Social differentiation, poverty and the emergence of the newly rich occasioned by the collapse of the Soviet Union have seldom been analysed from a class perspective. Rethinking Class in Russia addresses this absence by exploring the manner in which class positions are constructed and negotiated in the new Russia. Bringing an ethnographic and cultural studies approach to the topic, this book demonstrates that class is a central axis along which power and inequality are organized in Russia, revealing how symbolic, cultural and emotional dimensions are deeply intertwined with economic and material inequalities. Thematically arranged and presenting the latest empirical research, this interdisciplinary volume brings together work from both Western and Russian scholars on a range of spheres and practices, including popular culture, politics, social policy, consumption, education, work, family and everyday life. By engaging with discussions in new class analysis and by highlighting how the logic of global neoliberal capitalism is appropriated and negotiated vis-A -vis the Soviet hierarchies of value and worth, this book offers a multifaceted and carefully contextualized picture of class relations and identities in contemporary Russia and makes a contribution to the theorisation of class and inequality in a post-Cold War era. As such it will appeal to those with interests in sociology, anthropology, geography, political science, gender studies, Russian and Eastern European studies, and media and cultural studies.

Bold political elites and unique forms of social order brought the West to world dominance, but both are weakening dramatically in the contemporary period. The Endangered West makes the case for the continuation of Western power on as wide a global basis as is prudent. Is the survival of Western influence possible, or must we resign ourselves to its eventually being subordinated to more ruthless powers? Higley lays out the main policy lines that successful leadership will have to follow to preserve and strengthen Western societies. These include avoiding futile involvements in the internal problems of non-Western countries and preserving sufficient social order to permit public and private organizations to function. The West will also have to find a way to regularize treatment of the growing number of those who lack employment; invent new forms of useful work for Westerners to perform; inhibit large in-migrations, and discourage population growth. Above all, the West must address the threat of environmental disaster. There is no certain result in the struggle, but such measures will help to prevent a slide into despotism or a lapse into barbarism. Half the battle is to hold on to what the West has and, if possible, extend it. Progress will be made if elites and opinion leaders address societies' problems more competently. If the West's prestige is restored, world tensions may gradually subside, making meeting global problems more possible.

The application of probability and statistics to an ever-widening number of life-decisions serves to reproduce, reinforce, and widen disparities in the quality of life that different groups of people can enjoy. As a critical technology assessment, the ways in which bad luck early in life increase the probability that hardship and loss will accumulate across the life course are illustrated. Analysis shows the ways in which individual decisions, informed by statistical models, shape the opportunities people face in both market and non-market environments. Ultimately, this book challenges the actuarial logic and instrumental rationalism that drives public policy and emphasizes the role that the mass media play in justifying its expanded use. Although its arguments and examples take as their primary emphasis the ways in which these decision systems affect the life chances of African-Americans, the findings are also applicable to a broad range of groups burdened by discrimination.

Contemporary Asian society is marked by social processes associated with the loss of stable economic growth and high employment; family structures capable of caring for family members in need; and governmental economic and political competence. Post-financial crisis job uncertainty and income and labor market polarization have become important issue in Asian societies. Family structures are viewed as have been weakened, with a corresponding rise in divorce and domestic violence. Trust in the government is in decline. Against this backdrop it is timely to review three critical issues: 1) policies addressing work-related risks and socio-economic security; 2) changes regarding the structure and stability of families; and 3) issues concerning governance in times of weakened state capacity, declining trust, and the emergence of new politics. Containing chapters written by international scholars, this book introduces the concepts and theoretical approaches of risk and risk and governance and places them within the context of Asian societies.

Fitting into Place adopts a multi-dimensional interdisciplinary approach to explore shifting geographies and temporalities that re-constitute 'city publics' - and the place of the 'public sociologist'. Class, race and gender (dis)advantages are situated in relation to urban-rural contrasts, where 'future selves' are reconfigured in and through 'local' and 'global' sites: people inhabit shifting times and places, from industrial landscapes of the 'past', to a current present and (imagined) 'cosmopolitan' 'regenerated' future. The rhetorics and vocabularies of place, as affective and material, suggest a more complex 'fit' than the language of masculine 'crisis' for past-times, or 'feminised' fit into new-futures, suggests. Across the generations, women's labour is still effaced as maps of loyalty hold up families as reference points of belonging and 'fitting in'; such architecture of place complicates reified 'geographies of choice' which centre a middle-class mobile subject. Based upon funded empirical research, this book will be of interest to sociologists and geographers.

Arranged around the themes of theorizing and policy-making, race, ethnicity and religion, gender, and class, inequality and welfare, this book addresses the question of whether the European Union tends towards diversification or standardization. It engages with issues of identity, citizenship and social justice, changes throughout the life course, social movements, the reconciliation of work and life, the increasing diversity of cultural values, and integration and immigration, whilst also examining questions of social inclusion and exclusion. Presenting a general theoretical framework for the simultaneous analysis of standardization and diversification processes, alongside detailed case studies at EU and national levels, Diversity, Standardization and Social Transformation explores the interactions between national, European and regional regulatory spaces.

Debates over who belongs in Europe and who doesn't increasingly speak the language of mixing, but how are the figures commonly described as 'mixed' actually embodied? The Biopolitics of Mixing invites us to reckon with the spectres of pathologization past and present, placing the celebration of mixing beside moral panics over terrorism and trafficking and a post-race multiculturalism that elevates some as privileged members of the neoliberal community, whilst ghosting others from it. Drawing on a broad archive including rich qualitative interviews conducted in Britain and Germany, media and policy debates, popular culture, race-based research and queer-of-colour theories, this book imagines into being communities in which people and places normally kept separate can coexist in the same reality. As such, it will appeal to scholars across a range of sociological and cultural studies, including critical race, ethnic and migration studies, transnational gender and queer studies, German and European studies, Thai and Southeast Asian studies, and studies of affect, performativity, biopolitics and necropolitics. It should be read by all those interested in thinking critically on the intersections of race, class, gender, sexuality and disability.

The social scientific study of social movements remains largely shaped by categories, concepts and debates that emerged in North Atlantic societies in the late 1960s and early 1970s, namely resource mobilization, framing, collective identity, and new social movements. It is now, however, increasingly clear that we are experiencing a profound period of social transformation associated with online interactivity, informationalization and globalization. Written by leading experts from around the world, the chapters in this book explore emerging forms of movement and action not only in terms of the industrialized countries of the North Atlantic, but recognizes the importance of globalizing forms of action and culture emerging from other continents and societies. This is the first book to bring together key authors exploring this transformation in terms of action, culture and movements. It not only engages with critical transformations in the nature of collective action, but also makes a significant contribution to the globalizing of sociology.

Drawing on several years of research with grief support organizations and the families and friends of murdered children, this book examines the emotional experience of families in the aftermath of a homicide. It examines the politics of sorrow, offering a comparative analysis of White and African-American families as they navigate the experience of homicide, shedding light on the ways in which the class location or ethnicity of mourners affects their experience. Analyzing the manner in which police and other authorities differentially extend emotional support to bereaved families, notify them of a homicide, or assign blame, The Politics of Sorrow reveals how 'disenfranchised grief' comes to be an institutionalized outcome of their practice. The book further examines the effects of 'announcement shock' and the importance to the family of the moral career of the deceased, as they seek to manage his or her identity, often dealing with their grief through an active pursuit of justice in court, or through political involvement with a grief support organization, which mobilizes families in pursuit of its political ends. A rigorous study of stigma, identity, and stratified experiences of grief, The Politics of Sorrow will appeal to sociologists interested in interactionist methods, race, class, and emotion.

Recent efforts emphasize the roles that privilege and elite education play in shaping affluent youths' identities. Despite various backgrounds, the common qualities shared among the eight adolescents showcased in this book lead them to form particular understandings of self, others, and the world around them that serve as means for them to negotiate their privilege. These self-understandings are crucial for them to feel more at ease with being privileged, foster a positive sense of self, and reduce the negative feelings associated with their advantages - thus managing expectations for future success. Offering an intimate and comprehensive view of affluent adolescents' inner lives and understandings, Negotiating Privilege and Identity in Educational Contexts explores these qualities and provides an important alternative perspective on privilege and how privilege works. The case studies in this volume explore different settings and lived experiences of eight privileged adolescents who, influenced by various sources, actively construct and cultivate their own privilege. Their stories address a wide range of issues relevant to the study of adolescence and the various social class factors that mediate adolescents' educational experiences and identities.

Presenting recent studies of non-profit organizations involved in poverty relief services in New York City in comparison with programmes in existence across the US, Street Practice provides a front-line, ground-level perspective on innovative research practices designed to solve community problems. It explores the manner in which organizations bridge the gap between research and policy advocacy, with an account of the ways in which research contributes to alleviating or solving a community problem, as well as details on successes and failures of advocacy work, problems and limitations of their research, funding constraints and political resistance. As such, this book not only offers compelling examples of social change in action, but also serves to introduce models for research and policy advocacy that can be applied similarly in other urban areas. Adopting a case-based learning approach that enables readers to better understand the dynamic process of research and policy advocacy, this innovative book will appeal to those with interests in poverty, homelessness, policy advocacy, social work and social change.

Going beyond the assumption that East Central European cities are still 'in transition' this book draws on the postsocialism paradigm to ask new questions about the impact of demographic change on residential developments in this region. Focussing on four second-order cities in this region, it examines Gdansk and LA(3)dz in Poland and Brno and Ostrava in the Czech Republic as examples and deals with the nexus between urban development and demographic change for the context of East Central European cities. It provides a framework for linking urban and demographic research. It discusses how residential areas and urban developments cope with changes in population development, household types and different forms of in- and out-migration and goes on to explore parallels and differences in comparison with broader European patterns. This book will be useful to academics of urban planning and development especially in transition areas, Central and Eastern European studies, demographics and population studies, and sociology/social exclusion.

Drawing upon quantitative data gathered from the U.S. Census and U.S. Department of Education, as well as interviews with students from a variety of socio-economic and ethnic backgrounds, Low-Income Students and the Perpetuation of Inequality examines the question of who really benefits from public higher education. It engages with questions of social capital, opportunity, funding and access to education, presenting a rich discussion of social mobility, the value of college education and the impact of education upon the redistribution of income. A thorough exploration of the real impact of college on American society, this volume will appeal to social scientists with interests in education, social capital, social stratification, class and social mobility.

New Labour deployed community as a conceptual framework to rearticulate the state / citizen relationship to be enacted at and through new spaces of governance. An important example of this was how successive New Labour governments sought to renovate the social, political and economic cultures of poor neighbourhoods and generate trajectories of strong, empowered and ordered civic space. This was pursued through programmes such as the New Deal for Communities (NDC) that sought to invigorate and embed socially excluded citizens within localised regeneration projects. In attempting to construct community as a space through which personal and spatial renewal could be achieved, New Labour relied on problematic assumptions about the nature, scope and meaning of community and its relationship with individual social agents. Drawing on original research conducted in an NDC neighbourhood, Remaking Community addresses the interlinking uses of community in government rhetoric and practice. It explores why this concept was so central to the New Labour governing project and what it meant for individuals enveloped in the 'regeneration' of their citizenship and locality. It seeks to understand how community is conceptualised, applied, constructed, misunderstood, exploited, experienced, contested, mobilised and activated by both policy actors and neighbourhood residents and situates this discussion within an examination of the political, emotional and cultural impact of the regeneration experience. Offering a timely analysis of New Labour, regeneration and the politics of community, this book makes an original and important contribution to debates around new spaces of governance, citizen participation and the tackling social exclusion in poor neighbourhoods.

While in recent years the burgeoning Higher Education (HE) sector has been set an agenda of widening participation, few HE institutions have strategies in place for reaching the full range of potential students most likely to benefit from (and successfully complete) their current subject and course offerings. Universities and colleges are often unsystematic in the ways in which they identify schools and colleges for outreach and widening participation initiatives, and sometimes uncoordinated in how they present the full institutional profile of subjects of study in these activities. Using innovative methodology, this book sets out some relevant aspects of the changing HE policy-setting arena and presents a systematic framework for broadening participation and extending access in an era of variable fees. In particular, the book illustrates how HE data and publicly available sources might enable institutions to move from piecemeal analysis of their intake to institution-wide strategic and geographical market area analysis for existing and potential subject and course offerings.

Bold political elites and unique forms of social order brought the West to world dominance, but both are weakening dramatically in the contemporary period. The Endangered West makes the case for the continuation of Western power on as wide a global basis as is prudent. Is the survival of Western influence possible, or must we resign ourselves to its eventually being subordinated to more ruthless powers? Higley lays out the main policy lines that successful leadership will have to follow to preserve and strengthen Western societies. These include avoiding futile involvements in the internal problems of non-Western countries and preserving sufficient social order to permit public and private organizations to function. The West will also have to find a way to regularize treatment of the growing number of those who lack employment; invent new forms of useful work for Westerners to perform; inhibit large in-migrations, and discourage population growth. Above all, the West must address the threat of environmental disaster. There is no certain result in the struggle, but such measures will help to prevent a slide into despotism or a lapse into barbarism. Half the battle is to hold on to what the West has and, if possible, extend it. Progress will be made if elites and opinion leaders address societies' problems more competently. If the West's prestige is restored, world tensions may gradually subside, making meeting global problems more possible.

Sarah Swann provides a fresh approach to examining the long-standing debates over disaffection, and in particular social class differences in educational achievement, through a mixed methods methodology and the showcasing of new research. By observing pupils as they engage with peers and teachers in school, Swann allows disaffection to be seen and heard in 'real' events which constructs disaffection differently from objective statistical evidence on school exclusions. Rather than a homogenous identity, this book illustrates disaffection as layered and resting on a series of issues located on the crossroads between the cultural context of the neighbourhood and the public sphere of the school. It plots in a detailed way how these structures interact and mesh to create disaffected identities. Disaffection does not emerge in a vacuum, or without a cause. Pupils arrive at school with a wide variety of experiences and it is from these that they interpret, understand and act out their identities. Whilst the study in part seeks to describe and understand the social world of the school in terms of the pupils' interpretations of the situation, it analytically frames the perceptions of pupils within a wider social context. In particular it focuses on the relationships between schooling and the wider macro structures and social relations that underpin disaffection. This approach makes the research both critical and interpretative and also able to shed new light on educational policy across England based on an understanding of the role of disaffection.

Unequal life-chances became a key feature of cross-border migration to, and within, the enlarged Europe. Combining transnational, intersectional and cultural-sociological perspectives, this book develops a conceptual tool to analyse patterns, contexts and mechanisms of these cross-border inequalities. This book synthesizes the theories of social boundaries and of intersectionality, approaching cross-border relations as socially generated and as an inherent element of contemporary social inequalities. It analyses the mechanisms of cross-border inequalities as 'regimes of intersection' relating spatialized cross-border inequalities to other types of unequal social relations (in terms of gender, ethnicity/race, class etc.). The conceptual arguments are supported by empirical research on cross-border migration in Europe: migration of scientists and care workers between Ukraine and Germany. This book integrates the analysis of space - including cross-border categories of global and transnational - into intersectionally-informed studies of social inequalities. Broadly, it will appeal to scholars and students in the areas of sociology, political sciences, social anthropology and social geography. In particular, it will interest researchers concerned with transnational and global social inequalities, the interplay of the categories 'gender', 'ethnicity' and 'class' on the one hand and global and transnational relations on the other, theories of space and society, and migration and mobility in Europe.

In the years 1849 and 1850, Henry Mayhew was the metropolitan correspondent of the Morning Chronicle in its national survey of labour and the poor. Only about a third of his Morning Chronicle material was included in his later and better known, publication, London Labour and the London Poor. First published in 1981, this series of six volumes constitutes Henry Mayhew's complete Morning Chronicle survey, in the sequence in which it was originally written in 1849 and 1850. It addresses a wealth of topics from cholera in the Jacob's Island area and to the food markets of London. The publication of this complete survey represented the first time in which the whole was Mayhew's pioneering work was available in one place. The set is introduced by Dr Peter Razzell, who was co-editor of the national Morning Chronicle survey. This first volume contains letters from October to November 1849. This series will be of interest to those studying the history of social welfare, poverty and urbanisation.

This volume focuses on intersections of race, class, gender, and nation in the formation of the fin-de-siecle Spanish and Spanish colonial subject. Despite the wealth of research produced on gender, social class, race, and national identity few studies have focused on how these categories interacted, frequently operating simultaneously to reveal contexts in which dominated groups were dominating and vice versa. Such revelations call into question metanarratives about the exploitation of one group by another and bring to light interlocking systems of identity formation, and consequently oppression, that are difficult to disentangle. The authors included here study this dynamic in a variety of genres and venues, namely the essay, the novel, the short story, theater, and zarzuelas. These essays cover canonical authors such as Benito Perez Galdos and Emilia Pardo Bazan, and understudied female authors such as Rosario de Acuna and Belen Sarraga. The authors included here study this dynamic in a variety of genres and venues, namely the essay, the novel, the short story, theater, and zarzuelas. The volume builds on recent scholarship on race, class, gender, and nation by focusing specifically on the intersections of these categories, and by studying this dynamic in popular culture, visual culture, and in the works of both canonical and lesser-known authors.

Fifty years ago, familiar images of the lottery would have been strange, as no state lottery existed then. Few researchers have uncovered the obscure role lotteries play in the changing composition of American taxation. Even less is known about what role race plays in this process. More than simply taxing those on the social margins, the emergence of state lotteries in contemporary American history represents something much more fundamental about state fiscal policy. This book not only uncovers the underlying racial factors that contextualize lottery proliferation in the U.S., but also reveals the racial consequences that lotteries have in terms of redistributing tax liability.

This book challenges sociologists and sociology students to think beyond the construction of social problems to tackle a central question: What do sociologists do with the analytic tools and academic skills afforded by their discipline to respond to social problems? Service Sociology posits that a central role of sociology is not simply to analyse and interpret social problems, but to act in the world in an informed manner to ameliorate suffering and address the structural causes of these problems. This volume provides a unique contribution to this approach to sociology, exploring the intersection between its role as an academic discipline and its practice in the service of communities and people. With both contemporary and historical analyses, the book traces the legacy, characteristics, contours, and goals of the sociology of service, shedding light on its roots in early American sociology and its deep connections to activism, before examining the social context that underlies the call for volunteerism, community involvement and non-profit organisations, as well as the strategies that have promise in remedying contemporary social problems. Presenting examples of concrete social problems from around the world, including issues of democratic participation, poverty and unemployment, student involvement in microlending, disaster miitigation, the organization and leadership of social movements, homelessness, activism around HIV/AIDS and service spring breaks, Service Sociology and Academic Engagement in Social Problems explores the utility of public teaching, participatory action research, and service learning in the classroom as a contribution to the community.

There is hardly any discussion of class that does not in some way relate to the theories of Marx and Weber. So profound was the impact of their ideas, that their writings are often perceived as the only original and most reliable interpretations of class society. But Marx and Weber were neither the first, nor last, to talk about class and they did so based on the specific conditions prevalent in their own communities. 'Class' explains this complex field using cultural, sociological and feminist perspectives. It deepens our understanding of the problems of class and uses illuminating examples from media, popular culture and literature that explain current class analysis. 'Class' is an 'elegant, lucid comprehensive introduction' that broadens our understanding of the concept and the immense power that it exerts by way of in- and exclusions.

There is hardly any discussion of class that does not in some way relate to the theories of Marx and Weber. So profound was the impact of their ideas, that their writings are often perceived as the only original and most reliable interpretations of class society. But Marx and Weber were neither the first, nor last, to talk about class and they did so based on the specific conditions prevalent in their own communities. 'Class' explains this complex field using cultural, sociological and feminist perspectives. It deepens our understanding of the problems of class and uses illuminating examples from media, popular culture and literature that explain current class analysis. 'Class' is an 'elegant, lucid comprehensive introduction' that broadens our understanding of the concept and the immense power that it exerts by way of in- and exclusions.

The past decades have witnessed a surge of sociological interest in the body. From the focal point of aesthetic investment, political regulation and moral anxiety, to a means of redefining traditional conceptions of agency and identity, the body has been cast in a wide variety of sociological roles. However, there is one topic that proves conspicuously absent from this burgeoning literature on the body, namely its role in the everyday (re)production of class-boundaries. Distinctions in the Flesh aims to fill that void by showing that the way individuals perceive, use and manage their bodies is fundamentally intertwined with their social position and trajectory. Drawing on a wide array of survey-data - from food-preferences to sporting-practices and from weight-concern to tastes in clothing - this book shows how bodies not only function as key markers of class-differences, but also help to naturalize and legitimize such differences. Along the way, it scrutinizes popular notions like the 'obesity epidemic', questions the role of 'the media' in shaping the way people judge their bodies and sheds doubt on sociological narratives that cast the body as a malleable object that is increasingly open to individual control and reflexive management. This book will be of interest to scholars of class, lifestyle and identity, but also to social epidemiologists, health professionals and anyone interested in the way that social inequalities become, quite literally, inscribed in the body.