In vintage photographs, a panorama of the university's history on its 125th anniversary

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.

Journalists are trained to tell the stories of others and leave themselves out of their writing. Student journalists are no different. They spend their days on their college newspaper writing about what happens to others, especially when what is happening involves protests, sit-ins, riots, hunger strikes and other unrest on the very campuses where they also attend school. Now some of these former student reporters and editors tell their own stories of some of the challenges all student journalists face in reporting events that most administrators would rather see not covered at all. For some, this is the first time the stories of what happened in the newsrooms and behind the scenes will appear in print. Some of the issues they discuss include censorship, the role of the newspaper as the conscience of the community, objective and activist journalism and the challenges of reporting crises. The protests covered here represent the many concerns college student protesters have tackled through the decades: integration in 1962, the free speech movement of 1964, racial issues and the Vietnam War in 1968 and 1970, and continuing racial issues in the present. Many of these former student journalists look back decades to their work in the 1960s. Some discuss a more recent protest. Looking back, they admit they might have done things differently if they had to do it again, yet all are fiercely proud of the work they did in recording the first version of history.