Inequality

Lisa A. Keister is Professor of Sociology and Public Policy at Duke University and an affiliate of the Duke Network Analysis Center and the Duke Population Research Initiative. Her current research focuses on organization strategy, elite households, the processes that explain extremes in wealth and income inequality, and on group differences in the intergenerational transfer of assets. She is currently completing a book on America's wealthiest families, the one percent. Keister has taught undergraduate and graduate courses in inequality at Duke University, the University of California at Santa Barbara, Ohio State University, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Darby E. Southgate is Professor of Sociology at Los Angeles Valley College. She has contributed to educational policies and is an applied sociologist having worked with organizations such as the Center for Urban Research and Learning, Los Angeles Unified School District and the Los Angeles Housing Service Authority. Her primary research interests are stratification and education with an emphasis on culture. She has taught a variety of graduate and undergraduate sociology courses that include stratification, education, classical theory, and class, gender, and race in mass communications at the California State University, Ohio State University, and Columbus State Community College.

• Preface; Acknowledgments; Part I. Basic Concepts: 1. Inequality and opportunities; 2. Explaining inequality; 3. Understanding inequality; 4. The structure of inequality and social class; Part II. Applications: 5. The upper class and the elite; 6. The middle class and workers; 7. Poverty; 8. Social mobility; 9. Education and inequality; 10. Gender inequality; 11. Race and ethnicity; 12. Culture; 13. Inequality across the globe; 14. Public policy and social change; Index.