What accounts for persistent racial inequality in the 21st century? While many studies detail the causes and consequences of racial inequities, few analyse the mechanisms reproducing structures of inequality. When Race Meets Class asks how lived experiences, at the micro level, shed light on the macro structures of racial inequality? A rare, ten-year ethnography, this book follows the lives of individual, low-income African American youth from the beginning of high school into early adulthood. Levine shows how their interaction and experience with multiple individuals and social institutions shapes their hopes, fears, aspirations, and world views. The intersectionality of their social identities-how race, class, and gender come together to influence how they come to think about who they are-influences many behaviours that directly contradict their stated aspirations. Levine explores the volatility and constraints underlying their decision making and behaviours.
The book reveals the critical junctures and turning points shaping life trajectories, challenging many long-held assumptions about the persistence of racial inequality by offering new insights on the educational and occupational barriers facing young African Americans.