In light of recent and ongoing efforts to eliminate the consideration of race in college admissions, there is renewed interest in understanding why African Americans and Latinos earn lower grades and drop out of college at higher rates than whites and Asians, even after accounting for differences in socioeconomic background, preparation, and ability. This course surveys competing explanations for racial-group differences in collegiate outcomes, and the potential consequences for 1) equal access to and achievement in higher education, 2) upward social mobility, and 3) intergroup relations more generally. Specifically, we will examine similarities and differences in the lives of students both prior to entering college, as well as their experiences during the first two years of attending 28 selective colleges and universities. We will also pay particular attention to the diversity of the Black student population with regard to social class background, national origin, and racial heritage.

Camille Zubrinsky Charles is Edmund J. and Louise W. Kahn Term Professor in the Social Sciences and Professor of Sociology and Education at the University of Pennsylvania. She is author of Won't You Be My Neighbor: Race, Class and Residence in Los Angeles (Russell Sage, Fall 2006), which class- and race-based explanations for persisting residential segregation by race. She is also co-author of The Source of the River: The Social Origins of Freshmen at America's Selective Colleges and Universities (Princeton University Press, 2003). More recently, she is co-author of Taming the River: Negotiating the Academic, Financial, and Social Currents in Selective Colleges and Universities (Princeton University Press, 2009), the second in a series based on The National Longitudinal Survey of Freshmen, and "Race in the American Mind: From the Moynihan Report to the Obama Candidacy". She is also nearing completion of a sole-authored book on Black racial identity in the United States, tentatively titled, The New Black: Race Conscious or Post-Racial? Professor Charles earned her Ph.D. in 1996 from the University of California, Los Angeles, where she was a project manager for the 1992-1994 Multi-City Study of Urban Inequality. Her research interests are in the areas of urban inequality, racial attitudes and intergroup relations, racial residential segregation, minorities in higher education, and racial identity; her work has appeared in Social Forces, Social Problems, Social Science Research, The DuBois Review, the American Journal of Education and the Annual Review of Sociology.