Karyn Lacy
Biographic Data
| ID | 227819 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Karyn Lacy |
| GIVEN NAMES | Karyn |
| FAMILY NAME | Lacy |
| SIGNATURE | LACY K |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Michigan |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 12 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 183 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 12 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2002 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
An Ugly Word
Blue-Chip Black
As Karyn R. Lacy's innovative work in the suburbs of Washington, DC, reveals, there is a continuum of middle-classness among blacks, ranging from lower-middle class to middle-middle class to upper-middle class. Focusing on the latter two, Lacy explores an increasingly important social and demographic group: middle-class blacks who live in middle-class suburbs where poor blacks are not present. These "blue-chip black" suburbanites earn well over f…
Problems, Puzzles, and the Production of Knowledge
We tend to think of the Census Bureau as merely a bean counter, but the institution performs another, less apparent, role: signaling which demographic shifts carry the most weight in society. Trump's insistence that the Census Bureau include a controversial citizenship question on the 2020 census would mark a decisive shift in the Bureau's ability to count unauthorized immigrants accurately and in the distribution of federal resources to communit…
The New Sociology of Suburbs
The majority of Americans live and work in suburbs, but the social problems arising in these communities are rarely studied by sociologists. Far more scholarly attention is devoted to understanding the distinctive character of urban communities. This review directs attention to three emerging trends affecting the nation's suburbs disproportionately: the suburbanization of poverty, the settlement of post-1965 immigrants in the suburbs, and the imp…
Education for Mobility or Status Reproduction?
Everyone is familiar with the popular phrase, “education levels the playing field.” However, does public schooling really provide opportunities for everyone who is willing to work hard to succeed? This essay examines the scholarly debate that has emerged around this long‐standing maxim. At one end of the continuum, scholars draw on the experiences of white ethnic immigrants to make the claim that education is the ticket to upward mobility for stu…
Introduction to the Symposium
Peer Reviewed
Race, privilege and the growing class divide
When Wilson argued back in 1978 that by the mid-twentieth century social class mattered more for getting ahead than race, he launched a rigorous scholarly debate about the relative importance of race and class that continues to this day. Since the 1970s, the gap between the black middle class and the black poor has widened, lending credibility to Wilson's claim, but also raising new research questions for scholars to ponder. In this essay, I sugg…
All's Fair? The Foreclosure Crisis and Middle-Class Black (In)Stability
Is the protracted foreclosure crisis eroding the Black middle class? Foreclosure rates in the United States have reached an all-time high. Blacks have been hit especially hard by this crisis. I focus here on intraclass distinctions within the Black middle class precisely because scholars and journalists so often fail to distinguish between the experiences of the Black lower middle class and those of middle and upper-class Blacks, leaving the unin…
Members Only
Blue-chip black
n "The George Gund Foundation imprint in African American studies"--Prelim. p.\n
Black spaces, black places
While white ethnics and immigrants of colour have been studied in terms of their attempts to assimilate into the American mainstream, sociologists assume that ongoing racial discrimination obviates the need for an extensive examination of the actual assimilation trajectories of middle-class blacks. Many middle-class blacks travel from the black to the white world rather than existing exclusively in one racially distinct environment. Yet, we do no…
A part of the neighbourhood?”
Compares race relations in two suburban communities in order to show that middle‐class blacks meet with some success when they temporarily exchange their racial identity for a class‐based identity. Collects data through ethnography and individual interview to examine the conditions under which middle‐class blacks construct and assert a sub‐urban identity. States that success varies with the racial composition of the suburban community and the whi…
Black spaces, black places
While white ethnics and immigrants of colour have been studied in terms of their attempts to assimilate into the American mainstream, sociologists assume that ongoing racial discrimination obviates the need for an extensive examination of the actual assimilation trajectories of middle-class blacks. Many middle-class blacks travel from the black to the white world rather than existing exclusively in one racially distinct environment. Yet, we do no…
The New Sociology of Suburbs
The majority of Americans live and work in suburbs, but the social problems arising in these communities are rarely studied by sociologists. Far more scholarly attention is devoted to understanding the distinctive character of urban communities. This review directs attention to three emerging trends affecting the nation's suburbs disproportionately: the suburbanization of poverty, the settlement of post-1965 immigrants in the suburbs, and the imp…
All's Fair? The Foreclosure Crisis and Middle-Class Black (In)Stability
Is the protracted foreclosure crisis eroding the Black middle class? Foreclosure rates in the United States have reached an all-time high. Blacks have been hit especially hard by this crisis. I focus here on intraclass distinctions within the Black middle class precisely because scholars and journalists so often fail to distinguish between the experiences of the Black lower middle class and those of middle and upper-class Blacks, leaving the unin…
A part of the neighbourhood?”
Compares race relations in two suburban communities in order to show that middle‐class blacks meet with some success when they temporarily exchange their racial identity for a class‐based identity. Collects data through ethnography and individual interview to examine the conditions under which middle‐class blacks construct and assert a sub‐urban identity. States that success varies with the racial composition of the suburban community and the whi…
Race, privilege and the growing class divide
When Wilson argued back in 1978 that by the mid-twentieth century social class mattered more for getting ahead than race, he launched a rigorous scholarly debate about the relative importance of race and class that continues to this day. Since the 1970s, the gap between the black middle class and the black poor has widened, lending credibility to Wilson's claim, but also raising new research questions for scholars to ponder. In this essay, I sugg…
Introduction to the Symposium
Peer Reviewed
A part of the neighbourhood?”
Compares race relations in two suburban communities in order to show that middle‐class blacks meet with some success when they temporarily exchange their racial identity for a class‐based identity. Collects data through ethnography and individual interview to examine the conditions under which middle‐class blacks construct and assert a sub‐urban identity. States that success varies with the racial composition of the suburban community and the whi…
Black spaces, black places
While white ethnics and immigrants of colour have been studied in terms of their attempts to assimilate into the American mainstream, sociologists assume that ongoing racial discrimination obviates the need for an extensive examination of the actual assimilation trajectories of middle-class blacks. Many middle-class blacks travel from the black to the white world rather than existing exclusively in one racially distinct environment. Yet, we do no…
Blue-chip black
n "The George Gund Foundation imprint in African American studies"--Prelim. p.\n
Members Only
All's Fair? The Foreclosure Crisis and Middle-Class Black (In)Stability
Is the protracted foreclosure crisis eroding the Black middle class? Foreclosure rates in the United States have reached an all-time high. Blacks have been hit especially hard by this crisis. I focus here on intraclass distinctions within the Black middle class precisely because scholars and journalists so often fail to distinguish between the experiences of the Black lower middle class and those of middle and upper-class Blacks, leaving the unin…
Education for Mobility or Status Reproduction?
Everyone is familiar with the popular phrase, “education levels the playing field.” However, does public schooling really provide opportunities for everyone who is willing to work hard to succeed? This essay examines the scholarly debate that has emerged around this long‐standing maxim. At one end of the continuum, scholars draw on the experiences of white ethnic immigrants to make the claim that education is the ticket to upward mobility for stu…
Introduction to the Symposium
Peer Reviewed
Race, privilege and the growing class divide
When Wilson argued back in 1978 that by the mid-twentieth century social class mattered more for getting ahead than race, he launched a rigorous scholarly debate about the relative importance of race and class that continues to this day. Since the 1970s, the gap between the black middle class and the black poor has widened, lending credibility to Wilson's claim, but also raising new research questions for scholars to ponder. In this essay, I sugg…
The New Sociology of Suburbs
The majority of Americans live and work in suburbs, but the social problems arising in these communities are rarely studied by sociologists. Far more scholarly attention is devoted to understanding the distinctive character of urban communities. This review directs attention to three emerging trends affecting the nation's suburbs disproportionately: the suburbanization of poverty, the settlement of post-1965 immigrants in the suburbs, and the imp…
Problems, Puzzles, and the Production of Knowledge
We tend to think of the Census Bureau as merely a bean counter, but the institution performs another, less apparent, role: signaling which demographic shifts carry the most weight in society. Trump's insistence that the Census Bureau include a controversial citizenship question on the 2020 census would mark a decisive shift in the Bureau's ability to count unauthorized immigrants accurately and in the distribution of federal resources to communit…
Blue-Chip Black
As Karyn R. Lacy's innovative work in the suburbs of Washington, DC, reveals, there is a continuum of middle-classness among blacks, ranging from lower-middle class to middle-middle class to upper-middle class. Focusing on the latter two, Lacy explores an increasingly important social and demographic group: middle-class blacks who live in middle-class suburbs where poor blacks are not present. These "blue-chip black" suburbanites earn well over f…
An Ugly Word
Political science (11 works) · Sociology (10 works) · Law (7 works) · Gender Studies (6 works) · Middle class (6 works) · Urban, Neighborhood, and Segregation Studies (6 works) · Law (5 works) · Social science (5 works) · Critical Race Theory in Education (4 works) · Computer Science (3 works)