Whiteness in Crisis?

Scholars have analyzed White Americans’ attitudes toward other racial and ethnic groups as well as what they think about their own group’s status. However, little is known about how Whites understand whiteness. Sociologist James M. Thomas will examine how White southerners’ who came of age during the major social, political, and economic events of the last three decades understand the American racial hierarchy and their place within it. Thomas will conduct qualitative interviews with White southerners between the ages of 18 and 35 years old to investigate the following questions: 1) How, in an era where Whites’ dominant status is increasingly scrutinized, are White southerners making sense of their dominant racial group status? 2) What are the contexts and experiences that White southerners draw upon when making sense of their dominant group status?