This edited volume explores the impact of social identity (race, class, gender, sexual orientation, religion and so on) on teaching and learning.  Operating within a realist framework, the contributors to this volume (all of whom are minority scholars) consider ways to productively engage identity in the classroom and at the institutional level, as a means of working toward racial democracy in higher education.  As realists, all authors in the volume hold the theoretical position that identities are both real and constructed, and that identities are always epistemically salient.  Thus the book argues--from diverse disciplinary and educational contexts--that mobilizing identities in academia is a necessary part of progressive (antiracist, feminist, anticolonial) educators' efforts to transform knowledge-making, to establish critical access for minority students in higher education, and to create a more just and democratic society.