The deep economic recession that has occurred in all major sectors of the U.S. and global economy is a manifestation of the underlying contradictions of the capitalist system that has resulted in the accumulation of vast fortunes on one side and impoverishment, debt, and destitution on the other. In short, the crisis of global capitalism is the result of the immense disparities in wealth and income and a consequent widening gap between capital and labor. This ground-breaking book brings together a team of experts on the contemporary global capitalist political economy who are able to shed light on the inner workings of global capitalism and the capitalist globalization process that has led to the growth and development of capitalism from the national to the global level, with all its fundamental internal dynamics and contradictions operating on a world scale. It will make an important contribution to understanding the underlying causes of the current global economic crisis and show the way out of this crisis by way of a powerful critique of the global capitalist system that will ultimately go through a major economic, political, and social transformation. Analysis of the global capitalist crisis raises questions regarding the process of capitalist globalization, especially now that neoliberal economic policies have failed. Does this signal the end of capitalist globalization and the collapse of the global capitalist system? This book will take up these questions and entertain the possibility of a new beginning in the global political economy through an analysis of the next period of post-capitalist developments worldwide that may set the stage for the rise of socialism across the globe.

Equal Time, Equal Value is the first systematic investigation of Time Banking in the United States. Drawing upon detailed case studies and making use of a mix of qualitative and quantitative data this book explores the most popular type of what has been called 'community currencies', in which localized systems based on time or dollar equivalents act as the medium of exchange. As such, it offers rich insights into the challenge presented by Time Banking to both the traditional social service and economic models, through the creation of an environment of reciprocity in which everyone's work has equal value. Locating Time Banking within the context of community currencies more generally and investigating the particular characteristics that are central to the production of positive outcomes, Equal Time, Equal Value examines the organizational characteristics of Time Banks, as well as the motivations of members, types and patterns of exchanges, and the effects on members of Time Bank participation in the USA. A timely and detailed exploration of exchange systems at a time of rising unemployment and declining confidence in global economic structures, this book will appeal to sociologists, cultural geographers and anthropologists with interests in social movements, the sociology of work, health promotion and policy, inequality and questions of the creation of community and sustainability.

This book explores resilience, social capital and relationships of power in an examination of the manner in which capital can be converted from one form to another. Through a study of the survival of the Polish gentry, in spite of the communist regime's attempts to disempower and discredit them through land reform and high-profile trials, Patrons of History shows how the gentry managed not only to survive as a class, but also to remain influential. By revitalising older forms of cultural capital invested with education and transnational networks, the gentry were able to transform wealth, land, patronage, lifestyle and the ability to define patriotism and authorise a version of history, so as to ensure that noble heritage remained an advantageous resource in the face of communist opposition. Drawing on rich interview material spanning fifteen years, Patrons of History sheds light not only on communism as it existed and the stratification that persisted under such regimes, but also on the functioning of relationships of power and the ways in which privilege can be studied in the contemporary world. As such, this book will appeal to anthropologists, sociologists, ethnographers and historians interested in cultural and social capital, inequality and resistance.

Though Asian Indians are typically thought of as a "model minority", not much is known about the school experiences of their children. Positive stereotyping of these immigrants and their children often masks educational needs and issues, creates class divides within the Indian-American community, and triggers stress for many Asian Indian students. This volume examines second generation (America-born) and 1.5 generation (foreign-born) Asian Indians as they try to balance peer culture, home life and academics. It explores how, through the acculturation process, these children either take advantage of this positive stereotype or refute their stereotyped ethnic image and move to downward mobility. Focusing on migrant experiences of the Indian diasporas in the United States, this volume brings attention to highly motivated Asian Indian students who are overlooked because of their cultural dispositions and outlooks on schooling, and those students who are more likely to underachieve. It highlights the assimilation of Asian Indian students in mainstream society and their understandings of Americanization, social inequality, diversity and multiculturalism.

Within the broader context of the global knowledge economy, wherein the "college-for-all" discourse grows more and more pervasive and systems of higher education become increasingly stratified by social class, important and timely questions emerge regarding the future social location and mobility of the working classes. Though the working classes look very different from the working classes of previous generations, the weight of a universal working-class identity/background amounts to much of the same economic vulnerability and negative cultural stereotypes, all of which continue to present obstacles for new generations of working-class youth, many of whom pursue higher education as a necessity rather than a "choice." Using a sociological lens, contributors examine the complicated relationship between the working classes and higher education through students' distinct experiences, challenges, and triumphs during three moments on a transitional continuum: the transition from secondary to higher education; experiences within higher education; and the transition from higher education to the workforce. In doing so, this volume challenges the popular notion of higher education as a means to equality of opportunity and social mobility for working-class students.

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.

This book provides an autobiographical and research-based exploration of the perceptions of Black middle and upper class preservice teachers about teaching and learning in high poverty urban schools. While there is an extensive body of knowledge on White preservice teachers, limited studies examine Black middle and upper class preservice teachers who may also lack experience with students in high poverty urban schools. Through this narrative, the author explores her own professional journey and a research study of former students who experienced the same boundary crossing. Their voices add to the body of current knowledge of how race and class affect the perceptions of preservice teachers.

..".a fresh and an important contribution ...this book presents an ethnographically rich and conceptually strong account of recent transformations in the educational field and their implications for class relations in Turkey." . Middle East Journal

..".the book critically draws attention to a number of key issues that are often taken for granted in the literature on neoliberalism...Co-written by an economist and an anthropologist, Reproducing Classis a refreshing attempt to integrate the analytical perspectives of macroeconomics with the ethnographic traditions of anthropology." . JRAI

Middle classes are by definition ambiguous, raising all sorts of paradoxical questions, perceived and real, about their power and place relative to those above and below them in a class-structured society. Focusing on families of the new middle class in Istanbul, the authors of this study address questions about the social construction of middle-class reality in the context of the rapid changes that have come about through recent economic growth in global markets and the global diffusion of information technology. After 1980, Turkey saw a structural transformation from state-owned and managed industry, banking, and media and communications to privatization and open markets. The idea of being middle class and the reality of middle-class practices became open for negotiation and interpretation. This study therefore offers a particularly interesting case study of an emergent global phenomenon known as the transnational middle class, characterized by their location of work in globalizing cities, development of transnational social networks, sumptuary consumption habits, and residences in gated communities. As the authors show, this new middle class associates quality education, followed by property and lifestyle issues, with the concept of a comfortable life."

Over the past decade, Laos' exposure to global capitalism has resulted in extensive economic and social transformations. Precapitalist social structures both persist and are transformed into a particular configuration of classes. This entails increasing social inequality, a widening range of habitus and new forms of ethos. This book pursues the theoretical aim of shedding light on the old question raised by Max Weber about the relation between capitalism, ethos and society. The empirical study consists of a description of the social structures, their embodiment in the habitus and world-views in Laos against the background of a critical revision of Pierre Bourdieu's sociology. To achieve these aims, the author develops a qualitative methodology as neither Weber nor Bourdieu explained how to empirically study habitus and ethos. The empirical material for the book was gathered over a period of more than five years and comprises several hundred life-course interviews in all sections of Lao society as well as a representative quantitative survey. The author argues that precapitalist social structures persist and continue to shape the social fabric of contemporary Laos. At the same time, they are transformed by global and local capitalism. The book shows how the hierarchies contained in each structure shape the habitus of the Lao population and how these in turn influence the development of a capitalist and a religious ethos. The argument makes use of Pierre Bourdieu's sociology and adapts it to the setting of Laos by introducing new as well as indigenous concepts. While social structure, habitus and beliefs are subject to a capitalist transformation and unification, the newly emerging classes and milieus are not copies of Western forms but retain their local history. Filling a gap in the literature on Laos and offering new perspectives on core concepts such as habitus, class, lifestyle, work ethic and its religious underpinnings, this book will be of interest to academics in the fields of Sociology, Religious Studies, and Southeast Asian Studies.

This book examines the "who, what, when, where, and how" of elite-white-male dominance in U.S. and global society. In spite of their domination in the United States and globally that we document herein, elite white men have seldom been called out and analyzed as such. They have received little to no explicit attention with regard to systemic racism issues, as well as associated classism and sexism issues. Almost all public and scholarly discussions of U.S. racism fail to explicitly foreground elite white men or to focus specifically on how their interlocking racial, class, and gender statuses affect their globally powerful decisionmaking. Some of the power positions of these elite white men might seem obvious, but they are rarely analyzed for their extraordinary significance. While the principal focus of this book is on neglected research and policy questions about the elite-white-male role and dominance in the system of racial oppression in the United States and globally, because of their positioning at the top of several societal hierarchies the authors periodically address their role and dominance in other oppressive (e.g., class, gender) hierarchies.

American Mythologies examines eleven myths that form part of the storehouse of present-day American mythologies, elucidating the nature of contemporary myths by investigating their ideological sub-terrain. Grounded in a semiological approach, which explores the displacement of information and the transformation of signs that characterise mythic communication, this book sheds light on the socio-economic, gendered, national and racial interests that lie behind myth-making. Presenting rich case studies from popular culture and public discourse, it demonstrates the manner in which these myths, and American mythology in general, promote the core values of everyday life under capitalism: rugged individualism, the unfettered right to accumulate wealth, the superior moral character of free-enterprise democracy, and its abundant opportunities for every citizen. By the same token, that same mythology negates the corruption endemic to the capitalist social order, an order that also promotes inescapable class, racial, and gender inequalities which confine the majority of Americans to a life of constant economic struggle. A fresh critique of the foundations of American culture, American Mythologies will appeal to those with interests in sociology, social and cultural theory, and cultural and media studies.

This accessible introductory text offers an engaging and thought-provoking discussion of class in relation to several cultural, sociological and political schools of thought and draws upon the works of a broad range of key theorists as well as contemporary thinkers to restate the ongoing importance of class as a sociological concept. Class has long been a key focus of sociological and political studies. This book explores what it might mean today in a 21st century context. Is class really disappearing? Is class morally justifiable? What impact has globalisation and neoliberalism had on the restructuring of class-based social relationships? These questions and others are explored in this short but lively book. Stevenson reviews a number of normative traditions including anarchist, Marxist, social democratic and citizenship-based forms of understanding of class in order to shed light on the themes of class-based experiences, health and inequality, work, class struggle, social movements and the possibility of developing more egalitarian and just societies in the future. This short book will be invaluable to general readers and students in the humanities and social sciences seeking an accessible introduction to the central problems raised by discussions of class in the 21st century.

This accessible introductory text offers an engaging and thought-provoking discussion of class in relation to several cultural, sociological and political schools of thought and draws upon the works of a broad range of key theorists as well as contemporary thinkers to restate the ongoing importance of class as a sociological concept. Class has long been a key focus of sociological and political studies. This book explores what it might mean today in a 21st century context. Is class really disappearing? Is class morally justifiable? What impact has globalisation and neoliberalism had on the restructuring of class-based social relationships? These questions and others are explored in this short but lively book. Stevenson reviews a number of normative traditions including anarchist, Marxist, social democratic and citizenship-based forms of understanding of class in order to shed light on the themes of class-based experiences, health and inequality, work, class struggle, social movements and the possibility of developing more egalitarian and just societies in the future. This short book will be invaluable to general readers and students in the humanities and social sciences seeking an accessible introduction to the central problems raised by discussions of class in the 21st century.

Inequality has dramatically increased in America, with few solutions on the horizon. Serious social inequalities persist. For example, the 14 richest Americans earned enough money from their investments in 2015 to hire two million preschool teachers (while the USA ranks low among developed countries in preschool enrollment). Following the Great Recession, the richest one percent took 116 percent of the new income gains, a statistic caused by so many middle-class Americans moving backward, many losing investments in property and experiencing interruptions in work. Author Paul Buchheit looks hopefully to solutions in a book that vividly portrays the rapidly changing inequality of American society. More Americans have become "disposable" as middle-class jobs have disappeared at an alarming rate. Buchheit presents innovative proposals that could quickly begin to reverse these trends, including a guaranteed basic income drawn from new revenues, such as a Financial Speculation Tax and a Carbon Tax. Discussing the challenges and obstacles to such measures, he finds optimism in past successes in American history. Ideal for classroom assignment, the book uniquely pairs historical events with current, real-life struggles faced by citizens, pointing to measures that can improve personal and social well-being and trust in government.

This refreshing volume introduces a theory for explaining cross-national differences in the social practice of women (and men) in the areas of family and employment. This provides a theoretical framework for the ensuing comprehensive cross-national analysis of the degree and forms of labour market integration of women in three European countries - Finland, West Germany and the Netherlands - from the 1950s until 2000. Cross-national differences are explained with a focus on cultural change and the development of welfare state, labour markets, the family and social movements. It is evident that change took place along different development paths that were based on deep-rooted historical differences in the cultural ideals of the family. Such historical differences and their explanations also form part of the analysis. The results of this survey contribute to the further development of cross-national sociology on social change, social and gender inequality, welfare state, labour markets and family structures.

Research into social stratification and social divisions has always been a central component of sociological study. This volume brings together a range of thematically organised case-studies comprising empirical and methodological analyses addressing the challenges of studying trends and processes in social stratification. This collection has four themes. The first concerns the measurement of social stratification, since the problem of relating concepts, measurements and operationalizations continues to cause difficulties for sociological analysis. This book clarifies the appropriate deployment of existing measurement options, and presents new empirical strategies of measurement and interpretation. The conception of the life course and individual social biography is very popular in modern sociology. The second theme of this volume exploits the contemporary expansion of micro-level longitudinal data and the analytical approaches available to researchers to exploit such records. It comprises chapters which exemplify innovative empirical analysis of life-course processes in a longitudinal context, thus offering an advance on previous sociological accounts concerned with longitudinal trends and processes. The third theme of the book concerns the interrelationship between contemporary demographic, institutional and socioeconomic transformations and structures of social inequality. Although the role of wider social changes is rarely neglected in sociological reviews, such changes continue to raise analytical challenges for any assessment of empirical differences and trends. The fourth theme of the book discusses selected features of policy and political responses to social stratification. This volume will be of interest to students, academics and policy experts working in the field of social stratification.

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.

Searching for Marx in the Occupy Movement is a critical, participant observation study of the Philadelphia branch of the Occupy Wall Street movement. John Leveille spent over nine months with Occupy Philadelphia as the members organized and carried out their protests. This book describes and analyzes the rise, the organization, and the demise of this group. The important events and activities of Occupy Philadelphia are discussed and dissected, with specific attention given to the confusions and chaos that permeated this group, and Occupy Wall Street more generally, which contributed to its rather rapid decline. A revisionist Marxism, informed loosely by the critical theory of the Frankfurt school, is used here to understand and explain the happenings of this protest group. The theory provides an epistemological and methodological framework for this study, and it is also used to account for the observed behaviors. Leveille argues that an essential conflict between humanism and the forces of rational capitalism lies at the heart of this protest movement. This conflict contributed both to the rise of Occupy and to its operations. It was manifested in two intersecting ways. One of these concerns the destabilization of the self in contemporary capitalism, which provided fuel for the movement. The second revolves around the limited abilities of existing institutional arrangements to manage or channel the essential conflicts related to values that are produced by rational capitalism. Ultimately, Searching for Marx in the Occupy Movement makes a controversial claim that the movement was as much, if not more, about democracy, morality, and the organization and experience of the self and of social life as it was about economic matters. The argument is made that Occupy was as much an expressive movement as it was an instrumental one. It was expressing contradictions produced by capitalism through extra-institutional means because the existing institutional arrangements have been and continue to be unable to manage or contain them.

Farewell to Work? presents the large process of capital's productive restructuring, triggered in the 1970s-a process with tendencies to both intellectualize labour power and increase the levels of the working class' precariousness on a global scale. This book hypothesizes that instead of work's loss of centrality in contemporary capitalism, when the world of production is analysed in its global dimension, including countries in the North and South, a substantial process of growing heterogeneity, complexity, and fragmentation is observed. The resulting configuration is a new morphology of the working class. Therefore, as new mechanisms are created to generate surplus labour, there is, simultaneously, an increment in casualisation and unemployment, pushed by the ongoing corrosion of labour rights in countries all across the globe.

In this book based on the biographical accounts of upper-middle-class white men living in wealthy parts of Rio de Janeiro, Valeria Ribeiro Corossacz analyzes specific experiences of whiteness as they are produced at the intersection of multiple categories-in particular gender, class, and sexuality. White Middle-Class Men in Rio de Janeiro: The Making of a Dominant Subject investigates what it means to be classified as a white person and a man in a society that is known for its valorization of racial mixing and yet deeply structured by racism, class, and gender inequalities. By examining instances of silence and what is left unsaid as well as precise descriptions of power relations and violent episodes, this book encourages the reader to observe the condition of dominant subjects as a keystone of the reproduction of social discrimination.

The migration of professionals is widely seen as a paradigmatic representation and a driver of globalization. The global elite of highly qualified migrants-managers and scientists, for example-are partly defined by their lives' mobility. But their everyday lives are based and take place in specific cities. The contributors of this book analyze the relevance of locality for a mobile group and provide a new perspective on migrant professionals by considering the relevance of social identities for local encounters in socially unequal cities. Contributors explore shifting identities, senses of belonging, and spatial and social inequalities and encounters between migrant professionals and 'Others' within the cities. These qualitative studies widen the understanding of the importance of local aspects for the social identities of those who are in many aspects more privileged than others.

The Tokugawa Shogunate, which governed Japan for two and a half centuries until the mid-1860s, classed people into hierarchically ranked status groups (mibun). The early Tokugawa rulers legally established these status groups through the late-sixteenth and early-seventeenth centuries, adapting and clarifying existing customary divisions between warriors, peasants, artisans, and merchants. Subsequently, during the two and a half centuries of Tokugawa rule, status laws backed by coercive force worked to limit social mobility between groups and regulate relations between people of different status. This book begins by examining the origins and evolution of the outcaste groups within the Tokugawa status order. It then looks into the complex processes leading up to the abolition of outcaste status and the institution of legal equality in 1871 under the Meiji regime, and analyzes subsequent practices and theories of social discrimination against firstly 'former outcastes' and 'New Commoners' and then 'Burakumin'. Finally, it analyses the tactics and strategies of liberation adopted at local and national levels by anti-discrimination movements in Meiji Japan. Detailing the history of early-modern Japanese outcastes into the post-abolition era, Japan's Outcaste Abolition explores the dynamics of national inclusion, social exclusion, and the making of disciplined modern subjects. It will therefore be of great interest to students and scholars of Japanese history, culture and society, social history and Asian studies.

This book examines the role of the family in intra and inter-generational social movement. The authors take a genealogical approach to researching social mobility, using a university chemistry department as a case study to explore participants' motives for pursuing a STEM undergraduate degree and the influences that have shaped them. Assessing the roles of genealogy, family and higher education in shaping their aspirations and careers, the authors examine the contributions of these variables to the students aspirations. With a wealth of empirically rich qualitative data, the authors identify areas where work is required to achieve greater equality of access to high performing chemistry departments and enhance career outcomes, which could be applied more widely. This book will appeal to scholars of educational inequalities and widening access, particularly in terms of STEM education.

Der Band enthalt die auf der Jahrestagung der "Gesellschaft fur Arabisches und Islamisches Recht" (GAIR) im Oktober 2015 an der Universitat Goettingen gehaltenen Vortrage. Thema der Tagung war "Genderforschung und Genderfragen im islamischen Recht". Die Vortrage werden erganzt um zwei weitere, themenrelevante Fachbeitrage. Die Autoren gehen in den Beitragen zum einen der Frage nach, welche Rolle und Bedeutung die Geschlechterforschung im Recht hat. Zum anderen wird anhand empirischer Beispiele die Geschlechterstellung im deutschen Recht und im islamischen Recht - in Deutschland und in der muslimischen Welt - definiert und diskutiert.