Another Kind of Public Education: Race, Schools, the Media, and Democratic Possibilities

From one of the nation’s leading sociologists and experts on race, here is a call for “another kind of public education”—one that opens up more possibilities for democracy, and more powerful modes of participation for young people of color. In this fiercely intelligent yet accessible book, Collins looks at the landscape of young people’s lives and of our public schools from the perspective of a sophisticated scholar of race. She shows us how public education is intimately entwined with and influenced by the media and by the continuing influence of institutional racism. Drawing examples from schools and the workplace, she explains the dynamics of institutional racism in a post–Civil Rights society in uncommonly clear and vivid ways. And she maps out the ways we all can fight it. She explores the ways that global media use images of young people to sell things and constrain their public identities, arguing that media literacy must be a key component of public education in the twenty-first century.Collins, a former public school teacher herself, gives us an ambitious book of social analysis that is also an energizing handbook for individuals looking to make a difference, especially with young people, especially in schools.