Sociologists working in the racial formation tradition have made a clear case for under-standing race as a political and social construction and have detailed macroprocesses of production. However, we still do not understand enough about how race is reproduced through microlevel interactions. Drawing on ethnographic data from research in schools, the author examines everyday race-making—the processes through which race and racial categories are reproduced and contested in daily life. As racial identities are assigned to individuals and racial categories are mapped onto groups, these groups and individuals are simultaneously included in or excluded from a variety of social interactions and social institutions. It is through these everyday interactions that racial boundaries are formed and renegotiated.
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