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The American Class Structure in an Age of Growing Inequality
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The American Class Structure in an Age of Growing Inequality

Tenth Edition
December 2017 | 320 pages | SAGE Publications, Inc
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With the latest data on income, wealth, earnings, and residential segregation by income, The American Class Structure in an Age of Growing Inequality, Tenth Edition describes a consistent pattern of growing inequality in the United States since the early 1970s. Focusing on the socioeconomic core of the American class system, author Dennis L. Gilbert examines how changes in the economy, family life, globalization, and politics are contributing to increasing class inequality.

 

 
About the Author
 
Preface
 
Chapter 1 Social Class in America
Karl Marx

 
Max Weber

 
Three Issues and 10 Variables

 
What Are Social Classes?

 
An American Class Structure

 
Is the American Class Structure Changing?

 
Conclusion

 
Key Terms Defined in the Glossary

 
Suggested Readings

 
 
Chapter 2 Position and Prestige
People Like Us

 
W. Lloyd Warner: Prestige Classes in Yankee City

 
Prestige Class as a Concept

 
How Many Classes?

 
Class Structure of the Metropolis

 
Prestige of Occupations

 
Occupations and Social Classes

 
Conclusion: Perception of Social Rank and Prestige Classes

 
Key Terms Defined in the Glossary

 
Suggested Readings

 
 
Chapter 3 Social Class, Occupation, and Social Change
Middletown: 1890 and 1924

 
Middletown Revisited

 
Industrialization and the Transformation of the National Class Structure

 
The National Upper Class

 
The Industrial Working Class

 
The New Middle Class

 
National Occupational System

 
The Transformations of the American Occupational Structure

 
From Agricultural to Postindustrial Society

 
The Loss of Manufacturing Jobs

 
Women Workers in Postindustrial Society

 
Transformation of the Black Occupational Structure

 
Hispanic Workers in Postindustrial Society

 
Wages in the Age of Growing Inequality

 
Growing Inequality of Wages: Why?

 
Harrison and Bluestone: New Corporate Strategies

 
Frank and Cook: Winner Take All

 
Conclusion

 
Key Terms Defined in the Glossary

 
Suggested Readings

 
 
Chapter 4 Wealth and Income
The Income Parade

 
Lessons From the Parade

 
The Distribution of Income

 
Sources of Income

 
Taxes and Transfers: The Government as Robin Hood?

 
How Many Poor?

 
Women and the Distribution of Household Income

 
The Distribution of Wealth

 
The Changing Distribution of Wealth

 
The Changing Distribution of Income

 
Income Dynamics

 
Changing Tax Rates

 
Conclusion

 
Key Terms Defined in the Glossary

 
Suggested Readings

 
 
Chapter 5 Socialization, Association, Lifestyles, and Values
Bourdieu: The Varieties of Capital

 
Children’s Conception of Social Class

 
Kohn: Class and Socialization

 
Lareau: Child Rearing Observed

 
Patterns of Association in Early Life

 
Marriage Styles

 
Blue-Collar Marriages and Middle-Class Models

 
Social Class and Domestic Violence

 
The Marriage Gap

 
Cherlin: The Disappearing Working-Class Family

 
Informal Association Among Adults

 
Formal Associations

 
Separate Lives

 
Residential Segregation

 
Conclusion

 
Key Terms Defined in the Glossary

 
Suggested Readings

 
 
Chapter 6 Social Mobility: The Societal Context
How Much Mobility?

 
Social Mobility of Women

 
Circulation and Structural Mobility

 
Declining Social Mobility

 
American Mobility in Comparative Perspective

 
Conclusion

 
Key Terms Defined in the Glossary

 
Suggested Readings

 
 
Chapter 7 Family, Education, and Career
Blau and Duncan: Analyzing Mobility Models

 
Jencks on Equality

 
The Fortunes of Sons and Daughters

 
Who Goes to College?

 
The Stratification of Higher Education

 
Conclusion

 
Key Terms Defined in the Glossary

 
Suggested Readings

 
 
Chapter 8 Elites, the Capitalist Class, and Political Power
Three Perspectives on Power

 
Mills: The National Power Elite

 
Mills, His Critics, and the Problem of Elite Cohesion

 
Power Elite or Ruling Class?

 
Who Rules?

 
Winters’ Oligarchy

 
The National Capitalist Class: Economic Basis

 
The National Capitalist Class: Social Basis

 
A New Elite?

 
The National Capitalist Class: Participation in Government

 
Money and Politics

 
The Fate of Campaign Finance Reform

 
Who Gives?

 
What Do Rich People Want?

 
Business Lobbies

 
Policy-Planning Groups

 
Indirect Mechanisms of Capitalist-Class Influence

 
The Capitalist-Class Resurgence

 
Conclusion

 
Key Terms Defined in the Glossary

 
Suggested Readings

 
 
Chapter 9 Class Consciousness and Class Conflict
Class Identification

 
Correlates of Class Identification

 
Class Identification, Political Opinion, and Voting

 
Elections and the Democratic Class Struggle

 
The End of the Democratic Class Struggle

 
Why Trump?

 
Policy Preference and Government Response

 
Class and Political Participation

 
Class Conflict and the Labor Movement

 
The Postwar Armistice: Unions in the Age of Shared Prosperity

 
Labor in Decline

 
Hacker and Pierson: Winner-Take-All Politics

 
Conclusion

 
Key Terms Defined in the Glossary

 
Suggested Readings

 
 
Chapter 10 Poverty and Public Policy
Roosevelt and the Beginnings of Welfare

 
Rediscovery of Poverty: Kennedy and Johnson

 
The Official Definition of Poverty

 
How Many Poor?

 
Who Are the Poor?

 
Trends in Poverty

 
The Transitory Poor and the Underclass

 
Restructuring Welfare

 
The Earned Income Tax Credit

 
Persistent Poverty

 
Economic Trends

 
Changing Family Patterns

 
Government Policy

 
American Poverty in Comparative Perspective

 
Conclusion

 
Key Terms Defined in the Glossary

 
Suggested Readings

 
 
Chapter 11 The American Class Structure and Growing Inequality
How Many Classes Are There?

 
The Class Structure

 
Growing Inequality

 
Why?

 
Hard Times in the Age of Growing Inequality

 
Key Terms Defined in the Glossary

 
 
Glossary
 
Bibliography
 
Note on Statistical Sources
 
Index

Supplements

Instructor site

Instructors: The following online resources are included FREE with this text. For a brief demo, contact your sales representative today.

 

https://study.sagepub.com/gilbert10e

 

Instructor Teaching Site 

  •  Test banks built on Bloom’s Taxonomy that provide a diverse range of test items
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I have been using this book for many years. I think it is the best one on the market for reinforcing the structural nature of economic inequality in the US.

Dr Tawnya Adkins Covert
Sociology and Anthropology, Western Illinois University
October 1, 2019
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Dennis L. Gilbert

Dennis Gilbert is Professor of Sociology Emeritus at Hamilton College. His publications include The Oligarchy and the Old Regime in Latin America, 1880 to 1970 (2017), Mexico’s Middle Class in the Neoliberal Era (2007), and Sandinistas: The Party and the Revolution (1991). More About Author

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ISBN: 9781506345963
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