Carl L Bankston
I began my academic work in sociology as a result of experiences in a previous career. From 1985 until 1990, I worked as a supervisor in the Philippine Refugee Processing Center on the Bataan Peninsula in the Philippines. At PRPC, we were preparing refugees from Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos for resettlement in the United States. After returning to the United States, I enrolled in a doctoral program in order to look at the consequences of sending thousands of people around the world. I wanted to see how the program of refugee resettlement had affected both the refugees and their host country. My second book, Growing Up American: How Vietnamese Children Adapt to Life in the United States (with Min Zhou, 1998) grew out of this inquiry.
Immigration has continued to be one of my major interests and I have worked on range of projects related to immigrant issues, but the study of Vietnamese children in American schools also led me to develop interests in questions of racial and ethnic identification and in sociology of education. As a native Louisianian, I was curious about the ethnic identifications of my own place of birth, as well as those of people who had recently come from distant lands. I worked on topics relating to Louisiana Cajuns and Creoles pursuing this line of inquiry. A series of journal articles led to the development of a book, Blue Collar Bayou: Louisiana Cajuns in the New Economy of Ethnicity (with Jacques Henry, 2002).
The sociology of education stream produced a number of studies, which culminated in several books. These included A Troubled Dream: The Promise and Failure of School Desegregation in Louisiana (2002), Forced to Fail: The Paradox of School Desegregation (hardback, 2005; paperback, 2007), and Public Education - America's Civil Religion: A Social History (2009) (all with Stephen J. Caldas). My fundamental concern in all of these works has been how schooling as an expression of social relations undermines schooling as an instrument of social planning. The sociology of education work is, then, part of a more basic critique of social planning in general.
At present, I am working on several projects. I am collaborating with Katharine Donato and other colleagues on the study of new immigrant labor in Louisiana. I am working with a team led by Mark VanLandingham, of Tulane's School of Public Health, on the mental and physical impacts of Hurricane Katrina on the Vietnamese population of New Orleans. My most immediate book project is a theoretical overview of social capital and networks in immigration, to be published by Polity Press. I am also working on a social history of ideologies of equality and inequality in the United States.
Address: Department of Sociology
220 Newcomb Hall
Tulane University
New Orleans, Louisiana 70118
Immigration has continued to be one of my major interests and I have worked on range of projects related to immigrant issues, but the study of Vietnamese children in American schools also led me to develop interests in questions of racial and ethnic identification and in sociology of education. As a native Louisianian, I was curious about the ethnic identifications of my own place of birth, as well as those of people who had recently come from distant lands. I worked on topics relating to Louisiana Cajuns and Creoles pursuing this line of inquiry. A series of journal articles led to the development of a book, Blue Collar Bayou: Louisiana Cajuns in the New Economy of Ethnicity (with Jacques Henry, 2002).
The sociology of education stream produced a number of studies, which culminated in several books. These included A Troubled Dream: The Promise and Failure of School Desegregation in Louisiana (2002), Forced to Fail: The Paradox of School Desegregation (hardback, 2005; paperback, 2007), and Public Education - America's Civil Religion: A Social History (2009) (all with Stephen J. Caldas). My fundamental concern in all of these works has been how schooling as an expression of social relations undermines schooling as an instrument of social planning. The sociology of education work is, then, part of a more basic critique of social planning in general.
At present, I am working on several projects. I am collaborating with Katharine Donato and other colleagues on the study of new immigrant labor in Louisiana. I am working with a team led by Mark VanLandingham, of Tulane's School of Public Health, on the mental and physical impacts of Hurricane Katrina on the Vietnamese population of New Orleans. My most immediate book project is a theoretical overview of social capital and networks in immigration, to be published by Polity Press. I am also working on a social history of ideologies of equality and inequality in the United States.
Address: Department of Sociology
220 Newcomb Hall
Tulane University
New Orleans, Louisiana 70118
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Videos by Carl L Bankston
The Klein article is here:
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/15/books/review/daniel-patrick-moynihan-was-often-right-joe-klein-on-why-it-still-matters.html
The text of my talk can be found here:
https://cantheseboneslive.blogspot.com/2021/05/daniel-patrick-moynihan-family.html
Books by Carl L Bankston
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7oUJJd5Gjg
http://www.cambriapress.com/cambriapress.cfm?template=4&bid=792
•Historical antecedents showing how and why American schooling became racially segregated
•Social capital theory to explain school and community segregation
•The legal history of all important supreme court cases, congressional laws and presidential executive orders related to school segregation and desegregation
•Easy-to-read and interpret graphs and figures
•The most up-to-date school population and census information
•Gives a clear understanding of how schools function as markets
•Illustrates the argument with histories of specific school districts
•Links the history of school desegregation to school vouchers and charter schools
•Includes easy to read and interpret graphs and figures
• Includes most up-to-date school population and census information
In this provocative volume, the authors argue that public
education is a central part of American civil religion and, thus, gives us an unquestioning faith in the capacity of education to solve all of our social, economic, and political problems. The book traces the development of America’s faith in public education from before the Civil War up to the present, exploring recent educational developments such as the No Child Left Behind legislation. The authors discuss how this faith in education often makes it difficult for Americans to think realistically about the capacities and limitations of public schooling.
Bringing together history, politics, religion, sociology, and educational theory, this in-depth examination:
Raises fundamental questions about what education can accomplish for the citizens of the United States.
Points out that many supposedly opposing viewpoints on public education actually arise from the same root assumptions.
Exposes the gaps between our pursuit of equity in schools and what we really accomplish with students.
Looks at ways in which education can be organized to serve a diverse population.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Outside these enclaves, Vietnamese children faced a daunting school experience due to language difficulties, racial inequality, deteriorating educational services, and exposure to an often adversarial youth subculture. How have the children of Vietnamese refugees managed to overcome these challenges? Growing Up American offers important evidence that community solidarity, cultural values, and a refugee sensibility have provided them with the resources needed to get ahead in American society. Zhou and Bankston also document the price exacted by the process of adaptation, as the struggle to define a personal identity and to decide what it means to be American sometimes leads children into conflict with their tight-knit communities.
Growing Up American is the first comprehensive study of the unique experiences of Vietnamese immigrant children. It sets the agenda for future research on second generation immigrants and their entry into American society.
The book traces the long legal history of first racial segregation, and then racial desegregation in America. The authors explain how rapidly changing demographics and family structure in the United States have greatly complicated the project of top-down government efforts to achieve an ideal racial balance in schools. It describes how social capital—a positive outcome of social interaction between and among parents, children, and teachers—creates strong bonds that lead to high academic achievement.
The authors show how coercive desegregation weakens bonds and hurts not only students and schools, but also entire communities. Examples from all parts of the United States show how parents undermined desegregation plans by seeking better educational alternatives for their children rather than supporting the public schools to which their children were assigned. Most important, this book offers an alternative, more realistic viewpoint on class, race, and education in America.
In analyzing and exploring the creation and maintenance of Cajun ethnicity, Henry and Bankston also point toward a general theory of contemporary ethnic groups. Why, for instance, have more and more people claimed to be of Native American ancestry? How did the population of people calling themselves Irish soar over the course of a very brief period of time? Arguing that as the cultural basis of difference subsides, ethnic claims increase, and that such claims are based on a number of factors including socioeconomic and regional concerns, the authors contend that the same factors at play in the maintenance of the Cajun ethnicity are also at play in other ethnic communities and subcultures within the United States. They conclude that in claiming an ethnic identity, group members rework ideas of history and ancestry in order to apply these ideas to modern life.
Refernce Books by Carl L Bankston
The Klein article is here:
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/15/books/review/daniel-patrick-moynihan-was-often-right-joe-klein-on-why-it-still-matters.html
The text of my talk can be found here:
https://cantheseboneslive.blogspot.com/2021/05/daniel-patrick-moynihan-family.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7oUJJd5Gjg
http://www.cambriapress.com/cambriapress.cfm?template=4&bid=792
•Historical antecedents showing how and why American schooling became racially segregated
•Social capital theory to explain school and community segregation
•The legal history of all important supreme court cases, congressional laws and presidential executive orders related to school segregation and desegregation
•Easy-to-read and interpret graphs and figures
•The most up-to-date school population and census information
•Gives a clear understanding of how schools function as markets
•Illustrates the argument with histories of specific school districts
•Links the history of school desegregation to school vouchers and charter schools
•Includes easy to read and interpret graphs and figures
• Includes most up-to-date school population and census information
In this provocative volume, the authors argue that public
education is a central part of American civil religion and, thus, gives us an unquestioning faith in the capacity of education to solve all of our social, economic, and political problems. The book traces the development of America’s faith in public education from before the Civil War up to the present, exploring recent educational developments such as the No Child Left Behind legislation. The authors discuss how this faith in education often makes it difficult for Americans to think realistically about the capacities and limitations of public schooling.
Bringing together history, politics, religion, sociology, and educational theory, this in-depth examination:
Raises fundamental questions about what education can accomplish for the citizens of the United States.
Points out that many supposedly opposing viewpoints on public education actually arise from the same root assumptions.
Exposes the gaps between our pursuit of equity in schools and what we really accomplish with students.
Looks at ways in which education can be organized to serve a diverse population.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Outside these enclaves, Vietnamese children faced a daunting school experience due to language difficulties, racial inequality, deteriorating educational services, and exposure to an often adversarial youth subculture. How have the children of Vietnamese refugees managed to overcome these challenges? Growing Up American offers important evidence that community solidarity, cultural values, and a refugee sensibility have provided them with the resources needed to get ahead in American society. Zhou and Bankston also document the price exacted by the process of adaptation, as the struggle to define a personal identity and to decide what it means to be American sometimes leads children into conflict with their tight-knit communities.
Growing Up American is the first comprehensive study of the unique experiences of Vietnamese immigrant children. It sets the agenda for future research on second generation immigrants and their entry into American society.
The book traces the long legal history of first racial segregation, and then racial desegregation in America. The authors explain how rapidly changing demographics and family structure in the United States have greatly complicated the project of top-down government efforts to achieve an ideal racial balance in schools. It describes how social capital—a positive outcome of social interaction between and among parents, children, and teachers—creates strong bonds that lead to high academic achievement.
The authors show how coercive desegregation weakens bonds and hurts not only students and schools, but also entire communities. Examples from all parts of the United States show how parents undermined desegregation plans by seeking better educational alternatives for their children rather than supporting the public schools to which their children were assigned. Most important, this book offers an alternative, more realistic viewpoint on class, race, and education in America.
In analyzing and exploring the creation and maintenance of Cajun ethnicity, Henry and Bankston also point toward a general theory of contemporary ethnic groups. Why, for instance, have more and more people claimed to be of Native American ancestry? How did the population of people calling themselves Irish soar over the course of a very brief period of time? Arguing that as the cultural basis of difference subsides, ethnic claims increase, and that such claims are based on a number of factors including socioeconomic and regional concerns, the authors contend that the same factors at play in the maintenance of the Cajun ethnicity are also at play in other ethnic communities and subcultures within the United States. They conclude that in claiming an ethnic identity, group members rework ideas of history and ancestry in order to apply these ideas to modern life.