A01=Kevin Woodson
african-american
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America
Author_Kevin Woodson
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black professionals
career
Category1=Non-Fiction
Category=JBFA1
Category=JF
Category=JFSL1
Category=JFSL3
Category=JHB
COP=United States
corporate
cultural exclusion
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employees
eq_bestseller
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eq_society-politics
high-status job
inequality
job discrimination
Language_English
PA=Available
Price_€20 to €50
PS=Active
racial bias
social alienation
social structures
sociology
softlaunch
white privilege
Product details
- ISBN 9780226828725
- Weight: 399g
- Dimensions: 140 x 216mm
- Publication Date: 17 Nov 2023
- Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
- Language: English
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A revelatory assessment of workplace inequality in high-status jobs that focuses on a new explanation for a pernicious problem: racial discomfort.
America’s elite law firms, investment banks, and management consulting firms are known for grueling hours, low odds of promotion, and personnel practices that push out any employees who don’t advance. While most people who begin their careers in these institutions leave within several years, work there is especially difficult for Black professionals, who exit more quickly and receive far fewer promotions than their White counterparts, hitting a “Black ceiling.”
Sociologist and law professor Kevin Woodson knows firsthand what life at a top law firm feels like as a Black man. Examining the experiences of more than one hundred Black professionals at prestigious firms, Woodson discovers that their biggest obstacle in the workplace isn’t explicit bias but racial discomfort, or the unease Black employees feel in workplaces that are steeped in Whiteness. He identifies two types of racial discomfort: social alienation, the isolation stemming from the cultural exclusion Black professionals experience in White spaces, and stigma anxiety, the trepidation they feel over the risk of discriminatory treatment. While racial discomfort is caused by America’s segregated social structures, it can exist even in the absence of racial discrimination, which highlights the inadequacy of the unconscious bias training now prevalent in corporate workplaces. Firms must do more than prevent discrimination, Woodson explains, outlining the steps that firms and Black professionals can take to ease racial discomfort.
Offering a new perspective on a pressing social issue, The Black Ceiling is a vital resource for leaders at preeminent firms, Black professionals and students, managers within mostly White organizations, and anyone committed to cultivating diverse workplaces.
America’s elite law firms, investment banks, and management consulting firms are known for grueling hours, low odds of promotion, and personnel practices that push out any employees who don’t advance. While most people who begin their careers in these institutions leave within several years, work there is especially difficult for Black professionals, who exit more quickly and receive far fewer promotions than their White counterparts, hitting a “Black ceiling.”
Sociologist and law professor Kevin Woodson knows firsthand what life at a top law firm feels like as a Black man. Examining the experiences of more than one hundred Black professionals at prestigious firms, Woodson discovers that their biggest obstacle in the workplace isn’t explicit bias but racial discomfort, or the unease Black employees feel in workplaces that are steeped in Whiteness. He identifies two types of racial discomfort: social alienation, the isolation stemming from the cultural exclusion Black professionals experience in White spaces, and stigma anxiety, the trepidation they feel over the risk of discriminatory treatment. While racial discomfort is caused by America’s segregated social structures, it can exist even in the absence of racial discrimination, which highlights the inadequacy of the unconscious bias training now prevalent in corporate workplaces. Firms must do more than prevent discrimination, Woodson explains, outlining the steps that firms and Black professionals can take to ease racial discomfort.
Offering a new perspective on a pressing social issue, The Black Ceiling is a vital resource for leaders at preeminent firms, Black professionals and students, managers within mostly White organizations, and anyone committed to cultivating diverse workplaces.
Kevin Woodson is a sociologist and former attorney. Now a professor of law at the University of Richmond School of Law, he previously worked as an associate at the law firm Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale & Dorr LLP.
