This book assesses the role of microfinance in the construction of livelihoods for poverty reduction in the Northern Savannah of Ghana, analysing the current microfinance landscape and financial services in the region. The book analyses the current microfinance landscape and financial services in Ghana. In doing so, it demonstrates the key factors for designing microfinance products and services to ensure greater uptake and outreach enhancing the sustainability of microfinance service providers. Chapters explore the impact of access to microfinance on livelihood diversification, asset accumulation patterns and welfare outcomes. In addition to assessing the role as well as of microfinance as an anti-poverty tool, the book presents new theoretical frameworks and models, including the microfinance livelisystem framework (MFL). This unique framework, which combines and goes beyond existing frameworks, situates the microfinance industry within national and international financial and economic ecosystems and presents the interrelationships between institutions providing services for the construction of livelihoods. Offering new theoretical frameworks and models developed for the microfinance industry with universal application, this book will be of particular use to students and scholars of Development Studies, Development Finance, Poverty and Inequality Studies, Rural Development and Sustainable Finance.

The idea of the "global city," which focuses on globalisation's impact on the social, financial, and political reality of cities in advanced economies, has become widely influential in the decades since its introduction-and yet the major issues in the "global city debate" remain unresolved. This book provides a systematic overview of the debate and competing theoretical notions, as well as an argument for the need to test the framework's empirical validity before the unresolved questions can be fruitfully addressed. By testing data from the Netherlands in the 1990s and 2000s, the author demonstrates the value of rigorous empirical scrutiny while offering fresh insights for the global city debate as a whole.

As both a preeminent scholar of Balck Angelican and Episcopalians and devout parishoner, the late James Hewitt writes an illuminus hsitory of one of the most famous black congregrations in America. From its humble beginnings, St. Philip's originated from classes conducted by Elais Neau and other Angelic clerks for the society for the propagations of the Gospel in Foreign Parts. From these cateisem classes emerged a higly educated, African-American group comprised of free and enslaved blacks. W.E.B Dubuois hailed it as the foundation for the Talented Tenth in his classic book Souls of Balck Folk After the American Revolution, St. Philip's has since becoem the church of middle-class blacks across New York City. Hewlitt's careful and percise scholarship chronicles over two centuries of of the church's history, which fills a significant lagun in African-American Religious history.

Gender Inequality in Our Changing World: A Comparative Approach focuses on the contemporary United States but places it in historical and global context. Written for sociology of gender courses, this textbook identifies conditions that encourage greater or lesser gender inequality, explains how gender and gender inequality change over time, and explores how gender intersects with other hierarchies, especially those related to race, social class, and sexual identity. The authors integrate historical and international materials as they help students think both theoretically and empirically about the causes and consequences of gender inequality, both in their own lives and in the lives of others worldwide.

* Integrates contributions from a diverse range of nations, utilising a broad range of theoretical tools and methodologies, to offer a cross-national perspective considering the way in which community responses to Covid-19 interacted with structural and political characteristics, as well as with the responses of national governments to the pandemic in terms of 'lockdown' restrictions and public health policy * Fascinating reading for students and academics in social psychology, and the social sciences, as well as policymakers and charities who wish to harness, support, and sustain these initiatives without controlling them * Explores the invaluable support and advice provided by community groups and organisations, including practical tasks such as grocery shopping, as well as emotional and financial support to community members, many of whom were struggling with physical and mental health issues as well as economic disadvantage

This book is about unequal development and labour in Brazil, with particular reference to the economic and social development of the Northeast region, which has suffered persistent disadvantage. It combines a historical approach, which shows how economic, social and political institutions have been restructured over time, with an analysis of changes in the pattern of production, employment, unemployment and inequality up to the present day. It draws on detailed case studies to examine the connections between local and national production systems and critical labour market outcomes such as informality in employment, precarious work and disparities between genders, races and regions. The case of the Brazilian Northeast illustrates processes, relationships and policy debates that are important not only in Brazil but also elsewhere. The book will be of interest to teachers, researchers and students in economics, sociology, labour and development; public officials and policy-makers; the international development community; and the general public interested in Latin American affairs. They will find in the book an original and systematic analysis of the factors underlying unequal development and how they respond to different policy regimes and suggestions about the issues that need to be addressed in the future.

Sports are the opiate of the people, particularly in the United States, Europe, and parts of South America. Globally, billions of fans feverishly focus on the summer and winter Olympics. In theory, international fraternalism is boosted by these "friendly competitions," but often national rivalries eclipse the theoretical amity. How the Olympics have dealt with racism over the years offers a window to better understanding these dynamics. Since their revival in 1896, the modern Olympics were periodically agitated by political and moral conundrums. Racial tensions, the topic of this volume, reached their apex under the polarizing presidency of Avery Brundage. Race in sports cannot be disentangled from societal problems, nor can race or sports be fully understood separately. Racial conflict must be contextualized. Racism and the Olympics explores the racial landscape against which a number of major disputes evolved. The book covers various topics and events in history that portray discrimination within Olympic games, such as the Nazi games of 1936, the black American protest on the victory stand in Mexico City's Olympics, as well as international political forces that removed South Africa and Rhodesia from the Olympics. Robert G. Weisbord considers the role of international politics and the criteria that should be used to determine nations that are selected to take part in and serve as venues for the Olympic Games.

A TLS, GUARDIAN AND NEW STATESMAN BOOK OF THE YEAR 2020 The new bestseller from the acclaimed author of Justice and one of the world's most popular philosophers "Astute, insightful, and empathetic...A crucial book for this moment" Tara Westover, author of Educated These are dangerous times for democracy. We live in an age of winners and losers, where the odds are stacked in favour of the already fortunate. Stalled social mobility and entrenched inequality give the lie to the promise that "you can make it if you try". And the consequence is a brew of anger and frustration that has fuelled populist protest, with the triumph of Brexit and election of Donald Trump. Michael J. Sandel argues that to overcome the polarized politics of our time, we must rethink the attitudes toward success and failure that have accompanied globalisation and rising inequality. Sandel highlights the hubris a meritocracy generates among the winners and the harsh judgement it imposes on those left behind. He offers an alternative way of thinking about success - more attentive to the role of luck in human affairs, more conducive to an ethic of humility, and more hospitable to a politics of the common good.

Roman literature seems to provide plenty of instances of contempt towards foreign or black individuals, but it is an untenable assumption that such distaste amounts to a racist attitude, particularly considering how elusive the definitions of 'race' and 'racism' are. Making extensive use of developments in sociological theory and psychology, Romans and Blacks, first published in 1989, presents an innovative and illuminating picture of black-white relations in Roman society. It is argued that 'race' as a somatic identification that entails permanent and genetically transmitted social disabilities was absent, and that the main deference-entitling distinctions in the Roman world were socio-cultural rather than somatic. Therefore, Professor Thompson concludes, references to black skins and negroid features should be interpreted in aesthetic terms. This wide-ranging study brings welcome clarity to the discussion of blacks in the Roman world, and is valuable for all students of race relations as well as classicists and historians.

In a collection of compelling contributions to the study of the nexus between race, crime, and justice, noted scholars in the field critique many long-held assumptions and myths about race, challenging criminal justice policymakers to develop new and effective strategies for dealing with the social problems such misunderstandings create. In sections devoted to criminological theory, law enforcement, courts and the law, juvenile delinquency, and gender, contributors endeavor to dispel myths about African-American involvement in the criminal justice system. In so doing, a number of important facts are established about the race/crime nexus. For example, in an analysis of criminological theory, it is concluded that race, as a singular social factor, has not been adequately represented in existing paradigms. The subject of police profiling of African-Americans reveals an evolution of court decisions that have marginalized, rather than liberated, African-Americans since slavery. Each contributor challenges both the reader and the criminal justice system to develop meaningful strategies for addressing the racism that still pervades our system of justice.

A chapter on women of color in prison makes a compelling argument that such institutions often represent safer environments than the life on the streets women leave behind. This persuasive volume will be of interest to undergraduate and graduate students as well as faculty in Sociology, Criminal Justice, policy development, African-American and Women's Studies.

Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen here poses the question: "Is affirmative action morally (un)justifiable?" As a phrase that frequently surfaces in major headlines, affirmative action is a highly controversial and far-reaching issue, yet most of the recent scholarly literature surrounding the topic tends to focus on defending one side or another in a particular case of affirmative action. Lippert-Rasmussen instead takes a wide-angle view, addressing each of the prevailing contemporary arguments for and against affirmative action. In his introduction, he proposes an amended definition of affirmative action and considers what forms, from quotas to outreach strategies, may fall under this revised definition. He then analyzes the strengths and weaknesses of each position, relative to each other, and applies recent discussions in political philosophy to assess if and how each argument might justify different conclusions given different cases or philosophical frameworks. Each chapter investigates an argument for or against affirmative action. The six arguments for it consist of compensation, anti-discrimination, equality of opportunity, role model, diversity, and integration. The five arguments against it are reverse discrimination, stigma, mismatch, publicity, and merit. Lippert-Rasmussen also expands the discussion to include affirmative action for groups beyond the prototypical examples of African Americans and women, and to consider health and minority languages as possible criteria for inclusion in affirmative action initiatives. Based on the comparative strength of anti-discrimination and equality of opportunity arguments, Making Sense of Affirmative Action ultimately makes a case in favor of affirmative action; however, its originality lies in Lippert-Rasmussen's careful exploration of moral justifiability as a contextual evaluative measure and his insistence that complexity and a comparative focus are inherent to this important issue.

From market crisis to market boom, from welfare to wealth care, from homelessness to helplessness, and an all-out assault on the global environment-these are just some of the indecencies of contemporary economic life that Profit Pathology takes on. Here, Michael Parenti investigates how class power is a central force in our political life and, yet, is subjected to little critical discernment. He notes how big-moneyed interests shift the rules of the game in their favor while unveiling the long march by reactionaries through the nation's institutions to undo all the gains of social democracy, from the New Deal to the present. Parenti also traces the exploitative economic forces that have operated through much of American history, including the mass displacement and extermination of Native Americans and the enslavement of Africans. Parenti is a master at demonstrating the impact of monomaniacal profit accumulation on social services-especially health care-and human values. Here he takes us one step further, showing how unrestrained capitalism ultimately endangers itself, becoming a "self-devouring beast" that threatens us all. Finally, he calls for a solution based on democratic diversity and public ownership-"because it works."

In this exploration of the way racism is translated from the print-only era to the cyber era the author takes the reader through a devastatingly informative tour of white supremacy online. The book examines how white supremacist organizations have translated their printed publications onto the Internet. Included are examples of open as well as 'cloaked' sites which disguise white supremacy sources as legitimate civil rights websites. Interviews with a small sample of teenagers as they surf the web show how they encounter cloaked sites and attempt to make sense of them, mostly unsuccessfully. The result is a first-rate analysis of cyber racism within the global information age. The author debunks the common assumptions that the Internet is either an inherently democratizing technology or an effective 'recruiting' tool for white supremacists. The book concludes with a nuanced, challenging analysis that urges readers to rethink conventional ways of knowing about racial equality, civil rights, and the Internet.

Whiteness, Pedagogy, Performance is unique in bringing together these three important topics in the context of communication teaching and scholarship with an eye toward interdisciplinary perspectives. In fourteen chapters, the leading whiteness scholars in the field of communication analyze the process of teaching and learning and the complicated intersections of whiteness, racial identity, and cross-racial dialogue. Toward these ends, these essays offer a variety of theoretical and practical approaches to the analysis of identity construction, racial privilege, and pedagogies toward equality and social justice. Above all, for teachers, students, and anyone interested in these issues, this book is a challenge to re-think the ways our curricula, texts, disciplinary boundaries, and moreover, how our interactions and performances re-inscribe racial privileges. Chapters provide innovative and accessible analyses of teaching and learning that will appeal to students, teachers, administrators, and anyone interested in how race works.

First published in 1972, this is a book of essays offered in honour of Paul Rosenstein-Rodan, the distinguished economist whose career started in mid-1920s Vienna and subsequently spanned Europe, Britain, the USA and many of the less developed countries of the world.The book includes reviews of past developments, chapters on development trade and value theory, an assessment of contemporary emerging economic patterns, development and trade policy, and investment policy. Further essays cover the intellectual history of development economics, general aspects of growth and economic policy in underdeveloped countries and the problems of income distribution and sectoral and regional development.

First published in 1978, this book was written at a time when belief was high in Western-guided economic development of the emerging countries. The success of Marshall Plan in war-torn Europe generated a US-led optimism that, with generous inflows of aid and technical assistance, the Third World could be won over in the Cold War. The author’s direct experience as a young academic economist in Cyprus, Malaysia, Uganda and Liberia led him to question this general optimism: the reality on the ground in the developing world did not seem to match Western optimism. Theories and blueprints, made in the West, did not fit the requirements of developing countries.

Higher production and better income distribution were inseparable twin objectives of developing nations. That meant, production of a higher national output must at the same time promote social justice. Investment must create adequate jobs so that new entrants into rapidly expanding labor force could be gainfully employed. Yet, the dominant (Western) theories of development at the time, in particular the Trickle Down Theory of Growth, prescribed "Growth First, Distribution Later" strategy. Similarly, Import Substitution Industrialization theories were emphasized at the expense of export-led growth. Dualistic Growth theories preached urban-biased, anti-rural development.

This book was written as a rebuttal of such faulty theorizing and misguided professional technical assistance and the book’s message is no less valid today than in the 1970’s.

Table of Contents

Part I: Economic Growth Without Social Justice 1. What was Wrong with Post-war Planning in LDCs? 2. Distribution Effects of Growth: the Evidence 3. Absolute Poverty: Measurement and Identification 4. The Unemployment Problems of the LDCs Part II:Some Case Studies of the Influence of Elites on Economic Planning and Policy 5. Malaysia: From Colonial to Bumiputra Elitism 6. Liberia: The Americo-Liberian Elite 7. Revolution or Reform: The Experience of Pakistan, Brazil and Uganda Part III: Egalitarian Planning and Reform in LDCs 8. Towards More Egalitarian Development Planning 9. An Egalitarian Development Policy Based on Manpower Planning 10. Education Planning: Shifting from Elitist to Egalitarian Principles 11. Egalitarian Planning and Rural Development 12. Global Equity: Reforming the International Trade and Aid System 13. Summing up: Egalitarian Planning as a Non-violent Revolution

First Published in 1999. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This book brings together a vast range of pre-eminent experts, academics, and practitioners to interrogate the role of media in representing economic inequality. It explores and deconstructs the concept of economic inequality by examining the different dimensions of inequality and how it has evolved historically; how it has been represented and portrayed in the media; and how, in turn, those representations have informed the public's knowledge of and attitudes towards poverty, class and welfare, and political discourse. Taking a multi-disciplinary, comparative, and historical approach, and using a variety of new and original data sets to inform the research, studies herein examine the relationship between media and inequality in UK, Western Europe, and USA. In addition to generating new knowledge and research agendas, the book generates suggestions of ways to improve news coverage on this topic and raise the level of the debate, and will improve understanding about economic inequality, as it has evolved, and as it continues to develop in academic, political and media discourses. This book will be of interest to academics and practitioners alike in the areas of journalism, media studies, economics, and the social sciences, as well as political commentators and those interested more broadly in social policy.

Those who wish to avoid the costs of educational reform often point to Asian Americans as evidence that minorities can succeed without special program support. But as Wendy Walker-Moffat shows, the story of Asian American success deflects attention from the very real problems faced by new Asian immigrant groups. In this book, Walker-Moffat reveals the bitter contrast between the educational experiences of new Asian immigrant groups and the Asian American success myth. Using the case of the Hmong, a Southeast Asian refugee group that settled across the United States, the author shows how ill-prepared school systems are to educate newcomers. The book describes the well-intentioned but harmful practices that provide immigrants with a separate and unequal education, challenging prevailing motivation theories regarding academic success. Walker-Moffat points out the crucial connections between culture and learning and presents concrete ways in which schools can do a better job of educating all students by drawing on the resources of home and community. For any educator interested in classroom demographics, multicultural education, and educational policy for immigrant and language-minority students, The Other Side of the Asian American Success Story offers not only new strategies, but a reconsideration of what American public education is, what purposes it serves, and ultimately, who we are as Americans.

What does it mean to practice radical generosity? What if the concept of "citizen" implied "world citizen?" Is cosmopolitanism possible? Ali Kashani argues, the rise of the far right political discourse, xenophobia, and the current immigration and refugee crisis indicate that existing values, norms, and practices are inadequate. Thus, it is vital to critique and resist the existing values and norms that produce ultra-nationalistic and xenophobic practices. Thus, radical generosity is crucial and necessary. The concept of radical generosity opens the possibility for the transformation of ethical and political practices and a move toward the possibility of cosmopolitanism. Kashani argues that the potential for the practice of radical generosity is the potential for the possibility of cosmopolitanism. He develops the concept of ethics of radical generosity as a social and political practice and as an original grounding for cosmopolitanism, as both an ethical and political transformative practice- and as a critique to resist the rise of the far right political discourse and xenophobia. He argues that there is an urgent need to consider a critique and rethink the ways in which existing values, norms, and practices deal with the rise of the far right political discourse, xenophobia, immigration, and the refugee crisis. He suggests a new way to bridge ethical and political cosmopolitanism in a mode that draws inspiration from an unconditional ethics by Derrida and Levinas, and Aristotle 's ethics of character, radicalized by Nietzsche, that emphasize magnanimity and generosity as essential aspects of self-realization as a form of self-overcoming, and social transformative praxis by Marx. Kashani raises a critical question: is cosmopolitan solidarity possible and, irrespective of whether it is possible, is it necessary?

In the past thirty years, the United States has made remarkable progress in reducing barriers in access to health care faced by racial and ethnic minority Americans. Most minority Americans born in the 1950s have vivid memories of "separate and unequal" health facilities. By the 1980s, overt and blatant barriers to care were uncommon. In spite of the progress achieved, recent studies continue to provide evidence that minority Americans experience differential access to health coverage and to some health procedures. To investigate these differentials, contributors to this volume were asked to examine the health care experiences of nonelderly Hispanics and African-Americans within a nationally representative data source: the 1987 National Medical Expenditure Survey. Through this effort, the authors document the extent to which barriers to access persist and provide insight on possible explanations for variations in access. This volume will provide policymakers, practitioners, and advocates with an objective base of important information to guide decision-making about health care policy.

Racial Theories in Fascist Italy examines the role played by race and racism in the development of Italian identity during the fascist period. The book examines the struggle between Mussolini, the fascist hierarchy, scientists and others in formulating a racial persona that would gain wide acceptance in Italy.
This book will be of interest to historians, political scientists concerned with the development of fascism and scholars of race and racism.

eBook available with sample pages: 020316489X

This collection of original essays takes a new look at race in urban spaces by highlighting the intersection of the physical separation of minority groups and the social processes of their marginalization. Race, Space, and Exclusion provides a dynamic and productive dialogue among scholars of racial exclusion and segregation from different perspectives, theoretical and methodological angles, and social science disciplines. This text is ideal for upper-level undergraduate or lower-level graduate courses on housing policy, urban studies, inequalities, and planning courses.

This book examines the changing nature of global inequalities and efforts that are being made to move toward a more egalitarian world society. The contributors are world historical sociologists and geographers who place the contemporary issues of unequal power, wealth and income in a global historical perspective. The geographers examine the roles of geopolitics and patterns of warfare in the historical development of the modern world-system, and the sociologists examine endeavours to improve the situations of poor peoples and nations and to engage the challenges of sustainability that are linked with global inequalities. Overcoming Global Inequalities contains cutting-edge research from engaged social scientists intended to help humanity deal with the challenges of global inequality in the 21st century.

Behind the twenty-first-century curtain of "colorblind" public sentiment lies an often-ignored reality shared by many African American males-racism continues to thrive and often drastically affects their lives. Fitzgerald draws on his extensive interviews of black males to reveal the experiences of racism that continue in public schools and in American higher education. Using empirical data and the methods of sociological research, Fitzgerald analyzes how the persistent effects of white supremacy in education have threatened the psychological and economic welfare of black males. The effects often last well into adulthood. Unraveling the subtle and overt mechanisms of institutional social control leads Fitzgerald to proposals to reduce structural racism and improve the lives of African American youth.