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Books > Social sciences > Sociology, social studies > Social groups & communities > Social classes > General
One of twentieth-century India's great polymaths, statesmen, and militant philosophers of equality, B. R. Ambedkar spent his life battling Untouchability and instigating the end of the caste system. In his 1948 book The Untouchables, he sought to trace the origin of the Dalit caste. Beef, Brahmins, and Broken Men is an annotated selection from this work, just as relevant now, when the oppression of and discrimination against Dalits remains pervasive. Ambedkar offers a deductive, and at times a speculative, history to propose a genealogy of Untouchability. He contends that modern-day Dalits are descendants of those Buddhists who were fenced out of caste society and rendered Untouchable by a resurgent Brahminism since the fourth century BCE. The Brahmins, whose Vedic cult originally involved the sacrifice of cows, adapted Buddhist ahimsa and vegetarianism to stigmatize outcaste Buddhists who were consumers of beef. The outcastes were soon relegated to the lowliest of occupations and prohibited from participation in civic life. To unearth this lost history, Ambedkar undertakes a forensic examination of a wide range of Brahminic literature. Heavily annotated with an emphasis on putting Ambedkar and recent scholarship into conversation, Beef, Brahmins, and Broken Men assumes urgency as India witnesses unprecedented violence against Dalits and Muslims in the name of cow protection.
The division between the scholar-gentry class and the "people" was
an enduring theme of the traditional Chinese agrarian-bureaucratic
state. Twentieth-century elites recast this as a division between
intellectuals and peasants and made the confrontation between the
writing/intellectual self and the peasant "other" a central concern
of literature. The author argues that, in the process, they created
the "peasantry," the downtrodden rural masses represented as proper
objects of political action and shifting ideological agendas.
The first book length study of property-owning democracy, Republic of Equals argues that a society in which capital is universally accessible to all citizens is uniquely placed to meet the demands of justice. Arguing from a basis in liberal-republican principles, this expanded conception of the economic structure of society contextualizes the market to make its transactions fair. The author shows that a property-owning democracy structures economic incentives such that the domination of one agent by another in the market is structurally impossible. The result is a renovated form of capitalism in which the free market is no longer a threat to social democratic values, but is potentially convergent with them. It is argued that a property-owning democracy has advantages that give it priority over rival forms of social organization such as welfare state capitalism and market socialist institutions. The book also addresses the currently high levels of inequality in the societies of the developed West to suggest a range of policies that target the "New Inequality" of our times. For this reason, the work engages not only with political philosophers such as John Rawls, Philip Pettit and John Tomasi, but also with the work of economists and historians such as Anthony B. Atkinson, Francois Bourguignon, Jacob S. Hacker, Lane Kenworthy, and Thomas Piketty.
The aftermath of modern conflicts, deeply rooted in political, economic and social structures, leaves pervasive and often recurring legacies of violence. Addressing past injustice is therefore fundamental not only for societal well-being and peace, but also for future conflict prevention. In recent years, truth and reconciliation commissions have become important but contentious mechanisms for conflict resolution and reconciliation. This book fills a significant gap, examining the importance of context within transitional justice and peace-building. It lays out long-term and often unexpected indirect effects of formal and informal justice processes. Offering a novel conceptual understanding of 'procedural reconciliation' on the societal level, it features an in-depth study of commissions in Peru and Sierra Leone, providing a critical analysis of the contribution and challenges facing transitional justice in post-conflict societies. It will be of interest to scholars and students of comparative politics, international relations, human rights and conflict studies.
This introduction to social change covers the momentous and relatively recent changes that have occurred in the human condition, examining not only the major causes and conditions underlying our current situation, but also the main choices and options we face as we strive to shape our individual and collective futures. This edition of Social Change has been thoroughly updated and revised. Building on previous editions, the book introduces a social scientific approach to change, discusses the components of change and the factors driving them, examines change on the macro-level, then looks toward the future with a discussion of planned change. Most chapters explore societies of yesterday, today, and tomorrow, and include comparative dimensions, especially along First, Second, and Third World lines. The engaging narrative traces several themes, such as the rise of capitalism and the socialist alternative, or civil rights movements in the United States and elsewhere, throughout the book. Social Change, Third Edition features a new discussion of the recent economic crisis and the interconnectedness of the global economy, new empirical data on globalization, and updated discussions of the concepts of evolution and altruism. It also incorporates the dramatic changes in India and China throughout the book.
A Times Book of the Year 2019 'You should not deny yourself the pleasure of reading it' Sunday Times 'A remarkable work and an important addition to the extraordinary wartime history of literary London' Literary Review Who were the Lost Girls? At least a dozen or so young women at large in Blitz-era London have a claim to this title. But Lost Girls concentrates on just four: Lys Lubbock, Sonia Brownell, Barbara Skelton and Janetta Parlade. Chic, glamorous and bohemian, as likely to be found living in a rat-haunted maisonette as dining at the Ritz, they cut a swathe through English literary and artistic life in the 1940s. Three of them had affairs with Lucian Freud. One of them married George Orwell. Another became the mistress of the King of Egypt and was flogged by him on the steps of the Royal Palace. And all of them were associated with the decade's most celebrated literary magazine, Horizon, and its charismatic editor Cyril Connolly. Lys, Sonia, Barbara and Janetta had very different - and sometimes explosive personalities - but taken together they form a distinctive part of the war-time demographic: bright, beautiful, independent-minded women with tough upbringings behind them determined to make the most of their lives in a highly uncertain environment. Theirs was the world of the buzz bomb, the cocktail party behind blackout curtains, the severed hand seen on the pavement in the Bloomsbury square, the rustle of a telegram falling through the letter-box, the hasty farewell to another half who might not ever come back, a world of living for the moment and snatching at pleasure before it disappeared. But if their trail runs through vast acreages of war-time cultural life then, in the end, it returns to Connolly and his amorous web-spinning, in which all four of them regularly featured and which sometimes complicated their emotional lives to the point of meltdown. The Lost Girls were the product of a highly artificial environment. After it came to an end - on Horizon's closure in 1950 - their careers wound on. Later they would have affairs with dukes, feature in celebrity divorce cases and make appearances in the novels of George Orwell, Evelyn Waugh, Anthony Powell and Nancy Mitford. The last of them - Janetta - died as recently as three months ago. However tiny their number, they are a genuine missing link between the first wave of newly-liberated young women of the post-Great War era and the Dionysiac free-for-all of the 1960s. Hectic, passionate and at times unexpectedly poignant, this is their story.
This book offers a new concept of inclusion of the marginalised in India - the Broad-basing Process. The author examines how through this process increasing numbers of marginalised social groups can enter into the social, political and economic mainstream and progressively derive the same advantages from society as the groups already part of it. The book critically reviews how the broad-basing process has worked in the past in India both before and after its independence. It examines how social groups like Dalits, OBCs, Muslims, women and the labour class have fared, and how far economic development, urbanisation, infrastructure development and the digital revolution have helped the marginalised and promoted broad-basing. It also offers mechanisms to speed up broad-basing in poorer economies. A first of its kind, this volume will be useful for scholars and researchers of political studies, sociology, exclusion studies, political economy and also for general readers.
Why do we feel uncomfortable talking about class? Why is it taboo? Why do people often address class through coded terminology like trashy, classy, and snobby? How does discriminatory language, or how do conscious or unconscious derogatory attitudes, or the anticipation of such behaviors, impact those from poor and working class backgrounds when they straddle class? Through 26 narratives of individuals from poor and working class backgrounds - ranging from students, to multiple levels of administrators, and faculty, both tenured and non-tenured - this book provides a vivid understanding of how people can experience and straddle class in the middle, upper, or even elitist class contexts of the academy. Through the powerful stories of individuals who hold many different identities, naming a range of ways they identify in terms of race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, age, ability, and religion, among others, this book showcases how social class identity and classism impact people's experience in higher education and why we should focus more attention on this dimension of identity. The book opens by setting the foundation by examining definitions of class, discussing its impact on identity, and summarizing the literature on class and what it can tell us about the complexities of class identity, its fluidity, sometimes performative nature, and the sense of dissonance it can provoke. This book aims to bring social class identity to the forefront of our consciousness, conversations, and behaviors and to compel those in the academy to recognize classism and reimagine higher education to welcome and support those from poor and working class backgrounds. Its concluding chapter proposes means for both increasing social class consciousness and social class inclusivity in the academy. It is a compelling read for everyone in the academy, not least for those from poor or working class backgrounds who will find validation and recognition and draw strength from its vivid stories.
From the early 1970s, working class writing and publishing in local communities rapidly proliferated into a national movement. This book is the first full evaluation of these developments and opens up new perspectives on literature, culture, class and identity over the past 50 years. Its origins are traced in the context of international shifts in class politics, civil rights, personal expression and cultural change. The writing of young people, older people, adult literacy groups as well as writing workshops is analysed. Thematic chapters explore how audiences consumed this work, the learning of writers, the fierce debates over identity, class and organisation, as well as changing relations with mainstream institutions. The book is accessibly written but engages with a wide range of scholarly work in history, education, cultural studies, literature and sociology. It will be of interest to lecturers and students in these areas as well as the general reader. -- .
Previous critics have documented the damaging effects of the current exploitative sporting and education structures in the United States on Black males and the broader Black community. However, largely missing from scholarly literature and popular discourses on this topic is a comprehensive analysis of the heterogeneity among Black male athletes' lived experiences and outcomes over their lifespans. From Exploitation Back to Empowerment: Black Male Holistic (Under)Development Through Sport and (Mis)Education by Joseph N. Cooper addresses three major issues: (1) the under theorization of Black male athletes' socialization processes, (2) the preponderance of deficit-based theories on Black male athletes, and (3) the lack of expansive analyses of Black male athletes from diverse backgrounds. Grounded in empirical research, this text outlines five socialization models of Black male holistic (under)development through sport and (mis)education. The five socialization models include: (a) illusion of singular success model (ISSM), (b) elite athlete lottery model (EALM), (c) transition recovery model (TRM), (d) purposeful participation for expansive personal growth model (P2EPGM), and (e) holistic empowerment model (HEM). Using ecological, race-based, gender-based, psychological, and athletic-based theories, each of the proposed models incorporates critical sociological insights whereby multi-level system factors (sub, chrono, macro, exo, meso, and micro) along with various intersecting identities and additional background characteristics are taken into account. In addition, historical, sociocultural, political, and economic conditions are examined in relation to their influence on Black males' socialization in and through sport and (mis)education. This nuanced analysis allows for the development of a systematic blueprint for Black male athletes' holistic development and more importantly collective racial and cultural uplift.
Practicing Caste attempts a fundamental break from the tradition of caste studies, showing the limits of the historical, sociological, political, and moral categories through which it has usually been discussed. Engaging with the resources phenomenology, structuralism, and poststructuralism offer to our thinking of the body, Jaaware helps to illuminate the ethical relations that caste entails, especially around its injunctions concerning touching. The resulting insights offer new ways of thinking about sociality that are pertinent not only to India but also to thinking the common on a planetary basis.
Black Country Elites is a study of the people who ran Victorian industrial towns; it also examines the institutions, policies, rituals, and networks these urban elites deployed to cope with urban growth, social unrest, and relative economic decline. Concentrating on a particularly grimy district of the industrial Midlands, the book demonstrates the surprisingly great resources, coherence, sophistication, and impact of the area's mainly middle-class leaders, who were well linked to regional and national power centres. Richard H. Trainor's extensively researched and richly documented analysis suggests the need to re-examine the influential view that Victorian Britain's social development was dominated by London and by land, the professions, and finance. Instead he indicates the complex give-and-take between the metropolis and its notables, on the one hand, and the industrial provinces and their leaders, on the other. The book is both a substantial addition to regional studies of Victorian Britain, and an important contribution to the history of nineteenth-century elites and of the urban middle class.
The New York Times Bestseller A ground-breaking history of the class system in America, which challenges popular myths about equality in the land of opportunity. In this landmark book, Nancy Isenberg argues that the voters who boosted Trump all the way to the White House have been a permanent part of the American fabric, and reveals how the wretched and landless poor have existed from the time of the earliest British colonial settlements to today's hillbillies. Poor whites were central to the rise of the Republican Party in the early nineteenth century and the Civil War itself was fought over class issues nearly as much as it was fought over slavery. Reconstruction pitted white trash against newly freed slaves, which factored in the rise of eugenics - a widely popular movement embraced by Theodore Roosevelt that targeted poor whites for sterilization. These poor were at the heart of New Deal reforms and Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society; they are now offered up as entertainment in reality TV shows, and the label is applied to celebrities ranging from Dolly Parton to Bill Clinton. Marginalized as a class, white trash have always been at or near the centre of major political debates over the character of the American identity. Surveying political rhetoric and policy, popular literature and scientific theories over four hundred years, Isenberg upends assumptions about America's supposedly class-free society - where liberty and hard work were meant to ensure real social mobility - and forces a nation to face the truth about the enduring, malevolent nature of class.
The story of the Stuart dynasty is a breathless soap opera played out in just a hundred years in an array of buildings that span Europe from Scotland, via Denmark, Holland and Spain to England. Life in the court of the House of Stuart has been shrouded in mystery: the first half of the century overshadowed by the fall and execution of Charles I, the second half in the complete collapse of the House itself. Lost to time is the extraordinary contribution the Stuarts made to the fabric of sovereignty. Every palace they built, painting they commissioned, or artwork they acquired was a direct reflection of the lives that they led and the way that they thought. Palaces of Revolution explores this rich history in graphic detail, giving a unique insight into the lives of this famous dynasty. It takes us from Royston and Newmarket, where James I appropriated most of the town centre as a sort of rough-and-ready royal housing estate, to the steamy Turkish baths at Whitehall where Charles II seduced his mistresses. We see the intimate private lives of the monarchs, presented through the buildings in which they lived and the objects they commissioned, creating an entirely new narrative of the Stuart century. Palaces of Revolution traces this extraordinary period across the places and palaces on which the action played out, giving us a thrilling new history of this remarkable dynasty.
Inequality is widening. In the twenty-first century, the gap between those who have more and those who have less is growing: 1 per cent of the world owns as much as the other 99 per cent. Should we be worried? Christopher Steed, author of the acclaimed A Question of Worth, argues that inequality does indeed matter: that economic fairness is one of the defining issues of our time. In a world conditioned by social media, enabling intensified social comparison, the anxieties and effects of contemporary inequality are a cause for huge concern. Despite a wealth of research around inequality most studies have concentrated on its quantitative aspects. In A Question of Inequality, Christopher Steed is concerned with exploring why inequality matters, what it means for those who find themselves victims of it, and what can be done about it. He probes what it means to experience inequality, drawing out case studies on the effects of poverty. In proposing a theory of social relativity the author provides new insights into the effects and meaning of inequality and makes an original and important contribution to a key issue facing the world today.
Money is an evil that does good, and a good that does evil. It inspires hymns to the prosperity it enables, manifestos about the poor it leaves behind, and diatribes for its corrosion of morality. In The Wisdom of Money, one of the world's great essayists guides us through the rich commentary that money has generated since ancient times-both the passions and the resentments-as he builds an unfashionable defense of the worldly wisdom of the bourgeoisie. Bruckner begins with the worshippers and the despisers. Sometimes they are the same people-priests, for example, who venerate the poor from within churches of opulence and splendor. This hypocrisy endures in our secular world, he says, not least in his own France, where it is de rigueur even among the rich to feign indifference to money. It is better to speak plainly about money in the old American fashion, in Bruckner's view. A little more honesty would allow us to see through the myths of money's omnipotence but also the dangers of the aristocratic, ideological, and religious systems of thought that try to put money in its place. This does not mean we should emulate the mega-rich with their pathologies of consumption, competition, and narcissistic philanthropy. But we could do worse than defy three hundred years of derision from novelists and poets to embrace the unromantic bourgeois virtues of work, security, and moderate comfort. It is wise to have money, Bruckner tells us, and wise to think about it critically.
"Fresh, original, heartbreaking" Reni Eddo-Lodge "Devastating, hilarious, unlike anything I have ever read. Destined to be a classic" Pandora Sykes 'A must-read ... as mesmerising as it is poignant' Stylist, SPRING MUST-READ BOOKS TO FEEL EMPOWERED 'This utterly distinctive memoir, written almost out loud in Nottinghamshire vernacular, hauls you into the world Lees grew up in... it's shocking, funny, heart-rending and totally brilliant' The Bookseller, EDITOR'S CHOICE MAY 2021 'What It Feels Like for a Girl says it like it is' Evening Standard, BEST NEW BOOKS IN 2021 Thirteen-year-old Byron needs to get away, and doesn't care how. Sick of being beaten up by lads for "talkin' like a poof" after school. Sick of dad - the weightlifting, womanising Gaz - and Mam, who pissed off to Turkey like Shirley Valentine. Sick of all the people in Hucknall who shuffle about like the living dead, going on about kitchens they're too skint to do up and marriages they're too scared to leave. It's a new millennium, Madonna's 'Music' is top of the charts and there's a whole world to explore - and Byron's happy to beg, steal and skank onto a rollercoaster ride of hedonism. Life explodes like a rush of ecstasy when Byron escapes into Nottingham's kinetic underworld and discovers the East Midlands' premier podium-dancer-cum-hellraiser, the mesmerising Lady Die. But when the comedown finally kicks in, Byron arrives at a shocking encounter that will change life forever. Bold, poignant and riotously funny, What It Feels Like For a Girl is the unique, hotly-anticipated and addictively-readable debut from one of Britain's most exciting young writers.
(Under)Represented Latin@s in STEM: Increasing Participation Throughout Education and the Workplace presents a critical investigation into Latin@ underrepresentation in STEM throughout the education pipeline and workforce. (Under)Represented Latin@s in STEM highlights nationally relevant research related to the creation of opportunities for Latin@ students in STEM and the ways in which these opportunities increase Latin@ participation in STEM. Of particular interest across the chapters is the notion of building and sustaining a strong STEM identity within Latin@ students. As such, the authors present ideas through various lenses including teacher preparation and transformative teaching strategies, family and community involvement, and innovative programs for minority students. A broad range of STEM fields (including mathematics, robotics, and computer science), grade levels, and learning environments (including informal and formal, rural and urban) are represented throughout the chapters. Thus, (Under)Represented Latin@s in STEM presents research-based practices that increase Latin@ participation in STEM as a single collection for educators, administrators, and policymakers. In addition to learning about the great efforts that scholars are doing in broadening diversity in STEM, readers will be able to take away ideas for designing and implementing similar educational programs and teaching strategies for their own students.
This much revised and reorganized edition of "Intellectuals and Society "is more than half again larger than the first edition. Four new chapters have been added on intellectuals and race, including a chapter on race and intelligence. These new chapters show the radically different views of race prevailing among the intelligentsia at the beginning of the twentieth century and at the end-- and yet how each of these opposite views of race had the same dogmatic quality and the same refusal to countenance differing opinions among their contemporaries, much less engage dissenting opinions in serious debate. Moreover, each of these very different views of race produced flourishes of rhetoric and travesties of logic, leading to dire social consequences, though of very different sorts in the two eras. Other additions to this edition include a critique of John Rawls' conception or justice and a re-examination of the so-called "trickle-down theory" behind "tax cuts for the rich." There are other revisions, from the preface to the final chapter, the latter being extensively rewritten to bring together and highlight the themes of the other chapters, and to make unmistakably clear what "Intellectuals and Society "is, and is not, seeking to do.
(Under)Represented Latin@s in STEM: Increasing Participation Throughout Education and the Workplace presents a critical investigation into Latin@ underrepresentation in STEM throughout the education pipeline and workforce. (Under)Represented Latin@s in STEM highlights nationally relevant research related to the creation of opportunities for Latin@ students in STEM and the ways in which these opportunities increase Latin@ participation in STEM. Of particular interest across the chapters is the notion of building and sustaining a strong STEM identity within Latin@ students. As such, the authors present ideas through various lenses including teacher preparation and transformative teaching strategies, family and community involvement, and innovative programs for minority students. A broad range of STEM fields (including mathematics, robotics, and computer science), grade levels, and learning environments (including informal and formal, rural and urban) are represented throughout the chapters. Thus, (Under)Represented Latin@s in STEM presents research-based practices that increase Latin@ participation in STEM as a single collection for educators, administrators, and policymakers. In addition to learning about the great efforts that scholars are doing in broadening diversity in STEM, readers will be able to take away ideas for designing and implementing similar educational programs and teaching strategies for their own students.
Based on numerous qualitative interviews, this cutting edge book investigates how Hong Kong's economic structure and neoliberal policies have contributed to class inequality in China's global city. Inspired by Bourdieu's approach to class, the author examines class stratification in education, works, and political attitudes and argues that the lack of explicit class identifications among the people does not imply irrelevance of class. Relying upon empirical field data to question the applicability of the reflexive modernization theory, the text debates whether individualization makes class a redundant concept in advanced capitalist societies.
The Rise and Decline of an Iberian Bourgeoisie is one of the first long-term studies in English of an Iberian town during the late medieval crisis. Focusing on the Catalonian city of Manresa, Jeff Fynn-Paul expertly integrates Iberian historiography with European narratives to place the city's social, political and economic development within the broader context of late medieval urban decline. Drawing from extensive archival research, including legal and administrative records, royal letters, and a cadastral survey of more than 640 households entitled the 1408 Liber Manifesti, the author surveys the economic strategies of both elites and non-elites to a level previously unknown for any medieval town outside of Tuscany and Ghent. In a major contribution to the series, The Rise and Decline of an Iberian Bourgeoisie reveals how a combination of the Black Death, royal policy, and a new public debt system challenged, and finally undermined urban resilience in Catalonia. |
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