DOCSLIB.ORG

Notes and References

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Notes and References Notes and References Preface 1. First edition, 1949; second edition, 1957; revised and enlarged edition, 1968 (New York; The Free Press). Translated into: French, Italian, Japanese, Spanish, Hebrew, Portuguese, Polish, Hungarian, Serbo­ Croatian, Chinese and German (in part). 2. Webster's New World Dictionary of the American Language (Cleveland, 1959: The World Publishing Company), p. 1678. 3. Dated 15 May 1970 (mimeographed). Chapter 1 1. Merton, STSS, p. 70. 2. Merton, 1975a, p. 335. 3. This strategy is 'unorthodox' only in the social sciences. After all, probably 95 per cent of all the scientific work in the world is published in the form of articles; much less so, of course, in the humanities and with the social sciences somewhere in between the natural sciences and the humanities. 4. Bell, 1980, p. 13. 5. Merton, On the Shoulders of Giants: A Shandean Postscript, a Vicennial Edition (New York, 1985: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich). First published in 1965. 6. Merton, Sociology of Science; An Episodic Memoir (Carbondale, 1979: Southern Illinois University Press). 7. First edition: 1938. 8. Bierstedt, 1981, p. 486. 9. Ibid., pp. 495 and 487-8. 10. Loomis and Loomis, 1961, p. 246. 11. The term is introduced by C. W. Mills, 1959. 12. Stinchcombe, 1975, pp. 26-27. See also Boudon, 1977: 'there is more systematic and general theory in Merton's work than he himself has ever confessed' (p. 1356). 13. Bierstedt, 1981, p. 488. 14. Lazarsfeld, 1975, p. 61. 15. Stinchcombe, 1975, p. 30. 16. He certainly shares Toulmin's conviction that 'a scientist who fails to criticize and change his concepts, where the collective goals of his discipline require it, offends against the "duties" of his scientific "station", as much as a somnolent night-watchman or an insubordinate soldier' (as quoted in Merton, 1984b, p. 282). Notes and References 263 17. Reflecting on his friendship with late Louis Schneider, Merton admits: 'We were both addicted to oral publication, continually and sometimes for years revising our thoughts in lectures before putting them into print' (Merton, 1984c, p. xxxv). He calls it a 'pattern of delayed print'. Sometimes even in his own appraisal this strategy of avoiding premature publication appears - post facto- as too rigorous. In a recent conversation he brought to my attention the titles of four books which 'should have been published', even though at the time he did not feel completely satisfied with their content. 18. Merton, STSE, p. xxix. This sentence reads: 'On the basis of the foregoing study, it may not be too much to conclude that the cultural soil of seventeenth-century England was peculiarly fertile for the growth and spread of science'. 19. As Boudon puts it: 'the best way to honor [important] work is to extract the sometimes latent though obsessive main intuitions responsible for the importance of the work' (1977, p. 1356). 20. When substantially significant for the clarity of interpretation, I inform the reader of the original dates of publication of articles or essays, later collected in separate volumes. 21. See: Popper, 1976, pp. 180-93. 22. In fact I shall venture, at times, to take up the challenge of elaboration myself. Attempting to remain faithful to Merton's implicit intentions and the overall spirit of his analysis, I shall suggest some new distinctions, concepts and hypotheses. 23. This term introduced by Merton in a 1963 article (as reprinted in SRPP, ch. 8), will be discussed in more detail in chapter 4 of this book. 24. On those other faces of Merton, see Morton M. Hunt, 'How Does It Come To Be So? Profile of Robert K. Merton', in: New Yorker, 28 January, 1961. Chapter 2 1. See M. W. Miles, 'Bibliography - Robert K. Merton, 1934-1975', in L. A. Coser (ed), The Idea of Social Structure; Papers in Honor of Robert K. Merton (New York, 1975: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich), pp. 497-522; and a supplement 'Publications since 1975' compiled by M. W. Miles (mimeographed). 2. Znaniecki, 1940. 3. Znaniecki subdivides the crucial category of 'Scholars' in the following way (as summarised by Merton, SOS, pp. 42-3): (1) Sacred scholar: perpetuates sacred truths through exact and fruitful reproduction of their symbolic expressions. (2) Secular scholar: with the following subtypes: (a) discoverer of truth ... (b) systematizer. (c) contributor ... (d) fighter for truth ... 264 Notes and References (e) disseminator of knowledge ... 1. populariser. 2. educating teacher'. 4. Merton, SOS, p. 43. 5. Merton (with Lazarsfeld), 1954, p. 18. 6. Ibid. pp. 18-19. 7. Zuckerman and Merton, in: Merton, SOS, p. 520. 8. Ibid., p. 520. 9. It is striking how often the terms 'pattern' and 'structure', in their various forms, appear and reappear in Merton's analyses of society. This has been noted by Lazarsfeld, 1975, p. 57, among others. 10. Merton, STSS, pp. vii-viii. 11. Ibid., p. xiv. 12. Merton evidently suffers from perfectionism, coupled with an incessant, not always satisfied drive toward a better and wider understanding of things social. At the age of seventy-four he envisages 'about seventy articles still to be written' and complains that excessive self-criticism has kept him from publishing four books (one of them awaiting already eight years for his decision to print). (In a private communication to me) Quite recently he put forward something he calls a 'self-emancipation proclamation': 'I resolved, quite firmly, not again to commit myself to writing a paper for: a symposium (no matter how meritorious that symposium might be), to delivering a lecture (no matter how enticing an occasion that might be), to preparing a paper to be read at a national or international conference (no matter how significant that occasion might be), write a review (no matter how enticing the book) ... and so on and on through the varieties of ad hoc scholarly commitments one makes as a matter of course ... I have my own program of scholarly work and I do not want to be deflected from it'. (In a letter to Nico Stehr, dated 23 Dec., 1983). A year later comments on the effects of his proclamation: 'I have found this to be a soul-satisfying guideline, one that has led to my doing more writing that I find reasonably satisfying than in any equivalent period before' (Letter to R. Turner dated 17 July, 1984) In a letter to me dated 22 April, 1984, he refers to six extensive projects on his immediate agenda: 'the queue of matters clamoring for publication in print [as distinct from oral publication1 is forbiddingly long'. 13. Quoted in Merton, 1980, p. 31. 14. Merton, STSS, p. 70. 15. Ibid., p. 616. 16. Ibid., p. 68. 17. Merton, 1985, p. 5. 18. In Merton's study there is a sort of symbolic audience of his 'significant others' - the collection of photographs of famous scholars, teachers, intellectuals on a wall in front of his desk: Whitehead, Freud, Thomas, Henderson, Sarton, Sorokin, Stouffer, Kroeber, Polanyi, Parsons, Gini, Szilard, Knopf, Lipchitz and three photographs of Lazarsfeld. Notes and References 265 19. Merton, SA, p. 86. 20. It is characteristic that for many of the multiple foreign translations of STSS, Merton adduces special introductions which relate to the sociological tradition of the given country. For example, in the Polish edition of 1982 carefully traces his relationships with such representatives, old and young, of Polish sociology as Malinowski, Znaniecki, Ossowski, Ossowska, Malewski, Podgorecki, Nowak - and even the present author. 21. Merton, SOS, p. 374. 22. Bierstedt, 1981, pp. 466-7. See also: Manis and Meltzer, 1974, p. 1. 23. Turner, 1978, p. 91. 24. Garfield, 1977, p. 5. 25. Manis and Meltzer, 1974, p. 9. 26. Garfield, 1980, p. 61. 27. Blau, 1975a, p. 136. 28. Lazarsfeld, 1975, p. 60. 29. Bierstedt, 1981, p. 486. 30. Garfield, 1980, p. 71. 31. Manis and Meltzer, 1974, p. 5. 32. Coser, 1975, p. 85. 33. Stinchcombe, 1975, p. 11. 34. Garfield, 1980, p. 64. 35. Ibid., p. 65. 36. Ibid., p. 71. 37. Oromaner, 1970, p. 324. 38. Ibid., p. 329. But note that Merton himself warns: 'citation counts cannot be responsibly taken as the controlling basis for appraisals of individual performance. At best, they are ancillary to detailed judgments by informed peers'. Merton, 1979, p. 10. 39. Translated into: French, Italian, Japanese, Spanish, Hebrew, Portuguese, Polish, Hungarian, Yugoslavian (Serbo-Croatian), Chinese and German (in part). 40. Manis and Meltzer, 1974, p. 4. 41. Merton, STSS, p. ix. 42. Bierstedt, 1981, p. 461. 43. Hodges Persell, 1984, pp. 362-363. 44. Merton, 1980, p. 3. 45. Manis and Meltzer, 1974, p. 4. 46. Coser, in: Coser and Nisbet, 1975, p. 8. 47. Caplovitz, 1977, pp. 146 and 145. Merton himself says: 'During the past 55 years, the files lead to an estimate of approximately 200 book-manuscripts and about ten times that number of article-length manuscripts' (in a letter to the author, 5 Feb., 1985). 48. Letter to Eugene Garfield, dated 2 Aug., 1983. 49. In a letter to the author dated 22 April, 1984. 50. Cole and Zuckerman, 1975, p. 164. 51. Merton, STSS, p. 446. 52. Donoghue, 1981. See also: Donoghue, 1985. 266 Notes and References 53. Merton, OTSOG, p. 9. 54. Ibid., p. 178. 55. Ibid., p. 43. 56. In a letter to the author dated 5 Feb., 1985. 57. Merton, OTSOG, p. 45. 58. Merton, STSS, p. 35. 59. Taken out of context this aphorism has been sometimes misunderstood as a call to bury intellectual ancestors in perpetual oblivion. Such a striking misconstruction can be found in Levine, 1981, p. 60: 'Sociologists seemed driven to avoid the classics, following with apparently fanatic devotion the injunction suggested by the Whiteheadian epigraph to R.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Indigenous Capitalist Class, Social Stratification and Life Chances in the Contemporary Nigeria Society
    Public Policy and Administration Research www.iiste.org ISSN 2224-5731(Paper) ISSN 2225-0972(Online) Vol.4, No.7, 2014 Indigenous Capitalist Class, Social Stratification and Life Chances in the Contemporary Nigeria Society Oladele A. Adeleke 1* , Rasak Bamidele 2, Rasaq Omokeji, Ganiyu 3 1.Department of Sociology, Olabisi OnabanjoUniversity, Ago-Iwoye, Ogun State E-mail: [email protected] 2.Department of Sociology and Psychology,Fountain University Osogbo, Osun State E-mail:[email protected] 3.Department of Sociology, Fountain University, Osogbo, Osun State E-mail: [email protected] Abstract The life styles associated with people in the same class categories include, among other things, particularly orientations to manners, speech, clothing styles, education and especially, ‘Success’. There is a tendency for people with similar styles to participate together in both formal and informal groups, to marry one another, and to choose activities that reflect their similar value orientations. Social stratification draws attention to the unequal positions occupied by individuals in society. Social inequality is found in all societies. Therefore, this paper is to examine social stratification, life chances in relation to indigenous capitalist class in Nigeria. This study will be guided by the Weberian perspective of social stratification. Keywords: Social Stratification, Indigenous Capitalist Class, Life Chances, Social Inequality and Social Mobility Introduction In every human society, there are inequalities even in the smallest culture, where variations in wealth or property virtually none existent, there are inequalities between individuals, men and women, the young and the old. A person may have a higher status than others because of particular prowess at hunting for instance or because he/she is believed to have special access to ancestral spirits.
    [Show full text]
  • Beyond an Underclass: an Essay on Up-Front Politics
    The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare Volume 20 Issue 1 March Article 3 March 1993 Beyond An Underclass: An Essay on Up-Front Politics Paula L. Dressel Georgia State University Jeff Porterfield Georgia State University Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/jssw Part of the Politics and Social Change Commons, and the Social Work Commons Recommended Citation Dressel, Paula L. and Porterfield, Jeff (1993) "Beyond An Underclass: An Essay on Up-Front Politics," The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare: Vol. 20 : Iss. 1 , Article 3. Available at: https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/jssw/vol20/iss1/3 This Article is brought to you by the Western Michigan University School of Social Work. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Beyond An Underclass: An Essay on Up-Front Politics PAULA L. DRESSEL & JEFF PORTERFIELD Georgia State University Department of Sociology Debate about underclass conceptualization has once again forced sociol- ogists to acknowledge the political context and implications of our work. This article extends the criticalexamination of underclass conceptualiza- tion to relatively undeveloped but politically important areas of concern. Initially we discuss the political economic context of conceptual contro- versies surrounding poverty. With a preference for structural analysis, we call for the return of class to economically marginalized people and suggest how that goal might be enhanced by a focus on relations of distribution as well as production. Valuing subjects' vantage points, we recommend how sociologists' work can return agency and diversity to economically marginalized people. Finally, acknowledging the agency of sociologists, we call for greater attention to the implications of our class positions for how we, too, make history, either by intention or default.
    [Show full text]
  • The Inheritance of Race Revisited
    The Inheritance of Race Revisited: Childhood Wealth and Income and Black–White Disadvantages in Adult Life Chances David Brady,a Ryan Finnigan,b Ulrich Kohler,c Joscha Legewied a) University of California, Riverside; b) University of California, Davis; c) University of Potsdam; d) Harvard University Abstract: Vast racial inequalities continue to prevail across the United States and are closely linked to economic resources. One particularly prominent argument contends that childhood wealth accounts for black–white (BW) disadvantages in life chances. This article analyzes how much childhood wealth and childhood income mediate BW disadvantages in adult life chances with Panel Study of Income Dynamics and Cross-National Equivalent File data on children from the 1980s and 1990s who were 30+ years old in 2015. Compared with previous research, we exploit longer panel data, more comprehensively assess adult life chances with 18 outcomes, and measure income and wealth more rigorously. We find large BW disadvantages in most outcomes. Childhood wealth and income mediate a substantial share of most BW disadvantages, although there are several significant BW disadvantages even after adjusting for childhood wealth and income. The evidence mostly contradicts the prominent claim that childhood wealth is more important than childhood income. Indeed, the analyses mostly show that childhood income explains more of BW disadvantages and has larger standardized coefficients than childhood wealth. We also show how limitations in prior wealth research explain why our conclusions differ. Replication with the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth and a variety of robustness checks support these conclusions. Keywords: racial inequality; wealth; income; intergenerational mobility; stratification; inequality Citation: Brady, David, Ryan AST racial inequalities continue to prevail across the United States.
    [Show full text]
  • X CONTRIBUTIONS to the THEORY of REFERENCE GROUP BEHAVIOR*
    x CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE THEORY OF REFERENCE GROUP BEHAVIOR* T IS CHAPTER PROCEEDS on the assumption that there;s two-way traffic between social theory and empirical research. Systematic em­ pirical materials help advance social theory by imposing the task and by affording the opportunity for interpretation along lines often unpre­ meditated, and social theory, in turn, defines the scope and enlarges the predictive value of empirical findings by indicating the conditions under which they hold. The systematic data of The American Soldier,! in all their numerous variety, provide a useful occasion for examining the interplay of social theory and applied social research. More particularly, we attempt to identify and to order the fairly numerous researches in The American Soldier which, by implication or by explicit statement, bear upon the theory of reference group behavior. (The empirical realities which this term denotes will presently be con­ sidered in some detail. It should be said here, however, that although the term "reference group" is not employed in these volumes, any more than it has yet found full acceptance 'in the vocabulary of sociology as distinct from social psychology, reference group concepts play an im­ portant part in the interpretative apparatus utilized by the Research Branch of the Information and Education Division of the War Depart­ ment.) At two points, we deal briefly with related subjects which are not, however, part and parcel of reference group theory. We review the statistical indices of group attributes and social structure as variously adopted in these researches, and attempt to indicate, though very briefly and programmatically, the specific value of systematically incorporating such indices in further research.
    [Show full text]
  • A Contextual Definition of the Underclass by Martha Van Haitsma
    A contextual definition of the underclass by Martha Van Haitsma Spatial concentration of poverty in and of itself need not constitute a problem distinct from general poverty. The neighborhoods in which people live do alter the mix of Martha Van Haitsma is a graduate student in the Department opportunities and difficulties they face, but not everyone in of Sociology at the University of Chicago. This article is the an area of concentrated poverty belongs to the same socio- revised and edited section of a paper presented at the 1989 economic class. Spatial concentration cannot be ignored, Midwest Sociological Association Meetings in St. Louis, however, as it constitutes part of the mechanism that links Missouri, April 5-10, 1989. nonnormative3 patterns of income generation and family formation to chronic poverty. When an area is largely popu- lated by chronically poor persons, the opportunities for climbing out of poverty are dimini~hed.~Residents of such Assessing whether or not an underclass exists, how it came areas have weak links to job networks, and therefore find to be, and what policies are likely to affect it all turn on how alternate means of generating income. Higher rates of infor- the term "underclass" is defined. The underclass has been mal and illegal means of accruing income, as well as welfare variously defined by any or all of four characteristics: use, strengthen networks of information tied to these ave- chronic poverty; nonnormative behavior with respect to nues rather than to formal work. With few visible career income generation and family formation; spatial concentra- prospects and few "marriageable" (i.e., stably empl~yed)~ tion of such poverty and/or behavior; and intergenerational men, young women are more likely to opt for single mother- transmission of such poverty and/or behavior.? The manner hood as a route to adulthood.
    [Show full text]
  • Racial Categorization in the 2010 Census
    U.S. COMMISSION ON CIVIL RIGHTS RACIAL CATEGORIZATION IN THE 2010 CENSUS BRIEFING REPORT U.S. COMMISSION ON CIVIL RIGHTS Washington, DC 20425 Official Business Penalty for Private Use $300 MARCH 2009 Visit us on the Web: www.usccr.gov U.S. Commission on Civil Rights The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights is an independent, bipartisan agency established by Congress in 1957. It is directed to: • Investigate complaints alleging that citizens are being deprived of their right to vote by reason of their race, color, religion, sex, age, disability, or national origin, or by reason of fraudulent practices. • Study and collect information relating to discrimination or a denial of equal protection of the laws under the Constitution because of race, color, religion, sex, age, disability, or national origin, or in the administration of justice. • Appraise federal laws and policies with respect to discrimination or denial of equal protection of the laws because of race, color, religion, sex, age, disability, or national origin, or in the administration of justice. • Serve as a national clearinghouse for information in respect to discrimination or denial of equal protection of the laws because of race, color, religion, sex, age, disability, or national origin. • Submit reports, findings, and recommendations to the President and Congress. • Issue public service announcements to discourage discrimination or denial of equal protection of the laws. Members of the Commission Gerald A. Reynolds, Chairman Abigail Thernstrom, Vice Chair Todd Gaziano Gail Heriot Peter N. Kirsanow Arlan D. Melendez Ashley L. Taylor, Jr. Michael Yaki Martin Dannenfelser, Staff Director U.S. Commission on Civil Rights 624 Ninth Street, NW Washington, DC 20425 (202) 376-8128 (202) 376-8116 TTY www.usccr.gov This report is available on disk in ASCII Text and Microsoft Word 2003 for persons with visual impairments.
    [Show full text]
  • Max Weber, "Class, Status, and Party" (Electronic Version [ Abridged by DJR)
    Max Weber, "Class, Status, and Party" (Electronic version [http://www.ac.wwu.edu/~jimi/363/webercsp.pdf] abridged by DJR) 1: ECONOMICALLY DETERMINED POWER AND THE SOCIAL ORDER Law exists when there is a probability that an order will be upheld by a specific staff of men who will use physical or psychical compulsion with the intention of obtaining conformity with the order, or of inflicting sanctions for infringement of it. The structure of every legal order directly influences the distribution of power, economic or otherwise…. This is true of all legal orders and not only that of the state. In general, we understand by, "power" the chance of a man or of a number of men to realize their own will in a communal action even against the resistance of others who are participating in the action. "Economically conditioned" power is not, of course, identical with "power" as such. On the contrary, the emergence of economic power may be the consequence of power existing on other grounds. Man does not strive for power only in order to enrich himself economically. Power, including economic power, may be valued "for its own sake." Very frequently the striving for power is also conditioned by the social "honor" it entails. Not all power, however, entails social honor: The typical American Boss, as well as the typical big speculator, deliberately relinquishes social honor. Quite generally, "mere economic" power, and especially "naked" money power, is by no means a recognized basis of social honor. Nor is power the only basis of social honor. Indeed, social honor, or prestige, may even be the basis of political or economic power, and very frequently has been.
    [Show full text]
  • IQ and Poverty: Testing the Bell Curve on a Novel Data Set
    IQ and Poverty: Testing the Bell Curve on a Novel Data Set The Harvard community has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters Citation Eid, Daib Tony. 2018. IQ and Poverty: Testing the Bell Curve on a Novel Data Set. Student paper, EC970, Department of Economics, Harvard University. Citable link http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:36853967 Terms of Use This article was downloaded from Harvard University’s DASH repository, and is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Other Posted Material, as set forth at http:// nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of- use#LAA IQ and Poverty: Testing the Bell Curve on a Novel Data Set Dody Eid∗ April 30, 2018 Abstract In their controversial work The Bell Curve, Charles Murray and Richard Herrnstein hypoth- esize that intelligence plays a signicant role in determining later life outcomes. Using data from the 1979 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, Herrnstein and Murray specically claim that Youth IQ is more important than Parental Socioeconomic Status in aecting future odds of living in poverty. We explore their hypothesis using the same statistical deci- sions but on a new data set: the 1997 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. Our ndings mirror those of Herrnstein and Murray; IQ has a larger eect than socioeconomic status on the likelihood of being in poverty, though the overall eect of both is diminished. We nd that increasing Youth IQ by one standard deviation is expected to decrease the odds of ending up in poverty by 35 percentage points, compared to the 13 percentage point decrease from similarly increasing Parental Socioeconomic Status.
    [Show full text]
  • Social Inequality
    SOCIAL INEQUALITY AQA GCSE SOCIOLOGY UNIT 2 MAY 2013 Created by Lydia Hiraide The BRIT School AQA GCSE 2013 DEFINING SOCIAL INEQUALITY AND STRATIFICATION DEFINING SOCIAL INEQUALITY Social inequality refers to the unequal distribution of: • Resources such as power, wealth and income • Opportunities (related, for example, to health, education and employment) Social class, gender, ethnicity and age are all sources of inequality in modern British society. DEFINING SOCIAL STRATIFICATION Social stratification refers to the way society is structured into a hierarchy of strata that are unequally ranked. A social hierarchy is shaped like a pyramid with each stratum more powerful than the one below it. The most privileged group forms the top layer and vice versa. Stratification involves inequalities between groups in the distribution of socioeconomic resources such as wealth, income, status and power. These inequalities persist or continue over time. In Britain, gender, class, ethnicity and age are the main criteria by which people tend to be stratified. Social Class Slavery What is stratification Economic factors Some individuals claim that they have the based on? such as occupation right to own and sell other people, to treat and income them as property and to deny their human rights Is status achieved or Achieved Status was ascribed in the southern states ascribed? of the US for the people who were born into slavery Is social mobility Yes For many slaves in the southern states of possible? the US, social mobility was unlikely unless, for example, they escaped to safety or until slavery was abolished (emancipation) which was unlikely even then DIFFERENT FORMS OF STRATIFICATION The cast system in traditional India, slavery in the southern states of the US in the 19 th century, Apartheid in South Africa and the social system in modern Britain are all types of stratification.
    [Show full text]
  • Racism, Sociology of Matthew Clair, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA Jeffrey S Denis, Mcmaster University, Hamilton, ON, Canada
    Racism, Sociology of Matthew Clair, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA Jeffrey S Denis, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, Canada Ó 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. This article is a revision of the previous edition article by P.L. Van Den Berghe, volume 19, pp. 12720–12723, Ó 2001, Elsevier Ltd. Abstract The sociology of racism is the study of the relationship between racism, racial discrimination, and racial inequality. While past scholarship emphasized overtly racist attitudes and policies, contemporary sociology considers racism as individual- and group-level processes and structures that are implicated in the reproduction of racial inequality in diffuse and often subtle ways. Although some social scientists decry this conceptual broadening, most agree that a multivalent approach to the study of racism is at once socially important and analytically useful for understanding the persistence of racial inequality in a purportedly ‘postracial’ society. At root, racism is “an ideology of racial domination” (Wilson, They applied the term to plants, animals, and humans as 1999: p. 14) in which the presumed biological or cultural a taxonomic subclassification within a species. As such, race superiority of one or more racial groups is used to justify or became understood as a biological, or natural, categorization prescribe the inferior treatment or social position(s) of other system of the human species. As Western colonialism and racial groups. Through the process of racialization (see Section slavery expanded, the concept was used to justify and prescribe Racism as a Social Process), perceived patterns of physical exploitation, domination, and violence against peoples racial- difference – such as skin color or eye shape – are used to ized as nonwhite.
    [Show full text]
  • Commission on Life Chances and Child Poverty
    The Fabian Society The Fabian Society is Britain’s leading left of centre think tank and political society, committed to creating the political ideas and policy debates which can shape the future of progressive politics. With over 300 Fabian MPs, MEPs, Peers, MSPs and AMs, the Society plays an unparalleled role in linking the ability to influence policy debates at the highest level with vigorous grassroots debate among our growing membership of over 7000 people, 70 local branches meeting regularly throughout Britain and a vibrant Young Fabian section organising its own activities. Fabian publications, events and ideas therefore reach and influence a wider audience than those of any comparable think tank. The Society is unique among think tanks in being a thriving, democratically-constituted membership organisation, affiliated to the Labour Party but organisationally and editorially independent. For over 120 years Fabians have been central to every important renewal and revision of left of centre thinking. The Fabian commitment to open and participatory debate is as important today as ever before as we explore the ideas, politics and policies which will define the next generation of progressive politics in Britain, Europe and around the world. Find out more at www.fabian-society.org.uk Fabian Society 11 Dartmouth Street London SW1H 9BN www.fabian-society.org.uk Fabian ideas Series editor: Jonathan Heawood First published June 2005 ISBN 0 7163 0616 6 ISSN 1746-1146 This pamphlet, like all publications of the Fabian Society, represents not the collective views of the Society but only the views of the author. The responsibility of the Society is limited to approving its publications as worthy of consideration within the Labour movement.
    [Show full text]
  • Widening Academic Achievement Gap Between the Rich and the Poor
    The Widening Academic Achievement Gap Between the Rich and the Poor: New Evidence and Possible Explanations Sean F. Reardon Stanford University July 2011 Forthcoming in Whither Opportunity? Rising Inequality, Schools, and Children’s Life Chances (Russell Sage Foundation, 2011) I appreciate the thoughtful feedback and comments from Richard Murnane, Greg Duncan, Sandy Jencks, and participants in seminars at the Brookings Institution, Stanford University, University of Virginia, Teachers College (Columbia University), New York University, Northwestern University, University of Chicago, Harvard University, Georgetown University, and Johns Hopkins University. This work would not have been possible without support from the Brookings Institution, the Russell Sage Foundation, and the Spencer Foundation, as well as excellent research assistance from Demetra Kalogrides, Anna Katyn Chmielewski, Elena Grewal, and Matt Kasman. Any errors are my own. The Widening Academic Achievement Gap Between the Rich and the Poor: New Evidence and Possible Explanations Abstract In this chapter I examine whether and how the relationship between family socioeconomic characteristics and academic achievement has changed during the last fifty years. In particular, I investigate the extent to which the rising income inequality of the last four decades has been paralleled by a similar increase in the income achievement gradient. As the income gap between high- and low-income families has widened, has the achievement gap between children in high- and low-income families also widened? The answer, in brief, is yes. The achievement gap between children from high- and low- income families is roughly 30 to 40 percent larger among children born in 2001 than among those born twenty-five years earlier.
    [Show full text]