Though the study of race and youth is an interdisciplinary endeavor, this article is centered on research on this topic from a sociological perspective. Contributions from the field include theoretical frameworks to address how children and youth learn about race and racism, form racial identities and racial attitudes, and understand themselves and others as racial subjects. Additionally, sociological research offers a wealth of empirical evidence concerning how children and youth experience, navigate, reinforce, and/or challenge racial inequality, racism, and racial discrimination in their everyday lives. This work examines the role that social structures, systems, and institutions—such as families, schools, the state, health-care systems, the economic system, and the media—play in shaping young people’s lived experiences, opportunities, and outcomes. Sociological research also explores the process of the racialization of youth, the consequences of these racialized understandings, and how this leads to the continued dehumanization of children of color. Scholarship additionally examines the agency of young people and how they engage as political participants in the racialized society in which they live as well as how youth participate in consumer culture in ways that connect to their own racial and ethnic identities. Sociologists in the current moment tend to pay particular attention to the establishment of child-centered methodologies and strategies for equitable and ethical approaches to the study of youth and race. As such, many of these citations highlight scholarly efforts to dismantle long-standing racist stereotypes and assumptions about young people of color and demonstrate the complex nature of race, racism, and racialization with respect to youth.

Rural scholars have regularly analyzed media representations of rural communities, but there are a lack of analyses considering whether media representations of the rural-urban interface have transformed over the last 40 years as material connections and political divisions between rural and urban places intensified. This article presents a longitudinal analysis of portrayals of the rural-urban interface in mainstream country music from the 1980s to the 2010s. Examining the lyrics of over 800 weeks of songs that topped the Billboard charts, we find that representations of the material connections between rural and urban places have become less common. Specifically, portrayals of migrants crossing the interface have nearly disappeared from mainstream country. There was also a lack of evidence of growing polarization in mainstream country’s portrayals of rural and urban places. Rural places were generally depicted in idyllic terms in every decade, but urban places were also increasingly represented positively. These results indicate that the rural-urban interface portrayed by mainstream country does not align with previous research concerning the interface. In contrast to studies that highlight growing material connections and political divisions between rural and urban places, the interface depicted by mainstream country has become increasingly disconnected materially without becoming polarized politically.