Guest speaker Nikki Jones, Ph.D., will present “Talking About ‘Good’ and ‘Ghetto’” at Union on Feb. 10.

Talking About ‘Good’ and ‘Ghetto’ at Union on Feb. 10

Nikki Jones, Ph.D., will visit Union College on Wed., Feb. 10 to present “Talking About ‘Good’ and ‘Ghetto,’” a phrase taken from her recent book, “Between Good and Ghetto: African American Girls and Inner-City Violence.”

Jones is an assistant professor of sociology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. “Between Good and Ghetto,” her first book, draws on personal encounters, traditions of urban ethnography, black feminist thought, gender studies and feminist criminology to give readers a descriptive and compassionate account of how African American girls negotiate schools and neighborhoods governed by “the code of the street”—the form of street justice that governs violence in distressed urban areas. Jones earned a Ph.D. in sociology and criminology from the University of Pennsylvania in 2004. Her areas of expertise include urban ethnography, urban sociology, race and ethnic relations, and criminology and criminal justice with a special emphasis on the intersection of race, gender and justice.

Her next book, “Pathways to Freedom,” will examine how adults and adolescents with incarceration histories work together to build successful lives.

Jones was invited to speak at Union by Linda Silber, Ph.D., associate professor of sociology at Union. The event is free and open to the public and will be held in the Patridge Campus Center conference rooms on Feb. 10 at 7:00 p.m. Call Union at 606-546-1230 for more information.

February 1, 2010

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