A UB professor and sociologist has received the 2001 Outstanding Book Award from the Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Bigotry and Human Rights for her book Construction Sites: Excavating Race, Class and Gender Among Urban Youth.
Dr. Lois Weis, professor of sociology of education, received the award along with her co-author, Michelle Fine, a social psychologist. The book attempts to challenge those who work with urban youth to "imagine new environments" and offer ways to combat what the authors termed "the evaporation of public spaces, especially for poor and working class youth."
"It's not 1950," said Weis. "It's time people get past stereotypes and get to know each other. I believe that when people begin to understand the strengths of different cultures, they will become more tolerant."
Construction Sites is a compilation of essays that address that challenge.
"[This award] is one of the nicest things that have happened to me in my life, and certainly a highlight in my professional career," said Weis.
Publishers submit noteworthy books to the Myers Center for consideration, where a panel comprised of academics, poets and playwrights, among other fields of study, select the award-winning work.
"That is part of what makes this so special," said Weis, glancing at the award centered on her desk. "It is very gratifying."
Weis grew up in a highly enclosed white, Jewish, suburban setting. Her first real encounter with different cultures came when she attended the University of Wisconsin, where she became aware of the need for multicultural awareness. At the age of 25, she moved to and spent two years in Ghana where she began to "understand the strengths, both the differences and similarities, of different cultures."
The Gustavus Myers panel called Construction Sites a "fresh approach to the struggles, resiliency and agency of diverse urban youth" which "not only discuss the problems that urban youth face but also most give actual voice to the youth by incorporating quotes from their writings."
Weis said she considers those young people the ones who are making a difference in their communities by making the most of what little power and resources they have.
The essays offer examples of individuals and groups seeking to educate and inspire youth. The various pieces are both multicultural as well as, in some groups, a celebration of a particular culture. The examples given range from an abstinence-based sex education program in an urban high school, open to a wide variety of cultures, to a Latino Theater, run for Latinos by Latinos and designed to give tribute to the Latino culture.
The danger in a work like this, Weis said, is that "people will say, 'so what's the problem? Why doesn't everyone in their same situation rise up and work hard and achieve the same results?' But struggling in an existence of poverty and powerlessness is not an ideal. People shouldn't have to live the way they do in this country. But many are not just sitting down content to do nothing."
Weis earned her doctorate in educational policy studies at the University of Wisconsin in 1978. She is the former president of the American Educational Studies Association and is on the editorial boards of several journals, including Educational Policy, International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education and Review of Educational Research. Weis has also written definitive works in the areas of curriculum and comparative education. She has been at UB for 20 years.
Construction Sites can be found on Amazon.com along with over 20 other Weis titles, including The Unknown City: The Lives of Poor and Working-Class Young Adults and Beyond Black and White: New Faces and Voices in U.S. Schools. The latter documents experiences of groups often overlooked even by multicultural education literature, such as Haitians, Dominicans, Indians, Vietnamese, and other marginalized individuals including lesbians, gays and white working-class males.
