Sociology

An all-too-popular explanation for why black students aren't doing better in school is their own use of the “acting white” slur to ridicule fellow blacks for taking advanced classes, doing schoolwork, and striving to earn high grades. Carefully reconsidering how and why black students have come to equate school success with whiteness, this book argues that when students understand race to be connected with achievement, it is a powerful lesson conveyed by schools, not their peers. Drawing on over ten years of ethnographic research, the book shows how equating school success with “acting white” arose in the aftermath of Brown v. Board of Education through the practice of curriculum tracking, which separates students for instruction, ostensibly by ability and prior achievement. Only in very specific circumstances, when black students are drastically underrepresented in advanced and gifted classes, do anxieties about “the burden of acting white” emerge. Racialized tracking continues to define the typical American secondary school, but it goes unremarked, except by the young people who experience its costs and consequences daily. The narratives in this book throw light on the complex relationships underlying school behaviors and convincingly demonstrate that the problem lies not with students, but instead with how America organizes its schools.

This book takes a comprehensive look at the Kamar tribe, an aboriginal tribe located within the Central Province (present day Chhattisgarh) of India. It presents an anthropological monograph on the tribe, starting with a basic description of its location, population, and organization. The rest of the book is devoted to several aspects of the Kamar culture, including tribal law, its myths and rituals, attitudes towards marriage and sex, and religious ceremonies and rituals. The final part of the book focuses on the various changes that have occurred within the Kamar tribe due to the influences of other castes, tribes, and cultures. In order to clearly demonstrate the tribal organization, physical appearance, and sources of livelihood of the Kamars, several photographs and illustrations have been provided throughout the book.

How can we help African American and Latino students perform better in the classroom and on exams? Why are so many African American and Latino students performing less well than their Asian and White peers? Researchers have argued that African American and Latino students who rebel against “acting white” doom themselves to lower levels of scholastic, economic, and social achievement. However, this book argues that what is needed is a broader recognition of the unique cultural styles and practices that non-white students bring to the classroom. Based on extensive interviews and surveys of students in New York, the book demonstrates that the most successful negotiators of the American school systems are the multicultural navigators, culturally savvy teens who draw from multiple traditions, whether it be knowledge of hip hop or of classical music, to achieve their high ambitions. The book refutes the common wisdom about teenage behavior and racial difference, and shows how intercultural communication, rather than assimilation, can help close the black-white gap.

In the 1960s, on the heels of the Brown decision and in the midst of the Civil Rights Movement, Ku Klux Klan activity boomed, reaching an intensity not seen since the 1920s, when KKK membership extended into the millions. Surprisingly, the state with the largest Klan membership—more than the rest of the South combined—was North Carolina, a supposed bastion of southern-style progressivism. Klansville, U.S.A. documents and explains the civil rights-era KKK's astounding rise and fall, by focusing on the under-explored case of the United Klans of America (UKA) in North Carolina. Like its contemporaries in the Deep South, the massive Carolina Klan engaged in secretive campaigns of terror and intimidation, but also developed a strong public presence, spreading its message and supporting its members at massive nightly rallies, afternoon street walks, weekend church services and turkey shoots, and through local radio shows and roadside billboards. The UKA's successes in the Tar Heel State provide a window into the complex appeal of the KKK as a whole, demonstrating how the Klan organized most successfully where whites perceived civil rights reforms to be a significant threat to their status, where mainstream outlets for segregationist resistance were lacking, and where the policing of the Klan's activities was lax. By connecting the KKK to the more mainstream segregationist and anti-communist groups across the South, this book offers new insight into southern conservatism, resistance to civil rights, and the region's subsequent dramatic shift to the Republican Party—shedding new light on organized racism and on how political extremism can intersect with mainstream institutions and ideals.

This book introduces some of the enduring features of modernity which are often overlaid and hidden from view because of contemporaneous diachronies, or the coexistence of different temporal rhythms. The difference between ethical anonymity and morality is discussed. It illustrates how taste can attain the character of intersubjectivity by moving away decisively from past orientations to style. In addition, it describes the possible transformation of nation-states to knowledge-states. Then, several ways by which the intersubjective rationality conveys itself in modern societies and why it is essential to intentionally interfere to advance its cause are explained. Furthermore, it is indicated that the creation of a ‘minimum set of resemblances’ among citizens cannot be settled by poverty considerations.

This book reconstructs the subjective interpretation of school life as perceived by teachers and pupils at Rishi Valley School (in Andhra Pradesh, India) which is often considered the hallmark of progressive education. It argues that the individual is significant to the schooling process in terms of the worlds that are created, managed, negotiated, contested, and developed. It also contends that the school's ‘ideology’, in the case of Rishi Valley, is especially explicit in underlining how the individual catalyses the transformation of the social world. The book explores the dilemmas and contradictions in the functioning of the transcendental and local orders in the everyday life of the school, and cites the fact that the students and teachers learn to negotiate their way through these contradictions and the conflict they may generate. It also considers the significant relations between philosopher Jiddu Krishnamurti's ideas and the institutions that seek to implement them. The Rishi Valley School is one such institution in India, with a dynamic character which is reflected in its ability to engage in a continuous process of transformation. The book also discusses ideology and education, school organization, school culture (rituals and ceremonies), teacher culture, formal and informal interaction between teachers, pupil culture, and freedom and constraint in teacher-pupil interaction.

5.4 million Americans—one in every forty voting age adults—are denied the right to participate in democratic elections because of a past or current felony conviction. In several American states, one in four black men cannot vote due to a felony conviction. In a country that prides itself on universal suffrage, how did the United States come to deny a voice to such a large percentage of its citizenry? What are the consequences of large-scale disenfranchisement—both for election outcomes, and for public policy more generally? This book exposes one of the most important, yet little known, threats to the health of American democracy today. It reveals the centrality of racial factors in the origins of these laws, and their impact on politics today. Marshalling the first real empirical evidence on the issue to make a case for reform, this analysis informs all future policy and political debates on the laws governing the political rights of criminals.

In 2004, the first United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government of India created a National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganised Sector (NCEUS) to review the country’s informal economy in general and to improve the plight of poor workers in particular. The result was a series of reports highlighting the problems of the labouring poor with regards to livelihood security. Some of the Commission’s major findings are: 86 per cent of the total number of workers are in the informal sector, self-employment and casual labor are the most common forms of employment in India, and almost 80 per cent of the informal sector workers belong to households that are poor and vulnerable. The Indian government promptly enacted two major social security laws: the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) of 2005 and the Unorganized Workers Social Security Act (UWSSA) of 2008. This book examines the impact of NREGA and UWSSA at the national level, focusing on the social security schemes designed for workers in the informal economy. It reviews the implementation of NREGA and the national health insurance scheme known as Rashtriya Swasthaya Bima Yojana (RSBY), as well as the functioning of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) and the Rajiv Aarogyasri Community Health Insurance Scheme in Andhra Pradesh. Aside from Andhra Pradesh, the book also presents case studies of the functioning of social security schemes in Kerala, Gujarat, Odisha, and Punjab.

Relying on previously undisclosed confessions of former mafia members now cooperating with the police, this book provides a clinically accurate portrait of mafia behavior, motivations, and structure in Italy. It shows that the mafia are essentially multifunctional ritual brotherhoods focused above all on retaining and consolidating their local political power base. An interdisciplinary work of history, politics, economics, and sociology, the book reveals in detail the true face of one of the world's most mythologized criminal organizations.

The United Kingdom has more than 4.2 million public closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras—one for every fourteen citizens. Across the United States, hundreds of video-surveillance systems are being installed in town centers, public transportation facilities, and schools at a cost exceeding $100 million annually, and now other Western countries have begun to experiment with CCTV to prevent crime in public places. In light of this expansion and the associated public expenditure, as well as pressing concerns about privacy rights, there is an acute need for an evidence-based approach to inform policy and practice. This book assesses the effectiveness and social costs of not only CCTV, but also other surveillance methods to prevent crime in public space, such as improved street lighting, security guards, place managers, and defensible space. It goes beyond the question of “Does it work?” and examines the specific conditions and contexts under which these methods may have an effect on crime as well as the mechanisms that bring about a reduction in crime. At a time when cities need cost-effective methods to fight crime and the public gradually awakens to the burdens of sacrificing their privacy and civil rights for security, the authors provide this guide to the most effective and non-invasive uses of surveillance to make public places safer from crime.