Blog Archives

Beyond School-to-Prison Pipeline and Toward an Educational and Penal Realism

Much scholarly attention has been paid to the school-to-prison pipeline and the sanitized discourse of “death by education,” called the achievement gap. Additionally, there exists a longstanding discourse surrounding the alleged crisis of educational failure. This article offers no solutions to the crisis and suggests instead that the system is functioning as it was intended—to disenfranchise many (predominately people of color) for the benefit of some (mostly white), based on economic principals of the free market. We begin by tracing the economic interests of prisons and the prison industrial complex, juxtaposing considerations of what we call the “educational reform industrial complex.” With a baseline in the economic interests of school failure and prison proliferation, we draw on the critical race theory concept of racial realism, to work toward a theory of educational and penal realism. Specifically, we outline seven working tenets of educational and penal realism that provide promise in redirecting the discourse about schools and prisons empowering those interested in critically engaging issues of racism that permeate U.S. orientations to education and justice.

Debt to Society: Asset Poverty and Prisoner Reentry

Every year, millions of people exit American jails and prisons and attempt to reintegrate into society. Ex-offenders face many obstacles during the transition. Scholars contend that securing employment is central to a successful transition. A job that allows an ex-offender to earn an income above the poverty line is especially significant, recent studies have shown. Consequently, many prisoner reentry initiatives are focused on expanding employment opportunities for ex-offenders. However, the almost exclusive emphasis on employment as the measurement of economic well-being is short-sighted because it ignores the importance of financial education and asset ownership. Prisoner reentry programs should include an emphasis on financial education in addition to an emphasis on employment as a means of reducing recidivism rates and improving the economic well-being of the ex-offenders and receiving communities. The paper concludes with a discussion of policy implications.

Cashing in on the American Dream: Racial Differences in Housing Values 1970–2000

Home ownership represents much more than shelter; home ownership is also indicative of an individual’s or a group’s social and economic standing. Racial and ethnic differences have been observed not only in home ownership but also in housing values. The present study examines the extent to which differences in housing values between Asians, blacks, Hispanics and whites, and among black ethnic groups, can be attributed to race and ethnicity or to other sociological factors such as age, gender, marital status, region, occupational score, nativity, year of immigration and English proficiency. Changes in the determinants of housing values between 1970 and 2000 are assessed over time as well as changes in the level of inequality on housing values between whites and non‐whites. The findings reveal that the housing gap between whites and non‐whites over the past few decades has actually grown over time. As home values make up the largest component of the average American’s portfolio, these findings may be significant in understanding and explaining the persistence of the racial wealth gap in America.

Black asset ownership: Does ethnicity matter?

Research has shown that blacks are relatively disadvantaged when compared with whites on a host of sociological indicators including on income, education and occupational status. Recent research has shown blacks are not all equally disadvantaged. In some cases such as in the case of blacks in Queens County, New York, blacks surpass whites in terms of median income, especially foreign-born blacks. Yet, blacks fare worse when compared with whites on indicators of asset ownership. Despite that, some black ethnic groups including those with roots in the Caribbean or from Africa have been shown to have higher rates of home ownership and higher housing values than African-Americans. However, few studies include measures of asset ownership beyond these indicators when assessing the extent to which ethnicity matters for blacks. The present study examines the following research questions: (1) What factors explain variations in the likelihood of ownership and the levels of interest, dividends and rental income owned for blacks? (2) Is ethnicity a significant predictor for black respondents? (3) Does education and occupation matter more for some black ethnic groups than for others? The findings reveal that ethnicity plays a significant role in the acquisition and accumulation of interest, dividends and rental income, but it does not account for all of the variations observed for blacks. The findings shed further light on the complexities associated with understanding wealth inequality and racial and ethnic group variations.

A home of her own: an analysis of asset ownership for non-married black and white women

Race and gender are strong predictors of asset ownership including home ownership, self-employment and interest, dividends and rental income. Yet, seldom have the two concepts been linked in the socio-logical literature on wealth inequality. Additionally, potentially important determinants such as business income have often times been excluded from the analyses despite findings suggesting that business income may be an important indicator for racial and minority groups who would otherwise be regulated to employment in low status jobs in the secondary labor market.