Although the themes of prosperity and opportunity dominate American culture, the United States has higher inequality than any of the other industrialized democracies. What's more, the gap between rich and poor grew enormously from 1980. This course examines inequality in contemporary America and studies how it is patterned by class, race, and gender.

Course requirements will closely focus on empirical trends in U.S. inequality covered in lecture and readings. Precepts will discuss readings and exam preparation. One precept towards the end of semester will be devoted to a site visit to a Head Start program in the Princeton area.

• A comprehensive final worth 35% in January, involving short-answer and essay questions.

• A review essay worth 40% critically discussing one of the books on the reading list. The review essay is due on Monday, November 1.

• Wilson, The Truly Disadvantaged, (Chicago, 1987).

• Freeman, Working Under Different Rules, (Russell Sage Foundation, 1994)

• Reskin, Women and Men at Work, (Pine Forge, 1994)

• Sociology 221 Reader.

The books are available at the University Store. The course reader will be available from Pequod (6 Nassau Street). Copies of the reader and readings have also been placed on reserve in Firestone Library. Note that a few of the readings are available over the internet. Web addresses have been given for these pieces.

This week provides an overview of the course, outlining themes, course requirements, and basic concepts (measures of living standards, poverty, and inequality).

This week begins a discussion of trends in inequality and poverty that form the focus for the rest of the course. We examine the rise in inequality through the 1980s, the growing return to college education, and increases in the poverty rate.

Readings:

• Jencks, The Homeless (1994), chapters 1-2.

• Bluestone and Harrison, The Deindustrialization of America (1982), chapter 3.

• McLanahan and Sandefur, Growing Up With a Single Parent (1994), chapter 5.

We may think that living close to or below the poverty line simply involves less discretionary income or less to spend on luxuries. This week we examine some ethnographic material that illustrates how poverty shapes the satisfaction of basic human needs for food, clothing, and shelter.

• Edin and Lein, Making Ends Meet (1997), chapter 4.

• Kozol , Rachel and Her Children (1988), Part One, chapter 1; Part Two, chapter 2 and 3.

Readings this week review several of the leading explanations of the rise in inequality. We contrast theories emphasizing structural economic changes that favor the highly-educated with political accounts that attribute rising inequality to public policy and the weakening political power of workers.

• Fischer et al . , Inequality By Design, chapter 6.

• Piven and Cloward, "Welfare Reform and the New Class War," in Myths About the Powerless (1996), edited by Lykes et al .

Sociologist, William Julius Wilson, has documented and analyzed trends in urban poverty among African Americans in the postwar period. We review Wilson's work and related research that emphasizes the class basis of the rise in black urban poverty.

Although pathbreaking, Wilson's account of the "declining significance of race" has been challenged by sociologists studying racial patterns of housing segregation and wealth accumulation. This research emphasizes the impact of discrimination on racial inequality.

• Massey and Denton, American Apartheid (1993), chapter 5.

• Oliver and Shapiro, Black Wealth/White Wealth (1996), chapter 6.

Women's disadvantage in the labor market is multi-faceted. We examine research on why women earn less than men and have more restricted job opportunities. A contrast is drawn between sociological explanations that emphasize gender and discrimination, and economic approaches that focus on the effects of productivity.

• England, Comparable Worth (1992), pp. 45-76, 181-184.

Focusing on labor market outcomes understates gender inequality because of women's significantly larger role in household work. We will investigate the household division of labor and discuss the "second-shift"-the burden of house- hold work for working women.

• Reskin and Padavic, Women and Men at Work (1994), chapter 8.

• Hochschi ld, The Second Shift (1988), chapter 1, 2, 4, 16, 17.

The federal government has a number of programs designed to reduce poverty, particularly among children and the elderly. We discuss these programs and examine their histories from Roosevelt to Reagan.

• Blank, "The Employment Strategy," in Confronting Poverty (1994), edited by Danziger et al.

• Burtless, "Public Spending on the Poor," in Danziger et al. (eds).

• Edin and Lein, Making Ends Meet (1997), chapter 2.

Public policy debates suggest federal social policy programs have failed to provide an enduring solution to the problems of poverty and inequality. We examine these debates and discuss the welfare reform proposals currently debated and moving through Congress.

• Blank, "The 1996 Welfare Reform," Journal of Economic Perspectives 11:169-177 (1997).

• Jencks, "The Hidden Paradox of Welfare Reform." American Prospect 32:33-40 (1997).

• Freeman (ed.), Working Under Different Rules (1994), chapters 1, 2.

• Freeman (ed.), Working Under Different Rules (1994), chapters 3, 5-7.

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