Cherise A. Harris – författare

Getting Real About Inequality is a contributed reader for undergraduate courses in Race/Class/Gender, Social Inequality, or the Social Construction of Difference and Inequality. It gives instructors in these courses a set of materials to help them moderate civil,  productive, and social science-based discussions with their students about social statuses and identities. Like the book it is modeled after, Getting Real About Race, it is organized around myths and stereotypes that students might already believe or be familiar with through the media or popular culture. A panel of expert contributors were enlisted to write short, accessible essays address the same questions (What is the myth or stereotype under investigation? How do we know that the myth or stereotype is widespread? What does the empirical data tell us?) and  provide the same pedagogical features (a summary of the research data, discussion questions, suggestions for further study, suggested activities and assignments). All of pieces in the book employ an intersectional perspective, to help students see the nuanced mechanisms of power and inequality that are often lost in everyday discourse.

Getting Real About Inequality is a contributed reader for undergraduate courses in Race/Class/Gender, Social Inequality, or the Social Construction of Difference and Inequality. It gives instructors in these courses a set of materials to help them moderate civil,  productive, and social science-based discussions with their students about social statuses and identities. Like the book it is modeled after, Getting Real About Race, it is organized around myths and stereotypes that students might already believe or be familiar with through the media or popular culture. A panel of expert contributors were enlisted to write short, accessible essays address the same questions (What is the myth or stereotype under investigation? How do we know that the myth or stereotype is widespread? What does the empirical data tell us?) and  provide the same pedagogical features (a summary of the research data, discussion questions, suggestions for further study, suggested activities and assignments). All of pieces in the book employ an intersectional perspective, to help students see the nuanced mechanisms of power and inequality that are often lost in everyday discourse.

The Cosby Cohort examines the childhood experiences of second generation middle class Blacks who grew up in mostly White spaces during the 1980s and 1990s. This probing book explores their journey to upward mobility, including the discrimination they faced in White neighborhoods and schools, the extraordinary pressures placed upon them to achieve, the racial lessons imparted to them by their parents, their tenuous relationships with Black children of other classes, and the impact that all of these experiences had on their adult racial identities. At young ages, this generation of middle class Blacks, whom Harris coins as the Cosby Cohort, was faced with racial displacement, frustration, and the ever-present pressure to emerge victorious against the pull of downward mobility. Even in adulthood, they continue to negotiate the tensions between upward mobility and maintaining ties to the larger Black community and culture. While these young Blacks may have grown up watching The Cosby Show, as the book reveals, their stories indicate a much more complex reality than portrayed by the show.

The Cosby Cohort examines the childhood experiences of second generation middle class Blacks who grew up in mostly White spaces during the 1980s and 1990s. This probing book explores their journey to upward mobility, including the discrimination they faced in White neighborhoods and schools, the extraordinary pressures placed upon them to achieve, the racial lessons imparted to them by their parents, their tenuous relationships with Black children of other classes, and the impact that all of these experiences had on their adult racial identities. At young ages, this generation of middle class Blacks, whom Harris coins as the Cosby Cohort, was faced with racial displacement, frustration, and the ever-present pressure to emerge victorious against the pull of downward mobility. Even in adulthood, they continue to negotiate the tensions between upward mobility and maintaining ties to the larger Black community and culture. While these young Blacks may have grown up watching The Cosby Show, as the book reveals, their stories indicate a much more complex reality than portrayed by the show.

The Cosby Cohort examines the childhood experiences of second generation middle class Blacks who grew up in mostly White spaces during the 1980s and 1990s. This probing book explores their journey to upward mobility, including the discrimination they faced in White neighborhoods and schools, the extraordinary pressures placed upon them to achieve, the racial lessons imparted to them by their parents, their tenuous relationships with Black children of other classes, and the impact that all of these experiences had on their adult racial identities. At young ages, this generation of middle class Blacks, whom Harris coins as the Cosby Cohort, was faced with racial displacement, frustration, and the ever-present pressure to emerge victorious against the pull of downward mobility. Even in adulthood, they continue to negotiate the tensions between upward mobility and maintaining ties to the larger Black community and culture. While these young Blacks may have grown up watching The Cosby Show, as the book reveals, their stories indicate a much more complex reality than portrayed by the show.