University of Chicago Press: New Titles in Sociology: Social Organization--Stratification, Mobility

Stuck in Place

Patrick Sharkey — Wed, 15 May 2013 05:00:00 GMT

In the 1960s, many believed that the civil rights movement’s successes would foster a new era of racial equality in America. Four decades later, the degree of racial inequality has barely changed. To understand what went wrong, Patrick Sharkey argues that we have to understand what has happened to African American communities over the last several decades. In Stuck in Place, Sharkey describes how political decisions and social policies have led to severe disinvestment from black neighborhoods, persistent segregation, declining economic opportunities, and a growing link between African American communities and the criminal justice system.

As a result, neighborhood inequality that existed in the 1970s has been passed down to the current generation of African Americans. Some of the most persistent forms of racial inequality, such as gaps in income and test scores, can only be explained by considering the neighborhoods in which black and white families have lived over multiple generations. This multigenerational nature of neighborhood inequality also means that a new kind of urban policy is necessary for our nation’s cities. Sharkey argues for urban policies that have the potential to create transformative and sustained changes in urban communities and the families that live within them, and he outlines a durable urban policy agenda to move in that direction.

These Kids

Kysa Nygreen — Tue, 07 May 2013 05:00:00 GMT

Few would deny that getting ahead is a legitimate goal of learning, but the phrase implies a cruel hierarchy: a student does not simply get ahead, but gets ahead of others. In These Kids, Kysa Nygreen turns a critical eye on this paradox. Offering the voices and viewpoints of students at a “last chance” high school in California, she tells the story of students who have, in fact, been left behind.

Detailing a youth-led participatory action research project that she coordinated, Nygreen uncovers deep barriers to educational success that are embedded within educational discourse itself. Struggling students internalize descriptions of themselves as “at risk,” “low achieving,” or “troubled”—and by adopting the very language of educators, they also adopt its constraints and presumption of failure. Showing how current educational discourse does not, ultimately, provide an adequate vision of change for students at the bottom of the educational hierarchy, she levies a powerful argument that social justice in education is impossible today precisely because of how we talk about it.

Top Student, Top School?

Alexandria Walton Radford — Mon, 06 May 2013 05:00:00 GMT

Most of us think that valedictorians can write their own ticket. By reaching the top of their class they have proven their merit, so their next logical step should be to attend the nation’s very best universities. Yet in Top Student, Top School?, Alexandria Walton Radford reveals that many valedictorians do not enroll in prestigious institutions. Employing an original five-state study that surveyed nine hundred public high school valedictorians, she sets out to determine when and why valedictorians end up at less selective schools, showing that social class makes all the difference.

Radford traces valedictorians’ paths to college and presents damning evidence that high schools do not provide sufficient guidance on crucial factors affecting college selection, such as reputation, financial aid, and even the application process itself. Left in a bewildering environment of seemingly similar options, many students depend on their parents for assistance—and this allows social class to rear its head and have a profound impact on where students attend. Simply put, parents from less affluent backgrounds are far less informed about differences in colleges’ quality, the college application process, and financial aid options, which significantly limits their child’s chances of attending a competitive school, even when their child has already managed to become valedictorian.

Top Student, Top School? pinpoints an overlooked yet critical juncture in the education process, one that stands as a barrier to class mobility. By focusing solely on valedictorians, it shows that students’ paths diverge by social class even when they are similarly well-prepared academically, and this divergence is traceable to specific failures by society, failures that we can and should address.

Squeezed Middle

Sophia Parker — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 06:00:00 GMT

The issue of living standards is arguably the biggest challenge facing economists and politicians in the United States and the United Kingdom today. The product of a year-long fellowship at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, The Squeezed Middle brings together leading experts from both sides of the Atlantic to ask what the UK can learn from the US experience of stagnating wages and rising living costs.

American workers have not benefited from growth for an entire generation: adjusting for inflation, the average American worker today earns as much as the average American worker did in 1975. During the last decade British workers have had a similar experience—they can no longer assume that when the economy grows their wages will grow with it. With contributions from a number of leading economic and policy thinkers, this collection analyzes the impact of different policies on those with low to middle incomes and explains what lessons the UK can learn from America’s so-called lost generation. A timely and crucial book, it is essential reading for anyone concerned about the living standards crisis and will have great relevance to policy makers and researchers in the UK, United States, and beyond.