Churn

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"Churn offers a way forward for anyone seeking to foster trust and build community during a time of seemingly insurmountable group divides." —Jennifer Richeson, Yale University Nearly two decades after the publication of Whistling Vivaldi, a landmark work that analyzed stereotype threats and how we can mitigate their corrosive effects, the legendary social psychologist Claude M. Steele returns with an equally ambitious work that examines "churn"—the mental agitation and physical stress we can experience in diverse settings in everyday life—and the surprising role that trust-building can achieve in reducing churn across identity divides. Opening with a striking vignette of a parent-teacher conference between a well-meaning white teacher and the concerned Black parents of a seventh grader, the book demonstrates how churn threatens the high level of trust that is essential to mentoring and teaching the young. Drawing from decades