Sociology
212
Spring
2014
Akos
Rona-Tas
Office
hours: TTh 11:00:-11:50
SSB
448
or by appointment
Phone:
534-4699
e-mail:
aronatas@ucsd.edu
This
survey course offers a broad introduction to theories and research in
the field
of social inequality. The course will cover classical and some of the
contemporary theories of social stratification, and will critically
explore
various topics, including class, elites, poverty, social mobility,
race,
gender, social capital, consumer culture and globalization. With the
exception
of this last topic, we will focus primarily on contemporary American
society.
For
each week (except for the first
one), you have to prepare a one-page memo about the assigned readings.
You have
to send the memo to me the day before we meet. The memo is not a paper
or a
review, but a set of questions, observations or comments on the
readings.
Its purpose is to show that you read the texts and engaged with its
content.
Each
week some of you will have lead
responsibility for the discussion. At the end of the quarter you will
hand in a
seminar paper. You will have to meet me during the third week of
classes to
discuss your paper topic. An advanced draft of the paper is due by the 8th
week. The final version is due during finals week.
There
is a textbook for this
course Grusky,
David B., ed. 2008. Social
Stratification: Class, Race and Gender in
Sociological Perspective, Third
Edition.
Boulder, CO: Westview Press [G], which
is available at the UCSD Bookstore. This is an excellent collection of
articles
and includes many of the greatest hits in the field, but the texts are
edited
for brevity. In most cases, when the excerpts are from book length
texts, you
will have to at least browse the entire book to understand the place of
the
extract in the larger argument. There are some other books as well. I put all those books on reserve at the
Geisel
library. My suggestion is that you start with the G
chapter and then read the book.
Some
of the readings are not in the reader but are available on line. Those
with the
On-Line (OL) and JSTOR designation you can find through the electronic collection of the Library. Some of the classic texts can be
downloaded
from dedicated URLs.
At the bottom I included a few useful links.
Functionalism
Davis,
Kingsley and Wilbert E. Moore. "Some Principles of Stratification" (G,
ch. 2).
Tumin,
Melvin M. "Some Principles of Stratification: A Critical Analysis" (G,
ch. 4).
Neo-functionalism
Herrnstein, Richard J. and Charles Murray, Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life. (Book on Reserve)
Fischer, Claude S., et al. Inequality
by
Design Cracking the Bell Curve Myth. (A short version is in G, ch. 5, book on Reserve))
Krueger,
Alan B. "Inequality: Too Much
of a Good Thing" (G, ch. 6)
General Theories
Kerr,
Clark, et al. "Industrialism and Industrial Man" (G, ch.
100).
Bell,
Daniel. "The Coming of Post Industrial Society" (G, ch.
101, book on Reserve).
Braverman,
Harry. 1974. Labor
and Monopoly Capital: The
Degradation of Work in the 20th Century. New
York: Monthly Review Press. Chapter 20 (DE book on
Reserve).
Erikson,
Robert and John Goldthorpe. "Trends in Class Mobility" (G, pp.
437-41 and
456-59 only).
Meyer,
John. "The Evolution of Modern Stratification Systems" (G, ch.
105).
Kenworthy,
Lane. 2004. Egalitarian
Capitalism: Jobs,
Incomes, and Growth in Affluent Countries.
New York: Russell Sage Foundation,
Chapter 4 (DE book on
Reserve).
United States
Morris,
Martina and Bruce Western. "Inequality in Earnings: Trends and
Implications" (G, ch.
7).
Piketty, Thomas and Emmanuel Saez. "The Evolution of Top Incomes: A Historical and International Perspective" (G, ch. 8).
Blank, Rebecca M. 2011. Changing Inequality. University of California Press (book on Reserve ).
Wilkinson, Will. 2009. Thinking Clearly about Economic Inequality. Policy Analysis
Bartels, Larry M. 2008. Unequal Democracy. The Poltical Economy of the New Guilded Age. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press (book on Reserve ).
Ossowski, Stanislaw, Class Structure in the Social Consciousness (Chapters I through IV)
Marx,
Karl. "Alienation and Social Classes"; "Classes in Capitalism and
Pre-Capitalism"; "Ideology and Class" (G, ch. 9).
The entire text from which these
excerpts are can be found at the following web sites:
Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts 1848 (this translation uses the word "estrangement" for "alienation")
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/epm/index.htm
The
Holy Family (the excerpt in G
is from Chapter 4 in the section on
Proudhon.)
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/holy-family/index.htm
The
Manifesto of the Communist Party (or Communist Manifesto)
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch01.htm
The
Poverty of Philosophy (the excerpt in G
is from Chapter 2 Part 5.)
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/poverty-philosophy/index.htm
The
Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (the excerpt in G
is from Chapter VII.)
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1852/18th-brumaire/index.htm
Capital
Volume III (the excerpt in G is from
Ch. 52.)
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/index.htm
The
German Ideology (the excerpt in G is
from Part I section B.)
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/german-ideology/
Wright,
Erik Olin. "A General Framework for the Analysis of Class Structure" (G, ch. 11)
Wallerstein,
Immanuel. "Class Conflict
in the Capitalist World Economy" (G, ch. 12).
So,
Alvin Y. 1991. Class Struggle
Analysis: A Critique of Class Structure Analysis. Sociological
Perspectives (JSTOR)
Weber,
Max. "Class, Status, Party"; "Status Groups and Classes"; "Open and
Closed Relationships" (G, ch.
13). All these texts are included in
Economy
and Society (on Reserve).
Parkin,
Frank. "Marxism and Class
Theory: A Bourgeois Critique" (G, ch. 15).
Durkheim,
Emile: "The Division of Labor in Society" (G, ch. 16 book on Reserve).
Grusky,
David and Jesper Sørensen. "Are There Big Social Classes?" (G, ch.
17).
Weeden, Kim A. and David B. Grusky. 2012. "The Three Worlds of Inequality" American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 117, No. 6, pp. 1723-1785 (JSTOR)
Blau,
Peter and Otis Dudley Duncan. "Measuring the Status of Occupations" in The American Occupational Structure (G, ch.
19 book on Reserve).
Treiman,
Donald. "Occupational Prestige in Comparative Perspective" (G, ch.
20).
Goldthorpe,
John and Keith Hope. "Occupational Grading and Occupational Prestige" (G, ch.
21).
Blau,
Peter and Otis Dudley Duncan. "The
Process of Stratification" (G, ch. 50).
Sewell,
William, Archibald Haller and
Alejandro Portes. "The Educational and Early Occupational Attainment
Process" (G,
ch. 53).
Colclough,
Glenna and Patrick M. Horan.
1983. "The Status Attainment Paradigm: An Application of a Kuhnian
Perspective." The Sociological Quarterly, Vol. 24, No. 1, pp. 25-42 (JSTOR)
Beller, Emily and Michael Hout, Intergenerational Social Mobility: The United States in Comparative Perspective. The Future of Children, Vol. 16, No. 2, Opportunity in America (Fall, 2006), pp. 19-36 (JSTOR)
Torche, Florencia. 2011. Is a College Degree Still the Great Equalizer? Intergenerational Mobility across Levels of Schooling in the United States. American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 117, No. 3, pp. 763-807 (JSTOR)
Jonsson, Jan O., David B. Grusky, Matthew Di Carlo, Reinhard Pollak, and Mary C. Brinton. 2009. Microclass Mobility: Social Reproduction in Four Countries. American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 114, No. 4, pp. 977-1036
Gerber Theodore P. and Sin Yi Cheung. 2008. "Horizontal Stratification in Postsecondary Education: Forms, Explanations, and Implications." Annual Review Sociology 34:299–318 (JSTOR)
DiPrete, Thomas A. and Gregory M. Eirich. 2006. "Cumulative Advantage as a Mechanism for Inequality: A Review of Theoretical and Empirical Developments." Annual Review of Sociology, Vol. 32 , pp. 271-297(JSTOR)
MacLeod,
Jay. "Ain't No Makin' It:
Leveled Aspirations in a Low-Income Neighborhood" (G, ch. 54).
Lareau,
Annette. "Unequal Childhoods:
Class, Race, and Family Life" (G, ch. 97).
Bourdieu,
Pierre. 2006 [1973]. "Cultural Reproduction and Social Reproduction." Pp.
257-71 in
David B. Grusky & Szonja Szelényi, eds. Inequality:
Classic Readings in Race, Class, and Gender.
Boulder: Westview (DE book on Reserve).
Mills,
C. Wright. "The Power Elite" (G,
ch. 29 book on Reserve).
Domhoff,
G. William. "Who Rules America?
Power and Politics" (G, ch. 31).
Brooks,
David " Bobos in Paradise: The
New Upper Class and How They Got There." (G, ch. 33).
Keister,
Lisa. 2005. Getting Rich: America's
New Rich and How They Got That Way. New York: Cambridge University
Press,
pp. 245-49 (DE book on Reserv).
Bebchuk, Lucian A. Alma Cohen, and Holger Spamann.2009.
The Wages of Failure: Executive Compensation at Bear Stearns and Lehman
2000-2008,
Ehrenreich,
Barbara. "Nickel-and-Dimed:
On (not) Getting by in America" (G, ch. 35 book on Reserve).
Smeeding,
Timothy. "Poverty, Work, and Policy:
The United States in Comparative Perspective" (G, ch. 36).
Wilson,
William Julius. "Jobless
Poverty: A New Form of Social Dislocation in the Inner-City Ghetto" (G,
ch. 37).
Hays,
Sharon. "Flat Broke with Children:
Women in the Age of Welfare Reform" (G, ch. 44).
Berkman,
Lisa F. 2004. "The Health
Divide." Contexts 3/4:38-43 (OL).
Block,
Fred, et al. 2006. "The
Compassion Gap in American Poverty Policy." Contexts 5:14-20 (OL).
Venkatesh, Sudhir A. 2006.
Off
the Books : the Underground Economy of the
Urban Poor. Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University
Press (book
on Reserve ).
Link to Part 1 of Park Avenue - Money, Power and the American Dream, a BBC documentary on Youtube in four parts (you can find the other three parts next to it)
Link to Born Rich a documentary on the very rich by the heir to the Johnson fortune (free but low resolution)
Pathways. A magazine on poverty, inequality, and social policy
Blauner,
Bob. 2001. Still the Big News: Racial Oppression in
America. Philadelphia, PA: Temple, Chapter 5 (DE and book
on Reserve).
Du
Bois, W.E.B. The Problem of the
Twentieth Century is the Problem of the Color Line." Pp. 216-21 in
Shapiro, ed. Great Divides: Readings in Social
Inequality in the United States, Second Edition. Mountain View,
CA:
Mayfield Press (DE book on Reserve).
Fischer,
Claude S. and Michael Hout,
with Aliya Saperstein. 2006. Century
of Difference: How America Changed in the Last One Hundred Years,
Chapter 3. (DE book on Reserve).
Oliver,
Melvin L. and Thomas Shapiro. "Black Wealth/White Wealth: A New
Perspective on Racial Inequality" (G,
ch 75).
Associated
Press.
2005. "Blacks Likely Breath Most Unhealthy Air." December 14 (OL).
Bonacich,
Edna & Richard P.
Appelbaum. 2006 [2000]. "Behind the Label: The Return of the
Sweatshop." Pp.
284-98 in Amy S. Wharton, ed. Working
in America, 3rd Edition. Boston: McGraw Hill (DE book on Reserve).
Omi,
Michael and Howard Winant. 2007
[1994]. "Racial Formation in the United States: From the 1960s to the
1990s."
Pp. 197-202 in David B. Grusky and Szonja Szelényi, eds. The Inequality Reader: Contemporary and Foundational
Readings in Race, Class, and Gender. Boulder, CO: Westview Press
(DE book on Reserve).
Farley,
Reynolds. "Racial Identities in
2000: The Response to the Multiple-Race Response Option" (G, ch
65).
Portes,
Alejandro and Min Zhou. "The New
Second Generation: Segmented Assimilation and Its Variants" (G,
ch 68).
Waters,
Mary C. "Black Identities: West
Indian Immigrant Dreams and American Realities" (G, ch 69).
Gans,
Herbert J. 2005. "Race as Class." Contexts 4:17-21
(OL).
Bell,
Joyce M. and Douglas Hartmann.
2007. "Diversity in Everyday Discourse: The Cultural Ambiguities and
Consequences
of ‘Happy Talk'" American Sociological Review 72:895-914
(JSTOR).
Fox, Cybelle and Thomas A. Guglielmo. 2012. "Defining America’s Racial Boundaries: Blacks, Mexicans, and European Immigrants, 1890–1945." American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 118, No. 2 , pp. 327-379 (JSTOR)
Lewis,
Oscar. 1968. "The Culture of
Poverty." Pp. 187-200 in Daniel P. Moynihan, ed. On
Understanding Poverty: Perspectives from the Social Sciences."
New York: Basic (DE book on Reserve).
Farkas,
George. 2004. "The Black-White
Test Score Gap." Contexts 3:12-19
(OL).
Bertrand,
Marianne and Sendhil
Mullainathan. "Are Emily and Greg More Employable than Lakisha and
Jamal?" A
Field Experiment on Labor Market Discrimination" (G, ch. 70).
Steele,
Claude. "Stereotype Threat and
African-American Student Achievement" (G, ch. 71).
Wilson,
William Julius. "The Declining
Significance of Race: Blacks and Changing American Institutions" (G,
ch
73).
Feagin,
Joe. "The Continuing
Significance of Race: Antiblack Discrimination in Public Places" (G,
ch.
74).
Wilson,
William Julius and Richard Taub. "There Goes the Neighborhood: Race,
Ethnic, and Class Tensions in Four Chicago
Neighborhoods and Their Meaning in America" (G, ch. 76).
Massey,
Douglas S. and Nancy A. Denton.
1993. American Apartheid: Segregation
and the Making of the Underclass. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University
Press, chapter 1 (DE and book
on Reserve).
Loury,
Glenn. 2002. The Anatomy of Racial Inequality.
Cambridge: Harvard University Press, pp. 73-91 (DE
and book on Reserve).
Hochschild,
Arlie. "The Time Bind: When
Work Becomes Home and Home Becomes Work" (G, ch. 77).
Belkin,
Lisa. "The Opt-Out Revolution" (G,
ch. 78).
Boushey,
Heather. "Is the Opt-Out
Hypothesis Convincing?" (G, ch. 79).
Petersen,
Trond and Laurie Morgan. "The
Within-Job Gender Wage Gap" (G, ch. 88).
England,
Paula. "Devaluation and the Pay
of Comparable Male and Female Occupations." (G, ch. 89).
Connell,
R.W. 1998. "Masculinities and
Globalization." Men and Masculinities 1:3-23.
(OL)
Baron-Cohen.
2003. The Essential
Difference: The Truth About the Male and Female Brain. New York:
Basic
Books, Chapter 6 (DE).
Risman,
Barbara J. 2004. "Gender as a
Social Structure: Theory Wrestling with Activism." Gender &
Society 18:429-50
(OL).
Chodorow,
Nancy. 1978. The
Reproduction of Motherhood: Psychoanalysis and the Sociology of Gender.
Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1978, pp. 3-7, 92-95,
108-110 (DE book on Reserve).
Epstein,
Cynthia Fuchs. 1999. "Similarity and Difference: The Sociology of
Gender Distinctions." Pp. 45-61 in
Chafetz, ed. Handbook of the Sociology of Gender. New York:
Kluwer, 1999
(DE book on Reserve).
Baca
Zinn, Maxine and Bonnie Thornton
Dill. 1996. "Theorizing Difference from Multiracial Feminism." Feminist
Studies 22: 321-31 (OL).
West,
Candace and Don H. Zimmerman. "Doing
Gender." In Sarah Fenstermaker and Candace West, eds. 2002. Doing
Gender,
Doing Difference: Inequality, Power, and Institutional Change. New
York:
Routledge, Chapter 1 (DE book on Reserve).
Bordo,
Susan. 1990. "Feminism,
Postmodernism, and Gender-Scepticism." Pp. 133-56 in Linda J.
Nicholson, ed. Feminism/Postmodernism.
New York: Routledge (DE book on Reserve).
Jacobs,
Jerry A. "Revolving Doors: Sex
Segregation and Women's Careers" (G, ch. 85).
Jackson,
Robert Max. 1998. Destined for Equality: The Inevitable
Rise
of Women's Status. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
Chapter 7 (DE).
Charles,
Maria and David B. Grusky.
2004. Occupational Ghettos: The
Worldwide Segregation of Women and Men, Stanford University
Press, pp.
3-31, and 297-317 (DE book on Reserve).
(You can also get this debate and other IQ2 debates as a free podcast.)
Granovetter,
Mark. "The Strength of Weak Ties." (G, ch. 59).
Burt,
Ronald S. "Structural Holes." (G, ch. 61 and the book on Reserve).
Roberto
M. Fernandez and Isabel Fernandez-Mateo, "Networks, Race, and Hiring (G, ch. 62)
Nan
Lin, Nan. 1999. "Social Networks and Status Attainment."
Annual Review of Sociology, Vol. 25, pp.
467-487 (JSTOR)
Smith,
Sandra S. 2000. "Mobilizing Social Resources: Race, Ethnic, and Gender
Differences in Social Capital and Persisting Wage Inequalities
Author(s):
Source: The Sociological Quarterly, Vol. 41, No. 4, pp. 509-537 (JSTOR)
Mouw,
Ted. 2003. "Social Capital and Finding a Job: Do Contacts Matter?" ASR,
Vol.
68, No. 6, pp. 868-898 (JSTOR)
Kim,
Doo Hwan and Barbara Schneider. 2005. "Social
Capital in Action: Alignment of Parental Support in Adolescents
Transition to Postsecondary Education."
Social Forces, Vol. 84, No. 2, pp. 1181-1206 (JSTOR)
Portes,
Alejandro. 1998. Social Capital: Its Origins and Applications in Modern
Sociology. Annual Review of Sociology, 24:1-24. (JSTOR)
Putnam,
Robert. 2001. Bowling Alone. The Collapse and Revival of American
Community.
Simon and Shuster: New York (book on Reserve).
Desmond, Matthew. 2012. Disposable Ties and the Urban Poor. American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 117, No. 5 pp. 1295-1335 (JSTOR)
DiMaggio, Paul and Filiz Garip. 2011. How Network Externalities Can Exacerbate Intergroup Inequality. American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 116, No. 6, pp. 1887-1933 (JSTOR)
Marx,
Karl,
Capital, Chapter 1 Section 4 on Commodity Fetishism,
on line at http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch01.htm#S4
Veblen, Thorstein,
Theory of the Leisure Class (G,
ch. 82). The whole book is available
on line at http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/VEBLEN/veb_toc.html
Bourdieu,
Pierre. "Distinction." (G, ch. 93).
Paul
DiMaggio, and Toqir Mukhtar. 2004.
Arts
participation as cultural capital in the United States,
1982–2002: Signs of
decline? Poetics Volume
32, Issue 2,
pages 169-194 (OL)
Johnston,
Josée
and Shyon Baumann. 2007. Democracy
versus Distinction: A Study of Omnivorousness in Gourmet Food Writing AJS,
Vol. 113, No.
1, pp. 165-204 (JSTOR)
Manning,
Robert
D. "Where Ace is not Hardware Store: Fringe Banking and the Expansion of
Second
Tier Financial Services" Pp. 195-225 Ch 7 in Robert D. Manning, Credit
Card
Nation; The Consequences of America's Addiction of Credit. Basic Books:
New
York (DE and book on Reserve)
Williams,
Richard, Reynold Nesiba and Eileen Diaz
Mcconnell "The Changing Face of Inequality in Home Mortgage Lending" Social
Problems, Vol. 52, No. 2 (May, 2005), pp. 181-208
(JSTOR)
Frank,
Robert H. 2007. Falling Behind. How Rising Inequality Harms the Middle
Class.
University of California Press: Berkeley
(on
Reserve)
Schor,
Juliet, The overspent American :
upscaling, downshifting, and the new consumer New York, NY : Basic
Books,
c1998.( book on Reserve)
Rajan, Raghuram G. 2010. Fault Lines. How Hidden Fractures Still Threaten the World Economy. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, Introduction and Chapters 1 and 4. ( book on Reserve)
Johnson, Simon. 2011. Did the Poor Cause the Crisis? Project-Syndicate
Firebaugh,
Glenn, "The Trend in Between-Nation Income Inequality." Annual Review
of
Sociology, Vol. 26, (2000), pp. 323-339 (JSTOR)
Clark, Rob. 2011. World Income Inequality in the Global Era: New Estimates, 1990-2008. Social Problems, Vol. 58, No. 4, pp. 565-592 (JSTOR)
Stiglitz, Joseph. "Globalism's Discontent." (G,
ch. 109)
Engel, Uwe and Hermann Strasser. 1998.
"Global Risks and Social Inequality: Critical Remarks on the
Risk-Society
Hypothesis." The Canadian Journal of Sociology, Vol. 23, No. 1 , pp.
91-103 (JSTOR)
Beck,
Ulrich and Christoph Lau. "Theoretical and Empirical Explorations in
the
‘Meta-Change' of Modern Society. (G, ch. 108)
Beck,
Ulrich. 1992. Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity. London: Sage .(
book on Reserve)
Wilkinson, Richard and Kate Pickett. 2009. The Spirit Level. Why Greater Equality Makes Societies Stronger. Bloomsbury Press: New York ( book on Reserve)
The GAPMINDER, a web site with visual represenation of data on global inequalities
A link to The End of Poverty? a documentary on world poverty
Here is a short lecture by Esther Duflo of MIT's Poverty Action Lab explaining the Lab's approach