Suchergebnisse

Intro -- Title Page -- Copyright Information -- Chapter 1 Prejudice and Privilege -- Chapter 2 Historic Inequality -- Chapter 3 Contemporary Inequality -- Chapter 4 Criminal Justice and Injustice -- Chapter 5 Counterterrorism and Islamophobia -- Chapter 6 Calls for Change -- Glossary -- Source Notes -- Selected Bibliography -- Further Information -- Index -- About the Author -- Photo Acknowledgments -- Back Cover

AbstractIn this new contribution, John Baugh provides an analytical overview of how the field has addressed issues of power and inequality. Baugh addresses how both social hierarchies and the legal system affect the standing of different languages and their users. He then especially focuses on language use in relation to racial and gender dynamics, highlighting influential work that revealed and analyzed how language is used to make and deepen inequality. He concludes with a call for the promotion of "linguistic human rights" that would protect minority language speakers.

Inequality is on the rise: gains have been concentrated with a small elite, while most have seen their fortunes stagnate or fall. Despite what scholars and journalists consider a worrying trend, there is no evidence of growing popular concern about inequality. In fact, research suggests that citizens in unequal societies are less concerned than those in more egalitarian societies. How to make sense of this paradox? I argue that citizens' consent to inequality is explained by their growing conviction that societal success is reflective of a meritocratic process. Drawing on 25 years of International Social Survey Program data, I show that rising inequality is legitimated by the popular belief that the income gap is meritocratically deserved: the more unequal a society, the more likely its citizens are to explain success in meritocratic terms, and the less important they deem nonmeritocratic factors such as a person's family wealth and connections.

Increasing access to diverse types of credit and spreading indebtedness across many social groups were significant economic developments of the twentieth century and into the twenty-first, with implications for social inequality and insecurity. This review evaluates the role of credit and debt in social inequality in the United States. Credit and debt shape inequalities along multiple pathways, in defining social inclusion and exclusion, directing life chances, and facilitating oppression. On the basis of this review, I conclude that building on the progress made in prior research calls for a relational approach to understanding credit, debt, and inequality that includes a focus on the powerful actors that benefit from a political economy increasingly dependent on credit and debt to distribute, regulate, and control social resources. I close by identifying outstanding questions that need to be answered in order to move forward our understanding of economic inequality and insecurity, as well as for social policy and the prospects for collective action.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explain the difference between social inequality and identity.Design/methodology/approachThe paper presents a conceptual view.FindingsThe paper notes that the concepts are often confused, as in arguments that equality is impossible because everyone is different. It is pointed out that equality and inequality are not opposites; that equality is simply the zero point on the infinite range of inequality. The existence of inequality depends on socially recognised difference. The difference may often be simply a basis for socially imposed inequalities, as with ethnicity and gender, or it may be a real cause of inequality as with health differences. Nine important inter‐related bases of inequality are considered. Equality does not require zero inequality on all aspects but merely a balance of inequalities. However, the complexity means it is difficult to define or recognise total equality. The nearest would be that all individuals are regarded and treated as equally important. The zero point of inequality may be unattainable, but the real issue is the actual extent of inequality, which could be very substantially reduced.Originality/valueThis original paper is of value in correcting some misconceptions and improving understanding of an important subject.

Australia has experienced its longest ever period of economic growth over the last quarter century. Yet, there are growing concerns and debate about the distribution of benefits from this growth, and the extent to which inequality is increasing. One in eight adults and more than one in six children are living in poverty, while the share of income going to the top is growing at the expense of low- and middle-income earners. The disparity between rich and poor Australians extends beyond income to educational, postcode, intergenerational and technological inequality - all of which are at the core of opportunity. How are poverty and inequality measured; what are the features of deprivation experienced by people living with entrenched economic disadvantage, struggling with rising costs of living and housing pressures, and reliant on social security and charity? Is Australia - long seen as the egalitarian land of the 'fair go' - now a divided nation of haves and have-nots? How do we tackle economic disadvantage and poverty, and facilitate fairness and opportunity for all?

Inequality is usually studied with a focus on economic factors, such as income and wealth, and with reference to a brief period of time, basically the period of data collection. This article argues that this approach is misleading and does not allow us to understand inequality, let alone society at large. Inequalities and social hierarchies comprise more than economic factors but also cultural factors, as Pierre Bourdieu has shown. Bourdieu, however, neglected the historical dimension. Classes and habitus types are rooted in long traditions, which have to be studied over centuries, not months or years. Capitalist societies develop hierarchies of social classes, which are shaped by pre-capitalist hierarchies. These earlier hierarchies tend to persist for decades or even centuries after the capitalist transformation. I refer to these earlier hierarchies as sociocultures, since they form not only hierarchies but also cultures, which reproduce from one generation to the next. Edward P. Thompson has demonstrated this with regard to the English working class. In the article, I will introduce the concept of socioculture as it is used in studies of social inequality.

We live in an era of growing economic inequality. Luminaries ranging from the President to the Pope to economist Thomas Piketty in his bestselling book Capital in the Twenty- First Century have raised alarms about the disparity between the haves and the have-nots. Overlooked, however, in these important discussions is the reality that economic inequality is not a uniform experience; rather, its effects fall more harshly on women and minorities. With regard to gender, American women have higher rates of poverty and get paid less than comparable men, and their workplace participation rates are falling. Yet economic inequality is neither inevitable nor intractable. Given that the government creates the rules of the market, it is essential to analyze the government's role in perpetuating economic inequality. This Article specifically examines the role of the Supreme Court in contributing to gender- based economic inequality. The thesis is that the Supreme Court applies oversimplified economic assumptions about the market in its decision-making, thereby perpetuating economic inequality on the basis of gender. Applying insights of feminist economic theory, the Article analyzes recent Supreme Court jurisprudence about women workers, including Wal-Mart v. Dukes (denying class certi cation to female employees who were paid and promoted less than men), Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. (granting business owners the right to deny contraception coverage to female employees on religious grounds), and Harris v. Quinn (limiting the ability of home health care workers to unionize and thereby improve their working conditions). In these cases, the Court elevates its narrow view of efficiency over more comprehensive understandings, devalues care work, upholds harmful power imbalances, and ignores the intersectional reality of the lives of low-wage women workers. The Article concludes that the Court is eroding collective efforts by women to improve their working conditions and economic standing. It suggests advocacy strategies for reforming law to obtain economic justice for women and their families.

SUMMARY
How to explain persistent inequality in Africa and its widespread consequences of uncertainty and social costs continues to be the focus of heated debate. In this debate piece, I argue that the contending orthodox, heterodox and political economy explanations are not satisfactory. Instead, stratification economics, centred on property and institutions, offers a more compelling elucidation of why stratification and inequality persist in Africa.

While contemporary American society is highly segregated and increasingly unequal, there are settings in which typical social divisions do not apply—in principle (if not in practice) neither limiting one's ability to participate nor shaping one's power relative to others. This essay draws on current research on the everyday dynamics of social inclusion and exclusion among the parents of a New York City Parent-Teacher Association to highlight everyday practices of social inequality. Uncovering microsociological dynamics of inequality in settings where established structures of inequality (e.g., segregation and the division of labor) are sidelined by explicit adoption of egalitarian principles, the essay shows that, even when democratic civility prevails, background inequalities on the basis of race, gender, social class, and immigration status are often reproduced in mundane everyday interaction.