Race and Class Matters at an Elite College

Elizabeth Aries

• Publisher: Temple University Press
• Year: 2008
• Print ISBN: 9781592137268, 9781592137251
• eBook ISBN: 9781592137275
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

In Race and Class Matters at an Elite College, Elizabeth Aries provides a rare glimpse into the challenges faced by black and white college students from widely different class backgrounds as they come to live together as freshmen. Based on an intensive study Aries conducted with 58 students at Amherst College during the 2005-2006 academic year, this book offers a uniquely personal look at the day-to-day thoughts and feelings of students as they experience racial and economic diversity firsthand, some for the first time.

Through online questionnaires and face-to-face interviews, Aries followed four groups of students throughout their first year of college: affluent whites, affluent blacks, less financially advantaged whites from families with more limited education, and less financially advantaged blacks from the same background. Drawing heavily on the voices of these freshmen, Aries chronicles what they learned from racial and class diversity—and what colleges might do to help their students learn more.

Table of contents

• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• 1 Becoming a More Diverse College: Challenges and Benefits
• 2 Investigating Race and Class Matters on Campus
• 3 First Encounters with Race and Class
• 4 Negotiating Class Differences
• 5 Relationships across Race and Class
• 6 Learning from Racial Diversity
• 7 Learning from Class- Based Diversity
• 8 Negotiating Racial Issues
• 9 As the Year Ended
• 10 Meeting the Challenges of Diversity
• Appendix A. On-Line Survey Measures
• Appendix B. Interview Questions
• Notes
• References
• Index