Carla Shedd on “Unequal City” at Book Culture (at West 112th Street)

Join us on Thursday, October 19th at 4pm for a discussion with Carla Shedd on her book, Unequal City: Race, Schools, and Perceptions of Injustice.

Unequal City: Race, Schools, and Perceptions of Injustice examines the ways in which Chicago’s most vulnerable residents navigate their neighborhoods, life opportunities, and encounters with the law. In this pioneering analysis of the intersection of race, place, and opportunity, sociologist and criminal justice expert Carla Shedd illuminates how schools either reinforce or ameliorate the social inequalities that shape the worlds of these adolescents. Shedd draws from an array of data and in-depth interviews with Chicago youth to offer new insight into this understudied group. Focusing on four public high schools with differing student bodies, Shedd reveals how the predominantly low-income African American students at one school encounter obstacles their more affluent, white counterparts on the other side of the city do not face.

Carla Shedd is Assistant Professor of Sociology and African American studies at Columbia University.