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People at Work is noted sociologist Marjorie L. DeVault’s groundbreaking collection of original essays on the complexities of the modern-day workplace. By focusing on the lived experiences of the worker, not as an automaton on an assembly line, but as an embodied human of flesh and bone, these essays offer important insight on the realities of the workplace, and their effects on life at home and in communities. With contributions from some of today’s top scholars, each essay is a detailed case study of a different aspect of the working world. Compelling, lively, and sometimes chilling, the contributors address issues from disability rights to immigrant labor, welfare reforms to budget cuts, competition to personal motivations. Each one valuable on its own, the essays in People at Work combine to illuminate the hurdles that workers of all backgrounds struggle with and, more broadly, the impact of change on workers’ lives in the new, increasingly global, economy.
As Frances Fox Piven and Richard Cloward argued in the early seventies, in a capitalist economy, social welfare policies alternatingly serve political and economic ends as circumstances dictate. In moments of political stability, governments emphasize a capitalistic work ethic (even if it means working a job that will leave one impoverished); when times are less politically stable, states liberalize welfare policies to recreate the conditions for political acquiescence. Sanford Schram argues in this new book that each shift produces its own path dependency even as it represents yet another iteration of what he (somewhat ironically) calls "ordinary capitalism," where the changes in market log...
An essential guide to the new face of electoral politics in America, this book provides an examination of the political mobilization of Latinos and Latinas through the churches and the influence of being of the Catholic faith, enabling an understanding of the social and cultural dynamics at play. Blessing La Política: The Latino Religious Experience and Political Engagement in the United States presents a corrective challenge to the authoritative conclusion by the book Voice and Equality: Civic Voluntarism in American Politics that Latinos are less likely to become involved in politics because of the predominant Catholic beliefs of this demographic. Through comprehensive analysis of the pol...
Building Better Social Programs situates evidence-based policymaking with respect to the welfare state, describes key organizations driving the evidence-based movement, and proposes innovations designed to extend benefits to the working class. In addition to providing case studies of cost-effective programs delivering positive outcomes, this volume will include interviews with luminaries who have propelled the evidence-based policy movement.
Combining theoretical and empirical research with global case studies, this innovative book examines the complex relationships between social (in)equality, community well-being and quality of life centred on Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 10. Insightful and forward-thinking, it explores strategies for fostering strong communities, focusing on the importance of social connections, shared resources and a sense of belonging.
The United States is known as a nation of immigrants. Over the years the composition of immigrants has significantly changed. From receiving immigrants from primarily Europe, the United States is now home to people from countries around the globe. One of the common challenges encountered by immigrant and refugee families and youth is to successfully resettle and integrate into the host country that is culturally different from their country of origin. Depending on the context of migration, families and youth oftentimes face additional challenges ranging from potential trauma prior to immigration, language, employment, education, healthcare accessibility, integration, discrimination, etc. Thi...
Introduction: presumed white: race, gender, and modes of migration in the post-Soviet diaspora -- The post-Soviet diaspora on transnational reality TV -- Highly skilled and marriage migrants in Arizona -- Segmented assimilation and return migration -- The desire for adoptive invisibility -- Fictions of irregular post-Soviet migration -- The post-Soviet diaspora in comparative perspective -- Conclusion: immigrant whiteness today
Drawing on longitudinal interviews, government records, and personal narratives, feminist sociologist Lisa Brush examines the intersection of work, welfare, and battering. Brush contrasts conventional wisdom with illuminating analyses of social change and social structures, highlighting how race and class shape women's experiences with poverty and abuse and how "domestic" violence moves out of the home and follows women to work. Brush's unique interview data on work-related control, abuse, and sabotage, together with administrative data on earnings, welfare, and restraining orders, offer new empirical insights on the impact of work requirements and other post-welfare rescission changes on th...
This book explores the fundamental shift that has occurred in America and Britain as elites accumulate unprecedented capital and influence and a meritocracy has emerged to manage national affairs, a change that means opportunity, affluence, and power have migrated away from most of the population. Arguing the following four points: Geography accounts for the accumulating influence of metropolitan regions, at the expense of smaller cities and rural communities of the heartland. Occupational groups, particularly lawyers, physicians, and financiers, have constructed professional cartels to secure rents at the expense of the prosperity of the public. Think tanks and universities have become the ...
A comprehensive guide to the alternative sociology originating in the work of Dorothy E. Smith, this Handbook not only explores the basic, founding principles of institutional ethnography (IE), but also captures current developments, approaches, and debates. Now widely known as a “sociology for people,” IE offers the tools to uncover the social relations shaping the everyday world in which we live and is utilized by scholars and social activists in sociology and beyond, including such fields as education, nursing, social work, linguistics, health and medical care, environmental studies, and other social-service related fields. Covering the theoretical and methodological underpinnings of IE, recent developments, and current areas of research and application that have yet to appear in the literature, The Palgrave Handbook of Institutional Ethnography is suitable for both experienced practitioners of institutional ethnography and those who are exploring this approach for the first time.