What do we mean by social class in the 21st century? University of Brighton sociologists Laura Harvey and Sarah Leaney and award-winning comics creator Danny Noble present an utterly unique, illustrated journey through the history, sociology and lived experience of class. What can class tell us about gentrification, precarious work, the role of elites in society, or access to education? How have thinkers explored class in the past, and how does it affect us today? How does class inform activism and change? Class: A Graphic Guide challenges simplistic and stigmatising ideas about working-class people, discusses colonialist roots of class systems, and looks at how class intersects with race, sexuality, gender, disability and age. From the publishers of the bestselling Queer: A Graphic History, this is a vibrant, enjoyable introduction for students, community workers, activists and anyone who wants to understand how class functions in their own lives.

*RADIO 4 BOOK OF THE WEEK* SHORTLISTED FOR THE JAMES TAIT BLACK PRIZE | THE JHALAK PRIZE | THE BREAD AND ROSES AWARD & LONGLISTED FOR THE ORWELL PRIZE FOR POLITICAL WRITING 'This is the book I've been waiting for - for years. It's personal, historical, political, and it speaks to where we are now' Benjamin Zephaniah 'I recommend Natives to everyone' Candice Carty-Williams From the first time he was stopped and searched as a child, to the day he realised his mum was white, to his first encounters with racist teachers - race and class have shaped Akala's life and outlook. In this unique book he takes his own experiences and widens them out to look at the social, historical and political factors that have left us where we are today. Covering everything from the police, education and identity to politics, sexual objectification and the far right, Nativesspeaks directly to British denial and squeamishness when it comes to confronting issues of race and class that are at the heart of the legacy of Britain's racialised empire. Natives is the searing modern polemic and Sunday Times bestseller from the BAFTA and MOBO award-winning musician and political commentator, Akala. 'The kind of disruptive, aggressive intellect that a new generation is closely watching' Afua Hirsch, Observer 'Part biography, part polemic, this powerful, wide-ranging study picks apart the British myth of meritocracy' David Olusoga, Guardian 'Inspiring' Madani Younis, Guardian 'Lucid, wide-ranging' John Kerrigan, TLS 'A potent combination of autobiography and political history which holds up a mirror to contemporary Britain' Independent 'Trenchant and highly persuasive' Metro 'A history lesson of the kind you should get in school but don't' Stylist

Previously published as a special issue of British Journal of Middle East Studies, this volume focuses on leading figures within Iran between 1997-2007 and their visions and works that are related to Iranian society.

A cross section of opinion is investigated, including the clerical ( Ali Khameneh i, Muhammad Khatami and Mohsen Kadivar), the dissident (Mohsen Makhmalbaf), and the poetic (Qaysar Aminpour) and cinematic. The past decade has been a traumatic one in Iran, and the essays in this volume testify to the vibrancy of the responses from Iranian thinkers. It may be a surprise to some observers that in some senses, Ali Khameneh i may be considered a liberal whereas Muhammad Khatami s own credentials as an advocate of rapprochement with the West needs to be qualified. Responses to Western culture continue to remain centre-stage, and this is also nowhere more apparent than in the complex relationship between the directors of Iranian films (perhaps Iran s most celebrated export these days) and their audiences, both Iranian and Western. Despite some viewing Iran as a pariah state, it remains firmly connected to the West and to modern technology, typified in the practice of blogging that is enjoyed by so many Iranians, which has provided a new space for expression and thinking."

Intersectionality and Ethnic Entrepreneurship brings together a group of eminent and up-and-coming young scholars who apply an intersectional perspective to the study of ethnic entrepreneurship. Against the traditional approach's emphasis on ethnicity and its primacy, which tends to conflate ethnicity with other social groupings (i.e., social class), considers their effect as an additive or secondary consequence only (i.e., gender), or ignores their influence altogether (i.e., race), the studies in this volume recognize that multiple dimensions of identity intermix to condition entrepreneurial outcomes. Starting with the premise that systems of oppression and privilege, specifically capitalism, patriarchy, and white supremacy, are endemic to the American social structure, the works in this volume recognize that these interlocking systems of inequality condition the life chances of entrepreneurs from diverse social locations differently, even among members of the same ethnic group. This book was originally published as a special issue of Ethnic and Racial Studies.

This book argues that class relations are constitutive of development processes and central to understanding inequality within and between countries. It does so via a transdisciplinary approach that draws on case studies from Asia, Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa. Contributors illustrate and explain the diversity of forms of class relations, and the ways in which they interplay with other social relations of dominance and subordination, such as gender and ethnicity as part of a wider project to revitalise class analysis in the study of development problems and experiences. Class is conceived as arising out of exploitative social relations of production, but is formulated through and expressed by multiple determinations. By illuminating the diversity of social formations, this book illustrates the depth and complexity present in Marx's method. This book was originally published as a special issue of Third World Quarterly.

Looking at the communities of Central and West Harlem in New York City, this study explores the locus, form and significance of socioeconomic differentiation for African American professional-managerial workers. It begins by considering centuries of New York City history and the structural elements of class inequality to present readers with the larger context of contemporary events. The primary objective of this study is to examine the everyday lives of black professionals in Harlem and determine what bearing income-generating activities have on ideology, consumption patterns and lifestyle, among other factors.

The essays and letters of Ervin Szab (1877-1918) present proof of his critical insight into Marxist theory and of his perceptive analysis of socialism around the turn of the century. His ideals of an engaged social science and an enlightened socialism, his preoccupation with the socialist future, are still relevant today.

The writings selected in this work, first published in 1982, are primarily those which address themselves to general issues of the European working-class movement and socialist theory, but there are also a few pieces that characterize the intellectual and political climate of early twentieth-century Budapest. Szab was one of the theoretical leaders of a whole generation of progressive thinkers from Oscar J szi through Karl and Michael Pol nyi to Georg Luk cs and many others. The almost insurmountable conflict between theory and practice that characterized Ervin Szabo 's life remains a problem that has to be solved by engaged intellectuals whatever the time and place. Background notes and an introduction by the editors help to place the writings in their historical and political context.

The Cosby Cohort examines the childhood experiences of second generation middle class Blacks who grew up in mostly White spaces during the 1980s and 1990s. This probing book explores their journey to upward mobility, including the discrimination they faced in White neighborhoods and schools, the extraordinary pressures placed upon them to achieve, the racial lessons imparted to them by their parents, their tenuous relationships with Black children of other classes, and the impact that all of these experiences had on their adult racial identities. At young ages, this generation of middle class Blacks, whom Harris coins as the Cosby Cohort, was faced with racial displacement, frustration, and the ever-present pressure to emerge victorious against the pull of downward mobility. Even in adulthood, they continue to negotiate the tensions between upward mobility and maintaining ties to the larger Black community and culture. While these young Blacks may have grown up watching The Cosby Show, as the book reveals, their stories indicate a much more complex reality than portrayed by the show.

In the three decades before the First World War, the relationship between socialism and feminism was both curious and convoluted. Despite strong theoretical links between these ideologies, class and sex seem to have inspired conflicting loyalties and opposing demands. In Britain, the uniquely middle-class, reform-minded Fabian Society might have been expected to bridge the gap between these movements. Yet, between 1884 and 1914, the Fabian Society's record on the "woman question" was highly inconsistent and, at times, overtly regressive. Originally published in 1987, this title looks at three of the most influential members, Sidney Webb, George Bernard Shaw and Hubert Bland and the women they were married to, who were also active in the Society.

This book looks at the contested relationship between Adivasis or the indigenous peoples, migrants and the state in India. It delves into the nature and dynamics of competition and resource conflicts between the Adivasis and the migrants. Drawing on the ground experiences of the Dandakaranya Project - when Bengali migrants from erstwhile East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) were rehabilitated in eastern and central India - the author traces the connection between resource scarcity and the emergence of Naxalite politics in the region in tandem with the key role played by the state. He critically examines the way in which conflicts between these groups emerged and interacted, were shaped and realised through acts and agencies of various kinds, as well as their socio-economic, cultural and political implications. The book explores the contexts and reasons that have led to the dispossession, deprivation and marginalisation of Adivasis. Through rich empirical data, this book presents an in-depth analysis of a contemporary crisis. It will be useful to scholars and researchers of political studies, South Asian politics, conflict studies, political sociology, cultural studies, sociology and social anthropology.

This book maps how working class life was transformed in England in the middle years of the twentieth century. National trends in employment, welfare and living standards are illuminated via a focus on Brighton, providing valuable new perspectives of class and community formation. Based on fresh archival research, life histories and contemporary social surveys, the book historicises important cultural and community studies which moulded popular perceptions of class and social change in the post-war period. It shows how council housing, slum clearance and demographic trends impacted on working-class families and communities. While suburbanisation transformed home life, leisure and patterns of association, there were important continuities in terms of material poverty, social networks and cultural practices. This book will be essential reading for academics and students researching modern and contemporary social and cultural history, sociology, cultural studies and human geography. -- .

This book demonstrates that mobility in Europe is not a synonym for European mobility, showing how certain mobile individuals are more likely to develop an explicitly European identity than others. Through a series of mobile ethnographic accounts with truck drivers, musicians and MEPs, the author lays out the complexities behind assumptions about mobility and European identity, providing a clear contrast between individuals for whom this process certainly is true and others who, in spite of their high levels of mobility, do not consider themselves European, or for whom the notion of being European is simply insignificant. Ultimately, as this book shows, the enactment of a European identity, through practices of mobility, has more to do with social class than with a mobile condition per se, with mobility in Europe being transformed into European mobility only when it empowers individuals, solidifying their elevated position in the social pyramid. An account of European identity and its connection to mobility and notions of class, Mobility and Identity in Europe also explores the ways in which mobile ethnography can be practised as a method and what conclusions can be drawn from it. As such, it will appeal to scholars and students of sociology, anthropology and geography.

First published in 1983. This book combines a case study of class relations, politics and voting in Sweden with a comparative analysis of distributive conflicts and politics in eighteen OECD countries. Its underlying theoretical theme is the development of class relations in free-enterprise or capitalise democracies. This title will be of interest to students of history and politics.

First published in 1976. This book covers working-class history from the decline of Chartism to the formation of the Labour Party and its early development to 1914. It gives a historical perspective to the essentially defensive, materialist orientation of twentieth century working-class politics. David Kynaston has sought to synthesise the wealth of recent detailed research to produce a coherent overall view of the particular dynamic of these formative years. He sees the course of working-class history in the second half of the nineteenth century as a necessary tragedy and suggests that a major reason for this was the inability of William Morris as a revolutionary socialist to influence organised labour. The treatment is thematic as much as chronological and special attention is given not only to the parliamentary rise of Labour, but also to deeper-lying intellectual, occupational, residential, religious, and cultural influences. The text itself includes a substantial amount of contemporary material in order to reflect the distinctive 'feel' of the period. The book is particularly designed for students studying the political, social and economic background to modern Britain as well as those specialising in nineteenth-century English history.

Rachel Spronk has written a well composed, highly interesting and maybe even path-breaking book... It is innovative in its focus on sexuality as bodily experience and implications for 'the gendered sense of self' of these young men and women and] is also innovative in terms of methodology; first and foremost by its focus on a group of young professional men and women. . Signe Arnfred, Roskilde University

Spronk's theoretical take on this theme is seminal and challenging. She convincingly shows that a constructivist approach - emphasizing the social and historical construction of people's practices and views on sex and sexuality - is highly relevant to understanding how people navigate their lives. But she emphasizes also its limitations because her informants' insistence that the natural, bodily power of sexual feelings has to be brought in as well. . Peter Geschiere, University of Amsterdam

Among both male and female young urban professionals in Nairobi, sexuality is a key to achieving a 'modern' identity. These young men and women see themselves as the avant garde of a new Africa, while they also express the recurring worry of how to combine an 'African' identity with the new lifestyles with which they are experimenting. By focusing on public debates and their preoccupations with issues of African heritage, gerontocratic power relations and conventional morality on the one hand, and personal sexual relationships, intimacy and self-perceptions on the other, this study works out the complexities of sexuality and culture in the context of modernity in an African society. It moves beyond an investigation of a health or development perspective of sexuality and instead examines desire, pleasure and eroticism, revealing new insights into the methodology and theory of the study of sexuality within the social sciences. Sexuality serves as a prism for analysing how social developments generate new notions of self in postcolonial Kenya and is a crucial component towards understanding the way people recognize and deal with modern changes in their personal lives.

Rachel Spronk is Assistant Professor at the Sociology and Anthropology Department at the University of Amsterdam. She has published on intimacy and middle class formation in Kenya, on methodological questions of sexuality research and on the bounds of poststructural approaches to understand how sex(uality) is experienced.

Two groundbreaking sociologists explore the way the American dream is built on the backs of working poor women Many Americans take comfort and convenience for granted. We eat at nice restaurants, order groceries online, and hire nannies to care for kids. Getting Me Cheap is a riveting portrait of the lives of the low-wage workers-primarily women-who make this lifestyle possible. Sociologists Lisa Dodson and Amanda Freeman follow women in the food, health care, home care, and other low-wage industries as they struggle to balance mothering with bad jobs and without public aid. While these women tend to the needs of well-off families, their own children frequently step into premature adult roles, providing care for siblings and aging family members. Based on years of in-depth field work and hundreds of eye-opening interviews, Getting Me Cheap explores how America traps millions of women and their children into lives of stunted opportunity and poverty in service of giving others of us the lives we seek. Destined to rank with works like Evicted and Nickle and Dimed for its revelatory glimpse into how our society functions behind the scenes, Getting Me Cheap also offers a way forward-with both policy solutions and a keen moral vision for organizing women across class lines.

Not all council estates are the same. A detailed historical account of the birth and social evolution of the Whitley council estate in Reading, Working-Class Suburb challenges many of the more depressing images and cultural stereotypes about council housing in twentieth and twenty-first century England. Key areas covered by the study are housing and politics; community campaigns; women and the corporate life of council estates; the uses of leisure; the relationships between tenants, residents and the local authority, and continuities in working-class life despite economic, demographic and political change. The book will be of interest to anyone studying urban history and social history, to professionals working in the fields of housing policy and housing studies, and to the growing number of academics interested in suburban studies. -- .

First published in 1982, this collection of essays provides an analysis of education's contradictory role in social reproduction. It looks at the complex relations between the economic, political and cultural spheres of society, both historically and at the time of publication, and hones the wider range of debate in on education. This volume will be of interest to those studying sociology and equality in education.

For courses in Inequality, Social Stratification, and Social Problems. A thoughtful compilation of readings on inequality in the United States. The main objective of this text is to introduce students to the subject of social stratification as it has developed in sociology. The central focus is on domestic inequality in the United States with some attention to the broader international context. The primary goal of the text is to offer an understanding of the history and context of debates about inequality, and a secondary goal is to give some indication as to what issues are likely to arise in the future.

Originally published in 1938, The Origin of the Inequality of the Social Classes presents ethnological research into how rank and inequality has been created or formed in various societies. This study especially focuses on recent changes in aboriginal cultures with particular attention paid to the Kiwai Papuans of British New Guinea whom Landtman researched extensively from 1910-1912. This title will be of interest to students of Sociology and Anthropology.

Nearly 16% of India's population - or over 100 million people - are untouchables. Most of them, despite decades of government efforts to improve their economic and social position, remain desperately poor, illiterate, subject to brutal discrimination and economic exploitation, and with no prospect for improvement of their condition. This is the autobiography, first published in 1979, of Muli, a 40-year-old untouchable of the Bauri caste, living in the Indian state of Orissa, as told to an American anthropologist. Muli is a narrator who combines rich descriptions of daily life with perceptive observations of his social surroundings. He describes with absorbing detail what it is like to be at the bottom of Indian life, and what happens when an untouchable attempts to break out of his accepted role.

The Mediation of Poverty: The News, New Media, and Politics discusses the influence of the increasing use of digital technologies on media and political responses to poverty in the United Kingdom and Canada. Considering poverty politics at symbolic and structural levels, Joanna Redden uses a frame analysis of mainstream and alternative news content to identify which narratives dominate poverty coverage, what is missing from mainstream news coverage, and what can be learned by looking at alternative sources of news and information. The Mediation of Poverty argues that news coverage privileges and embeds neoliberal approaches to the issue of poverty in Canada and the United Kingdom. Interviews with journalists, politicians, researchers, and activists enable discussion, on a micro level, of the changing nature of news, politics, and activism, and how these changes influences poverty politics. Redden raises concerns about how the speed of digitally-mediated working environments is reshaping even foreclosing opportunities for communication, reflection, and contestation in a way that reinforces the dominance of market-based thinking, and limits political responses to poverty."

Whilst learning is central to most understandings of what it is to be human, we now live in a knowledge society where being educated defines life chances more than ever before. Learning Beyond the School brings together accounts of learning from around the world in organisations, spaces and places that are schooled, but not school. Exploring examples of learning organisation, pedagogisation, informal learning and social education, the book shows not only how understandings of education are framed in terms of local versions of schooling, but what being educated could and should mean in very different social and political contexts. With contributions from scholars based in Australia, Europe, the USA, Latin America and Asia, the book brings together accounts of learning outside of school. Chapters contain rich and detailed case studies of innovative projects, new kinds of learning institutions, youth, peer-driven and community-based activities and public pedagogies, as well as engaging with the dimensions of an argument about the place and nature of learning outside of the school. It challenges dominant versions of school around the world, whilst also critically discussing the value and place of non-institutionalised learning. Learning Beyond the School should be of interest to academics, researchers, postgraduate scholars engaged in the study of comparative education, youth work, education systems, digital culture, sociology of education and youth development. It should also be essential reading for practitioners and policymakers who are interested in youth and education system reform.

Drawing on the thought of Max Weber, in particular his theory of stratification, this book engages with the question of whether the digital divide simply extends traditional forms of inequality, or whether it also includes new forms of social exclusion, or perhaps manifests counter-trends that alleviate traditional inequalities whilst constituting new modalities of inequality. With attention to the manner in which social stratification in the digital age is reproduced and transformed online, the author develops an account of stratification as it exists in the digital sphere, advancing the position that, just as in the social sphere, inequalities in the online world go beyond the economic elements of inequality. As such, study of the digital divide should focus not simply on class dynamics or economic matters, but cultural aspects - such as status or prestige - and political aspects - such as group affiliations. Demonstrating the enduring relevance of Weber's distinctions with regard to social inequality, The Third Digital Divide: A Weberian approach to rethinking digital inequalities explores the ways in which online activities and digital skills vary according to crucial sociological dimensions, explaining these in concrete terms in relation to the dynamics of social class, social status and power. As such, it will be of interest to social scientists with interests in sociological theory, the sociology of science and technology, and inequality and the digital divide.

New information technologies have, to an unprecedented degree, come to reshape human relations, identities and communities both online and offline. As Internet narratives including online fiction, poetry and films reflect and represent ambivalent politics in China, the Chinese state wishes to enable the formidable soft power of this new medium whilst at the same time handling the ideological uncertainties it inevitably entails. This book investigates the ways in which class, gender, ethnicity and ethics are reconfigured, complicated and enriched by the closely intertwined online and offline realities in China. It combs through a wide range of theories on Internet culture, intellectual history, and literary, film, and cultural studies, and explores a variety of online cultural materials, including digitized spoofing, microblog fictions, micro-films, online fictions, web dramas, photographs, flash mobs, popular literature and films. These materials have played an important role in shaping the contemporary cultural scene, but have so far received little critical attention. Here, the authors demonstrate how Chinese Internet culture has provided a means to intervene in the otherwise monolithic narratives of identity and community. Offering an important contribution to the rapidly growing field of Internet studies, this book will also be of interest to students and scholars of Chinese culture, literary and film studies, media and communication studies, and Chinese society.