White Kids - (Critical Perspectives on Youth) by Margaret A Hagerman (Hardcover)

Number of Pages: 280
Genre: Social Science
Sub-Genre: Sociology
Series Title: Critical Perspectives on Youth
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: New York University Press
Age Range: Adult
Book theme: Marriage & Family
Author: Margaret A Hagerman
Language: English

Book Synopsis

Winner, 2019 William J. Goode Book Award, given by the Family Section of the American Sociological Association

Finalist, 2019 C. Wright Mills Award, given by the Society for the Study of Social Problems

Riveting stories of how affluent, white children learn about race

American kids are living in a world of ongoing public debates about race, daily displays of racial injustice, and for some, an increased awareness surrounding diversity and inclusion. In this heated context, sociologist Margaret A. Hagerman zeroes in on affluent, white kids to observe how they make sense of privilege, unequal educational opportunities, and police violence. In fascinating detail, Hagerman considers the role that they and their families play in the reproduction of racism and racial inequality in America.

White Kids, based on two years of research involving in-depth interviews with white kids and their families, is a clear-eyed and sometimes shocking account of how white kids learn about race. In doing so, this book explores questions such as, "How do white kids learn about race when they grow up in families that do not talk openly about race or acknowledge its impact?" and "What about children growing up in families with parents who consider themselves to be 'anti-racist'?"

Featuring the actual voices of young, affluent white kids and what they think about race, racism, inequality, and privilege, White Kids illuminates how white racial socialization is much more dynamic, complex, and varied than previously recognized. It is a process that stretches beyond white parents' explicit conversations with their white children and includes not only the choices parents make about neighborhoods, schools, peer groups, extracurricular activities, and media, but also the choices made by the kids themselves. By interviewing kids who are growing up in different racial contexts--from racially segregated to meaningfully integrated and from politically progressive to conservative--this important book documents key differences in the outcomes of white racial socialization across families. And by observing families in their everyday lives, this book explores the extent to which white families, even those with anti-racist intentions, reproduce and reinforce the forms of inequality they say they reject.

Review Quotes

[The author] examines how affluent white children think about race Hagerman spent two years immersed with 30 privileged white Midwestern families to produce this timely...study. [S]he provides revealing portraits.[and] is especially good on the & conundrum of privilege.A complex and nuanced...book.-- "Kirkus Reviews"

A terrific book tracing the different trajectories of racial meaning young white children make about themselves and others as they navigate the worlds of school, friendship, and neighborhood, as well as the larger world beyond. This book is full of rich insight that should give us both pause and a sense of possibility.--Amy L. Best, Author of Fast Food Kids: French Fries, Lunch Lines, and Social Ties

By studying how affluent white children think about race, we can see how racist attitudes permeate the structures of power in our society and what it would take to change them... its sobering message should be required reading for all affluent white parents (and affluent white college students)--and especially those who believe in social justice.-- "American Journal of Sociology"

Hagerman boldly unearths the development of racial identities among white children, and the choices and justifications white families make that perpetuate inequality and entitlement ... Hagerman's work provides indisputable evidence that choice (of schools and neighborhoods) is for the privileged, and not even the privileged know how (or want) to alter structure. Margaret Hagerman's book is a much needed investigation of whiteness and the making of such; this would be a great addition to any course that touches on race and inequality in the United States.-- "Social Forces"

Hagerman's book is a careful, painful and convincing argument that when white people give their children advantages, they are often disadvantaging others. Racism is so hard to overturn, in part, because white people prop it up when they work to make sure their children succeed.-- "NBC's Think blog"

Margaret HagermansWhite Kidsbrings to mind two words: must read....Hagerman unearths the segregation, income inequality, and racial biases which run rampant in her subjects lives... Hagermans writing is crisp and riveting...She puts forth a crucial analysis on the 'well-meaning, ' 'colorblind' racism that her subjects perpetuate, stripping down the coded language of suburbia until it reveals the ugly truth underneath.--STARRED "Foreword Reviews"

More than anything else, whiteness is an everyday practice constructed out of mostly mundane, seemingly & beyond race interactions. In her masterful White Kids, Margaret A. Hagerman demonstrates this fact by showing how privileged children in a Midwestern town are socialized into whiteness and, more significantly, make choices to reproduce whiteness. Hagermans book deserves to be read widely as it is a sociological gem!-Eduardo Bonilla--Silva, Author of Racism Without Racists

This innovative, absorbing ethnography reveals that there is no single way that whites learn about race. Environmental influences such as schools, neighborhoods, and even extracurricular activities profoundly shape the ways that affluent white children think about racism and its impact on people of color. Its fascinating to learn how one child develops a critique of police shootings while another insists that racism does not exist at all. This immersive study will transform the way we think about racial socialization among the privileged. White Kids is a must read for anyone interested in how racial attitudes in America take shape in their earliest moments.--Monica McDermott, Author of Working-Class White: The Making and Unmaking of Race Relations

About the Author

Margaret A. Hagerman is Associate Professor of Sociology at Mississippi State University. She is the author of White Kids: Growing Up With Privilege in a Racially Divided America, Winner of the 2019 William J. Goode Book Award, given by the Family Section of the American Sociological Association and Finalist for the 2019 C. Wright Mills Award, given by the Society for the Study of Social Problems.