Author: Sandra Harding
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
ISBN: 0252047095
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 226
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Book Description
In Science and Social Inequality, Sandra Harding makes the provocative argument that the philosophy and practices of today's Western science, contrary to its Enlightenment mission, work to insure that more science will only worsen existing gaps between the best and worst off around the world. She defends this claim by exposing the ways that hierarchical social formations in modern Western sciences encode antidemocratic principles and practices, particularly in terms of their services to militarism, the impoverishment and alienation of labor, Western expansion, and environmental destruction. The essays in this collection--drawing on feminist, multicultural, and postcolonial studies--propose ways to reconceptualize the sciences in the global social order. At issue here are not only social justice and environmental issues but also the accuracy and comprehensiveness of our understandings of natural and social worlds. The inadvertent complicity of the sciences with antidemocratic projects obscures natural and social realities and thus blocks the growth of scientific knowledge. Scientists, policy makers, social justice movements and the consumers of scientific products (that is, the rest of us) can work together and separately to improve this situation.
Author: Sandra Harding
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
ISBN: 0252073045
Category : Feminism and science
Languages : en
Pages : 226
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Book Description
Rethinking the ways modern science encodes destructive political philosophies
Author: Deborah Carr
Publisher: Russell Sage Foundation
ISBN: 1610448774
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 377
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Book Description
Thanks to advances in technology, medicine, Social Security, and Medicare, old age for many Americans is characterized by comfortable retirement, good health, and fulfilling relationships. But there are also millions of people over 65 who struggle with poverty, chronic illness, unsafe housing, social isolation, and mistreatment by their caretakers. What accounts for these disparities among older adults? Sociologist Deborah Carr’s Golden Years? draws insights from multiple disciplines to illuminate the complex ways that socioeconomic status, race, and gender shape the nearly every aspect of older adults’ lives. By focusing on an often-invisible group of vulnerable elders, Golden Years? reveals that disadvantages accumulate across the life course and can diminish the well-being of many. Carr connects research in sociology, psychology, epidemiology, gerontology, and other fields to explore the well-being of older adults. On many indicators of physical health, such as propensity for heart disease or cancer, black seniors fare worse than whites due to lifetimes of exposure to stressors such as economic hardships and racial discrimination and diminished access to health care. In terms of mental health, Carr finds that older women are at higher risk of depression and anxiety than men, yet older men are especially vulnerable to suicide, a result of complex factors including the rigid masculinity expectations placed on this generation of men. Carr finds that older adults’ physical and mental health are also closely associated with their social networks and the neighborhoods in which they live. Even though strong relationships with spouses, families, and friends can moderate some of the health declines associated with aging, women—and especially women of color—are more likely than men to live alone and often cannot afford home health care services, a combination that can be isolating and even fatal. Finally, social inequalities affect the process of dying itself, with white and affluent seniors in a better position to convey their end-of-life preferences and use hospice or palliative care than their disadvantaged peers. Carr cautions that rising economic inequality, the lingering impact of the Great Recession, and escalating rates of obesity and opioid addiction, among other factors, may contribute to even greater disparities between the haves and the have-nots in future cohorts of older adults. She concludes that policies, such as income supplements for the poorest older adults, expanded paid family leave, and universal health care could ameliorate or even reverse some disparities. A comprehensive analysis of the causes and consequences of later-life inequalities, Golden Years? demonstrates the importance of increased awareness, strong public initiatives, and creative community-based programs in ensuring that all Americans have an opportunity to age well.
Author: Jeff Manza
Publisher: W. W. Norton
ISBN: 9780393977257
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 1025
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Book Description
With the ideal balance of classic essays and more contemporary studies, Inequality and Society covers the standard themes of poverty and inequality while bringing political institutions into the analysis.
Author: Kathryn Neckerman
Publisher: Russell Sage Foundation
ISBN: 1610444205
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 1044
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Book Description
Inequality in income, earnings, and wealth has risen dramatically in the United States over the past three decades. Most research into this issue has focused on the causes—global trade, new technology, and economic policy—rather than the consequences of inequality. In Social Inequality, a group of the nation's leading social scientists opens a wide-ranging inquiry into the social implications of rising economic inequality. Beginning with a critical evaluation of the existing research, they assess whether the recent run-up in economic inequality has been accompanied by rising inequality in social domains such as the quality of family and neighborhood life, equal access to education and health care, job satisfaction, and political participation. Marcia Meyers and colleagues find that many low-income mothers cannot afford market-based child care, which contributes to inequality both at the present time—by reducing maternal employment and family income—and through the long-term consequences of informal or low-quality care on children's educational achievement. At the other end of the educational spectrum, Thomas Kane links the growing inequality in college attendance to rising tuition and cuts in financial aid. Neil Fligstein and Taek-Jin Shin show how both job security and job satisfaction have decreased for low-wage workers compared with their higher-paid counterparts. Those who fall behind economically may also suffer diminished access to essential social resources like health care. John Mullahy, Stephanie Robert, and Barbara Wolfe discuss why higher inequality may lead to poorer health: wider inequality might mean increased stress-related ailments for the poor, and it might also be associated with public health care policies that favor the privileged. On the political front, Richard Freeman concludes that political participation has become more stratified as incomes have become more unequal. Workers at the bottom of the income scale may simply be too hard-pressed or too demoralized to care about political participation. Social Inequality concludes with a comprehensive section on the methodological problems involved in disentangling the effects of inequality from other economic factors, which will be of great benefit to future investigators. While today's widening inequality may be a temporary episode, the danger is that the current economic divisions may set in motion a self-perpetuating cycle of social disadvantage. The most comprehensive review of this quandary to date, Social Inequality maps out a new agenda for research on inequality in America with important implications for public policy.
Author: Michael Beenstock
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262016923
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 483
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Book Description
An economist critiques nature versus nurture hypotheses from behavioral genetics, developmental psychology, sociology, and economics. Empirical literature in disciplines ranging from behavioral genetics to economics shows that in virtually every aspect of life the outcomes of children are correlated to a greater or lesser extent with the outcomes of their parents and their siblings. In Heredity, Family, and Inequality, the economist Michael Beenstock offers theoretical, statistical, and methodological tools for understanding these correlations. Beenstock presents a comprehensive survey of intergenerational and sibling correlations for a broad range of outcomes--including fertility and longevity, intelligence and education, income and consumption, and deviancy and religiosity. He then offers a critique of the sometimes conflicting explanations for these correlations proposed by social scientists from such disciplines as developmental psychology, sociology, and economics. Beenstock also provides an axiomatic framework for thinking about the complex interplay of heredity, family, and environments, drawing on game theory, control theory, and econometrics. Chapters 1-7 discuss such topics as the important contributions of Francis Galton (1822-1911) to the statistical study of heredity, the family as an engine of inequality and diversity, and natural experiments designed to identify how environments, families, peer groups, and neighborhoods affect human outcomes. Chapters 8-10 present technical material on statistical, theoretical, and methodological tools used by the earlier chapters. Beenstock's goal is not to argue for either nature or nurture but to suggest more rigorous ways to assess the diverse contributions to this lively debate.
Author: T. Douglas Price
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1489912894
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 312
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Book Description
In this authoritative volume, leading researchers offer diverse theoretical perspectives and a wide-range of information on the beginnings and nature of social inequality in past human societies. Their illuminating work investigates the role of status differentiation in traditional archaeological debates and major societal transitions. This volume features numerous case studies from the Old and New World spanning foraging societies to agricultural groups and complex states. Diachronic in view and archaeological in focus, this book will be of significant interest to archaeologists, anthropologists, and students.
Author: Louise Warwick-Booth
Publisher: SAGE
ISBN: 1446293114
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 390
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Book Description
"What makes this book stand out for me is that, as well as being theoretically informed and clearly written, its structure lends itself unmistakeably to teaching... If our aim is to teach truly engaged students, it should be our job to provide truly engaging materials. This is what you will find with this particular book. It will help to inform your disciplinary teaching of social inequality across the social sciences and it will provide a solid basis for your seminar work with students." - Helen Jones, Higher Education Academy "Warwick-Booth has provided a highly readable introductory text that will be accessible to everyone interested in this area of study, and I highly recommend it for those embarking on studies of social inequality." - LSE Review of Books What is the state of social inequality today? How can you situate yourself in the debates? This is an essential book that not only introduces you to the key areas, definitions and debates within the field, but also gives you the opportunity to reflect upon the roots of inequality and to critically analyse power relations today. With international examples and a clear interdisciplinary approach throughout, the book encourages you to look at social inequality as a complex social phenomenon that needs to be understood in a global context. This book: Looks at social divisions across societies Explores global processes and changes that are affecting inequalities Discusses social inequality in relation to class, gender and race Examines current social policy approaches to explore how these relate to inequality Reflects upon the potential solutions to inequalities This engaging and accessible introduction to social inequality is an invaluable resource for students across the social sciences. Louise Warwick-Booth is Senior Lecturer in Health Policy at Leeds Metropolitan University, UK.
Author: Tim Butler
Publisher: SAGE
ISBN: 9780761963707
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 236
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Book Description
"This is a book that should be read by anyone interested in class, inequality, poverty and politics. Actually, probably more importantly it should be read by people who think that those things do not matter! It provides a wonderful summation of the huge amount of work on these topics that now exists and it also offers its own distinctive perspectives on a set of issues that are - despite the claims of some influential commentators - still central to the sociological enterprise and, indeed to political life."- Roger Burrows, University of York "A clear and compelling analysis of the dynamics of social and spatial inequality in an era of globalisation. This is an invaluable resource for students and scholars in sociology, human geography and the social sciences more generally."- Gary Bridge, University of Bristol With the declining attention paid to social class in sociology, how can we analyze continuing and pervasive socio-economic inequality? What is the impact of recent developments in sociology on how we should understand disadvantage? Moving beyond the traditional dichotomies of social theory, this book brings the study of social stratification and inequality into the 21st century. Starting with the widely agreed ′fact′ that the world is becoming more unequal, this book brings together the ′identity of displacement′ in sociology and the ′spaces of flow′ of geography to show how place has become an increasingly important focus for understanding new trends in social inquality.
Author: Merrill Singer
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351594818
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 364
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Book Description
The year 2016 was the hottest year on record and the third consecutive record-breaking year in planet temperatures. The following year was the hottest in a non-El Nino year. Of the seventeen hottest years ever recorded, sixteen have occurred since 2000, indicating the trend in climate change is toward an ever warmer Earth. However, climate change does not occur in a social vacuum; it reflects relations between social groups and forces us to contemplate the ways in which we think about and engage with the environment and each other. Employing the experience-near anthropological lens to consider human social life in an environmental context, this book examines the fateful global intersection of ongoing climate change and widening social inequality. Over the course of the volume, Singer argues that the social and economic precarity of poorer populations and communities—from villagers to the urban disadvantaged in both the global North and global South—is exacerbated by climate change, putting some people at considerably enhanced risk compared to their wealthier counterparts. Moreover, the book adopts and supports the argument that the key driver of global climatic and environmental change is the global economy controlled primarily by the world’s upper class, which profits from a ceaseless engine of increased production for national middle classes who have been converted into constant consumers. Drawing on case studies from Alaska, Ecuador, Bangladesh, Haiti and Mali, Climate Change and Social Inequality will be of great interest to students and scholars of climate change and climate science, environmental anthropology, medical ecology and the anthropology of global health.
