How Real Is Race?

Carol C. Mukhopadhyay (professor emerita of anthropology, San Jose State University) has 40 years of experience teaching, consulting, researching, and publishing on issues of cultural diversity and education related to race, ethnicity and gender, in both the United States and India. She is a key advisor for the American Anthropological Association's public information project, RACE. Rosemary Henze (professor of linguistics and language development, San Jose State University) has a background in education, anthropology, and linguistics, and has been an ESL teacher. She worked with K-12 schools for 14 years as a consultant, researcher, and curriculum designer on bilingual, multicultural, and antiracist education and has researched education in Greece, Alaska, Hawaii, and Nicaragua. Yolanda T. Moses (professor of anthropology and Associate Vice Chancellor for Excellence, Diversity and Equity, University of California, Riverside) has spent more than 25 years researching, writing, and teaching in the United States, the Caribbean, South Africa, and Brazil. She has held national leadership roles in the American Anthropological Association, City College of New York (CUNY), and American Association of Higher Education and chairs the National Advisory Board for the American Anthropological Association's Understanding Race and Human Variation project (RACE).

This book offers educators at all levels a valuable biocultural perspective on race and diversity, and can serve as a resource to enhance curriculum and pedagogy. Distinguished by its biocultural approach integrating race-related research and scholarship from biological, cultural, linguistic, and archaeological perspectives, it is intended for educators at precollege and college levels, especially for teacher education courses, and can serve as a general sourcebook for cultural diversity workshops. It is also appropriate for any reader seeking a better understanding of the concept of race and human variation. New to this edition (1st ed., 2007) is a greater emphasis on how racial identities are dynamic, negotiated, and culturally defined. The book is organized in four sections. The first questions whether racial classification is biologically valid. The second explores the concept of race as a social construct, and the third uses everyday realities of school and college to explore the way racial ideologies operate in educational settings from both student and educator perspectives. The final section presents practical applications for educators, providing a list of references, website resources, and examples of suggested activities relating to topics covered in the book. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All levels/libraries.

• Foreword by James A. BanksAcknowledgmentsIntroductionPart 1: The Fallacy of Race as BiologyIntroduction to Part 11 Why Contemporary Races Are Not Scientifically Valid2 Human Biological Variation: What We Don’t See3 If Not Race, How Do We Explain Biological Differences?4 More Alike Than Different, More Different Than AlikePart 2: Culture Creates RaceIntroduction to Part 25 Culture Shapes How We Experience Reality6 Culture and Classification: Race Is Culturally Real7 Race and Inequality: Race as a Social Invention to Achieve Certain Goals8 Cross-Cultural Overview of Race9 If Race Doesn’t Exist, What Are We Seeing? Sex, Mating, and RacePart 3: Race and Hot-Button Issues in SchoolsIntroduction to Part 310 When is it racism? Who is a racist? 11 The Academic Achievement Gap and Equity12 Assemblies, Clubs, Slurs, and Racial Labels13 Interracial Flirting and Dating in SchoolsPart 4: ResourcesReferencesKey Websites (Annotated)List of ActivitiesIndexAbout the AuthorsEndorsements