Rate My Professor Deirdre Royster

Royster's seminal publication, Race and the Invisible Hand: How White Networks Exclude Black Men from Blue-Collar Jobs (University of California Press, 2003), draws on ethnographic data from two cohorts of vocational high school graduates in Baltimore to demonstrate how white networks provide access to stable blue-collar employment for white men while excluding equally qualified Black men. This work received the 2004 Oliver Cromwell Cox Book Award from the American Sociological Association's Section on Racial and Ethnic Minorities. Her research has been funded by the American Sociological Association, the Social Science Research Council, the Spencer Foundation, and the National Academy of Education. Royster's contributions have profoundly influenced sociological understandings of social capital, opportunity hoarding, and persistent racial disparities in employment outcomes. She participated as a fellow in the ASA Minority Fellowship Program and received a Lilly Fellowship for Teaching Excellence.