Skip to main content
Cover image of the book An American Dilemma Revisited
Books

An American Dilemma Revisited

Race Relations in a Changing World
Editor
Obie Clayton, Jr.
Paperback
$31.95
Add to Cart
Publication Date
6 in. × 9 in. 360 pages
ISBN
978-0-87154-157-4
Also Available From

About This Book

"This book must be regarded as a greatly important contribution to race relations literature. It is invaluable for the manner in which authors combine the lessons of history with insightful analyses of empirical data to demonstrate patterns of change over the past fifty years in the status of African Americans... Provocative and stimulating reading."—James E. Blackwell, University of Massachusetts, Boston

"Presents a wide-ranging reanalysis of the seminal work done by Gunnar Myrdal in 1944, examining virtually every issue that Myrdal noted as relevant to the American race question. In so doing, Clayton and his contributors have brought the matter up to date and shown how the American dilemma continues into the twenty-first century." —Stanford M. Lyman, Florida Atlantic University

Fifty years after the publication of An American Dilemma, Gunnar Myrdal's epochal study of racism and black disadvantage, An American Dilemma Revisited again confronts the pivotal issue of race in American society and explores how the status of African Americans has changed over the past half century. African Americans have made critical strides since Myrdal's time. Yet despite significant advances, strong economic and social barriers persist, and in many ways the plight of African Americans remains as acute now as it was then. Using Myrdal as a benchmark, each essay analyzes historical developments, examines current conditions, and investigates strategies for positive change within the core arenas of modern society—political, economic, educational, and judicial.

The central question posed by this volume is whether the presence of a disproportionately African American underclass has become a permanent American phenomenon. Several contributors tie the unevenness of black economic mobility to educational limitations, social isolation, and changing workplace demands. The evolution of a more suburban, service-dominated economy that places a premium on advanced academic training has severely constrained the employment prospects of many urban African Americans with limited education. An American Dilemma Revisited argues that there is hope to be found both in black educational institutions, which account for the largest proportion of advanced educational degrees among African Americans, and in the promotion of black community enterprises.

An American Dilemma Revisited asks why the election of many African American leaders has failed to translate into genuine political power or effective policy support for black issues. The rise in membership in Pentecostal and Islamic denonimations suggests that many blacks, frustrated with the political detachment of more traditional churches, continue to pursue more socially concerned activism at a local level. Three essays trace social disaffection among blacks to a legacy of police and judicial discrimination. Mistrust of the police persists, particularly in cities, and black offenders continue to experience harsher treatment at all stages of the trial process.

As Myrdal's book did fifty years ago, An American Dilemma Revisited offers an insightful look at the continuing effects of racial inequality and discrimination in American society and examines different means for removing the specter of racism in the United States.

OBIE CLAYTON, JR. is director of the Morehouse Research Institute and associate professor of sociology at Morehouse College.

CONTRIBUTORS: Walter R. Allen, Timothy Bledsoe, Sissela Bok, John Sibley Butler, Obie Clayton, Jr., Michael W. Combs, William Darity, Jr., Robert A. Dentler, Reynolds Farley, Ronald F. Ferguson, Stephen Graubard, Joseph O. Jewell, Antonio McDaniel, Lee Sigelman, Cassia C. Spohn, Samuel Walker, Wilbur Watson, Susan Welch, and Doris Wilkinson

RSF Journal
View Book Series
Sign Up For Our Mailing List
Apply For Funding
Cover image of the book Black Fathers in Contemporary American Society
Books

Black Fathers in Contemporary American Society

Strengths, Weaknesses, and Strategies for Change
Editors
Obie Clayton
Ronald B. Mincy
David Blankenhorn
Paperback
$25.95
Add to Cart
Publication Date
6 in. × 9 in. 196 pages
ISBN
978-0-87154-158-1
Also Available From

About This Book

The majority of African American children live in homes without their fathers, but the proportion of African American children living in intact, two-parent families has risen significantly since 1995. Black Fathers in Contemporary American Society looks at father absence from two sides, offering an in-depth analysis of how the absence of African American fathers affects their children, their relationships, and society as a whole, while countering the notion that father absence and family fragmentation within the African American community is inevitable.

Editors Obie Clayton, Ronald B. Mincy, and David Blankenhorn lead a diverse group of contributors encompassing a range of disciplines and ideological perspectives who all agree that father absence among black families is one of the most pressing social problems today. In part I, the contributors offer possible explanations for the decline in marriage among African American families. William Julius Wilson believes that many men who live in the inner city no longer consider marriage an option because their limited economic prospects do not enable them to provide for a family. Part II considers marriage from an economic perspective, emphasizing that it is in part a wealth-producing institution. Maggie Gallagher points out that married people earn, invest, and save more than single people, and that when marriage rates are low in a community, it is the children who suffer most. In part III, the contributors discuss policies to reduce absentee fatherhood. Wornie Reed demonstrates how public health interventions, such as personal development workshops and work-related skill-building services, can be used to address the causes of fatherlessness. Wade Horn illustrates the positive results achieved by fatherhood programs, especially when held early in a man's life. In the last chapter, Enola Aird notes that from 1995 to 2000, the proportion of African American children living in two-parent, married couple homes rose from 34.8 to 38.9 percent; a significant increase indicating the possible reversal of the long-term shift toward black family fragmentation.

Black Fathers in Contemporary American Society provides an in-depth look at a problem affecting millions of children while offering proof that the trend of father absence is not irrevocable.

OBIE CLAYTON is professor and chair of the Sociology Department at Morehouse College and executive director of the Morehouse Research Institute.

RONALD B. MINCY is the Maurice V. Russell Professor of Social Policy and Social Work Practice at the School of Social Work, Columbia University.

DAVID BLANKENHORN is president of the Institute for American Values.

CONTRIBUTORS: Enola G. Aird, David Blankenhorn, Lawrence D. Bobo, Obie Clayton, Maggie Gallagher, Wade F. Horn, Ronald B. Mincy, Joan W. Moore, Barbara Morrison-Rodriguez, Steven L. Nock, Hillard Pouncy, Wornie L. Reed, and William Julius Wilson.

RSF Journal
View Book Series
Sign Up For Our Mailing List
Apply For Funding
Cover image of the book Won't You Be My Neighbor?
Books

Won't You Be My Neighbor?

Race, Class, and Residence in Los Angeles
Author
Camille Zubrinsky Charles
Paperback
$28.95
Add to Cart
Publication Date
6 in. × 9 in. 264 pages
ISBN
978-0-87154-071-3
Also Available From

About This Book

Los Angeles is a city of delicate racial and ethnic balance. As evidenced by the 1965 Watts violence, the 1992 Rodney King riots, and this year’s award-winning film Crash, the city’s myriad racial groups coexist uneasily together, often on the brink of confrontation. In fact, Los Angeles is highly segregated, with racial and ethnic groups clustered in homogeneous neighborhoods. These residential groupings have profound effects on the economic well-being and quality of life of residents, dictating which jobs they can access, which social networks they can tap in to, and which schools they attend. In Won’t You Be My Neighbor?, sociologist Camille Zubrinsky Charles explores how modern racial attitudes shape and are shaped by the places in which people live.

Using in-depth survey data and information from focus groups with members of L.A.’s largest racial and ethnic groups, Won’t You Be My Neighbor? explores why Los Angeles remains a segregated city. Charles finds that people of all backgrounds prefer both racial integration and a critical mass of same-race neighbors. When asked to reveal their preferred level of racial integration, people of all races show a clear and consistent order of preference, with whites considered the most highly desired neighbors and blacks the least desirable. This is even true among recent immigrants who have little experience with American race relations. Charles finds that these preferences, which are driven primarily by racial prejudice and minority-group fears of white hostility, taken together with financial considerations, strongly affect people’s decisions about where they live. Still, Charles offers reasons for optimism: over time and with increased exposure to other racial and ethnic groups, people show an increased willingness to live with neighbors of other races.

In a racially and ethnically diverse city, segregated neighborhoods can foster distrust, reinforce stereotypes, and agitate inter-group tensions. Won’t You Be My Neighbor? zeroes in on segregated neighborhoods to provide a compelling examination of the way contemporary racial attitudes shape, and are shaped by, the places where we live.

CAMILLE ZUBRINSKY CHARLES is associate professor of sociology and faculty associate director of the Center for Africana Studies at the University of Pennsylvania.

RSF Journal
View Book Series
Sign Up For Our Mailing List
Apply For Funding
Cover image of the book Latinas and African American Women at Work
Books

Latinas and African American Women at Work

Race, Gender, and Economic Inequality
Editor
Irene Browne
Paperback
$26.95
Add to Cart
Publication Date
6 in. × 9 in. 452 pages
ISBN
978-0-87154-142-0
Also Available From

About This Book

One of Choice magazine's Outstanding Academic Books of 1999

Accepted wisdom about the opportunities available to African American and Latina women in the U.S. labor market has changed dramatically. Although the 1970s saw these women earning almost as much as their white counterparts, in the 1980s their relative wages began falling behind, and the job prospects plummeted for those with little education and low skills. At the same time, African American women more often found themselves the sole support of their families. While much social science research has centered on the problems facing black male workers, Latinas and African American Women at Work offers a comprehensive investigation into the eroding progress of these women in the U.S. labor market.

The prominent sociologists and economists featured in this volume describe how race and gender intersect to especially disadvantage black and Latina women. Their inquiries encompass three decades of change for women at all levels of the workforce, from those who spend time on the welfare rolls to middle class professionals. Among the many possible sources of increased disadvantage, they particularly examine the changing demands for skills, increasing numbers of immigrants in the job market, the precariousness of balancing work and childcare responsibilities, and employer discrimination. While racial inequity in hiring often results from educational differences between white and minority women, this cannot explain the discrimination faced by women with higher skills. Minority women therefore face a two-tiered hurdle based on race and gender. Although the picture for young African American women has grown bleaker overall, for Latina women, the story is more complex, with a range of economic outcomes among Cubans, Puerto Ricans, Mexicans, and Central and South Americans.

Latinas and African American Women at Work reveals differences in how professional African American and white women view their position in the workforce, with black women perceiving more discrimination, for both race and gender, than whites. The volume concludes with essays that synthesize the evidence about racial and gender-based obstacles in the labor market.

Given the current heated controversy over female and minority employment, as well as the recent sweeping changes to the national welfare system, the need for empirical data to inform the public debate about disadvantaged women is greater than ever before. The important findings in Latinas and African American Women at Work substantially advance our understanding of social inequality and the pervasive role of race, ethnicity and gender in the economic well-being of American women.

IRENE BROWNE is associate professor of sociology and women's studies at Emory University.

CONTRIBUTORS: Delores P. Aldridge, John Bound, Camille Z. Charles, Karen Christopher, Aixa N. Cintron-Velez, Mary Corcoran, Laura Dresser, Kathryn Edin, Paula England, Susan Gonzalez Baker, Colleen M. Heflin, Elizabeth Higginbotham, Ivy Kennelly, Joya Misra, Kathleen Mullan Harris, Lori L. Reid, Barbara F. Reskin, Belinda L. Reyes, Lynn Weber.

RSF Journal
View Book Series
Sign Up For Our Mailing List
Apply For Funding
Cover image of the book Neighborhood Poverty, Volume 2
Books

Neighborhood Poverty, Volume 2

Policy Implications in Studying Neighborhoods
Editors
Greg J. Duncan
Jeanne Brooks-Gunn
J. Lawrence Aber
Paperback
$26.95
Add to Cart
Publication Date
6.63 in. × 9.25 in. 260 pages
ISBN
978-0-87154-189-5
Also Available From

About This Book

Perhaps the most alarming phenomenon in American cities has been the transformation of many neighborhoods into isolated ghettos where poverty is the norm and violent crime, drug use, out-of-wedlock births, and soaring school dropout rates are rampant. Public concern over these destitute areas has focused on their most vulnerable inhabitants—children and adolescents. How profoundly does neighborhood poverty endanger their well-being and development? Is the influence of neighborhood more powerful than that of the family? Neighborhood Poverty approaches these questions with an insightful and wide-ranging investigation into the effect of community poverty on children's physical health, cognitive and verbal abilities, educational attainment, and social adjustment.

This two-volume set offers the most current research and analysis from experts in the fields of child development, social psychology, sociology and economics. Drawing from national and city-based sources, Volume I reports the empirical evidence concerning the relationship between children and community. As the essays demonstrate, poverty entails a host of problems that affects the quality of educational, recreational, and child care services.Poor neighborhoods usually share other negative features—particularly racial segregation and a preponderance of single mother families—that may adversely affect children. Yet children are not equally susceptible to the pitfalls of deprived communities. Neighborhood has different effects depending on a child's age, race, and gender, while parenting techniques and a family's degree of community involvement also serve as mitigating factors.

Volume II incorporates empirical data on neighborhood poverty into discussions of policy and program development. The contributors point to promising community initiatives and suggest methods to strengthen neighborhood-based service programs for children. Several essays analyze the conceptual and methodological issues surrounding the measurement of neighborhood characteristics. These essays focus on the need to expand scientific insight into urban poverty by drawing on broader pools of ethnographic, epidemiological, and quantitative data. Volume II explores the possibilities for a richer and more well-rounded understanding of neighborhood and poverty issues.

To grasp the human cost of poverty, we must clearly understand how living in distressed neighborhoods impairs children's ability to function at every level. Neighborhood Poverty explores the multiple and complex paths between community, family, and childhood development. These two volumes provide and indispensable guide for social policy and demonstrate the power of interdisciplinary social science to probe complex social issues.

JEANNE BROOKS-GUNN is Virginia and Leonard Marx Professor of Child Development at Teachers College, Columbia University. She is also director of the Center for Children and Families and founder of the Adolescent Study Program at Teachers College.

GREG J. DUNCAN is professor of education and social policy and a faculty associate in the Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern University. He is also faculty affiliate of the Northwestern University/University of Chicago Joint Center for Poverty Research.

J. LAWRENCE ABER is director of the National Center for Children in Poverty at the Columbia School of Public Health, Columbia University.

CONTRIBUTORS:Daniel Aaronson, Prudence Brown, Linda M. Burton, Thomas D. Cook, Claudia J. Coulton, Nancy Darling, Serdar M. Degirmencioglu, Frank M. Furstenberg Jr., Martha A. Gephart, Mary Elizabeth Hughes, Robin L. Jarrett, Sheila B. Kamerman, Tedd Jay Kochman, Jill E. Korbin, Tama Leventhal, Paul A. McDermott, Jeffrey D. Morenoff, Townsand Price-Spratlen, Harold A. Richman, Robert J. Sampson,  Margaret Beale Spencer, Shobha C. Shagle, Laurence Steinberg.

RSF Journal
View Book Series
Sign Up For Our Mailing List
Apply For Funding
Cover image of the book Neighborhood Poverty, Volume 1
Books

Neighborhood Poverty, Volume 1

Context and Consequences for Children
Editors
Greg J. Duncan
Jeanne Brooks-Gunn
J. Lawrence Aber
Paperback
$26.95
Add to Cart
Publication Date
6.63 in. × 9.25 in. 356 pages
ISBN
978-0-87154-188-8
Also Available From

About This Book

Perhaps the most alarming phenomenon in American cities has been the transformation of many neighborhoods into isolated ghettos where poverty is the norm and violent crime, drug use, out-of-wedlock births, and soaring school dropout rates are rampant. Public concern over these destitute areas has focused on their most vulnerable inhabitants—children and adolescents. How profoundly does neighborhood poverty endanger their well-being and development? Is the influence of neighborhood more powerful than that of the family? Neighborhood Poverty: Context and Consequences for Children approaches these questions with an insightful and wide-ranging investigation into the effect of community poverty on children's physical health, cognitive and verbal abilities, educational attainment, and social adjustment.

This two-volume set offers the most current research and analysis from experts in the fields of child development, social psychology, sociology and economics. Drawing from national and city-based sources, Volume I reports the empirical evidence concerning the relationship between children and community. As the essays demonstrate, poverty entails a host of problems that affects the quality of educational, recreational, and child care services. Poor neighborhoods usually share other negative features—particularly racial segregation and a preponderance of single mother families—that may adversely affect children. Yet children are not equally susceptible to the pitfalls of deprived communities. Neighborhood has different effects depending on a child's age, race, and gender, while parenting techniques and a family's degree of community involvement also serve as mitigating factors.

Volume II incorporates empirical data on neighborhood poverty into discussions of policy and program development. The contributors point to promising community initiatives and suggest methods to strengthen neighborhood-based service programs for children. Several essays analyze the conceptual and methodological issues surrounding the measurement of neighborhood characteristics. These essays focus on the need to expand scientific insight into urban poverty by drawing on broader pools of ethnographic, epidemiological, and quantitative data. Volume II explores the possibilities for a richer and more well-rounded understanding of neighborhood and poverty issues.

To grasp the human cost of poverty, we must clearly understand how living in distressed neighborhoods impairs children's ability to function at every level. Neighborhood Poverty explores the multiple and complex paths between community, family, and childhood development. These two volumes provide and indispensible guide for social policy and demonstrate the power of interdisciplinary social science to probe complex social issues.

JEANNE BROOKS-GUNN is Virginia and Leonard Marx Professor of Child Development at Teachers College, Columbia University. She is also director of the Center for Children and Families and founder of the Adolescent Study Program at Teachers College.

GREG J. DUNCAN is professor of education and social policy and a faculty associate in the Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern University. He is also faculty affiliate of the Northwestern University/University of Chicago Joint Center for Poverty Research.

J. LAWRENCE ABER is director of the National Center for Children in Poverty at the Columbia School of Public Health, Columbia University.

CONTRIBUTORS: Daniel Aaronson, LaRue Allen, Prudence Brown, Linda M. Burton, P. Lindsay Chase-Lansdale, Elizabeth Clifford, Steven P. Cole, James P. Connell, Thomas D. Cook, Claudia J. Coulton, Warren E. Crichlow, Nancy Darling, Serdar M. Degirmencioglu, Frank M. Furstenberg Jr., Martha A. Gephart, Rachel A Gordon, Bonnie L. Halpern-Felsher, Mary Elizabeth Hughes, Robin L. Jarrett, Stephanie M. Jones, Sheila B. Kamerman, Pamela K. Klebanov, Tedd Jay Kochman, Jill E. Korbin, Jeffrey S. Lehman, Tama Leventhal, Paul A. McDermott, Jeffrey D. Morenoff, Townsand Price-Spratlen, Harold A. Richman, Robert J. Sampson, Edward Seidman, Shobha C. Shagle, Timothy M. Smeeding, Margaret Beale Spencer, Laurence Steinberg, Dena Phillips Swanson, Peter A. Usinger.

 

RSF Journal
View Book Series
Sign Up For Our Mailing List
Apply For Funding
Cover image of the book Prismatic Metropolis
Books

Prismatic Metropolis

Inequality in Los Angeles
Editors
Lawrence D. Bobo
Melvin L. Oliver
James H. Johnson, Jr.
Abel Valenzuela, Jr.
Paperback
$29.95
Add to Cart
Publication Date
6.63 in. × 9.25 in. 628 pages
ISBN
978-0-87154-130-7
Also Available From

About This Book

This book cuts through the powerful mythology surrounding Los Angeles to reveal the causes of inequality in a city that has weathered rapid population change, economic restructuring, and fractious ethnic relations. The sources of disadvantage and the means of getting ahead differ greatly among the city's myriad ethnic groups. The demand for unskilled labor is stronger here than in other cities, allowing Los Angeles's large population of immigrant workers with little education to find work in light manufacturing and low-paid service jobs.

A less beneficial result of this trend is the increased marginalization of the city's low-skilled black workers, who do not enjoy the extended ethnic networks of many of the new immigrant groups and who must contend with persistent negative racial stereotypes.

Patterns of residential segregation are also more diffuse in Los Angeles, with many once-black neighborhoods now split evenly between blacks, Hispanics, Asians, and other minorities. Inequality in Los Angeles cannot be reduced to a simple black-white divide. Nonetheless, in this thoroughly multicultural city, race remains a crucial factor shaping economic fortunes.

LAWRENCE D. BOBO is professor of sociology and Afro-American studies at Harvard University.

MELVIN L. OLIVER is vice president of the Ford Foundation. He is responsible for overseeing the Asset Building and Community Development Program.

JAMES H. JOHNSON JR. is William Rand Kenan Jr. Distinguished Professor of Management, Sociology, and Public Policy and director of the  Urban Investment Strategies Center in the Kenan Institute in the Kenan-Flager Business School at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

ABEL VALENZUELA JR. is assistant professor of urban planning and Chicana/o studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. He is also associate director of the Center for the Study of Urban Poverty, Institute for Social Science Research.

CONTRIBUTORS:  Elisa Jayne Bienenstock, Camille Zubrinksi Charles, Walter C. Farrell Jr.,  Jennifer L. Glanville,  Elizabeth Gonzalez,  David M. Grant,  Tarry Hum, Devon Johnson,  Michael I. Lichter,  Julie E. Press,  Michael A. Stoll, Susan A. Suh,  Jennifer A. Stoloff.  

A Volume in the Multi-City Study of Urban Inequality

RSF Journal
View Book Series
Sign Up For Our Mailing List
Apply For Funding
Cover image of the book Working and Poor
Books

Working and Poor

How Economic and Policy Changes Are Affecting Low-Wage Workers
Editors
Rebecca M. Blank
Sheldon Danziger
Robert F. Schoeni
Paperback
$34.95
Add to Cart
Publication Date
6.63 in. × 9.25 in. 448 pages
ISBN
978-0-87154-064-5
Also Available From

About This Book

Over the last three decades, large-scale economic developments, such as technological change, the decline in unionization, and changing skill requirements, have exacted their biggest toll on low-wage workers. These workers often possess few marketable skills and few resources with which to support themselves during periods of economic transition. In Working and Poor, a distinguished group of economists and policy experts, headlined by editors Rebecca Blank, Sheldon Danziger, and Robert Schoeni, examine how economic and policy changes over the last twenty-five years have affected the well-being of low-wage workers and their families.

Working and Poor examines every facet of the economic well-being of less-skilled workers, from employment and earnings opportunities to consumption behavior and social assistance policies. Rebecca Blank and Heidi Schierholz document the different trends in work and wages among less-skilled women and men. Between 1979 and 2003, labor force participation rose rapidly for these women, along with more modest increases in wages, while among the men both employment and wages fell. David Card and John DiNardo review the evidence on how technological changes have affected less-skilled workers and conclude that the effect has been smaller than many observers claim. Philip Levine examines the effectiveness of the Unemployment Insurance program during recessions. He finds that the program’s eligibility rules, which deny benefits to workers who have not met minimum earnings requirements, exclude the very people who require help most and should be adjusted to provide for those with the highest need.  On the other hand, Therese J. McGuire and David F. Merriman show that government help remains a valuable source of support during economic downturns.  They find that during the most recent recession in 2001, when state budgets were stretched thin, legislatures resisted political pressure to cut spending for the poor.

Working and Poor provides a valuable analysis of the role that public policy changes can play in improving the plight of the working poor. A comprehensive analysis of trends over the last twenty-five years, this book provides an invaluable reference for the public discussion of work and poverty in America.

REBECCA M. BLANK is codirector of the National Poverty Center and dean of the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, Henry Carter Adams Collegiate Professor of Public Policy, and professor of economics at the University of Michigan.

SHELDON H. DANZIGER is Henry J. Meyer Distinguished University Professor of Public Policy and codirector of the National Poverty Center at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan.

ROBERT F. SCHOENI is research associate professor at the Institute for Social Research, associate professor of Economics and Public Policy, at the University of Michigan.

CONTRIBUTORS: David Autor, George J. Borjas, Maria Cancian, David Card, Kerwin Kofi Charles, John DiNardo, Robert W. Fairlie, Eric French, Steven J. Haider, Robert E. Hall, Kevin A. Hassett, Susan Houseman, Phillip B. Levine,  Helen Levy, Rebecca A. London, Bhashkar Mazumder, Kathleen McGarry, Therese J. McGuire, David F. Merriman, Daniel R. Meyer,  Anne Moore, Heidi Shierholz,  Melvin Stephens Jr., Christopher Taber.

A Volume in the National Poverty Center Series on Poverty and Public Policy
 

RSF Journal
View Book Series
Sign Up For Our Mailing List
Apply For Funding
Cover image of the book Immigration and Opportunity
Books

Immigration and Opportunity

Race, Ethnicity, and Employment in the United States
Editors
Stephanie Bell-Rose
Frank D. Bean
Paperback
$34.95
Add to Cart
Publication Date
6 in. × 9 in. 440 pages
ISBN
978-0-87154-151-2
Also Available From

About This Book

The American dream of equal opportunity and social mobility still holds a powerful appeal for the many immigrants who arrive in this country each year. but if immigrant success stories symbolize the fulfillment of the American dream, the persistent inequality suffered by native-born African Americans demonstrates the dream's limits. Although the experience of blacks and immigrants in the United States are not directly comparable, their fates are connected in ways that are seldom recognized. Immigration and Opportunity brings together leading sociologists and demographers to present a systematic account of the many ways in which immigration affects the labor market experiences of native-born African Americans.

With the arrival of large numbers of nonwhite immigrants in recent decades, blacks now represent less than 50 percent of the U.S. minority population. Immigration and Opportunity reveals how immigration has transformed relations between minority populations in the United States, creating new forms of labor market competition between native and immigrant minorities. Recent immigrants have concentrated in a handful of port-of-entry cities, breaking up established patterns of residential segregation,and, in some cases, contributing to the migration of native blacks out of these cities. Immigrants have secured many of the occupational niches once dominated by blacks and now pass these jobs on through ethnic hiring networks that exclude natives. At the same time, many native-born blacks find jobs in the public sector, which is closed to those immigrants who lack U.S. citizenship.

While recent immigrants have unquestionably brought economic and cultural benefits to U.S. society, this volume makes it clear that the costs of increased immigration falls particularly heavily upon those native-born groups who are already disadvantaged. Even as large-scale immigration transforms the racial and ethnic make-up of U.S. society—forcing us to think about race and ethnicity in new ways—it demands that we pay renewed attention to the entrenched problems of racial disadvantage that still beset native-born African Americans.

FRANK D. BEAN is professor of sociology and director of the Immigration Policy Research Project at the University of California, Irvine.

STEPHANIE BELL-ROSE was formerly legal counsel and program officer at the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

CONTRIBUTORS: Richard D. Alba, Barry Edmonston, Walter C. Farrell Jr., Mark A. Fossett, William H. Frey, Jennifer E. Glick, Jomas H. Johnson, Karen D. Johnson-Webb, John R. Logan, Jeffrey S. Passel, Alejandro Portes, Michael J. Rosenfeld, Marta Tienda, Jennifer Van Hook, Roger Waldinger, Mary C. Water, Michael J. White, Franklin D. Wilson, Min Zhou.

RSF Journal
View Book Series
Sign Up For Our Mailing List
Apply For Funding
Cover image of the book Problem of the Century
Books

Problem of the Century

Racial Stratification in the United States
Editors
Elijah Anderson
Douglas S. Massey
Paperback
$28.95
Add to Cart
Publication Date
6 in. × 9 in. 480 pages
ISBN
978-0-87154-055-3
Also Available From

About This Book

In 1899 the great African American scholar, W.E.B. DuBois, published The Philadelphia Negro, the first systematic case study of an African American community and one of the foundations of American sociology. DuBois prophesied that the color line would be the problem of the twentieth century. One hundred years later, Problem of the Century reflects upon his prophecy, exploring the ways in which the color line is still visible in the labor market, the housing market, education, family structure, and many other aspects of life at the turn of a new century.

The book opens with a theoretical discussion of the way racial identity is constructed and institutionalized. When the government classifies races and confers group rights upon them, is it subtly reenforcing damaging racial divisions, or redressing the group privileges that whites monopolized for so long? The book also delineates the social dynamics that underpin racial inequality. The contributors explore the causes and consequences of high rates of mortality and low rates of marriage in black communities, as well as the way race affects a person's chances of economic success. African Americans may soon lose their historical position as America's majority minority, and the book also examines how race plays out in the sometimes fractious relations between blacks and immigrants. The final part of the book shows how the color line manifests itself at work and in schools. Contributors find racial issues at play on both ends of the occupational ladder—among absentee fathers paying child support from their meager earnings and among black executives prospering in the corporate world. In the schools, the book explores how race defines a student's peer group and how peer pressure affects a student's grades.

Problem of the Century draws upon the distinguished faculty of sociologists at the University of Pennsylvania, where DuBois conducted his research for The Philadelphia Negro. The contributors combine a scrupulous commitment to empirical inquiry with an eclectic openness to different methods and approaches. Problem of the Century blends ethnographies and surveys, statistics and content analyses, census data and historical records, to provide a far-reaching examination of racial inequality in all its contemporary manifestations.

ELIJAH M. ANDERSON is Charles and William Day Professor of Social Sciences, University of Pennsylvania.

DOUGLAS S. MASSEY is the Dorothy Swaine Thomas Professor of Sociology and Chair of the Department of Sociology, University of Pennsylvania.

CONTRIBUTORS: Linda H. Aiken, Ivar Berg, Mary Blair-Loy, Camille Zubrinsky Charles, Randall Colins, Kathryn Edin, Irma T. Elo, Frank F. Furstenberg Jr.,  Jerry A. Jacobs,  Grace Kao,  Robin Leidner, Janice F. Madden, Ewa Morawska, Timothy J. Nelson, Samuel H. Preston,  Douglas M. Sloane, Tukufu Zuberi.  

RSF Journal
View Book Series
Sign Up For Our Mailing List
Apply For Funding