#2021BookChallenge: White Kids: Growing Up with Privilege in a Racially Divided America by Margaret A. Hagerman

White Kids: Growing Up with Privilege in a Racially Divided America by Margaret A. Hagerman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A few months back, a friend shared this article about Margaret Hagerman's book: https://getpocket.com/explore/item/ho.... After reading the article, I decided I needed to check it out. Hagerman takes a critical look at how white children growing up in affluent households develop their ideas about race and racism. In particular, Hagerman considers how the messages that parents overtly convey to their children influence (and do not) their children's views and the role of the "bundled choices" that parents make about their children's lives.

This book struck me on two levels: as a white, affluent parent raising two children in a progressive household and as an MLIS student currently looking at the research process. As a parent, I certainly recognized myself, my decisions, my children, my peers, both in ways that were reassuring and in ways that were uncomfortable. I appreciate Hagerman's efforts to clarify how parents can play a role in both reducing personal prejudice and also eliminating structural inequities. As a grad student, I appreciated Hagerman's clear information about her research process, theory, methodology, assumptions, and goals. In a way, the book is like a very long ethnographic research article, and reading it helped me understand how better to structure a research proposal.

I recommend this book to parents interested in expanding their understanding of racism, anti-racist work, and how we raise our children. If you appreciated the podcast, Nice White Parents, this book touches on similar themes. I also recommend it to graduate students looking for a better understanding of how qualitative research (and specifically ethnographic research) is conducted.

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