ABSTRACT
Imbricating Chapters 1 through 7, Chapter 8 thinks critically about cultural capital as it is distributed across questions of shame. At Milford High School, students of color negotiated the spaces and places of a predominantly white school through performances of self that were directly related to predetermined social ontologies, understandings that were in turn constructed through sociocultural norms and values. These performances were layers of protection that students of color used to help them negotiate a school that was, at best, restrictive, but more generally untenable for their ways of being and knowing. These were therefore not simply performances of self but also negotiations of self at the intersection of “who one is” and the everyday of marginalization in school.
