White Kids: Growing Up with Privilege in a Racially Divided America

by Margaret A. Hagerman

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781479879076
Publisher:	New York University Press
Publication date:	09/04/2018
Series:	Critical Perspectives on Youth , #1
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	280
Sales rank:	942,061
File size:	986 KB

About the Author

Margaret A. Hagerman is Associate Professor of Sociology and Faculty Affiliate in African American Studies and Gender Studies at Mississippi State University. She is the author of White Kids: Growing Up with Privilege in a Racially Divided America which won the William J. Goode Book Award given by the American Sociological Association’s Section on Family.
Margaret A. Hagerman is Associate Professor of Sociology and Faculty Affiliate in African American Studies and Gender Studies at Mississippi State University. She is the author of White Kids: Growing Up with Privilege in a Racially Divided America which won the William J. Goode Book Award given by the American Sociological Association’s Section on Family and was a Finalist for the C. Wright Mills Award from the Society for the Study of Social Problems.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

1 "Race Really Doesn't Matter Anymore": Growing Up with Privilege 9

2 "The Perfect Place to Live": Choosing Schools and Neighborhoods 24

3 "Were Not a Racial School": Being a Private School Kid 64

4 "That's So Racist!": Interacting with Peers and Siblings 96

5 "Everybody Is White": Volunteering and Vacationing 124

6 "Shaking Those Ghetto Booties": Family Race Talk 141

7 "It Was Racism": White Kids on Race 161

Conclusion: Four Years Later 197

Acknowledgments 211

Appendix A Methodology 215

Appendix B Child Participants 223

Notes 225

References 235

Index 249

About the Author 261

Editorial Reviews

09/01/2018
Hagerman (sociology, Mississippi State Univ.) offers a fascinating glimpse into the understudied world of affluent white American children's conceptions of race and racism. This study draws on ethnographic research conducted with 36 children ages ten to 13 and their immediate families. Hagerman selected families from three distinct neighborhoods in a Midwest metropolitan area she calls Petersfield: a wealthy suburb, a well-to-do city neighborhood, and a community with the reputation for being social-justice oriented. After introducing the families and their communities, Hagerman focuses on four specific sites of race learning: schools, peers, travel, and family. The final chapter revisits the young participants' articulations of race and racism, and the conclusion catches up with them four years after the initial interviews. Despite the author's welcome emphasis on children's agency in the creation of their own racial understandings, Hagerman never fully extricates her study from the long shadow of parental decision making; her conclusion that even children who attempt (albeit often in youthful ways) to address injustice are ineffectual seems premature. Still, this study provides rich data for further analysis and reflection. VERDICT A crucial examination of the intimate family practices by which structural privilege is passed from generation to generation.—Anna J. Clutterbuck-Cook, Massachusetts Historical Soc.

Library Journal

"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

"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. Hagerman's book deserves to be read widely as it is a sociological gem! -Eduardo Bonilla"

Author of Racism Without Racists Silva

"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

"Margaret Hagerman's White Kids brings 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

"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

"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

"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!"

Racism Without Racists - Eduardo Bonilla Silva

"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!"

Racism Without Racists

"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."

Foreword 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."

Fast Food Kids: French Fries

"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."

Working-Class White: The Making and Unmaking of Race Relations

"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"

From the Publisher

Hagerman's qualitative study of white upper-middle class families and how they engage or disengage from their white privilege comes across as earnest and thought provoking in Tavia Gilbert's well-balanced narration. Gilbert's pacing and emphasis enhance Hagerman's cultural context and critical insight so that even listeners unfamiliar with white privilege and how it operates can make sense of what Hagerman is finding in her study. Gilbert create distinct voices for the quotes from parents and children that make it clear that these deviations from Hagerman's narrative. In total, her narration will make Hagerman’s prose all the more palpable and useful to parents who are trying to navigate their children’s experiences of privilege and racial identity in American society. L.E. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine

MAY 2019 - AudioFile

2018-06-18
A sociologist examines how affluent white children think about race.Hagerman (Sociology/Mississippi State Univ.) spent two years immersed with 30 privileged white Midwestern families to produce this timely ethnographic study. "Race shapes the lives of everyone in the United States," writes the author, "whether people believe this to be true or not." Her assertion is borne out in these interviews with 36 children (ages 10-13) and their parents, who "design" their kids' social environments (neighborhoods, schools, etc.), shaping their interactions with and attitudes toward other races. She finds that these children "think about race and class inequality differently" depending on family experiences and daily interactions. Hagerman's writing is scholarly and sometimes stodgy, but she provides revealing portraits: The Schultz parents think that "if ‘they' could behave exactly like ‘us,' we would welcome them"; Victoria and Ryan Chablis believe "current racial inequalities are the fault of people of color"; and the "well-meaning" Norbrooks, who keep their children in public school, "fail to acknowledge inequality and racism…[and] are unintentionally complicit in the reproduction of it." Children, generally racially aware, often think for themselves: "Sometimes my mom is racist and tries to pretend like she isn't," says one 12-year-old girl. Yet while critical of racial inequality, the kids "believe they are better and more deserving than everyone else." Hagerman is especially good on the "conundrum of privilege." These families often want diversity but "choose to opt out of diverse spaces," giving children the benefits of their wealth with all-white dance lessons and vacations. The ironies abound: "While some parents of black children are teaching their kids how to navigate racism to stay alive, some parents of white children are teaching their kids that race no longer matters in the United States." The author concludes that white parents can fight racism "by rejecting the idea that their own child is more innocent and special and deserving," but individual choices may not matter much "as long as structural inequality persists."A complex and nuanced academic book.

Kirkus Reviews