In an era of political and cultural turmoil, it seems like the United States is more divided than ever along lines of identity. How are our experiences shaped by our race, gender, and class? How do these identities intersect? This textbook will give students in grades 7 to 12 a framework for navigating intersectionality, and understanding how we can use this concept to enrich our understanding of identity, power, and justice in society.

A major publishing event, the collected writings of the groundbreaking scholar who "first coined intersectionality as a political framework" (Salon) For more than twenty years, scholars, activists, educators, and lawyers--inside and outside of the United States--have employed the concept of intersectionality both to describe problems of inequality and to fashion concrete solutions. In particular, as the Washington Post reported recently, "the term has been used by social activists as both a rallying cry for more expansive progressive movements and a chastisement for their limitations." Drawing on black feminist and critical legal theory, Kimberlé Crenshaw developed the concept of intersectionality, a term she coined to speak to the multiple social forces, social identities, and ideological instruments through which power and disadvantage are expressed and legitimized. In this comprehensive and accessible introduction to Crenshaw's work, readers will find key essays and articles that have defined the concept of intersectionality, collected together for the first time. The book includes a sweeping new introduction by Crenshaw as well as prefaces that contextualize each of the chapters. For anyone interested in movement politics and advocacy, or in racial justice and gender equity, On Intersectionality will be compulsory reading from one of the most brilliant theorists of our time.

Exploring scholarship, research, practice and activism on gender, feminist and queer studies, this edited collection examines, analyses and critiques the nature and causes of inequality, disadvantage and marginalisation faced by women, non-hegemonic and LGBTIQA+ identities who do not fit hegemonic notions of masculinity, femininity and heteronormativity. The chapters in this book critically analyse and challenge visible and invisible power relations, privilege and prejudice by problematising the artificial organisation of people into hierarchies that preference hegemonic masculinities, white and heteronormative identities. In questioning often unchallenged and legitimised inequality and disadvantage, this book locates itself in the juxtaposition where the lived experiences of individuals, activism, community participation, research and scholarship collide with mainstream, local, national and globalised culture and politics. Divided into four parts, this book provides a platform for interrogating how social change can occur in the current neoliberal political context of increasing conservatism.

The United States is known as a "melting pot" yet this mix tends to be volatile and contributes to a long history of oppression, racism, and bigotry. Emerging Intersections, an anthology of ten previously unpublished essays, looks at the problems of inequality and oppression from new angles and promotes intersectionality as an interpretive tool that can be utilized to better understand the ways in which race, class, gender, ethnicity, and other dimensions of difference shape our lives today. The book showcases innovative contributions that expand our understanding of how inequality affects people of color, demonstrates the ways public policies reinforce existing systems of inequality, and shows how research and teaching using an intersectional perspective compels scholars to become agents of change within institutions. By offering practical applications for using intersectional knowledge, Emerging Intersections will help bring us one step closer to achieving positive institutional change and social justice.

We live in a country where you can have Thai take-out ordered in while you lay warm under your Navajo-style blanket watching Bollywood musicals on Netflix. We are surrounded by other cultures that we also have a duty to protect. This volume is all about defining that responsibility and giving readers the tools to fulfill it. We must all learn to questions this cultural crime before it wipes out and whitewashes all of our differences away.

Will Racism ever end in America? Maybe, but if we only focus on the reduction of individual racism, like hate-speech and hate crimes, we will miss a huge piece of the puzzle. Many of the obstacles people of color face today are caused by the less-discussed concept of institutional racism. Institutional racism is the idea that many of our most powerful institutions promote oppression by targeting qualities that correlate with racial identity and disproportionately disadvantage people of color. We will not be successful in the fight against injustice until we reform all institutions that help it thrive. In this book, students will learn what institutional racism is, what areas of life are most impacted by it, and what movements are fighting for its eradication.

Check your privilege is a much-used phrase that's often met with defensiveness and even denial. Admitting to benefitting from the oppression of others is a painful truth. In this book, readers uncover truths about privilege and power that can help lead the productive conversations that are necessary to social justice education and beginning the work of accepting responsibility.