The Feminization of Foreclosure
During the Great Recession that began in 2007, news reports portrayed housing foreclosure as an equal opportunity crisis, overlooking the fact that women—especially women of … Read More
inequality
Slot Machine Capitalism
What is seductive about casino gambling? Sociologist Jacob Avery reviews the books Addiction by Design and Gambling for Profit in a desperate attempt to win some answers. Read More
Better Not Put a Ring on It
Same-sex marriage is all the rage these days and supporting it is a civil-rights no brainer. But sociologist Suzanna Danuta Walters warns us that we should never imagine that gaining this signals the end of homophobia or the beginning of deep social belonging. Read More
Gated Communities For The Rich And The Poor
Sociologist Zaire Zenit Dinzey-Flores discusses how the concentration of class and racial privilege in gated communities takes place alongside the spatial concentration and confinement of the poor. She argues that gates help sort and segregate people, physically and symbolically distinguish communities, and cement inequality. Read More
Cool Stores, Bad Jobs
Sociologist Yasemin Besen-Cassino explores the techniques through which employers attract young, attractive, and middle-class workers for minimum wage, service sector jobs. Using in-depth interviews and job ads, she shows that employers focus on social benefits, discounts, and prestige of the brand to attract higher income workers to low paying jobs. Read More
Inequality and the Growth of Bad Jobs
The share of jobs that are low-skill declined by 15% from 1960 to 2005, yet low-wage jobs have made up an increasing share of total job growth over that period. Scholar Matt Vidal discusses how the manufacturing-based, nationally bound economy of the postwar years allowed employers to pay decent wages for low-skill jobs, but in today’s postindustrial, internationalized economy, wage-based competition has returned with a vengeance. Read More
Affirmative Inaction
Five experts, Bret D. Asbury, Richard D. Kahlenberg, Sigal Alon, Jennifer Pierce, and John D. Skrentny, explore what the recent Supreme Court decision means for the future of race preferences in higher education. Read More
Food Deserts
by Shirley CannonSince 2010, First Lady Michelle Obama has led the fight against childhood obesity. In “Let’s Move,” an … Read More
Atlanta and Other Olympic Losers
Cities launch major campaigns to convince the International Olympic Committee to grace them with a staging of the Summer or Winter Games, and they spare no expense in readying their cities for the events. But will the promise of tourist riches and urban improvements pan out once the Olympic torch passes to the next host city? Read More
Schooling Elites
Lisa M. Stulberg reviews two new books on education and the creation of each new generation of American elites: Shamus Rahman Khan's Privilege: The Making of an Adolescent Elite at St. Paul’s School, and Amy J. Binder and Kate Wood's Becoming Right: How Campuses Shape Young Conservatives. Read More
