Theorizing Discrimination in an Era of Contested Prejudice: Discrimination in the United States

by Samuel Lucas

Overview

In this landmark work, Samuel Lucas shows how discrimination is not simply an action that one person performs in relation to another individual, but something far more insidious: a pervasive dynamic that permeates the environment in which we live and work.

Lucas makes a clear distinction between prejudice and discrimination. He maintains that when an era of "condoned exploitation" ended, the era of "contested prejudice," as he terms it, began. Drawing on critical race theory, feminist theory, and a critique of dominant perspectives in the social sciences and law, Lucas offers a new understanding of racial and sexual discrimination that can guide our actions and laws into a more just future.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781592139132
Publisher:	Temple University Press
Publication date:	08/15/2009
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	296
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Samuel Roundfield Lucas is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author of Tracking Inequality: Stratification and Mobility in American High Schools and a co-author of Inequality By Design: Cracking the Bell Curve Myth.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements 
Introduction: Evidently 
1. Discrimination in the Era of Contested Prejudice: Fundamental Bases 
2. Experimental Realities and Public Contestation 
3. From Condoned Exploitive Relations to the Era of Contested Prejudice 
4. Defining, Finding, and Remedying Discrimination: Dominant Legal Perspectives 
5. Defining, Finding, and Remedying Discrimination: Critical Legal Perspectives and the Critique of the Dominant Legal View 
6. Defining Discrimination Effects: An Asocial Scientific Method 
7. Discrimination as a (Damaged) Social Relation 
8. Epistemological Foundations for Studying Effects of Discrimination as a Social Relation 
9. Theorizing Discrimination in an Era of Contested Prejudice 
Appendix A: Commentary on Methods of Data Analysis for Chapter 2 
Appendix B:Commentary on Simulations for Chapter 5 
Reference 
Index

Editorial Reviews

"Brilliant and fascinating...one of the smartest social science books I can recall reading." 
—Barbara Reskin, University of Washington

"An erudite, confident, clearly written and valuable contribution to an important subject." 
—John Skrentny, University of California, San Diego

"In this original and aggressively probing book, Lucas presses deeply into traditional social science understandings of prejudice and discrimination, showing the limiting character of these too-individualistic tools in conventional survey and legal analysis. Assessing the societal shift from overt exploitation to an era of ‘contested prejudice,’ yet one where discrimination remains pervasive, Lucas shows that social scientists must better theorize social contexts and the highly relational (often damaged) character of racial/gender relations. The goal is much more convincing social science understandings of these still-pervasive societal barriers." 
—Joe R. Feagin, Ella C. McFadden Professor of Liberal Arts, Texas A & M University, and author of Systemic Racism: A Theory of Oppression

From the Publisher