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How does competition for school resources, along with racial and socioeconomic biases, shape parental preferences for schools? In this article, I investigate how school attributes affect preferences and choice, which sheds light on the processes that maintain school segregation. To do so, I conduct a survey experiment that explores parental preferences and the tradeoffs inherent in the process of school selection using school profiles that resemble those available on widely used education data platforms. I find that parents hold the strongest positive preferences for learning opportunities and overall school achievement compared to other attributes, including school racial and socioeconomic composition. Additionally, though parents prefer schools that have higher equity rankings, highly equitable schools are less desirable to parents than schools with more status and learning opportunities. However, parents also hold independent racial and socioeconomic preferences and —on average—avoid schools with more students of color and low-income students. Furthermore, results suggest they are largely unwilling to make tradeoffs that would result in schools with higher fractions of students of color or low-income students. Taken together, this study links prior studies on the segregating effects of educational data with literatures on school segregation by illustrating the specific dimensions that drive school choice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why do some people express optimism about their future social mobility, while others have a pessimistic view? This paper examines whether and how local wealth inequality is associated with individuals' pessimistic or optimistic expectations of their future social mobility in South Korea. It argues that people in districts with greater economic inequality will have more pessimistic views of their future upward mobility, as high local inequality raises concerns among the public that their opportunities to move up the social ladder may be receding. Using economic inequality at the local level calculated using actual real estate transaction prices in South Korea from 2011 to 2018, the empirical results confirm the negative association between local inequality and individuals' assessments of their future social mobility, particularly among residents in less affluent districts, those with low incomes, and those with a subjective awareness of belonging to a lower social class. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Popular explanations of inequality as the result of individual failings rather than structural processes are powerful cultural mechanisms that legitimize and reproduce inequality in the United States. How might individuals' experiences of downward or upward mobility shape the explanations they give? We argue that perceived experiences of economic mobility may not only shape how Americans understand economic inequality but may also impact their beliefs about social inequalities more broadly. Using proportionally representative survey data of 1110 U.S. residents, we find that those who perceive that they currently occupy a lower economic class than when they were growing up (i.e. they experienced subjective downward mobility) were more likely than class-stable individuals to reject individualistic explanations of economic inequality and embrace structural ones. By contrast, the upwardly mobile were more likely to reject structural explanations. We find that mobility is similarly related to the likelihood of giving individualistic or structural explanations for race and gender inequality as well. Downward mobility is also associated with greater support of redistributive policies related to economic as well as gender and race inequality. These findings suggest that economic mobility may influence popular explanations of inequality and support for redistributive policy not only related to class inequality but for multiple axes of inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gender and racial pay penalties are well-known: women (of all races) and people of color (of all genders) earn less, on average, even when they gain access to occupations historically reserved for White men. Studies of social mobility show that people from working-class backgrounds in the US have also been excluded from top professional and managerial occupations. But do working-class-origin people who attain top US jobs face a class-origin pay penalty? Despite evidence of class-origin pay gaps in higher professional and managerial occupations elsewhere, we might expect that the central role of race and racism in US stratification processes, along with the relatively low salience of class identities, would render class origins irrelevant to earnings in exclusive occupations, at least within racial groups. Using the Panel Study of Income Dynamics to link childhood class position to adult occupation and earnings, we describe the racial and class-origin composition of different high-status occupations and the earnings of people within them. We show that when people who are from working-class backgrounds are upwardly mobile into high-status occupations, they earn almost $20,000 per year less, on average, than individuals who are themselves from privileged backgrounds. The difference is partly explained by the upwardly mobile being less likely to have college degrees, but it remains substantial (around $11,700) even after accounting for education, race and other important predictors of earnings. The gap is largest among White people; there is a class-origin penalty in top US occupations that is distinct from the racial pay gap. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the face of India's enduring caste inequalities, their entrenchment or resistance is central to social and urban navigation. In this article, I locate music as an important site to investigate how caste comes to be spatialized, where place identity comes to symbolize group difference, with the effect of exacerbating social and spatial segregation. I use ethnographic field notes from attending musical events and 103 interviews with members of two live musical worlds situated in the southern city of Chennai: Carnatic music, which is seen as the preserve of Brahmin, or "upper" caste residents of the city; and Gaana music, which is associated with Dalit, or previously "untouchable" caste urban residents. I argue that for caste elites, symbolic power is constructed and maintained through norms and boundary work, thus producing hegemonic place identity and cultural power. For the caste oppressed, caste discrimination is experienced as stigmatized place identity, which is variously managed, reappropriated, or rejected through a range of strategies. The persistence of place-based stigma to devalue caste identity shapes the experience of caste-based urban inequalities that obstruct marginalized communities' right to the city. In recent years, Gaana musicians are using their music to protest caste-based urban segregation, indexing the rise of a cultural articulation of an anti-caste assertion that challenges the marginalization of urban Dalits. This article advances sociological understandings of the forms that urban segregation can take when layered with caste as an axis of social difference and conceptualizes spatialization of caste as a driver of urban segregation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Homeownership is expected to provide a wide range of social benefits. However, the empirical evidence for causation is weak, and knowledge beyond Western countries is even more limited. This article investigates how homeownership affects life satisfaction and subjective class identification in Hong Kong. The Home Ownership Scheme, a large-scale subsidized homeownership program based on a random draw, represents a quasi-experimental setting to identify the causal impact of homeownership. Based on the analyses of data from four waves of the Hong Kong Panel Study of Social Dynamics (HKPSSD) and instrumental variable estimation, we show that homeownership significantly improves life satisfaction among Hong Kong adults, and that those who own a home deem themselves as belonging to a higher social class. This study contributes to the understanding of homeownership effects by providing causal evidence from a Chinese society and sheds light on the effectiveness of housing policies that aim to promote homeownership in Hong Kong and beyond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relative importance of racial and class inequality in incarceration in the United States has recently become the subject of much debate. In this paper, we seek to give this debate a stronger empirical foundation. First, we update previous research on racial and class inequality in people's likelihood of being imprisoned. Then, we examine racial and class inequality in people's risk of having a family member imprisoned or living in a high-imprisonment neighborhood. We find that racial inequality in prison admissions has fallen in the twenty-first century, while class inequality has surged. However, in recent years, Black people with high levels of education and income were more likely than white people with low levels of education and income to experience the imprisonment of a family member or to live in a neighborhood with a high imprisonment rate. These seemingly contradictory conclusions can be reconciled by the fact that enduring structures of racial domination have made class boundaries among Black people more permeable than they are among white people. Imprisonment in the United States is increasingly reserved for the poor. But because Black Americans are disproportionately connected to the poor through their families and neighborhoods, racial inequality exceeds class inequality in people's indirect experiences with imprisonment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies how social capital is divided across classes in Chile, one of the most unequal countries in the world. We analyse the extent to which upper-, middle-, and lower class individuals congregate in social networks with similar others, while following Bourdieu and expecting that in particular the networks of the higher social strata are segregated in terms of social capital. We test our argument with large-scale, representative survey data for the Chilean urban population aged 18–75 years (n  = 2,517) and build an integrated indicator of people's social class that combines measures of education, occupational class, and household income. Our regression analyses show that upper-class individuals have larger networks and access to more varied and prestigious social resources than their middle- and lower class counterparts. Interestingly, however, we found a U-shaped relationship between social class and class homogeneity, indicating that network segregation is high at the top as well as at the bottom of the class-based social strata. In contrast, the classes in the middle have more heterogeneous class networks, possibly forming an important bridge between the "edges" of the class structure. These findings demonstrate that whereas social and economic capital cumulates in higher classes, the lower classes are socially deprived next to their economic disadvantage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The time that parents spend teaching and playing with their young children has important consequences for later life achievement and attainment. Previous research suggests that there are significant class inequalities in how much time parents devote to this kind of developmental childcare in the United States. Yet, due in part to data limitations, prior research has not accounted for how class inequalities in family structure, assortative mating, and specialization between partners may exacerbate or ameliorate these gaps. We match parental respondents within the American Time Use Survey (ATUS) to generate synthetic parental dyads, which we use to estimate, in turn, the contributions of family structure, assortative mating, and specialization to class gaps in parental time spent in developmental care of children aged 0–6. We find some evidence that accounting for class differences in family structure widens income gaps in total parental time in developmental childcare of young children. Further, we show that assortative mating of parents widens educational gaps in developmental childcare, whereas specialization between partners marginally widens these class divides. Although the net effect of these three processes on income-based gaps in childcare time is modest, accounting for these three processes more than doubles education-based gaps in total parental developmental childcare as compared to maternal time alone. Our findings from this novel empirical approach provide a more holistic view of the extent and sources of inequality in parental time investments in young children's cognitive and social development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Comparative research into intergenerational social mobility has been typically restricted to a relatively small number of countries. The aim of this paper is to widen the perspective, and to provide an up-to-date account of rates of intergenerational class mobility across 30 European countries, using a newly-constructed comparative data-set based on the European Social Survey. Absolute mobility rates are found to vary quite widely with national differences in the extent and pattern of class structural change. As regards relative rates, countries are best seen as falling into groups within comparatively high and low fluidity sets, within which groups a high degree of cross-national commonality prevails. Further results indicate that country differences in relative rates play only a very limited part in accounting for country differences in absolute rates, confirming that the latter are primarily determined by class structural change. Based on our findings, we suggest a restatement of the FJH-hypothesis to the effect that in societies with a capitalist market economy, a nuclear family system and a liberal-democratic polity, a limit exists to the extent to which relative rates of class mobility can be equalized, which countries may move closer to or, in the case of post-socialist societies, recede from. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social scientists have documented a substantial increase in both mothers' and fathers' time spent with children since the 1960s in the United States. Yet parenting behaviors remain deeply divided by social class and gender, with important implications for the reproduction of inequality. To understand rising parental investments in children and persistent class and gender differences in parenting, popular accounts and academic studies have pointed to an apparent cultural shift toward norms of time-intensive, child-centered parenting, particularly for mothers and among middle-class parents. However, prior research has produced inconclusive evidence relating to social class, gender, and contemporary parenting norms. Using data from an original vignette survey experiment conducted with a nationally representative sample of more than 3,600 parents, this study examines cultural norms related to parenting elementary school-aged children, considering how both social class and gender shape views about good parenting. Results indicate that parents of different social classes express remarkably similar support for intensive mothering and fathering across a range of situations, whether sons or daughters are involved. These findings suggest that cultural norms of child-centered, time-intensive mothering and fathering are now pervasive, pointing to high contemporary standards for parental investments in children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Stratification and inequality are among the most central concepts in sociology, and although related, they are fundamentally distinct: inequality refers to the extent to which resources are distributed unevenly across individuals or between population subgroups, whereas stratification refers to the extent to which population subgroups occupy distinct hierarchical layers within an overall resource distribution. Despite the centrality of stratification in theories of class structure, prior empirical studies have focused exclusively on measures of inequality, which do not accurately capture the degree of class stratification and suffer from a variety of methodological limitations. In this paper, we employ a novel rank-based index of stratification to measure the degree to which occupational classes inhabit distinct, non-overlapping, and hierarchically arranged layers in the distribution of personal market income. The stratification index is nonparametric, both scale and translation invariant, and independent of the level of inequality. Based on this index, our results show that the US income distribution is highly stratified by occupational class and that the degree of class stratification increased substantially from 1980 to 2016. Moreover, we find that this trend is almost entirely due to growing stratification among aggregate occupational classes rather than among the disaggregate occupations nested within them. Finally, a set of counterfactual analyses indicate that the rise of occupational class stratification is driven by increases in the income returns to education, deunionization, and deindustrialization, although the relative importance of these factors varies by gender. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent critiques of class analysis variously argue that aggregate class differences in life conditions and political attitudes have either declined to the point of irrelevance or decomposed into differences based on highly disaggregate occupations. This study empirically evaluates these arguments as they relate specifically to aggregate classes defined in terms of workplace ownership and authority relations, which are conceived to be distinct from both aggregate and disaggregate occupational classes based on the technical division of labor. A number of findings suggest that both the death and decomposition of class perspectives are in need of reconsideration or refinement. First, aggregate classes based on workplace ownership and authority cannot be conveniently disaggregated into smaller occupational classes based on the technical division of labor. Second, aggregate ownership-and-authority class differences in life conditions and political attitudes are statistically significant and substantively large across a wide variety of measures, and these differences are present even within disaggregate occupational classes. Third, aggregate ownership-and-authority class differences in life conditions and political attitudes show no evidence of declining since the 1970s. In fact, the only significant evidence of temporal change suggests a considerable increase in income inequality between positions in the workplace ownership and authority structure. The implications of these findings for class-analytic theory and research are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Patterns of partnership formation and dissolution are changing dramatically across the Western world. Some scholars have argued that women's trajectories of union formation and dissolution are diverging by education, with the higher educated postponing but eventually marrying and the lower educated more likely to cohabit or divorce if they do marry. At the same time, the variation in partnership behavior has also increased across countries, suggesting that country context plays an important role. Here, we use latent class growth models to compare the educational gradient of partnership trajectories in the United States and 14 countries in Europe and investigate the role of education and country context. Our results indicate a consistent positive educational gradient for partnership patterns showing the postponement of marriage, regardless of whether marriage was preceded by cohabitation, but a less consistent gradient for patterns reflecting long-term cohabitation and union dissolution. Although the US results show evidence of an educational divergence in marriage and union dissolution, the evidence from the other countries is weak. In addition, country context explains more of the variation in class membership than education, with context becoming more important over time. The divergence in behaviors across country contexts suggests that social, cultural, political, and economic developments are essential for understanding changes in partnership formation and dissolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We draw on structured and qualitative data to examine relationship dynamics associated with intimate partner violence (IPV) that occurs during the young adult period. Relying on a symbolic interactionist perspective, we identify specific contested domains associated with what has been called "situational couple violence," and explore the degree to which certain forms of communication about contested areas ("verbal amplifiers") exacerbate the risk of violence. Consistent with this relational focus, measures index respondent as well as partner concerns and use of these negative forms of communication. Results of analyses of interview data from a large, diverse sample of young adults show that net of family background, history of antisocial behavior, and other controls, concerns about the partner's or individual's own economic viability, disagreements about time spent with friends, and issues of infidelity are significantly related to IPV perpetration. Yet, the analyses indicate that infidelity is particularly central as a source of conflict associated with violence, and the use of verbal amplifiers explained additional variance. Further, while research has highlighted important differences in the meaning and consequences of male and female IPV, findings point to some areas of overlap in the relationship concerns and communication processes associated with variations in self-reports of the use of violence. In-depth "relationship history narratives" elicited from a subset of respondents and a sample of their partners support the quantitative results, but also highlight variations within the sample, the sequencing of these interrelated processes, and ways in which gender may have influenced respondents' perspectives and behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This contribution provides a long-term assessment of intergenerational social mobility trends in the United States across the 20th and early 21st centuries and assesses the determinants of those trends. In particular, we study how educational expansion has contributed to the observed changes in mobility opportunities for men across cohorts. Drawing on recently developed decomposition methods, we empirically identify the contribution of each of the multiple channels through which changing rates of educational participation shape mobility trends. We find that a modest but gradual increase in social class mobility can nearly exclusively be ascribed to an interaction known as the compositional effect, according to which the direct influence of social class backgrounds on social class destinations is lower among the growing number of individuals attaining higher levels of education. This dominant role of the compositional effect is also due to the fact that, despite pronounced changes in the distribution of education, class inequality in education has remained stable while class returns to education have shown no consistent trend. Our analyses also provide a cautionary tale about mistaking increasing levels of social class mobility for a general trend toward more fluidity in the United States. The impact of parental education on son's educational and class attainment has grown or remained stable, respectively. Here, the compositional effect pertaining to the direct association between parental education and son's class attainment counteracts a long-term trend of increasing inequality in educational attainment tied to parents' education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Racial inequality in economic outcomes, particularly among the college educated, persists throughout US society. Scholars debate whether this inequality stems from racial differences in human capital (e.g., college selectivity, GPA, college major) or employer discrimination against black job candidates. However, limited measures of human capital and the inherent difficulties in measuring discrimination using observational data make determining the cause of racial differences in labor-market outcomes a difficult endeavor. In this research, I examine employment opportunities for white and black graduates of elite top-ranked universities versus high-ranked but less selective institutions. Using an audit design, I create matched candidate pairs and apply for 1,008 jobs on a national job-search website. I also exploit existing birth-record data in selecting names to control for differences across social class within racialized names. The results show that although a credential from an elite university results in more employer responses for all candidates, black candidates from elite universities only do as well as white candidates from less selective universities. Moreover, race results in a double penalty: When employers respond to black candidates, it is for jobs with lower starting salaries and lower prestige than those of white peers. These racial differences suggest that a bachelor's degree, even one from an elite institution, cannot fully counteract the importance of race in the labor market. Thus, both discrimination and differences in human capital contribute to racial economic inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social class confers a bundle of capabilities, practices, and beliefs that are conventionally assumed to be hierarchical, rigid, and self-perpetuating. However, this framework often belies the fact that these qualities needn't be necessarily or exhaustively advantageous. In particular, social change may render obsolete class-linked characteristics that were advantageous in previous periods. Drawing on interviews with homeowners at risk of foreclosure and a yearlong ethnography of a housing counseling organization, I find that although the housing crisis of the “Great Recession” affected both working- and middle-class homeowners alike, the practices of working-class borrowers better positioned them to exploit a number of informational advantages in the rapidly changing mortgage modification setting. My findings are a departure from existing research that treats middle-class capabilities and practices as intrinsically advantageous. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The main question raised is, who becomes rich? Is there a class of wealthy property owners that is reproduced over generations? Or are the typical avenues into the highest echelons of wealth entrepreneurial activity or highly paid executive positions? Wealth mobility is examined using population data from Norway. The focus is on the top 1 percent and the top 0.1 percent of the wealth scale over a period of nearly two decades. The results show that recruitment into the top wealth groups is extremely restricted, and most so in recent years. Having wealthy parents, and especially top wealth origins, is important for wealth attainment. The very top wealth category appears to be a rentier class, with higher incomes from capital than from earnings. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A burgeoning literature in psychology and economics examines how personality characteristics predict indicators of attained status. We build on this research by suggesting that connections between personality and attained status are also socially contingent: Valued personality characteristics are stronger predictors of attainments at lower levels of parent education (the resource substitution hypothesis), but such characteristics are less likely among the children of less educated parents (the structural amplification hypothesis). We examine these possibilities by drawing on the Mini-IPIP (a standardized instrument assessing personality), the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, and a statistical framework to test for moderated mediation. Results reveal that (1) personality characteristics have notable associations with educational attainment, hourly wages, and self-direction at work; (2) personality often has stronger associations with status attainments at lower levels of parent education; and (3) personality is a weak mediator of associations between parent education and attained status. That is, the children of less educated parents may benefit more from valued personality characteristics, but they are slightly less likely to possess such characteristics. These results are discussed in terms of new avenues for research into diverse forms of capital and status attainment. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The literature on cities in the developing world equates segregation with the proliferation of enclaves and slums and tends to overlook how the people associated with those places are further segregated in public spaces and enclaves. To account for the symbolic partitioning of Metro Manila, I document the segregating practices of the residents of enclaves (villagers) and slums (squatters). These practices reveal a well-developed sense of place on both sides, a commitment to the relative status positioning of the two groups as expressed through their separation in space. A sense of place explains why squatters and villagers engage in segregating practices. It also enables us to identify other spatial practices that conform to or challenge its logic. Integrating practices are largely consistent with a sense of place, while desegregating practices challenge it and may set up or advance contentious situations. By using this approach we are better able to understand how class patterns of residential segregation are extended to encompass virtually all urban spaces where class interaction occurs. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

After 25 years of intense scrutiny, social capital remains an important yet highly debated concept in social science research. This research uses data from youth and mentors in several chapters of Big Brothers/Big Sisters to assess the importance of different mentoring relationship characteristics in creating positive outcomes among youths. The literature on social capital suggests that key characteristics are: (1. the amount of time spent between individuals, (2. racial similarity, (3. level of trust, (4. social class difference, and (5. intergenerational closure. I examine the effects of these social capital measures on academic and deviant behavioral outcomes and run models using propensity score weights to address selection bias. The results indicate that both the amount of time spent in a relationship and the level of trust consistently have positive effects for youths. Counter to what some theory suggests, race-matching and closure between parent and mentor have limited effects, and social class difference between individuals has no significant effect on any of the examined outcomes. These findings have important implications for future work on social capital and adolescent relationships in general. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this article, the continuity in music taste from parents to their children is discussed via a multi-actor design. In our models music preferences of 325 adolescents and both their parents were linked, with parental and adolescent educational level as covariates. Parents' preferences for different types of music that had been popular when they were young were subsumed under the general labels of Pop, Rock and Highbrow. Current adolescent music preferences resolved into Pop, Rock, Highbrow and Dance. Among partners in a couple, tastes were similar; for both generations, education was linked to taste; and parental preferences predicted adolescent music choices. More specifically, the preference of fathers and mothers for Pop was associated with adolescent preferences for Pop and Dance. Parents' preferences for Rock seemed to indicate their daughters would also like Rock music, but not their sons. Parental passion for Highbrow music was associated with Highbrow preferences among their children. It is concluded that preferences for cultural artifacts such as (popular) music show continuity from generation to generation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Cross-national research finds that "shadow education"-educational activities outside of formal schooling-tends to confer advantages on already privileged students. Shadow education in the United States, such as test prep for college entrance exams, has received considerably less attention. Drawing on the National Education Longitudinal Study, we analyze the likelihood of participation in, and the implications of, SAT preparation. Social class inequalities in test preparation, particularly costly SAT courses and private tutoring, are notable and have at least moderate consequences for SAT scores and selective college enrollment. We also find racial/ethnic variations in the use of test preparation. We consider the implications of these findings for understanding shadow education, stratification and educational mobility in the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using 42 in-depth interviews with rural, Southern whites in Mississippi, I examine the intra-racial boundary work respondents use to construct their regional and racial identities in relation to other whites in their communities, particularly rednecks. I find that rednecks are defined and categorized in multiple ways based on the respondents' conceptions of Southerners, social statuses (i.e., age, gender, class and residential history), and intra-racial comparisons around these social characteristics. Primarily, they draw intra-racial distinctions to separate themselves from negative characterizations and to claim positive associations with being rural, Southern whites. Nonetheless, the multi-faceted intra-racial boundary work around redneck maintains the general hegemony of whiteness by marginalizing "lesser whites" and forms of whiteness and claiming an ideal type of whiteness that is considered untainted, normative and superior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines spatial relationships between environmental hazards (i.e., pork feed lots, brick kilns, final assembly plants and a rail line) and markers of social marginality in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico. Juárez represents an opportunity for researchers to test for patterns of injustice in a recently urbanizing metropolis of the Global South. We use spatial-econometric modeling to predict the four unique hazard variables and a composite hazard variable using socio-demographic variables at the neighborhood level. Lower class and higher percentages of children and migrants were statistically significant predictors of composite hazard density. These results align with previous studies in the North. However, disaggregating these results by hazard type reveals important and counterintuitive differences in groups at risk based on the market-orientation of the hazard (i.e., domestic vs. transnational) and its location within the urban structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The literature on the black middle class has focused predominantly on married-couple families with children, reflecting a conception of the black middle class as principally composed of this family type. If that conception is correct, then declining rates of marriage and childrearing would imply a decline in the presence and vitality of the black middle class, lndeed, this is the implication that researchers typically draw from the decline in black marriage rates. However, an alternative view suggests that the decline in marriage and childrearing is producing a shift in the types of households comprising the black middle class. This paper assesses - and affirms - that alternative view. This research shows that, indeed, never-married singles who live alone (Love Jones Cohort) constitute a rapidly growing segment of the black middle class, a development which requires rethinking how the black middle class is conceptualized and studied. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research examines heterogeneity in Americans' musical tastes by separating breadth and level of taste, taking into account the structural constraints such as cohort, period, social class, gender and racial composition, which have shaped Americans' musical preferences over the past 20 years. We identify four types of respondents who share similar taste patterns that correspond to different degrees of omnivorousness: omnivores, limited, temperates and moderates. We argue that taste patterns deviate from the usual elitist basis in that omnivores are depicted as both highbrow individuals with lowbrow taste and non-highbrow individuals with lowbrow taste. We also find that structural constraints have little impact on breadth of tastes among omnivores and a relatively high impact on breadth of tastes among limited, temperates and moderates. Heterology is emphasized (rather than the Bourdieuvian homology) in an examination of the equivalence between the social structure and the cultural sphere. Heterology recognizes that breadth and level of taste are two independent dimensions of cultural consumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on inequality in America shows evidence of a growing social and economic divide between college graduates and people without college degrees. This article examines whether disparities in health between education groups have also recently increased. Pooled cross-sectional regression analyses of data from the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) show that educational disparities in self-reported health status increased from 1982 to 2004 among older adults but held relatively steady or narrowed among younger adults. Sensitivity analyses show that the trends do not totally or primarily reflect change in the demographic composition of education groups. The trend of increasing disparities among older adults might reflect large and growing educational disparities in economic resources, health-promoting behaviors, or the use of health services and medical technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The American jury is heralded as an institution that is simultaneously representative and egalitarian. However, jury studies conducted 50 years ago found that white, upper-class men dominate jury deliberations, presumably due to their higher status outside of the jury room. Logistic regression analysis of dyadic influence inside the jury room updates this research. Results indicate that today upper-class jurors alone - not men, not whites - are regarded as most influential in deliberations. Upper-class jurors' influence is not simply a product of status deference. Rather, upper-class jurors seem to influence deliberations due to generalized expectations of their competence or their possession of skill sets that enhance jury room performance. We conclude that increased statistical representation in the jury pool does not guarantee that diverse views will affect verdicts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using institutional ethnography we examine the Own-Your-Own-Home (OYOH) movement as a configuration of ideological practices designed to reorder gender, family and housing arrangements in the United States during the early 20th century. We describe the social organization of these practices--with particular emphasis on the coordinating activity of the OYOH Section of the Department of Labor--and provide specific examples from texts of the National Archives and Research Administration. These texts are part of an historic, ongoing process of work organization that coordinated other sequences of action at multiple sites of production within the housing enterprise. We demonstrate that the texts of the campaign organized white, working class, married couples with children as the owners of homes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's class structure is changing dramatically in the wake of post-1978 market-oriented economic reforms. The creation of a mixed "market-socialist" economy has eroded the institutional bases of a cadre-dominated social hierarchy and created conditions for a new pattern of social stratification. Although conditions remain dynamic, results of a 1998 urban survey that measured strength and diversity of social ties among 400 households in four of China's largest cities documented networks of social exchange among 13 occupation-based classes that identify a class structure distinct from the cadre-dominated social hierarchy of the Mao era. In particular, analysis of visiting during the Lunar New Year celebration suggests an urban society simultaneously divided along two axes: one by economic success in the more privatized economy and one by distinctions in political authority at the workplace. Thus contrary to those who privilege market transactions as the primary engine for creating a new class hierarchy, we conclude that to understand processes of social stratification one needs theories and methods that work simultaneously with multiple dynamics of class differentiation rather than presuming linear hierarchy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While "retreat from marriage" rates have been on the rise for all Americans, there has been an increasing divergence in family patterns between blacks and whites, with the former experiencing markedly higher divorce, nonmarital childbearing and never-marrying rates. Explanations generally focus on theories ranging from economic class stratification to normative differences. I examine racial marriage trends when removed from society and placed in a structural context that minimizes racial and economic stratification. I compare nuptial patterns within the military, a total institution in the Goffmanian sense, which serves as a natural control for the arguments presented in the literature on the retreat from marriage. Through a combination of event history and propensity score matching analyses using the NLSY79, I find that black-white difference in marriage patterns disappears in the military. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article analyzes variation in the association between education and first occupational class (the "EC association")among Russians from four consecutive labor force entry cohorts spanning 1970-2000 and by sex. Cross-national comparative research suggests that national institutions affect the magnitude of the EC association. However, loglinear models provide no support for the view that the institutional changes associated with the demise of the Soviet system influenced the pattern or magnitude of the EC association in Russia. The only changes in the EC association predated the major institutional changes. The findings confirm research showing continuity in other aspects of stratification in post-Soviet Russia despite rapid institutional changes connected with market transition. Although there are several alternative explanations for the lack of change in the EC association, the null results suggest that the relationship between institutional arrangements and patterns of stratification is not as straightforward as cross-sectional analyses might suggest. Structural forces and policies also shape patterns of stratification, both independently of and in conjunction with institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although some sociologists still connect cultural preferences with social class, others argue that postindustrial societies are no longer class-based societies and that contemporary cultural consumption patterns do not simply reflect class positions. This article addresses several theories that characterize the association between class and cultural consumption in contemporary society. It goes on to analyze the effect of class position on highbrow cultural consumption -- using both leisure activities and cultural tastes -- in Italy, Sweden, West Germany, Israel, and the U.S. It asks whether differences in cultural consumption, given other salient cleavages such as race/ethnicity, gender, and religious observance, are associated with class. Results show that class correlates with highbrow cultural consumption in different ways in the cases studied. The dividing line for consuming highbrow culture is located at the top of the class structure in Israel, the U.S., and Sweden; it is located at the bottom of the class structure in Italy and West Germany. Gender, race, and religious observance are important in conditioning culture consumption, but they do not fully mediate the association between class and cultural tastes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Concepts of class struggle and social reproduction are used to explain the sudden collapse of Soviet Communism. I explore these ideas by means of the mathematical theory of dynamical systems. Theoretical focus is upon the power of social classes and how this power changes over time. The Soviet bureaucracy gradually divided into two classes, and the power relations between these ruling classes caused a drastic loss of power by both, which is why the Communist system collapsed. Four classes of Soviet society are considered: political class, administrative class, working class, and capitalist class. I examine the reproduction of class power in two-, three-, and four-class systems. Also analyzed are the effects of random perturbations and the particular impact of the August 1991 coup attempt. Wherever possible, graphs are used instead of equations to explain class dynamics. The results indicate that drastic power loss was not the only possible outcome of Soviet class dynamics, which may be why the collapse was so surprising. The class dynamics approach emphasizes multiple historical possibilities and cuts against any rigid class determinism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using data from the Census of Agriculture and other secondary sources, we examine the relationship between scale of farm operations in a country and the well-being of local residents. Following earlier work by C. Wright Mills and Walter Goldschmidt, we hypothesize that in agriculture dependent counties that are dominated by a small handful of very large farms, the level of community welfare will be significantly lower than in counties in which agriculture is organized around smaller-scale farm operations. Findings show that scale of farm operations is related to well-being. However, this relationship is mediated by the level of civic engagement and the strength of the economically independent middle class. A theory of civic community is proposed to account for these findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we investigate patterns of musical taste using a large sample from the Dutch population It is found that members from higher-status groups tend to be more omnivorous (that is, they like more different musical genres) than those from lower- status groups, which is in line with Peterson's (1992; Peterson &; Simkus 1992) hypothesis. The actual difference is, however, rather small and occurs only with regard to the number of genres that respondents like at least "more or less," not with regard to their favorite genres. in order to discover the combinatorial logic by which musical genres are clustered in to specific taste patterns, a factor model is estimated. The results indicate that musical genres can be structured on the basis of three basic "discourses" (highbrow, pop, folk). The so-called omnivores comprise a specific fraction of the higher-status groups known as the new middle class, whose tastes combine a set of genres related to all these discourses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we investigate patterns of musical taste using a large sample from the Dutch population. It is found that members from higher-status groups tend to be more omnivorous (that is, they like more different musical genres) than those from lower- status groups, which is in line with Peterson's (1992; Peterson & Simkus 1992) hypothesis. The actual difference is, however, rather small and occurs only with regard to the number of genres that respondents like at least "more or less," not with regard to their favorite genres. in order to discover the combinatorial logic by which musical genres are clustered in to specific taste patterns, a factor model is estimated. The results indicate that musical genres can be structured on the basis of three basic "discourses" (highbrow, pop, folk). The so-called omnivores comprise a specific fraction of the higher-status groups known as the new middle class, whose tastes combine a set of genres related to all these discourses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study of inequality has been largely defined as the study of its `measurable extent, degree, and consequences. It is no less important, however, to understand the interactive processes through which inequalities are created and reproduced in concrete settings The qualitative research that bears on understanding these processes has not yet been consolidated, and thus its theoretical value remains unrealized. In this article we inductively derive from the literature a sensitizing theory of the generic processes through which inequality is reproduced. The major processes that we identify are othering, subordinate adaptation, boundary maintenance, and emotion management We argue that conceiving the reproduction of inequality in terms of these generic processes can resolve theoretical problems concerning the connection between local action and extralocal inequalities, and concerning the nature of inequality itself . [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on gender stratification has sometimes neglected how gender inequalities may vary by race/ethnicity and class. This research investigates the chances that white, African American, Hispanic, and Asian women and men reach the 10th, 25th, 50th, 75th, and 90th percentiles of white male earnings. It evaluates how these chances have varied across time since 1965 and across U.S. metropolitan areas in 1990. In general, the results show a substantial uniformity of gender differences across all four racial/ethnic groups and at each earnings level While there are important exceptions to these general patterns, the permeability of racial and earnings boundaries to gender dynamics is quite impressive. Similarly, gender boundaries are quite permeable to macro- level racial inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates why some Americans see public schools as hostile to their moral and spiritual values and whether churchgoing Protestants favor abandoning public schools. Through an analysis of 1996 survey data, it finds that religiously conservative groups, especially Pentecostals and charismatics, express alienation from public schools and that alienation is associated positively with the lower and middle classes and with several contextual factors, such as ruralness, residential instability, racial heterogeneity, and religious adherence and homogeneity. Among churchgoing Protestants, Evangelicals, in contrast to members of other conservative religious traditions, support public schooling over the alternatives. These religious and class differences are explained in terms of religious histories and organization; and relative investments in and evaluation of the cultural divide between a normative sphere of religion and family, and secular public institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pathways to attainment are modified through historical time, reflecting the progressive consolidation of the educational trajectory in the life courses as well as changing patterns of social class and the economy. Using data from the Occupational Changes in a Generation surveys, this study examines a series of hypotheses that interrelate educational attainment with historical change- expansions and contractions in labor market sectors; and socioeconomic status. Consistent with expectations, opportunities in manufacturing drew students from primary school before World War II, while expansions in the government sector increased the likelihood of drop-out at the secondary and tertiary levels after the war. In this later period, students from the lower and middle classes often were more like! to leave school because of economic expansion. Thus, through historical time the capacity of the economy to draw students from school has progressed upward through the educational career and has affected the lower and middle classes disproportionately. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent debates over the relationship between class and voting in democratic capitalist societies have focused primarily on the question of whether levels of class voting have declined. As a result,few studies have distinguished between "class voting" as an outcome versus class factors as causal mechanisms of vote choice. This distinction is critical to understanding what role class-related factors play in explaining vote choice--and thus to advancing debates over the changing relationship between class and political behavior in the U.S. and elsewhere. We use National Election Studies data to first investigate class-specific changes in voting behavior in presidential elections and then analyze the causal mechanisms explaining the three most significant class-specific trends. We find that while the realignment of the self-employed with the Republican Party is largely explained by class-related factors, professionals' realignment with the Democratic Party is a product of their increasingly liberal views of social issues. Also, prompted by higher levels of economic satisfaction and declining support for the welfare state, unskilled workers' historically high levels of support for Democratic candidates have eroded since the 1980 Presidential election. Our analyses also show that while class politics increasingly competes with other salient bases of voting behavior, the political impact of social issue attitudes has not displaced the class cleavage in recent presidential elections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article analyzes whether racial divisions reduce the political importance of class by modeling the strength of class voting in a state as a function of the state's racial composition. In the 1930s and 1940s class was an important, although not a dominant, influence on party choice. In the last few decades, however the association between class and vote has become considerably weaker in the U.S. Class now has much less effect on vote than race or region and little more effect than some traditionally minor factors such as gender and mental status. Ethnic divisions interfere with the development of class loyalties. Race has arguably come to have a larger influence on politics in the U.S. in the last few decades. If racial divisions do reduce the influence of class, class voting would decline as race becomes more politically important. This article compares class voting among whites across states over a fifty-year period. The central idea is that the influence of race should result in differences in class voting among states. The level of class voting among whites should be inversely related to the share of the population that is black.

Kingston (1996) is incorrect to assert class theory assumes intergenerational immobility. Class theory simply assumes some class: structural mechanisms but such mechanisms do not presuppose immobility.. Relative mobility patterns illustrate one fundamental way that class mechanisms operate and class-structured relative mobility patterns coexist alongside substantial absolute mobility for good reason. Kingston's preference for absolute over relative mobility is not the basis for sustained scientific research into mobility regimes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focusing on the relative permeability of particular class boundaries (defined by Wright's class schema), Western's (1994) analysis does not draw out the most critical implications qf mobility patterns for class theory namely, whether classes actually exist as relatively cohesive social entities with common life experiences. Wright's "class system" is not even remotely marked by intergenerational social closure, nor are presumed class advantages commonly transmitted across generations. The lack of Iintergenerational class structuration undermines a key tenet of class theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]