Race, Work, and Family in the Lives of African Americans - by Marlese Durr & Shirley A Hill (Paperback)

About the Book

Family and work are major, integrally related dimensions of social life which affect the well-being and success of family members. As social institutions, family and work are also avenues where social inequality may be understood as a major element in the distribution of socia...

Book Synopsis

Family and work are major, integrally related dimensions of social life which affect the well-being and success of family members. As social institutions, family and work are also avenues where social inequality may be understood as a major element in the distribution of social, cultural, and economic resources and sites where inequality is perpetuated, negotiated, and contested. In this book, editors Durr and Hill focus on African Americans, navigating the terrain of race, work, and family, and examining persistent barriers to equality and ways in which Blacks have sought to become an integral part of the American economy.

Review Quotes

A superb collection of articles that examine African American work and family life from an intersectional perspective. By linking the structural aspects of racial discrimination, gendering, and economic stratification to two main areas of social life, Durr and Hill fast-forward the ideas of complex inequality into the 21st century.

Durr and Hill have pulled together twelve thought-provoking essays that clarify and explain the sometimes complicated world of the African American worker...this volume is a valuable contribution to African American Studies and the sociology of the black experience.

This collection is unique in its focus on the contemporary work-family nexus among African Americans. Durr and Hill's selections move us beyond earlier scholarship that focused on de-pathologizing family roles only for Black women and improving job opportunities only for Black men. The strength of this collection is its demonstration of how gender, class, and race interactions simultaneously affect work and family for African Americans.

About the Author

Marlese Durr is associate professor of sociology at Wright State University. She is the author of The New Politics of Race: From Du Bois to the 21st Century. Shirley A. Hill is professor of sociology at the University of Kansas. She is the author of numerous books including, most recently, Black Intimacies: A Gender Perspective on Families and Relationships.