Information About This Excerpt and the Authors

Charisse, a sixteen-year-old girl from Chicago, is in many ways a typical teenage girl. But as sociologist Mary Pattillo-McCoy reveals in the ethnography, Black Picket Fences, Charisse's social development has been shaped by her race, social class, and unique home environment.

Title: Black Picket Fences: Privilege and Peril Among the Black Middle Class
Author: Mary Pattillo-McCoy
Copyright: 1999
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226649296

Mary Pattillo-McCoy is an Associate professor of sociology and African American studies and a faculty fellow at the Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern University. Her areas of interest include race and ethnicity, urban sociology, culture, and qualitative methods. She is currently conducting a three-year ethnography examining low-income housing construction, and gentrification in a black Chicago neighborhood.

Links to Related Topics

"Frontline: The Two Nations of Black America"
This site offers a summary, audio excerpts, visual references, and a discussion board in response to a recent Frontline/PBS documentary on the class divide in black America.

Poverty, Race and Inequality Program
Created by the Institute for Policy Research, this site discusses the sociological impact of public housing in Chicago.