Judith Blau has held many research appointments including: Project Director from 2000-04 for Researching Adolescent Pathways (RAP) (used for her book Race in the Schools: Perpetuating White Dominance? (Lynne Reinner, 2003)) and her current position as fellow at Odum Institute for Research in Social Science. In 1997 Blau became a Gillian T. Cell Distinguished University Professor which honors professors for their excellence in undergraduate teaching. Blau’s interests include: sociology of art, sociology of education and diasporas, which was the theme for 2006 Southern Sociological Society Meetings. Some of her publications include: Architects and Firms: A Sociological Perspective (The MIT Press, 1984), Social Contracts and Economic Markets (Plenum Press, 1993), Race in the Schools: Perpetuating White Dominance? (Lynne Rienner, 2003), “Alley Art: Can We…See…at Last, The End of Ontology?” (Kluwer/Plenum Press, 2001), and “Du Bois and Diasporic Identity: The Veil and the Unveiling Project” (with Eric S. Brown). Her more recent research has contributed to the series of books written with Alberto Moncada: Human Rights: Beyond the Liberal Vision (Rowman & Littlefield, 2005) Justice in the United States: Human Rights and the U.S. Constitution (In press with Rowman & Littlefield, forthcoming), and Freedoms and Solidarities: We Humans (Rowman & Littlefield, under contract).
Spotlight on Blau’s Work:
Race in the Schools: Perpetuating White Dominance? (Lynne Reinner, 2003)
In Race in the Schools was a collaborative effort by Judith Blau, Elizabeth Sterns, and other to frame the relationship between white and black students in the United States and conclude that liberalism is one of the problems linked to this relationship. The group of students Blau chose to study came from 30 of the largest metropolitan areas and began high school in the mid-1990s. She followed these students as they went to college (or not) up until they reached their mid-20s. To understand why whites and blacks are seen so differently she underlines the historical context of their relationship and notes that these individuals “were born a decade after Congress affirmed blacks’ legal rights under the Civil Rights Act of 1964” (2). She chose this particular group to highlight segregation in schools that still contributed white dominance. The data she uses in her research was acquired from the National Education Longitudinal Study (NELS) and the High School Effectiveness Study (HSES). She chose the NELS because of its broad scope of information and its quality of relevance. The HSES was chosen because it provides research on students from inner-cities and suburban areas. Blau concludes that “the best single indicator of children’s vulnerability is the color of their skin” (203). Specifically that white children have more advantages than black children and that white Americans are color-blind. She also concludes that white Americans will never be able to understand racism because they have never experienced it and the only way to understand it is to ask black Americans what it is like to live a life that is full of racial hatred toward them.
Though reviews of the book widely accepted what Blau had to say about white and black students, one review “found that the book was frequently in danger of depicting blacks in the United States as one homogeneous, monolithic social group and whites in the United States as another (Plank 338). This same reviewer was not completely convinced of the conclusions Blau drew upon, specifically that “race relations harm white youths just as surely as they hurt young persons of color” (Plank 338). He claimed that he would have accepted the conclusions had the “balance sheet” been more comprehensive.
Resources:
Blau, Judith. “Alley Art: Can We…See…at Last the End of Ontology?” ed. Jonathan Turner, Handbook of Sociological Theory. New York: Kluwer/Plenum Press, 2001. (pp. 187-208).
Blau, Judith R. Architects and Firms: A Sociological Perspective. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1984.
Blau, Judith R. “Curriculum Vitae.” January 2006. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. 14 Febraury 2007 http://www.unc.edu/~jrblau/CV-2006vnw.pdf
Blau, Judith R. Race in the Schools: Perpetuating White Dominance? Boulder, CO: Lynne Reinner, 2003.
Blau, Judith R. Social Contracts and Economic Markets. New York: Plenum, 1993.
Blau, Judith R. and Alberto Moncada, Justice in the United States: Human Rights and the U.S. Constitution (In press with Rowman & Littlefield, forthcoming).
Blau, Judith R. and Alberto Moncada, Freedoms and Solidarities: We Humans (Rowman & Littlefield, under contract).
Blau, Judith R. and Alberto Moncada, Human Rights: Beyond the Liberal Vision. Lanham, MA: Rowman & Littlefield, 2005.
Freymeyer, Bob ed. “The Southern Sociologist.” Vol. 37 Number 1. Spring/Summer 2005. The Southern Sociological Society. 14 February 2007 http://www.msstate.edu/org/sss/tss/2005-2006/spring2005.pdf
“The Gillian T. Cell Professorship For Excellence In Undergraduate Teaching.” University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. 14 Febraury 2007 http://carolinafirst.unc.edu/distprofs/cell.htm
Plank, Stephen B. “Review: Race in the Schools: Perpetuating White Dominance?” The American Journal of Sociology. Vol.111, Iss. 1; pg. 337. Chicago: Jul 2005.
“Social Science Researchers at UNC-Chapel Hill.” Odum Institute for Research in Social Science. 14 February 2007 http://www.irss.unc.edu/odum/jsp/content_node.jsp?nodeid=123
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