ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the problems which fall within the general realm of the sociology of knowledge and in that part of it popularly referred to as the "insider/outsider debate". The scholarly, political, literary, and personal works of insiders offer special insights into the character of societies and communities and the minds of those within them. The chapter seeks to learn what college students were doing about conveying the meaning of ethnicity through a nationwide survey of university-level courses on racial and ethnic relations. Most described in detail the attitudes of dominant group members and the patterns of discrimination they imposed, but too often skimmed over the nature of minority reactions and even more rarely attempted to deal with ethnic experiences themselves. The chapter focuses on Black/White tensions, most instructors firmly pronounced that color-blind integration was the answer when, it seemed, they really meant white-washed assimilation.
