its eventual decline after the Depression, the book explores the colorful configuration of institutions and cultural practices that propelled Times Square from a local and regional entertainment center to a national cultural marketplace.

Changes in the economy, in religion, in leisure culture, and in aesthetics gave birth to a geographical space that fostered Vaudeville and Tin Pan Alley, Flo Ziegfeld and Billy Rose, the spectacle of the Hippodrome and the bright lights of the Great White Way. Out of this same place eventually came national network radio and many Hollywood films. Though conceived as a public space, Times Square was quickly transformed into a commercial center. Power brokers wielded their influence on a public ready to succumb to consumerism. Theatrical entertainment  became a large-scale national business based in, and operated out of, Times Square. A new commercial aesthetic travelled with Joseph Urban from Vienna to Times Square to Palm Beach, bringing to society a sophisticated style that will forever say "Broadway."

Times Square as the "center of the universe" had its darker sides as well, for it was the testing ground for a new morality. The packaging of sexuality on the stage gave it legitimacy on the streets, as hotels and sidewalks became the province of female prostitution, male hustling, and pornography.

At the center of New York City, Times Square's commercial activities gave full rein to urban appetites and fantasies, and challenged and defied the norms of behavior that prevailed elsewhere in the city. Cultural history at its finest, Inventing Times Square portrays the vibrant convergence of social and economic forces on Forty-second Street.

WILLIAM R. TAYLOR teaches history at State University of New York at Stony Brook and is program director of the New York Institute for the Humanities at New York University.

CONTRIBUTORS: Jean-Christophe Agnew, Betsy Blackmar, Peter Buckley, George Chauncey Jr., Peter A. Davis, Lewis A. Erenberg, Richard Wightman Fox, Philip Furia, Timothy J. Gilfoyle, Gregory Gilmartin, David Hammack, Ada Louise Huxtable, Margaret Knapp, Eric Lampard, William R. Leach, Brooks McNamara, William Wood Register Jr., Laurence Senelick, Robert W. Snyder, William R. Taylor.

This work is the fifth in a series of bulletins on the applications of sociology to various fields of professional practice prepared under the joint sponsorship of the American Sociological Association and the Russell Sage Foundation. Previous bulletins have dealt with applications of sociology in the fields of corrections, mental health, education, and military organization.

Dr. Suchman has performed an important service in his clear delineation of the great potential sociology and related disciplines have for sharpening our understanding of the social factors in health and disease, for intelligent planning and mounting of appropriate action programs, and for improving the organizational structure and institutional mechanisms of the health professions themselves.

EDWARD A. SUCHMAN is professor of sociology at the University of Pittsburgh.

One of the most detailed reports ever made on an effort to establish a therapeutic community within a California prison. This work describes how the program was launched, gives a number of examples of its operation, and outlines the new problems and prospects created for inmates, staff, and the broader prison administration by this attempt to redefine the roles within the prison.

ELLIOT STUDT, a social worker, is a member of the senior research staff of the Center for the Study of Law and Society at the University of California, Berkeley.

SHELDON L. MESSINGER is Vice Chairman of the Center and is a sociologist.

THOMAS P. WILSON is assistant professor of sociology at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

"Smith's research updates a long line of work that tries to understand the pattern of social supports in communities of concentrated poverty. She expands our understanding of the process by which acute deficits of human capital are converted into enduring disadvantage."
-CONTEMPORARY SOCIOLOGY

"Lone Pursuit significantly advances our understanding of the employment woes of poor African Americans, This book provides new insights on the structural, cultural, and psychological factors that contribute to the high rate of joblessness among low-skilled blacks. I highly recommend it."
-WILLIAM JULIUS WILSON, Lewis P. and Linda L. Geyser University Professor, Harvard University

"Ever since the classic work by Granovetter, we have been aware of the powerful influence of social networks in labor market matching. But the question of what prompts a network tie to take the next step-to activate on behalf of a job seeker-has rarely been investigated. In this rich and engaging volume, Sandra Smith discovers the self-defeating rules of the game among poor African American job seekers who refrain from asking their network partners to help because they expect to be rejected. Hesitation by network partners combines with withdrawal on the part of the unemployed, leading to a devastating stalemate. Smith's work is sobering, insightful, and crucial in helping scholars under stand how the matching process breaks down for thousands of would be workers in the inner city."
-KATHERINE S. NEWMAN, Forbes '41 Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs, Princeton University

"Lone Pursuit is an elegantly written and substantively rich book about the many challenges faced by poor black job seekers. Deftly navigating between structural and cultural accounts of these disadvantages, the story that emerges from Professor Smith's careful fieldwork is a subtle tale of how moral judgments about the importance of work internal to the working class African American community reflect and reinforce the values of mainstream society, and how those judgments structure the job seeking of disad vantaged blacks. This work is required reading for any serious scholar of race and inequality."
-ROBERTO M. FERNANDEZ, William F. Pounds Professor of Management, MIT Sloan School of Management

"Lone Pursuit explains the seemingly inexplicable. Building on parallel arguments in Carol Stack's classic All Our Kin-that trust and distrust infuse relations among kin-Sandra Smith extends the interpersonal to the drama of the labor market as people search for jobs and try to find 'somebody' to trust. A deeply complex and original view of social capital that shows how family and friend networks fail to facilitate job search processes in poor black communities."
-MITCHELL DUNEIER, professor of sociology, Princeton University

Unemployment among black Americans is twice that of whites. Myriad theories have been put forward to explain the persistent employment gap between blacks and whites in the U.S. Structural theorists point to factors such as employer discrimination and the decline of urban manufacturing. Other researchers argue that African-American residents living in urban neighborhoods of concentrated poverty lack social networks that can connect them to employers. Still others believe that African-American culture fosters attitudes of defeatism and resistance to work. In Lone Pursuit, sociologist Sandra Susan Smith cuts through this thicket of competing explanations to examine the actual process of job searching in depth. Lone Pursuit reveals that unemployed African Americans living in the inner city are being let down by jobholding peers and government agencies who could help them find work, but choose not to.

Lone Pursuit is a pioneering ethnographic study of the experiences of low-skilled, black urban residents in Michigan as both jobseekers and jobholders. Smith surveyed 105 African-American men and women between the ages of 20 and 40, each of whom had no more than a high school diploma. She finds that mutual distrust thwarts cooperation between jobseekers and jobholders. Jobseekers do not lack social capital per se, but are often unable to make use of the network ties they have. Most jobholders express reluctance about referring their friends and relatives for jobs, fearful of jeopardizing their own reputations with employers. Rather than finding a culture of dependency, Smith discovered that her underprivileged subjects engage in a discourse of individualism. To justify denying assistance to their friends and relatives, jobholders characterize their unemployed peers as lacking in motivation and stress the importance of individual responsibility. As a result, many jobseekers, wary of being demeaned for their needy condition, hesitate to seek referrals from their peers. In a low-skill labor market where employers rely heavily on personal referrals, this go-it-alone approach is profoundly self-defeating. In her observations of a state job center, Smith finds similar distrust and non-cooperation between jobseekers and center staff members, who assume that young black men are unwilling to make an effort to find work. As private contractors hired by the state, the job center also seeks to meet performance quotas by screening out the riskiest prospects—black male and female jobseekers who face the biggest obstacles to employment and thus need the most help.

The problem of chronic black joblessness has resisted both the concerted efforts of policymakers and the proliferation of theories offered by researchers. By examining the roots of the African-American unemployment crisis from the vantage point of the everyday job-searching experiences of the urban poor, Lone Pursuit provides a novel answer to this decades-old puzzle.

SANDRA SUSAN SMITH is assistant professor of sociology at the University of California, Berkeley.

"This important book reports major findings from a unique study of interethnic perceptions, attitudes, and behavior in an exceptionally diverse university setting. At the time data collection for this project began, UCLA was the most ethnically diverse major university in the country. No single ethnic category constituted a numerical majority–a level of diversity yet to be matched in later times or in other regions of the country, but foreshadowing the demographic makeup of universities of the future. A longitudinal design provided an opportunity to assess the influence of college experiences across a five-year span that is unprecedented in this area of research. The results will be of substantial interest across the social science disciplines and to educational researchers and practitioners. The book is written at a level that will be accessible to an intelligent layperson while at the same time providing enough technical detail to satisfy experts in the field. The Diversity Challenge is a must read for anyone interested in intergroup relations in a multicultural society."
- MARILYNN B. BREWER, Regents Eminent Scholar Professor in Social Psychology, Ohio State University

"This exceptional book summarizes results from the authors' landmark study of intergroup relations on the college campus. Through their extensive and multi-faceted longitudinal analysis. Jim Sidanius, Shana Levin, Colette van Laar, and David O. Sears provide us with compelling new insights regarding the benefits and challenges of diverse academic environments, and how a range of factors–from the psychological to the structural–can impact students' social and political attitudes. Moving beyond common debates about diversity. The Diversity Challenge pushes us to recognize the complex and dynamic nature of intergroup relations, taking into account both the attitudes people bring to diverse contexts, and how their attitudes continue to grow and change through experiences with other groups."
-LINDA R. TROPP, director, Psychology of Peace and Violence Concentration, University of Massacbusetts, Amherst

"This book provides a treasure trove of empirical data that deepen our understanding of issues of ethnic diversity among college students. The authors give readers a detailed and fascinating picture of the dynamics of ethnicity in higher education. Joining particular findings with social scientific theories about social identity and of intergroup relations. The Diversity Challenge can help us improve both our theories and our realities–enhancing the education delivered at the multi-ethnic university, today and in the decades to come."
-FAYE J. CROSBY, professor of psychology, University of California, Santa Cruz

College campuses provide ideal natural settings for studying diversity: they allow us to see what happens when students of all different backgrounds sit side by side in classrooms, live together in residence halls, and interact in one social space. By opening a window onto the experiences and evolving identities of individuals in these exceptionally diverse environments, we can gain a better understanding of the possibilities and challenges we face as a multicultural nation. The Diversity Challenge—the largest and most comprehensive study to date on college campus diversity—synthesizes over five years’ worth of research by an interdisciplinary team of experts to explore how a highly diverse environment and policies that promote cultural diversity affect social relations, identity formation, and a variety of racial and political attitudes. The result is a fascinating case study of the ways in which individuals grow and groups interact in a world where ethnic and racial difference is the norm.

The authors of The Diversity Challenge followed 2,000 UCLA students for five years in order to see how diversity affects identities, attitudes, and group conflicts over time. They found that racial prejudice generally decreased with exposure to the ethnically diverse college environment. Students who were randomly assigned to roommates of a different ethnicity developed more favorable attitudes toward students of different backgrounds, and the same associations held for friendship and dating patterns. By contrast, students who interacted mainly with others of similar backgrounds were more likely to exhibit bias toward others and perceive discrimination against their group. Likewise, the authors found that involvement in ethnically segregated student organizations sharpened perceptions of discrimination and aggravated conflict between groups. The Diversity Challenge also reports compelling new evidence that a strong ethnic identity can coexist with a larger community identity: students from all ethnic groups were equally likely to identify themselves as a part of the broader UCLA community. Overall, the authors note that on many measures, the racial and political attitudes of the students were remarkably consistent throughout the five year study. But the transformations that did take place provide us with a wealth of information on how diversity affects individuals, groups, and the cohesion of a community.

Theoretically informed and empirically grounded, The Diversity Challenge is an illuminating and provocative portrait of one of the most diverse college campuses in the nation. The story of multicultural UCLA has significant and far-reaching implications for our nation, as we face similar challenges—and opportunities—on a much larger scale.

JIM SIDANIUS is professor of psychology and African American Studies at Harvard University.

SHANA LEVIN is associate professor of psychology at Claremont McKenna College.

COLETTE VAN LAAR is professor of social psychology at Leiden University, the Netherlands.

DAVID O. SEARS is distinguished professor of psychology and political science and director of the Institute for Social Science Research at the University of California, Los Angeles.

"All modern nations-even Norway, even Japan-contradict themselves: they contain multitudes. How are such contradictions to be dealt with, such multitudes managed? This series of vivid and circumstantial case studies of everything from group rights in India and religious conflicts in France to customary marriages in South Africa and cultural defenses in American courts reveals the depth of the problems posed to democratic governments by cultural difference, how they are being approached, and what the results have been. A searching discussion of an urgent issue."
-CLIFFORD GEERTZ, INSTITUTE FOR ADVANCED STUDY

"A lively, deeply insightful discussion of the profound ethical dilemmas posed by the unexpected collision of two of liberalism's favored assumptions."
-JEROME KAGAN, PROFESSOR OF PSYCHOLOGY, HARVARD UNIVERSITY

"Engaging Cultural Differences provides a fresh analysis on aspects of the challenges facing liberal pluralistic societies as they attempt to accommodate the cultural values and preferences of their new citizens. It includes penetrating perspectives that call for a reevaluation of the dominant theories on the subject. A must read for scholars and policy makers reflecting on the impact of emigration on Western societies and the dynamics of integration and assimilation in the age of globalization."
-YVONNE YABECK HADDAD, PROFESSOR OF HISTORY OF ISLAM AND CHRISTIAN-MUSLIM RELATIONS, GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY

"The question of cultural difference has long been a double- pronged thorn in the side of liberalism. It has dented confident assertions of universal individual rights with allegations of discrimination. And it has punctured claims of broadly based tolerance with accusations of indifference to oppression. This remarkably powerful volume, rich in both empirical detail and theoretical sophistication, confronts these issues head on from a range of different perspectives-legal, psychological, anthropological, historical. It will change the way many people think and become indispensable reading for scholars interested in liberalism, practitioners working within multicultural institutions, and activists involved in human rights."
-JACQUELINE BHABHA, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, UNIVERSITY COMMITTEE ON HUMAN RIGHTS STUDIES, HARVARD UNIVERSITY

"When a society professes commitment to equal liberties, and also to tolerance of cultural difference, the resulting paradoxes are not merely intellectual. In Engaging Cultural Differences, some two dozen distinguished scholars in law and the social sciences consider the law's confrontations with deep cultural difference in six liberal nations. Some subjects are broad (international human rights, cultural models of identity and equality), and some particular (individual claims to asylum, or to the 'cultural defense' in criminal law). Both general readers and specialists in many disciplines have much to learn from these essays-even readers who find some cultural differences more engaging than others."
-KENNETH L. KARST, DAVID G. PRICE AND DALLAS P. PRICE PROFESSOR OF LAW EMERITUS, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, LOS ANGELES

Liberal democracies are based on principles of inclusion and tolerance. But how does the principle of tolerance work in practice in countries such as Germany, France, India, South Africa, and the United States, where an increasingly wide range of cultural groups holds often contradictory beliefs about appropriate social and family life practices? As these democracies expand to include peoples of vastly different cultural backgrounds, the limits of tolerance are being tested as never before. Engaging Cultural Differences explores how liberal democracies respond socially and legally to differences in the cultural and religious practices of their minority groups.

Building on such examples, the contributors examine the role of tolerance in practical encounters between state officials and immigrants, and between members of longstanding majority groups and increasing numbers of minority groups. The volume also considers the theoretical implications of expanding the realm of tolerance. Some contributors are reluctant to broaden the scope of tolerance, while others insist that the notion of "tolerance" is itself potentially confining and demeaning and that modern nations should aspire to celebrate cultural differences.

Coming to terms with ethnic diversity and cultural differences has become a major public policy concern in contemporary liberal democracies, as they struggle to adjust to burgeoning immigrant populations. Engaging Cultural Differences provides a compelling examination of the challenges of multiculturalism and reveals a deep understanding of the challenges democracies face as they seek to accommodate their citizens' diverse beliefs and practices.

RICHARD A. SHWEDER, an anthropologist, is professor of human development at the University of Chicago.

MARTHA MINOW is professor of law at Harvard University.

HAZEL R. MARKUS is professor of psychology at Stanford University.

CONTRIBUTORS: Richard A. Shweder, Martha Minow, Hazel Rose Markus, Caroline Bledsoe, David L. Chambers, Jane Maslow Cohen, Joanna Davidson, Arthur N. Eisenberg, Karen Engle, Katherine Pratt Ewing, Heejung S. Kim, Corinne A. Kratz, Maivân Clech Lâm, Usha Menon, Victoria C. Plaut, Alison Dundes Renteln, Lloyd I. Rudolph, Susanne Hoeber Rudolph, Lawrence G. Sager, Austin Sarat, Claude M. Steele, Dorothy M. Steele, Nomi Stolzenberg, Marcelo M. Suárez-Orozco, and Unni Wikan.
 

"This book represents a step in the right direction by making important distinctions among types of social capital. Moreover, it addresses how social capital can be generated and used to combat poverty and promote social justice. By providing direction for policy and community practice, research, and teaching, this volume will be a useful addition to many courses and bookshelves."
-Journal of Community Practice

"A landmark accomplishment on three fronts: the evolution of social capital scholarship, our understanding of the causes and consequences of 'true disadvantage,' and our knowledge of effective approaches to working with poor communities. Deftly integrating the practical applications of theory and the theoretical implications of hard-won lessons from the field, this volume showcases the work of America's finest thinkers and doers in the rapidly expanding social capital universe. In conjunction with related work on poverty in low income countries, these U.S. cases powerfully demonstrate that a focus on building up the social, economic, and political assets-rather than harping on the 'deficits'-of poor communities can rest on rigorous conceptual and empirical foundations, and provide a coherent framework for informed policy and project recommendations. Too many books are labeled 'required reading,' but whether you're a new or seasoned reader of the social capital literature, this volume belongs at the top of the list."
-Michael Woolcock, World Bank and Harvard University

"Social Capital and Poor Communities shows why community building is critical to improving the lives of families in low-income communities, and offers fresh ideas for mobilizing social resources to improve housing, education, health, public safety, and economic development. This important book tackles tough questions about how community organizations can act effectively together, the importance of leadership development and institution-building, and the challenges of working in policy and political arenas. Bringing the latest in social science research together with the results of practical efforts to combat poverty, this volume is must reading for policymakers, practitioners, and all those concerned about justice and equity in America."
-Angela Glover Blackwell, PolicyLink

Neighborhood support groups have always played a key role in helping the poor survive, but combating poverty requires more than simply meeting the needs of day-to-day subsistence. Social Capital and Poor Communities shows the significant achievements that can be made through collective strategies, which empower the poor to become active partners in revitalizing their neighborhoods. Trust and cooperation among residents and local organizations such as churches, small businesses, and unions form the basis of social capital, which provides access to resources that would otherwise be out of reach to poor families.

Social Capital and Poor Communities examines civic initiatives that have built affordable housing, fostered small businesses, promoted neighborhood safety, and increased political participation. At the core of each initiative lie local institutions—church congregations, parent-teacher groups, tenant associations, and community improvement alliances. The contributors explore how such groups build networks of leaders and followers and how the social power they cultivate can be successfully transferred from smaller goals to broader political advocacy. For example, community-based groups often become platforms for leaders hoping to run for local office. Church-based groups and interfaith organizations can lobby for affordable housing, job training programs, and school improvement.

Social Capital and Poor Communities convincingly demonstrates why building social capital is so important in enabling the poor to seek greater access to financial resources and public services. As the contributors make clear, this task is neither automatic nor easy. The book's frank discussions of both successes and failures illustrate the pitfalls—conflicts of interest, resistance from power elites, and racial exclusion—that can threaten even the most promising initiatives. The impressive evidence in this volume offers valuable insights into how goal formation, leadership, and cooperation can be effectively cultivated, resulting in a remarkable force for change and a rich public life even for those communities mired in seemingly hopeless poverty.

SUSAN SAEGERT is professor of environmental psychology at the Graduate Center, City University of New York.

J. PHILLIP THOMPSON is Associate Professor in American politics, Columbia University.

MARK R. WARREN is associate professor in the Graduate School of Education at Harvard University.

CONTRIBUTORS:  Mark Chaves,  Cathy J. Cohen,  Cynthia M. Duncan,  Michael Foley,  Ross Gittell,  Sherman A. James,  Langley C. Keyes,  Margaret Levi,  M. Lisette Lopez,  John D. McCarthy, Lorraine C. Minnite,  Pedro A. Noguera,  Melvin L. Oliver,  Robert Putnam,  Robert J. Sampson,  Amy Schulz,  Robert Y. Shapiro,  Carol B. Stack,  Juliana van Olphen.

A Volume in the Ford Foundation Series on Asset Building

Social Diagnosis is the classic in social work literature. In it Miss Richmond first established a technique of social casework. She discusses the nature and uses of social evidence, its tests and their practical application, and summarizes the lessons to be learned from history, science, and the law. While other aids in diagnosis have been added to the caseworker's equipment, the assembling of social evidence is still an important discipline of the profession, to which this volume continues to make a significant contribution. No revision of the book has ever been made nor does any later book take its place.

MARY RICHMOND was the director of the Charity Organization Department at the Russell Sage Foundation.

"A stimulating, provocative collection of some of the best minds studying racism, culture, and identity, this intelligent volume does not flinch at the tough issues in multicultural relations. Novice readers will walk away informed; experts will come away intrigued; everyone will be enriched, thinking a lot harder about the role of social science in confronting these crucial challenges to our country and our world."
- SUSAN T. FISKE, University of Massachusetts

"Prentice and Miller have assembled a stellar cast of leading researchers in the areas of culture, identity, and intergroup relations to tackle perhaps the most pressing social psychological problem facing us as we start the new millennium-the problem of cultural identity and its relationship to intergroup conflict and social harmony. The refreshing juxtaposition of research on social identity, intergroup conflict, stigma, diversity, culture, ethnicity, race, and gender provides a salutary framework for new theoretical advances in this area."
- MICHAEL A. HOGG, University of Queensland

"A timely, interesting, and important book with contributions from some of the most eminent scholars studying the psychology of culture, ethnicity, and racism. It asks and answers fundamental questions about the consequences of multiculturalism in America- especially those consequences relevant to ethnic conflict. Each chapter is provocative and illuminating. Taken together, these chapters reveal many subtle differences between peoples that have very unsubtle consequences when these peoples come into contact. As a whole, the book offers a forceful argument that the psychological implications of multiculturalism are not only fascinating, but they really, really matter."
- MARK SCHALLER, University of British Columbia

"Now, more than ever, it is essential to probe the cultural foundations of intergroup conflict-both in the United States and internationally. This important book presents the latest psychological research on the cultural diversity debate by renowned scholars in the field. They provide much-needed insights into current intergroup conflict while suggesting some optimism for the future."
- VICTORIA ESSES, University of Western Ontario

Thirty years of progress on civil rights and a new era of immigration to the United States have together created an unprecedented level of diversity in American schools, workplaces, and neighborhoods. But increased contact among individuals from different racial and ethnic groups has not put an end to misunderstanding and conflict. On the contrary, entrenched cultural differences raise vexing questions about the limits of American pluralism. Can a population of increasingly mixed origins learn to live and work together despite differing cultural backgrounds? Or, is social polarization by race and ethnicity inevitable? These are the dilemmas explored in Cultural Divides, a compendium of the latest research into the origins and nature of group conflict, undertaken by a distinguished group of social psychologists who have joined forces to examine the effects of culture on social life.

Cultural Divides shows how new lines of investigation into intergroup conflict shape current thinking on such questions as: Why are people so strongly prone to attribute personal differences to group membership rather than to individual nature? Why are negative beliefs about other groups so resistent to change, even with increased contact? Is it possible to struggle toward equal status for all people and still maintain separate ethnic identities for culturally distinct groups? Cultural Divides offers new theories about how social identity comes to be rooted in groups: Some essays describe the value of group membership for enhancing individual self-esteem, while others focus on the belief in social hierarchies, or the perception that people of different skin colors and ethnic origins fall into immutably different categories. Among the phenomena explored are the varying degrees of commitment and identification felt by many black students toward their educational institutions, the reasons why social stigma affects the self-worth of some minority groups more than others, and the peculiar psychology of hate crime perpetrators. The way cultural boundaries can impair our ability to resolve disputes is a recurrent theme in the volume. An essay on American cultures of European, Asian, African, and Mexican origin examines core differences in how each traditionally views conflict and its proper methods of resolution. Another takes a hard look at the multiculturalist agenda and asks whether it can realistically succeed. Other contributors describe the effectiveness of social experiments aimed at increasing positive attitudes, cooperation, and conflict management skills in mixed group settings.

Cultural Divides illuminates the beliefs and attitudes that people hold about themselves in relation to others, and how these social thought processes shape the formation of group identity and intergroup antagonism. In so doing, Cultural Divides points the way toward a new science of cultural contact and confronts issues of social change that increasingly affect all Americans.

DEBORAH A. PRENTICE is associate professor of psychology at Princeton University.

DALE T. MILLER is professor of psychology at Princeton University.

CONTRIBUTORS: Robert P. Abelson, Brenda S. Banker, Marilynn B. Brewer, Sharmaine Vidanage Cheleden, Incheol Choi, Jack Citrin, Jennifer Crocker, John F. Dovidio, Christopher M. Frederico, George M. Fredrickson, Samuel L. Gaertner, Margaret Garnett, Martin P. Gooden, Donald P. Green, Patricia Gurin, Sheena S. Iyengar, James M. Jones, Jason S. Lawrence, Mark R. Lepper, Shana Levin, Leah R. Lin, Gretchen Lopez, Hazel Rose Markus, Dale T. Miller, Biren (Ratnesh) A. Nagda, Jason A. Nier, Richard E. Nisbett, Ara Norenzayan, Timothy Peng, Deborah A. Prentice, Joshua L. Rabinowitz, Lee Ross, David O. Sears, David A. Sherman, Jim Sidanius, Claude Steele, Colette van Laar, William von Hippel, and Christine M. Ward.

"While other people have been applying tired old models of assimilation and market response to recent American immigration, economic sociologists have been organizing a small analytic revolution. Alejandro Portes and his splendid band of collaborators make clear that the causes, processes, and consequences of migration vary dramatically from group to group, that a group's history makes a profound difference to its fate in the American economy. They have produced a sinewy book, a book worth arguing with."
-Charles Tilly, New School for Social Research

The children of the past decade's influx of immigrants comprise a second generation far different than any this country has known before. Largely non-white and from the world's developing nations, these children struggle with complex problems of racial and ethnic relations in multicultural urban neighborhoods, attend troubled inner city schools, and face discriminatory labor markets and an economy that no longer provides the abundant manufacturing jobs that sustained previous generations of immigrants. As the contributors to The New Second Generation make clear, the future of these children is an open question that will be key to understanding the long-range consequences of current immigration.

The New Second Generation chronicles the lives of second generation youth in Miami, New York City, New Orleans, and Southern California. The contributors balance careful analysis with the voices of the youngsters themselves, focusing primarily on education, career expectations, language preference, ethnic pride, and the influence of their American-born peers. Demographic portraits by Leif Jensen and Yoshimi Chitose and by Charles Hirschman reveal that although most immigrant youths live at or below the official poverty line, this disadvantage is partially offset by the fact that their parents are typically married, self-employed, and off welfare. However, the children do not always follow the course set by their parents, and often challenge immigrant ethics with a desire to embrace American culture. Mary Waters examines how the tendency among West Indian teens to assume an American black identity links them to a legacy of racial discrimination. Although the decision to identify as American or as immigrant usually presages how well second generation children will perform in school, the formation of this self-image is a complex process. M. Patricia Fernandez-Kelly and Richard Schauffler find marked differences among Hispanic groups, while Ruben G. Rumbaut explores the influence of individual and family characteristics among Asian, Latin, and Caribbean youths.

Nativists frequently raise concerns about the proliferation of a non-English speaking population heavily dependent on welfare for economic support. But Alejandro Portes and Richard Schauffler's historical analysis of language preferences among Miami's Hispanic youth reveals their unequivocal preference for English. Nor is immigrationan inevitable precursor to a swollen welfare state: Lisandro Perez and Min Zhou and Carl L. Bankston demonstrate the importance of extended families and ethnic community solidarity in improving school performance and providing increased labor opportunities.

As immigration continues to change the face of our nation's cities, we cannot ignore the crucial issue of how well the second generation youth will adapt. The New Second Generation provides valuable insight into issues that may spell the difference between regeneration and decay across urban America.

ALEJANDRO PORTES is the John Dewey Professor and Chair of the Department of Sociology at Johns Hopkins University.

CONTRIBUTORS: Carl L. Bankston III, Yoshimi Chitose, Patricia Fernández Kelly, Charles Hirschman, Leif Jensen, Lisandro Perez, Alejandro Portes, Rubén G. Rumbaut, Richard Schauffler, Mary C. Waters, Min Zhou