Inequality Structures Dynamics And Mechanisms

Aage Sorensen was an influential intellectual presence who was one of the world's leading authorities on social stratification and the sociology of education. His research sought to understand the structures, dynamics and mechanisms that underlie inequalities in industrial societies by focusing on how individuals' attainments are shaped by characteristics of a society's or organization's opportunity structure, on the one hand, and individuals' education, experience and other human capital resources, on the other. He emphasized inequalities associated with education and schooling, class, and stratification outcomes such as income and occupational status. Within these general foci, he tackled the study of phenomena as diverse as rates of learning in elementary school reading groups and promotion patterns in large industrial corporations. The chapters of this volume illustrate some of the major themes that characterized Aage's research; these topics are also likely to constitute important concerns for future efforts to understand structured social inequality in society. These themes include: the development of explicit dynamic models to account for observed patterns of education, career, and labor market outcomes; aspects of educational inequality such as school effects and learning opportunities; issues related to intragenerational mobility and careers; and the role of rents in generating structural inequality.

A groundbreaking exploration of contemporary global inequality by leading scholars from across the world.

Barriers to Inclusion offers a comparative and historical account of the rise of special education over the twentieth century in the United States and Germany. This institutional analysis demonstrates how categorical boundaries, professional groups, social movements, and education and social policies shaped the schooling of children and youth with disabilities. It traces the evolution of special education classification, explores growing special education organizations, and examines students' learning opportunities and educational attainments. Highlighting cross-national differences over time, the author also investigates demographic and geographic variability within the federal democracies, especially in segregation and inclusion rates of disabled and disadvantaged children. Germany's elaborate system of segregated special school types contrasts with diverse American special education classrooms mainly within regular schools. Joining historical case studies with empirical indicators, this book reveals persistent barriers to school integration as well as factors that facilitate inclusive education reform in both societies.

Despite the fact that the globalization process tends to reinforce existing inequality structures and generate new areas of inequality on multiple levels, systematic analyses on this very important field remain scarce. Hence, this book approaches the complex question of inequality not only from different regional perspectives, covering Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin and Northern America, but also from different disciplinary perspectives, namely cultural anthropology, economics, ethnology, geography, international relations, sociology, and political sciences. The contributions are subdivided into three essential fields of research: Part I analyzes the socio-economic dimension of global exclusion, highlighting in particular the impacts of internationalization and globalization processes on national social structures against the background of theoretical concepts of social inequality. Part II addresses the political dimension of global inequalities. Since the decline of the Soviet Union new regional powers like Brazil, China, India and South Africa have emerged, creating power shifts in international relations that are the primary focus of the second part. Lastly, Part III examines the structural and transnational dimension of inequality patterns, which can be concretized in the rise of globalized national elites and the emergence of multinational networks that transcend the geographical and imaginative borders of nation states.

This volume addresses questions that lie at the core of research into education. It examines the way in which the institutional embeddedness and the social and ethnic composition of students affect educational performance, skill formation, and behavioral outcomes. It discusses the manner in which educational institutions accomplish social integration. It poses the question of whether they can reduce social inequality, – or whether they even facilitate the transformation of heterogeneity into social inequality. Divided into five parts, the volume offers new insights into the many factors, processes and policies that affect performance levels and social inequality in educational institutions. It presents current empirical work on social processes in educational institutions and their outcomes. While its main focus is on the primary and secondary level of education and on occupational training, the book also presents analyses of institutional effects on transitions from vocational training into tertiary educational institutions in an interdisciplinary and internationally comparative approach.

Analytical sociology is a strategy for understanding the social world. It is concerned with explaining important social facts such as network structures, patterns of residential segregation, typical beliefs, cultural tastes, and common ways of acting. It explains such facts by detailing in clear and precise ways the mechanisms through which the social facts were brought about. Making sense of the relationship between micro and macro thus is one of the central concerns of analytical sociology. The approach is a contemporary incarnation of Robert K. Merton's notion of middle-range theory and presents a vision of sociological theory as a tool-box of semi-general theories each of which is adequate for explaining certain types of phenomena. The Handbook brings together some of the most prominent sociologists in the world. Some of the chapters focus on action and interaction as the cogs and wheels of social processes, while others consider the dynamic social processes that these actions and interactions bring about.

Is Canada becoming a more polarized society? Or is it a kind-hearted nation that takes care of its disadvantaged? This volume closely examines these differing views through a careful analysis of the causes, trends, and dimensions of inequality to provide an overall assessment of the state of inequality in Canada. Contributors include economists, sociologists, philosophers, and political scientists, and the discussion ranges from frameworks for thinking about inequality, to original analyses using Canadian data, to assessments of significant policy issues, methodologies, and research directions. What emerges is the most detailed picture of inequality in Canada to date and, disturbingly, one that shows signs of us becoming a less just society. An invaluable source of information for policy makers, researchers, and students from a broad variety of disciplines, Dimensions of Inequality in Canada will also appeal to readers interested or involved in public debates over inequality.