A Volume in the American Sociological Association’s Rose Series in Sociology

Winner of the 2002 Outstanding Scholarship Award from the Crime and Delinquency Section of the Society for the Study of Social Problems

"As someone who has spent considerable time fighting and raising awareness of hate crimes, I am extremely impressed with this book's insightful analysis. It is exceptionally compelling work for those interested in understanding the intersection of civil rights, violence, and public policy. It's a must read for those who want to combat hate crime."
-U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-California)

"In this fascinating and important book, Valerie Jenness and Ryken Grattet show how social movement organizations, interest groups, and policy experts came to think that crimes motivated by hatred of social groups should be considered a special type of crime; how they managed to win media attention for this newly defined type of crime; how they convinced Congress and many state legislatures to accept their view and to enact hate crimes laws; how interpretations of hate crime laws by the courts and the police affect enforcement; and the impact hate crime laws are likely to have on American society. Making Hate a Crime is a well-written analysis of an important chapter in American politics, and will be of great interest to a wide audience concerned about hate crimes."
-Paul Burstein, University of Washington

"In their insightful new work, Jenness and Grattet effectively analyze the development of hate crime laws. How are we to explain the institutionalization of hate crime legislation? Was it a result of a rising tide of hate violence or simply the influence of interest group politics? This book presents a convincing case that it was neither. There are important sociological lessons to be learned from the pages of Making Hate a Crime."
-Jack Levin, Northeastern University

Violence motivated by racism, anti-Semitism, misogyny, and homophobia weaves a tragic pattern throughout American history. Fueled by recent high-profile cases, hate crimes have achieved an unprecedented visibility. Only in the past twenty years, however, has this kind of violence—itself as old as humankind—been specifically categorized and labeled as hate crime. Making Hate a Crime is the first book to trace the emergence and development of hate crime as a concept, illustrating how it has become institutionalized as a social fact and analyzing its policy implications.

In Making Hate a Crime Valerie Jenness and Ryken Grattet show how the concept of hate crime emerged and evolved over time, as it traversed the arenas of American politics, legislatures, courts, and law enforcement. In the process, violence against people of color, immigrants, Jews, gays and lesbians, women, and persons with disabilities has come to be understood as hate crime, while violence against other vulnerable victims-octogenarians, union members, the elderly, and police officers, for example-has not. The authors reveal the crucial role social movements played in the early formulation of hate crime policy, as well as the way state and federal politicians defined the content of hate crime statutes, how judges determined the constitutional validity of those statutes, and how law enforcement has begun to distinguish between hate crime and other crime. Hate crime took on different meanings as it moved from social movement concept to law enforcement practice. As a result, it not only acquired a deeper jurisprudential foundation but its scope of application has been restricted in some ways and broadened in others. Making Hate a Crime reveals how our current understanding of hate crime is a mix of political and legal interpretations at work in the American policymaking process. Jenness and Grattet provide an insightful examination of the birth of a new category in criminal justice: hate crime. Their findings have implications for emerging social problems such as school violence, television-induced violence, elder-abuse, as well as older ones like drunk driving, stalking, and sexual harassment. Making Hate a Crime presents a fresh perspective on how social problems and the policies devised in response develop over time.

VALERIE JENNESS is associate professor and chair of criminology, law, and society, as well as associate professor of sociology at the University of California, Irvine.

RYKEN GRATTET is associate professor of sociology at the University of California, Davis.

A Volume in the American Sociological Association’s Rose Series in Sociology

"In Ethnic Origins Jeremy Hein offers important insights into the ways in which two groups of Southeast Asian refugees to the United States-the animist Hmong, a distinct minority community in Laos, and the Buddhist Khmer, members of the Cambodian majority-become ethnic Americans. This many faceted study of adaptation and acculturation and the varied courses these two very different cultural groups follow is at once an informative, critical, and evocative examination of the backgrounds and experiences of what Hein calls some inconspicuous people living in 'some obscure places.' It is something more as well. Ethnic Origins is a fine example of the use of multiple methods of data-gathering-historical and archival research, structured surveys, focused interviews, and peer-group conversations, and a model of concise and compelling investigative reporting."
-PETER I. ROSE, Smith College

"In this meticulously researched and well-written book, Professor Hein offers a much-needed analysis of the impact of ethnic cultures on the experience of contemporary immigrants. His comparative methodology offers a powerful lens on these issues. Ethnic Origins is essential reading for those who are interested in the complex impact of history, culture, and structural location on the adaptation of immigrants."
-NAZLI KIBRIA, Boston University

"This impressive, in-depth study of Hmong and Cambodian refugees and immigrants in the United States is com parative in several senses of that word. Jeremy Hein examines the similarities and differences between the two groups by looking at their 'ethnic origins'-a shorthand moniker for their homeland histories, politics, social struc tures, and cultures-as well as the impact of locational characteristics on their patterns of adaptation. By analyz ing two large cities and two smaller towns, Hein concludes that the differences in locational characteristics have a lesser impact than ethnic origins. The book also sheds new light on how ethnic origins help filter the Hmong and Cambodian interactions with other peoples of color (especially African Americans and Asian Americans) and with European Americans. Most notably, Hein succinctly compares his own complex theoretical framework with those used by other social scientists. I know of no other studies that analyze key issues at both the theoretical and public-policy levels so systematically. A truly laudable achievement, this book encourages us to see race, ethnicity, and contemporary immigration into the United States in fresh and multidimensional ways."
-SUCHENG CHAN, University of California, Santa Barbara

"Ethnic Origins is an ambitious and original study of Cambodian and Hmong refugees in four midwestern loca tions that highlights the impact of distinctive ethnic origins-homeland histories, cultures, and politics-as well as the nature of place of settlement on the immigrant experience. The book is full of interesting material and contributes to our understanding of a host of topics in the immigration field, including the formation of pan-ethnic identities and the kind of welcome immigrants receive in small town white America as compared to large and diverse urban centers."
-NANCY FONER, Hunter College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York

Immigration studies have increasingly focused on how immigrant adaptation to their new homelands is influenced by the social structures in the sending society, particularly its economy. Less scholarly research has focused on the ways that the cultural make-up of immigrant homelands influences their adaptation to life in a new country. In Ethnic Origins, Jeremy Hein investigates the role of religion, family, and other cultural factors on immigrant incorporation into American society by comparing the experiences of two little-known immigrant groups living in four different American cities not commonly regarded as immigrant gateways.

Ethnic Origins provides an in-depth look at Hmong and Khmer refugees—people who left Asia as a result of failed U.S. foreign policy in their countries. These groups share low socio-economic status, but are vastly different in their norms, values, and histories. Hein compares their experience in two small towns—Rochester, Minnesota and Eau Claire, Wisconsin—and in two big cities—Chicago and Milwaukee—and examines how each group adjusted to these different settings. The two groups encountered both community hospitality and narrow-minded hatred in the small towns, contrasting sharply with the cold anonymity of the urban pecking order in the larger cities. Hein finds that for each group, their ethnic background was more important in shaping adaptation patterns than the place in which they settled. Hein shows how, in both the cities and towns, the Hmong’s sharply drawn ethnic boundaries and minority status in their native land left them with less affinity for U.S. citizenship or “Asian American” panethnicity than the Khmer, whose ethnic boundary is more porous. Their differing ethnic backgrounds also influenced their reactions to prejudice and discrimination. The Hmong, with a strong group identity, perceived greater social inequality and supported collective political action to redress wrongs more than the individualistic Khmer, who tended to view personal hardship as a solitary misfortune, rather than part of a larger-scale injustice.

Examining two unique immigrant groups in communities where immigrants have not traditionally settled, Ethnic Origins vividly illustrates the factors that shape immigrants’ response to American society and suggests a need to refine prevailing theories of immigration. Hein’s book is at once a novel look at a little-known segment of America’s melting pot and a significant contribution to research on Asian immigration to the United States.

JEREMY HEIN is professor of sociology at the University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire.

A Volume in the American Sociological Association’s Rose Series in Sociology

"This volume is distinguished by immense scholarship in economics and political science extending beyond the Social Security issue to the proper role of government in the economy. An important addition to the literature."
-CHOICE

"Melissa Hardy and Lawrence Hazelrigg clear the air on the Social Security debate. They set their sociological sights on the econometric battle over rescue strategies versus privatization, showing that arguments about efficiency are invariably colored by politics. In reviewing arguments and evidence for each side, they call for an open debate in which politicians and policy wonks put all their cards on the table. This lucid and even-handed book offers the non-expert an introduction to the issues that is engaging, yet never dumbed down. It challenges the expert to overcome partisan politics."
-FRANK DOBBIN, professor of sociology, Harvard University

"Melissa Hardy and Lawrence Hazelrigg bring an insightful and nuanced sociological perspective to the history and recent controversies surrounding Social Security and proposed changes in the system with an impressively broad (and deep) intellectual orientation that transcends sociology to include economics, history, philosophy, political science, and literature. They evaluate the 'toxic' political-economic climate surrounding Social Security in a clear-eyed fashion by distinguishing 'technical' from 'political' arguments. And, they make courageous public judgments about the political motives, voracity, and behaviors of public figures embroiled in these policy debates."
-ANGELA M. O'RAND, professor of sociology, Duke University

The rancorous debate over the future of Social Security reached a fever pitch in 2005 when President Bush unsuccessfully proposed a plan for private retirement accounts. Although efforts to reform Social Security seem to have reached an impasse, the long-term problem—the projected Social Security deficit—remains. In Pension Puzzles, sociologists Melissa Hardy and Lawrence Hazelrigg explain for a general audience the fiscal challenges facing Social Security and explore the larger political context of the Social Security debate.

Pension Puzzles cuts through the sloganeering of politicians in both parties, presenting Social Security’s technical problems evenhandedly and showing how the Social Security debate is one piece of a larger political struggle. Hardy and Hazelrigg strip away the ideological baggage to explicate the basic terms and concepts needed to understand the predicament of Social Security. They compare the cases for privatizing Social Security and for preserving the program in its current form with adjustments to taxes and benefits, and they examine the different economic projections assumed by proponents of each approach. In pursuit of its privatization agenda, Hardy and Hazelrigg argue, the Bush administration has misled the public on an issue that was already widely misunderstood. The authors show how privatization proponents have relied on dubious assumptions about future rates of return to stock market investments and about the average citizen’s ability to make informed investment decisions. In addition, the administration has painted the real but manageable shortfalls in Social Security revenue as a fiscal crisis. Projections of Social Security revenues and benefits by the Social Security Administration have treated revenues as fixed, when in fact they are determined by choices made by Congress. Ultimately, as Hardy and Hazelrigg point out, the clash over Social Security is about more than technical fiscal issues: it is part of the larger culture wars and the ideological struggle over what kind of social responsibilities and rights American citizens should have. This rancorous partisan wrangling, the alarmist talk about a “crisis” in Social Security, and the outright deception employed in this debate have all undermined the trust between citizens and government that is needed to restore the solvency of Social Security for future generations of retirees.

Drawing together economic analyses, public opinion data, and historical narratives, Pension Puzzles is a lucid and engaging guide to the major proposals for Social Security reform. It is also an insightful exploration of what that debate reveals about American political culture in the twenty-first century.

MELISSA HARDY is Distinguished Professor of Human Development and Family Studies in Sociology and Demography and director of the Gerontology Center at the Pennsylvania State University.

LAWRENCE HAZELRIGG is professor emeritus at Florida State University and adjunct professor of sociology at the Pennsylvania State University.

A Volume in the American Sociological Association’s Rose Series in Sociology

Most Americans agree on the necessity of education reform, but there is little consensus about how this goal might be achieved. The rhetoric of standards and vouchers has occupied center stage, polarizing public opinion and affording little room for reflection on the intangible conditions that make for good schools. Trust in Schools engages this debate with a compelling examination of the importance of social relationships in the successful implementation of school reform.

Over the course of three years, Bryk and Schneider, together with a diverse team of other researchers and school practitioners, studied reform in twelve Chicago elementary schools. Each school was undergoing extensive reorganization in response to the Chicago School Reform Act of 1988, which called for greater involvement of parents and local community leaders in their neighborhood schools. Drawing on years longitudinal survey and achievement data, as well as in-depth interviews with principals, teachers, parents, and local community leaders, the authors develop a thorough account of how effective social relationships—which they term relational trust—can serve as a prime resource for school improvement. Using case studies of the network of relationships that make up the school community, Bryk and Schneider examine how the myriad social exchanges that make up daily life in a school community generate, or fail to generate, a successful educational environment. The personal dynamics among teachers, students, and their parents, for example, influence whether students regularly attend school and sustain their efforts in the difficult task of learning. In schools characterized by high relational trust, educators were more likely to experiment with new practices and work together with parents to advance improvements. As a result, these schools were also more likely to demonstrate marked gains in student learning. In contrast, schools with weak trust relations saw virtually no improvement in their reading or mathematics scores.

Trust in Schools demonstrates convincingly that the quality of social relationships operating in and around schools is central to their functioning, and strongly predicts positive student outcomes. This book offer insights into how trust can be built and sustained in school communities, and identifies some features of public school systems that can impede such development. Bryk and Schneider show how a broad base of trust across a school community can provide a critical resource as education professional and parents embark on major school reforms.

ANTHONY S. BRYK is Marshall Field IV Professor of Urban Education and Sociology, University of Chicago.

BARBARA SCHNEIDER is professor of sociology and human development, University of Chicago.

A Volume in the American Sociological Association’s Rose Series in Sociology

"Anthony Bryk and Barbara Schneider argue a novel idea: that the extent of trust among the adults in schools is a crucial influence on how well schools work for children. They use a variety of research methods to probe the role that trust plays in the life of schools, and in students' learning. This is an important, original, and lucidly written contribution to understanding the processes of schooling, and a telling analysis of the requirements for school improvement."
-DAVID K. COHEN, University of Michigan

"Trust in Schools presents a compelling case of real world school reform. A must read for educators, administrators, and legislators working in the field today."
-RAMON CORTINES, New York City School System, Los Angeles School System

"Recent conceptual analyses of social capital bear fruit in Anthony Bryk and Barbara Schneider's insightful study of effective social relationships in school. The authors provide theoretical insights into how trust acts as a dimension of social capital and provide empirical evidence that trusting relationships among teachers, parents, and students promote school improvement. Their study expands the current debate on educational reform by stressing the central importance of social exchange in the process of school reform. This important work has immediate implications for educational policy and practice."
-MAUREEN T. HALLINAN, University of Notre Dame

"Anthony Bryk and Barbara Schneider have produced a work that genuinely deserves to be foundational. The arguments they lay out here, strongly supported with longitudinal data, both quantitative and qualitative, will affect the way we think about the problems of urban schools and about possible solutions for years to come. More forcefully than any work in many years, they remind us that we cannot frame the issues just in terms of organizational issues, pedagogical issues, and governance issues. The reality is that many urban schools are bedeviled by a set of social issues, centered on trust, which, if left unaddressed, will continue to frustrate our best efforts."
-CHARLES M. PAYNE, Duke University

Most Americans agree on the necessity of education reform, but there is little consensus about how this goal might be achieved. The rhetoric of standards and vouchers has occupied center stage, polarizing public opinion and affording little room for reflection on the intangible conditions that make for good schools. Trust in Schools engages this debate with a compelling examination of the importance of social relationships in the successful implementation of school reform.

Over the course of three years, Bryk and Schneider, together with a diverse team of other researchers and school practitioners, studied reform in twelve Chicago elementary schools. Each school was undergoing extensive reorganization in response to the Chicago School Reform Act of 1988, which called for greater involvement of parents and local community leaders in their neighborhood schools. Drawing on years longitudinal survey and achievement data, as well as in-depth interviews with principals, teachers, parents, and local community leaders, the authors develop a thorough account of how effective social relationships—which they term relational trust—can serve as a prime resource for school improvement. Using case studies of the network of relationships that make up the school community, Bryk and Schneider examine how the myriad social exchanges that make up daily life in a school community generate, or fail to generate, a successful educational environment. The personal dynamics among teachers, students, and their parents, for example, influence whether students regularly attend school and sustain their efforts in the difficult task of learning. In schools characterized by high relational trust, educators were more likely to experiment with new practices and work together with parents to advance improvements. As a result, these schools were also more likely to demonstrate marked gains in student learning. In contrast, schools with weak trust relations saw virtually no improvement in their reading or mathematics scores.

Trust in Schools demonstrates convincingly that the quality of social relationships operating in and around schools is central to their functioning, and strongly predicts positive student outcomes. This book offer insights into how trust can be built and sustained in school communities, and identifies some features of public school systems that can impede such development. Bryk and Schneider show how a broad base of trust across a school community can provide a critical resource as education professional and parents embark on major school reforms.

ANTHONY S. BRYK is Marshall Field IV Professor of Urban Education and Sociology, University of Chicago.

BARBARA SCHNEIDER is professor of sociology and human development, University of Chicago.

A Volume in the American Sociological Association’s Rose Series in Sociology

Winner of the 2008 William T. Goode Award from the Family Section of the American Sociological Association

Winner of the 2007 Otis Dudley Duncan Award for Outstanding Scholarship in Social Demography

Over the last forty years, the number of American households with a stay-at-home parent has dwindled as women have increasingly joined the paid workforce and more women raise children alone. Many policy makers feared these changes would come at the expense of time mothers spend with their children. In Changing Rhythms of American Family Life, sociologists Suzanne M. Bianchi, John P. Robinson, and Melissa Milkie analyze the way families spend their time and uncover surprising new findings about how Americans are balancing the demands of work and family.

Using time diary data from surveys of American parents over the last four decades, Changing Rhythms of American Family Life finds that—despite increased workloads outside of the home—mothers today spend at least as much time interacting with their children as mothers did decades ago—and perhaps even more. Unexpectedly, the authors find mothers’ time at work has not resulted in an overall decline in sleep or leisure time. Rather, mothers have made time for both work and family by sacrificing time spent doing housework and by increased “multitasking.” Changing Rhythms of American Family Life finds that the total workload (in and out of the home) for employed parents is high for both sexes, with employed mothers averaging five hours more per week than employed fathers and almost nineteen hours more per week than homemaker mothers. Comparing average workloads of fathers with all mothers—both those in the paid workforce and homemakers—the authors find that there is gender equality in total workloads, as there has been since 1965. Overall, it appears that Americans have adapted to changing circumstances to ensure that they preserve their family time and provide adequately for their children.

Changing Rhythms of American Family Life explodes many of the popular misconceptions about how Americans balance work and family. Though the iconic image of the American mother has changed from a docile homemaker to a frenzied, sleepless working mom, this important new volume demonstrates that the time mothers spend with their families has remained steady throughout the decades.

SUZANNE M. BIANCHI is professor of sociology at the University of Maryland, College Park.

JOHN P. ROBINSON  is professor of sociology at the University of Maryland, College Park.

MELISSA A. MILKIE is associate professor of sociology at the University of Maryland, College Park.

A Volume in the American Sociological Association’s Rose Series in Sociology

Winner of the 2008 William T. Goode Award from the Family Section of the American Sociological Association

Winner of the 2007 Otis Dudley Duncan Award for Outstanding Scholarship in Social Demography

"Changing Rhythms of American Family Life is the best and most authoritative study of trends in parents' use of time over the past several decades. Its conclusion that parents today are not spending fewer hours with their children, despite the increase in wives working outside the home, goes against conventional wisdom. It will become the standard source of information on parents' time use."
-ANDREW CHERLIN, Johns Hopkins University

"Bianchi and her collaborators have produced a must-read book for policymakers, family researchers, and concerned citizens about what it is like to be a parent in American society. Elegantly described and judiciously interpreted, the findings in Changing Rhythms of American Family Life are guaranteed to surprise, inform, and provoke the reader."
-FRANK F. FURSTENBERG JR., University of Pennsylvania

"Read Changing Rhythms of American Family Life for a masterful overview of what time diaries show about trends in how Americans spend their time. For those interested in gender and the impact of women's jobs, there are some real surprises."
-PAULA ENGLAND, Stanford University

Over the last forty years, the number of American households with a stay-at-home parent has dwindled as women have increasingly joined the paid workforce and more women raise children alone. Many policy makers feared these changes would come at the expense of time mothers spend with their children. In Changing Rhythms of American Family Life, sociologists Suzanne M. Bianchi, John P. Robinson, and Melissa Milkie analyze the way families spend their time and uncover surprising new findings about how Americans are balancing the demands of work and family.

Using time diary data from surveys of American parents over the last four decades, Changing Rhythms of American Family Life finds that—despite increased workloads outside of the home—mothers today spend at least as much time interacting with their children as mothers did decades ago—and perhaps even more. Unexpectedly, the authors find mothers’ time at work has not resulted in an overall decline in sleep or leisure time. Rather, mothers have made time for both work and family by sacrificing time spent doing housework and by increased “multitasking.” Changing Rhythms of American Family Life finds that the total workload (in and out of the home) for employed parents is high for both sexes, with employed mothers averaging five hours more per week than employed fathers and almost nineteen hours more per week than homemaker mothers. Comparing average workloads of fathers with all mothers—both those in the paid workforce and homemakers—the authors find that there is gender equality in total workloads, as there has been since 1965. Overall, it appears that Americans have adapted to changing circumstances to ensure that they preserve their family time and provide adequately for their children.

Changing Rhythms of American Family Life explodes many of the popular misconceptions about how Americans balance work and family. Though the iconic image of the American mother has changed from a docile homemaker to a frenzied, sleepless working mom, this important new volume demonstrates that the time mothers spend with their families has remained steady throughout the decades.

SUZANNE M. BIANCHI is professor of sociology at the University of Maryland, College Park.

JOHN P. ROBINSON is professor of sociology at the University of Maryland, College Park.

MELISSA A. MILKIE is associate professor of sociology at the University of Maryland, College Park.

A Volume in the American Sociological Association’s Rose Series in Sociology

Winner of the 2002 Otis Dudley Duncan Award for Outstanding Scholarship in Social Demography

The attacks of September 11, 2001, facilitated by easy entry and lax immigration controls, cast into bold relief the importance and contradictions of U.S. immigration policy. Will we have to restrict immigration for fear of future terrorist attacks? On a broader scale, can the country's sense of national identity be maintained in the face of the cultural diversity that today's immigrants bring? How will the resulting demographic, social, and economic changes affect U.S. residents? As the debate about immigration policy heats up, it has become more critical than ever to examine immigration's role in our society. With a comprehensive social scientific assessment of immigration over the past thirty years, America's Newcomers and the Dynamics of Diversity provides the clearest picture to date of how immigration has actually affected the United States, while refuting common misconceptions and predicting how it might affect us in the future.

Frank Bean and Gillian Stevens show how, on the whole, immigration has been beneficial for the United States. Although about one million immigrants arrive each year, the job market has expanded sufficiently to absorb them without driving down wages significantly or preventing the native-born population from finding jobs. Immigration has not led to welfare dependency among immigrants, nor does evidence indicate that welfare is a magnet for immigrants. With the exception of unauthorized Mexican and Central American immigrants, studies show that most other immigrant groups have attained sufficient earnings and job mobility to move into the economic mainstream. Many Asian and Latino immigrants have established ethnic networks while maintaining their native cultural practices in the pursuit of that goal. While this phenomenon has led many people to believe that today's immigrants are slow to enter mainstream society, Bean and Stevens show that intermarriage and English language proficiency among these groups are just as high—if not higher—as among prior waves of European immigrants. America's Newcomers and the Dynamics of Diversity concludes by showing that the increased racial and ethnic diversity caused by immigration may be helping to blur the racial divide in the United States, transforming the country from a biracial to multi-ethnic and multi-racial society. Replacing myth with fact, America's Newcomers and the Dynamics of Diversity contains a wealth of information and belongs on the bookshelves of policymakers, pundits, scholars, students, and anyone who is concerned about the changing face of the United States.

FRANK D. BEAN is professor of sociology and director, Center for Research on Immigration, Population, and Public Policy, University of California, Irvine.

GILLIAN STEVENS is associate professor of sociology at University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

A Volume in the American Sociological Association’s Rose Series in Sociology

Winner of the 2003 Otis Dudley Duncan Award for Outstanding Scholarship in Social Demography

"Bean and Stevens's authoritative book provides an astute and carefully balanced analysis of the continuous interaction between migration and American society."
-ETHNIC AND RACIAL STUDIES

America's Newcomers and the Dynamics of Diversity provides a well-researched, accessible, and policy-relevant investigation of the broader impact of recent immigration on American society. It is a must read for scholars of migration and race and ethnicity, and it will make an excellent textbook for use in upper division and graduate-level classes in the social sciences, history, and related disciplines."
-AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

"The singular accomplishment of this impressive volume is its simultaneous consideration of the two anxieties that continue to vex sound immigration policy-that newcomers undermine economic prosperity; that they increase ethnic tensions and fragmentation. Policy-making will find here a much needed empirically rich, nuanced treatment of economic and cultural issues."
-KENNETH PREWITT, Columbia University

A timely, insightful, and comprehensive book by some of the leading and most experienced scholars on American immigration. America's Newcomers and the Dynamics of Diversity should be immediately placed in the 'must read' box of scholars and students alike."
-JAMES P. SMITH, RAND

"If I could recommend a curriculum for decisionmakers new to immigration issues, this volume would be my choice. By examining all the key issues, scholarship, and perceptions that surround immigration, and by applying clear-eyed, non-ideological analysis to them, the authors have provided important new insights for long-time students of the issues, as well as a practical policy handbook for real-world actors."
-DORIS MEISSNER, Migration Policy Institute

"Now in the midst of the largest immigration wave ever, the United States is, it seems, the only post industrial democracy in the world where immigration is both history and destiny. Over the last couple of decades this 'new immigration' has generated important new empirical, conceptual, and theoretical work. America's Newcomers and the Dynamics of Diversity is a critical addition to this new corpus of scholarship. The authors raise important new questions and proceed to deploy carefully crafted empirical data to systematically enhance our understanding of the complex dynamics at hand. The senior author is one of sociology's maitre penseurs and it shows: America's Newcomers will become a standard reference to social scientists, policy makers, and the informed public at large about one of the most important and urgent social concerns of our times. It is an exquisite achievement."
-MARCELO M. SUÁREZ-OROZCO, Harvard University

The attacks of September 11, 2001, facilitated by easy entry and lax immigration controls, cast into bold relief the importance and contradictions of U.S. immigration policy. Will we have to restrict immigration for fear of future terrorist attacks? On a broader scale, can the country's sense of national identity be maintained in the face of the cultural diversity that today's immigrants bring? How will the resulting demographic, social, and economic changes affect U.S. residents? As the debate about immigration policy heats up, it has become more critical than ever to examine immigration's role in our society. With a comprehensive social scientific assessment of immigration over the past thirty years, America's Newcomers and the Dynamics of Diversity provides the clearest picture to date of how immigration has actually affected the United States, while refuting common misconceptions and predicting how it might affect us in the future.

Frank Bean and Gillian Stevens show how, on the whole, immigration has been beneficial for the United States. Although about one million immigrants arrive each year, the job market has expanded sufficiently to absorb them without driving down wages significantly or preventing the native-born population from finding jobs. Immigration has not led to welfare dependency among immigrants, nor does evidence indicate that welfare is a magnet for immigrants. With the exception of unauthorized Mexican and Central American immigrants, studies show that most other immigrant groups have attained sufficient earnings and job mobility to move into the economic mainstream. Many Asian and Latino immigrants have established ethnic networks while maintaining their native cultural practices in the pursuit of that goal. While this phenomenon has led many people to believe that today's immigrants are slow to enter mainstream society, Bean and Stevens show that intermarriage and English language proficiency among these groups are just as high—if not higher—as among prior waves of European immigrants. America's Newcomers and the Dynamics of Diversity concludes by showing that the increased racial and ethnic diversity caused by immigration may be helping to blur the racial divide in the United States, transforming the country from a biracial to multi-ethnic and multi-racial society. Replacing myth with fact, America's Newcomers and the Dynamics of Diversity contains a wealth of information and belongs on the bookshelves of policymakers, pundits, scholars, students, and anyone who is concerned about the changing face of the United States.

FRANK D. BEAN is professor of sociology and director, Center for Research on Immigration, Population, and Public Policy, University of California, Irvine.

GILLIAN STEVENS is associate professor of sociology at University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

A Volume in the American Sociological Association’s Rose Series in Sociology

Winner of the 2009 Grawemeyer Award for the Best Book in Education

Winner of the 2009 Outstanding Book Award of the American Educational Research Association

"Passing the Torch moves beyond the immediate goals of open admission to explore outcomes in the second generation .... In short, the middle-class boost that a CUNY education represented for these women did not fade away; their children did not regress to the earlier patterns of their grandparents' generation. Some questions remain. Did standards erode over time as charged? Were subsequent cohorts as fortunate as the first? For now, evidence trumps rhetoric and the evidence shows open admissions delivered on its promises."
-CONTEMPORARY SOCIOLOGY

"Passing the Torch provides compelling new evidence on the benefits of college enrollment for disadvantaged Americans often seen as not 'college material.' The authors track the career histories of almost two thousand women from low-income families who enrolled in one of the seventeen campuses of the City University of New York in the 1970s under its open admissions program .... The book makes a compelling case that public higher education is still a critically important mechanism for social mobility in the United States and that making college attainable for low-income youth deserves a top spot on the domestic policy agenda."
-RICHARD J. MURNANE, Thompson Professor of Education and Society, Harvard University Graduate School of Education

"Like the 1944 GI Bill, open admissions at CUNY and elsewhere opened college for those who had never dreamed it was possible. Passing the Torch shows how open access programs affected the first generation's occupations, earnings, family structure, asset accumulation, childrearing practices, community involvement, and paid dividends for the second generation's cognitive development and educational success .... The prose is lucid, the data are compelling, and the issues are urgent. Passing the Torch is must reading for anyone concerned about higher education, social policy, educational equity, families, race, children, and national productivity."
-CAROLINE HODGES PERSELL, professor of sociology, New York University

"This remarkable book will give a much-needed jolt to the conventional wisdom about open-access higher education. ... A landmark study, Passing the Torch vividly documents the critical role that open access continues to play in keeping the American dream alive for our least advantaged citizens. It is destined to take its place alongside Bowen and Bok's The Shape of the River as one of the best books on the impact of higher education on opportunity in America."
-JEROME KARABEL, professor of sociology, University of California, Berkeley

The steady expansion of college enrollment rates over the last generation has been heralded as a major step toward reducing chronic economic disparities. But many of the policies that broadened access to higher education—including affirmative action, open admissions, and need-based financial aid—have come under attack in recent years by critics alleging that schools are admitting unqualified students who are unlikely to benefit from a college education. In Passing the Torch, Paul Attewell, David Lavin, Thurston Domina, and Tania Levey follow students admitted under the City University of New York’s “open admissions” policy, tracking its effects on them and their children, to find out whether widening college access can accelerate social mobility across generations.

Unlike previous research into the benefits of higher education, Passing the Torch follows the educational achievements of three generations over thirty years. The book focuses on a cohort of women who entered CUNY between 1970 and 1972, when the university began accepting all graduates of New York City high schools and increasing its representation of poor and minority students. The authors survey these women in order to identify how the opportunity to pursue higher education affected not only their long-term educational attainments and family well-being, but also how it affected their children’s educational achievements. Comparing the record of the CUNY alumnae to peers nationwide, the authors find that when women from underprivileged backgrounds go to college, their children are more likely to succeed in school and earn college degrees themselves. Mothers with a college degree are more likely to expect their children to go to college, to have extensive discussions with their children, and to be involved in their children’s schools. All of these parenting behaviors appear to foster higher test scores and college enrollment rates among their children. In addition, college-educated women are more likely to raise their children in stable two-parent households and to earn higher incomes; both factors have been demonstrated to increase children’s educational success.

The evidence marshaled in this important book reaffirms the American ideal of upward mobility through education. As the first study to indicate that increasing access to college among today’s disadvantaged students can reduce educational gaps in the next generation, Passing the Torch makes a powerful argument in favor of college for all.

PAUL ATTEWELL and DAVID LAVIN are professors of sociology in the Graduate Center at the City University of New York.