The Blackwell Companion to Social Inequalities

This course explores the study of social inequality and sociological approaches to this topic. Evidence of social, political and economic inequality is pervasive in society, and its causes and proposed solutions are often the subject of fierce debate in academia and broader society. Growing domestic and global poverty, the persistence of racial, ethnic, gender, class discrimination and the increasing visibility of inter-and intra-country differences in wealth and income are just some aspects of contemporary social inequality. This course introduces students to ongoing debates about the sources and consequences of inequality, while also exploring how social inequality is enacted and perpetuated daily. This course will cover basic concepts and facts as well as both classical and contemporary theoretical debates. NOTE: This course will also act, in part, as preparation for the Social Inequality comprehensive exam.

Current Sociology, 2005

W hen we talk to highly skilled migrants, we quickly notice that quite a few of them do not want to see themselves as 'migrants'. This may be attributed to the negative connotation of the word. It could also be seen as an attempt to defend their personal identity against common procedures that turn people into migrants. Let us take Mr Mares as an example. He used to be an engineer, a husband, the owner of a flat. In these roles, he is a topic of interest for many specialities in sociology. Then he moved from Prague to a small town in Germany and the focus of sociological interest shifted. Research on Mr Mares' profession concentrates on questions like: are IT engineers asked for in the German labour market? The fact that he is married results in research about his wife's knowledge of German or her ability to be elected as a parents' representative in the local kindergarten. Owning a flat in Prague is an indicator for Mr Mares' continuing attachment to his home country, and so on. At the same time, Mr Mares' chances of being included in representative panels have decreased to almost zero. Czech researchers will not consider him, because he lives in Germany. German research will avoid potential language problems or explicitly exclude 'sojourners'. At this point, the example of Mr Mares is interesting for sociological self-reflection. While there is no need to doubt the valid and important role of migration research in sociology, we should consider more thoroughly why almost every other field of sociology fails to deal adequately with migrant populations. This is especially true for the sociology of social inequality. Values of equality have developed at the same time as the nation-state. The sociology of inequality has focused on inequality inside nation-states. Of course, the body of international comparative studies is growing (Lemel and Noll, 2002), but these scholars use nation-states' averages and refrain from a direct

Contemporary social science, 2016

In many countries around the world, the gap between rich and poor has increased during the twenty-first century. Not surprisingly, discussion of both the relationship of the top 1% to the rest of society (Stiglitz, 2011) and the growing misery of the bottom 1% (e.g. Weissman & Dickson, 2012) has also intensified in both public and academic forums. It is hard to open a newspaper without reading of another circumstance that reveals that the rich are unbearably rich, the middle class are under pressure and the poor are losing another element of their support system. Recent election campaigns in Canada, Finland, Guyana, Greece, Singapore, the US and the UK have remarkable similarity in the themes expressed by the electorates regarding related issues: wealth is not being shared, the next generation is struggling to find decent jobs, wages paid to many do not meet the threshold of 'living wages', difficulties finding good work are turning into dangerous resentments between native-born and foreign-born, education has become more extended and more expensive, austerity measures are hurting ordinary people and the social fabric, the ratios between the working populations and the non-working populations are shrinking in such a manner that produces onerous consequences for both. These themes reverberate at academic conferences that encourage academics to tie their research to important issues-'Hard Times, The Impact of Economic Inequality on Families and Individuals', 'Recovering the Social: Personal Troubles as Public Issues' and the 'The Futures We Want: Global Sociology and the Struggles for a Better World' are just a few examples. 1 Indeed, Holmwood's observation that the study of social inequality has become too narrow and specialised and that sociologists have been insufficiently active in interpreting current events (Holmwood, 2014) seems to be in the process of changing. The case for information about social inequality based on highquality analysis and data is consistently made (Fukuyama in Fukuyama and Diamond, 2012; Wilkinson & Pickett, 2009). With respect to the issue of understanding social inequality better, public concerns and the focus of academic research align. This special issue on 'Social Inequality and its Consequences' showcases the work of scholars who share a commitment to well-conceptualised and theoretically informed empirical investigation into the nature, processes and consequences of social inequality. The 10 articles presented here explore some of the ways that social processes influence social inequality in contemporary

Daedalus: Journal of the American Academy of Arts and Science, 2019

This paper explores processes by which a broadening of legal, social and cultural membership in Western societies appears to be accompanied by a reduction in the social rights of citizenship, in part due to harsher judgements concerning the deservingness of low-income populations. As more diverse groups are extended formal national membership, fewer individuals appear deserving of social rights such as welfare redistribution. Why is this the case? Some explain this decline in solidarity as a simple, even mechanical response to growing diversity. We offer alternative approaches to understanding these tensions, and pathways for promoting inclusive membership and broad social rights. We do so by drawing on the analytical tools of four distinct fields that are rarely in dialogue, proposing that positive social change may emerge from (1) solidarity, explored by normative political theorists; (2) group identity and distributive justice, a focus for social psychologists; (3) boundary drawing and destigmatization, as analyzed by cultural sociologists; and (4) contestation and social movements, studied by political sociologists and political scientists.

2012

1. Social stratification and opportunities 2. Explaining stratification: theories and ideas 3. Understanding stratification: methods of evaluation 4. Class and the structure of inequality 5. The upper class and the elite 6. The middle class and workers 7. The working poor and the underclass 8. Social mobility 9. Education and inequality 10. Women and their changing positions 11. Race and ethnicity 12. Culture 13. Inequality across the globe 14. Public policy and social stratification.

One particularly unsettling complication in the theory of social inequality is the advent of globalization. Majority of theorists seem to have chosen simply to ignore it and carry on developing accounts of inequality within the Keynesian-Westphalian frame. This text examines the take on the theory of social inequality and social justice of two authors exceptional in this matter – Ulrich Beck and Nancy Fraser. This text presents a basic account of their theories and examines their mutual consistency. It is argued that if combined these authors may assemble a powerful basis for a truly cosmopolitan account of social inequality and justice.

This is an appendix to 'Conceptions and Dimensions of Social Equality', in Carina Fourie, Fabian Schuppert and Ivo Wallimann-Helmer, eds, Social Equality: Essays On What It Means to be Equals (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), pp. 65-86. The Appendix consists of some comments on the empirical application of these ideas in work done by members and associates of the UCD Equality Studies Centre.

Area, 2008

2011