Creating and Contesting Social Inequalities Contemporary Readings

Creating and Contesting Social Inequalities: Contemporary Readings offers readings on a variety of topics, with a focus on the "how" of inequality. Rather than structuring the book topically, editors Carissa M. Froyum, Katrina Bloch, and Tiffany Taylor have organized the readings around social processes that reproduce and maintain inequality.

This unique anthology includes social change readings throughout its entirety, rather than segmenting them at the end of the reader. It also features innovative data analysis exercises, reading questions, and social change projects. With its combination of generic processes, intersectionality, full incorporation of disabilities, global perspective, and data analysis exercises, Creating and Contesting Social Inequalities will challenge students to see themselves as agents in a system of inequality rather than passive learners.

Carissa M. Froyum is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Northern Iowa.

Katrina Bloch is Associate Professor of Sociology at Kent State University at Stark.

Tiffany Taylor is Associate Professor of Sociology at Kent State University at Kent.

INTRODUCTION

PART I. WHERE DO INEQUALITIES COME FROM? DOES IT HAVE TO BE THIS WAY?
Introduction
Readings

Constructing Inequalities
1. "Roots of Inequality," by Michael Schwalbe
2. "Origins of Inequality and Uneven Development," by James Russell
3. "Stratified Societies," by Nancy Bonvillain

Contesting and Changing
4. "Frameworks of Desire," by Anne Fausto-Sterling
5. "Intersectionality: Multiple Inequalities in Social Theory," by Sylvia Walby, Jo Armstrong, and Sofia Strid
6. "Slaves, Immigrants, and Suffragists," by Douglas Baynton

Data Analysis Exercises
A. How does the US compare?
B. Is the US the land of opportunity?

Projects and Resources to Make a Difference

PART II: WHY DO WE CATEGORIZE PEOPLE INTO GROUPS? HOW DOES DIFFERENTIATION TRANSFORM INTO INEQUALITY?
Introduction
Readings

Thinking and Believing
7. "Intersecting Cultural Beliefs in Social Relations: Gender, Race, and Class Binds and Freedoms," by Cecilia L. Ridgeway and Tamar Kricheli-Katz
8. "Engendering Racial Perceptions: An Intersectional Analysis of How Social Status Shapes Race," by Andrew M. Penner and Aliya Saperstein

Creating Boundaries
9. "Hetero-Romantic Love and Heterosexiness in Children's G-Rated Films," by Karin A. Martin and Emily Kazyak
10. "Diversity in the Lean Automobile Factory: Doing Class through Gender, Disability and Age," by Patrizia Zanoni
11. "The Racial Formation of American Indians: Negotiating Legitimate Identities within Tribal and Federal Law," by Eva Marie Garroutte

Policing Boundaries
12. "The Girl Hunt: Urban Nightlife and the Performance of Masculinity as Collective Activity," by David Grazian
13. "Creating Model Consumers: Producing Ethnicity, Race, and Class in Asian American Advertising" by Shalini Shankar
14. "Discrimination in a Low-Wage Labor Market: A Field Experiment," by Devah Pager, Bruce Western, and Bart Bonikowski

Contesting and Changing
15. "The Power in a Name: Diagnostic Terminology and Diverse Experiences," by Georgiann Davis
16. "Explaining and Eliminating Racial Profiling," by Donald Tomaskovic-Devey and Patricia Warren

Data Analysis Exercises
C. Is racism dead?
D. When do women have orgasms?
E. Is smoking a social class marker?

Projects and Resources to Make a Difference

PART III: HOW DO DOMINANT GROUPS GET AND HOARD RESOURCES?
Introduction
Readings

Exploiting
17. "The Globalization of Care Work: Neoliberal Economic Restructuring and Migration Policy," by Joya Misra, Jonathan Woodring, and Sabine N. Merz
18. "Bad Attitudes and Good Soldiers: Soft Skills as a Code for Tractability in the Hiring of Immigrant Latina/os over Native Blacks in the Hotel Industry," by Margaret M. Zamudio and Michael I. Lichter
19. "New Commodities, New Consumers Selling Blackness in a Global Marketplace," by Patricia Hill Collins

Excluding
20. "The Complexities and Processes of Racial Housing Discrimination," by Vincent J. Roscigno, Diana L. Karafin, and Griff Tester
21. "'Tuck in that Shirt!' Race, Class, Gender, and Discipline in an Urban School," by Edward Morris

Enacting Violence
22. "The Displaced and Dispossessed of Darfur: Explaining the Sources of a Continuing State-Led Genocide," by John Hagan and Joshua Kaiser
23. "Sexual Harassment, Workplace Authority, and the Paradox of Power," by Heather McLaughlin, Christopher Uggen, and Amy Blackstone

Contesting and Changing
24. "Breaking the Food Chains: An Investigation of Food Justice Activism" by Alison Hope Alkon and Kari Marie Norgaard
25. "Global Corporations, Global Unions" by Stephen Lerner

Data Analysis Exercises
F. Who makes the decisions?
G. Is voting a right?
H. Do working-class jobs kill?

Projects and Resources to Make a Difference

PART IV: HOW DO INEQUALITIES BECOME INSTITUTIONALIZED?
Introduction
Readings

Bureaucratizing
26. "Gender, the Labor Process and Dignity at Work," by Martha Crowley
27. "Paperwork First, Not Work First: How Caseworkers Use Paperwork to Feel Effective," by Tiffany Taylor

Controlling Spaces
28. "Educational Ties, Social Capital and the Translocal (Re)Production of MBA Alumni Networks," by Sarah Hall
29. "Gendered Geographies of Reproductive Tourism," by Daisy Deomampo

Instituting Social Policy
30. "A Cripple at a Rich Man's Gate: A Comparison of Disability, Employment and Anti-discrimination Law in the United States and Canada," by C.G.K. Atkins
31. "Race, Hyper-Incarceration, and US Poverty Policy in Historic Perspective," by Reuben Jonathan Miller

Contesting and Changing
32. "Housework and Social Policy," by Makiko Fuwa and Philip N. Cohen
33. "Safe Spaces: Gay-Straight Alliances in High Schools," by Tina Fetner, Athena Elafros, Sandra Bortolin, and Coralee Drechsler

Data Analysis Exercises
I. What causes the wage gap?
J. Living together or living apart?
K. Are student loans the great equalizer?

Projects and Resources to Make a Difference

PART V. WHY DO PEOPLE GO ALONG WITH INEQUALITIES?
Introduction
Readings

Maintaining Identities
34. "Cultural and Cosmopolitan: Idealized Femininity and Embodied Nationalism in Nigerian Beauty Pageants," by Oluwakemi Balogun
35. "'Barbie Dolls' on the Pitch: Identity Work, Defensive Othering, and Inequality in Women's Rugby," by Matthew Ezzell

Controlling Discourses
36. "'Anyone can be an illegal:' Color-blind Ideology and Maintaining Latino/Citizen Borders," by Katrina Bloch
37. "The Knowledge-Shaping Process: Elite Mobilization and Environmental Policy," by Eric Bonds

Managing Emotions
38. "'For the Betterment of Kids Who Look Like Me': Professional Emotional Labor as a Racial Project," by Carissa Froyum

Contesting and Changing
39. "Gender Labor: Transmen, Femmes, and Collective Work of Transgression," by Jane Ward
40. "Fitting In and Fighting Back: Stigma Management Strategies among Homeless Kids," by Anne R. Roschelle and Peter Kaufman
41. "Towards an Affirmation Model of Disability," by John Swain and Sally French

Data Analysis Exercises
L. Does privilege make us happy?

Projects and Resources to Make a Difference