White Privilege and Racism: Perceptions and Actions: New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education, Number 125

White privilege is viewed by many as a birthright and is in essence an existentialist norm that is based upon the power and privilege of pigmentation. Because it is the norm for the white race, this privilege is virtually invisible, but its racist byproducts are not. It becomes common for white to believe falsely that their privilege was earned by hard work and intellectual superiority; it becomes the center of their worldview. The reality is that when they defend their pigmentary privilege, what they are really saying is that peoples of color have earned their disadvantage.

This volume focuses on facilitating our understanding of the conceptual correlation between white privilege and racism and how these intertwined threads are manifested in selected areas of adult and continuing education practice. Chapters include:

1. White Racist Ideology and the Myth of a Postracial Society
2. The Nature of White Privilege in the Teaching and Training of Adults
3. Racism and White Privilege in Adult Education Graduate Programs: Admissions, Retention, and Currcicula
4. Whiteness at Work in Vocational Training in Australia
5. White Privilege in Human Resource Development
6. Immigration, Racial Profiling, and White Privilege: Community-Based Challenges and Practices for Adult Educators
7. A Living Spiral of Understanding: Community-Based Adult Education
8. The Intersections of White Privilege and Racism: Moving Forward

Together the contributors have assembled a volume to ignite the much-needed discussion of linkages between the white racist ideology, white privilege, and white attitudes and behaviors behind that racism.

This is the 125th volume of the Jossey-Bass higher education quarterly report series New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education. Noted for its depth of coverage, New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education is an indispensable series that explores issues of common interest to instructors, administrators, counselors, and policymakers in a broad range of adult and continuing education settings, such as colleges and universities, extension programs, businesses, libraries, and museums.

Carole L. Lund is assistant professor of Business and Director of the Degree Completion Program at Alaska Pacific University.

Scipio A.J. Colin, III is associate professor of Adult and Continuing Eudcation at National-Louis University.