DISCRIMINATION, WOMEN, AND WORK: Processes and Variations by Race and Class

Research on gender and workplace stratification has made clear that persistent employment, wage, and mobility gaps exist, and that discrimination at organizational and interactional levels is playing a role. Few studies, however, have been able to directly capture processes involved. In this article, we draw on unique qualitative and quantitative data pertaining to verified cases of workplace sex and race discrimination (1988 to 2003), and analyze the discriminatory experiences of African-American and white women across various occupational statuses. Notable are high levels of discriminatory firing for both groups, but higher instances of race-based promotional discrimination for black women—a pattern partially linked to their disparate concentration in sex-segregated workplaces and in positions of lower occupational prestige. Our qualitative immersion into case materials reveals influential mechanisms and employer justifications, unique manifestations of differential treatment on the job, and the use of "soft skill" criteria in gatekeeper decision making. We conclude by discussing important dimensions of workplace discrimination for women, variations by social class and race status, and how complexities of status matter for what women experience and gatekeeper behavior.     

The Impact of Music on Childhood and Adolescent Achievement*

Objective. The study examines the association between music involvement and academic achievement in both childhood and adolescence using three measures of music participation: in school, outside of school, and parental involvement in the form of concert attendance. Methods. We review prior work pertaining to music's impact on achievement and then draw from two nationally representative data sources (ECLS‐K and NELS:88). Our analyses apply logistic and OLS regression techniques to assess patterns of music involvement and possible effects on math and reading performance for both elementary and high school students. Results. Music involvement varies quite systematically by class, and gender status, and such involvement holds implications for both math and reading achievement, and for young children and adolescents. Notably, associations with achievement persist in our modeling even when prior achievement levels are accounted for. Although music does mediate some student background effects, this mediation is only minimal. Conclusions. Music participation, both inside and outside of school, is associated with measures of academic achievement among children and adolescents. Future work should further delineate the relevant processes of music involvement, as well as how background inequalities and music involvement intersect in relation to educational performance.     

Racial inequality and social control: Historical and contemporary patterns in the U.S. South

Research dealing with disproportionate criminality, arrest, and incarceration among African Americans has tended to emphasize cultural, familial, and structural differences between racial groups while at the same time neglecting patterns and processes of race‐ and class‐based antagonism and subordination that are central, especially in the case of the U.S. South historically. We attempt to address this limitation by posing a model of the contemporary black‐white arrest differential across counties of one southern state. The model itself takes into consideration class‐ and race‐based subordination processes and their impact on local levels of stratification and arrest. Results suggest the continuing influence of racial competition and class dynamics. Racial competition enhances the arrest gap by disproportionately increasing unemployment and family dissolution among African Americans. The existence of a strong and concentrated traditional elite is shown to depress the racial gap, presumably by increasing poverty, unemployment, and family dissolution for both groups or by shaping what it means to go to jail, especially for blacks. In general, the arguments and findings presented suggest that criminological literature and theorizing should take note of local racial and political‐economic processes that, through the perpetuation of race and class inequality, reproduce disparate patterns of criminality, arrest, and incarceration.     

Rurality,Institutional Disadvantage,and Achievement/Attainment*

Abstract Students living in rural areas of the United States exhibit lower levels of educational achievement and a higher likelihood of dropping out of high school than do their nonrural counterparts. In this paper we extend the literature by offering a framework in which resources influencing achievement/attainment are viewed as embedded in, and varying across, rural and nonrural places because of differences in structures of local opportunity. We draw from the National Educational Longitudinal Survey and the Common Core of Data, and employ hierarchical linear and hierarchical logistic modeling techniques to test our ideas. Rural adolescents are disadvantaged in regard to those family and school resources which are conducive to educational success. These resources translate into important educational investments at both family and school levels, and explain rural deficits in both attainment and standardized achievement. We discuss the implications of our findings for analyses of rural deprivation and inequality specifically, and for educational processes and the spatial patterning of stratification in general.     

Uneven Development and Local Inequality in the U.S. South: The Role of Outside Investment,Landed Elites,and Racial Dynamics

This paper develops a historically contingent understanding of patterns of uneven economic development in the U.S. South. We conceptualize spatial variation in economic development and its consequences for inequality to be embedded in both local and international dynamics. The character of local economic development, it is argued, reflects the organizational base and heterogeneity of local elites, the divisions and relative power of nonelites, and the embeddedness of the local political economy in national and world systems of politics and production. These ideas are developed and made historically and spatially specific through an analysis of uneven development in one Southern state, North Carolina. Our findings suggest that contemporary patterns of uneven development and the resulting income deprivations and inequality reflect conditional interactions between elite economic projects and racial divisions within the working class. We find that outside investment seems to reproduce rather than disrupt local patterns of inequality and poverty.     

Book Review: Deadhead Social Science: You Ain't Gonna Learn What You Don't Want to Know. By Rebecca G. Adams and Robert Sardiello (Eds.). Walnut Creek,CA: AltaMira Press, 2000. 299 pages,paperback, ISBN: 0-7425-0251-1

Qualitative Sociology -     

African American Men and the Experience of Employment Discrimination

The economic marginalization of African American men has been studied in a variety of contexts, from trade union exclusion, to joblessness, to disparate wages and mobility. Discrimination is often inferred as an influential mechanism, yet seldom directly examined in its own right. Drawing on a unique sample of verified workplace discrimination cases, this article analyzes forms and processes of discrimination that African American men face in employment. Our results denote the prevalence of discriminatory firing, with on-going racial harassment and discriminatory promotional and hiring practices also quite evident. In-depth immersion into case materials highlights the centrality of racial stereotyping and significant discretion on the part of gatekeepers within organizational environments-discretion in the use of “soft skills” criteria to exclude and debilitate mobility, and in selective (or even targeted) use of seemingly neutral organizational policies and sanctions. Moreover, harassment on the job—something that conventional workplace inequality research has overlooked—is quite problematic and well-represented in these data. We conclude by discussing the implications of our results for the conceptualization of inequality reproduction and that pertaining to race, status, and the workplace in particular.     

American Indian Poverty in the Contemporary United States

Little sociological attention over the last two decades has focused on the deprivation experienced by indigenous people. Fusing insights from American Indian history and the race and labor market inequality literatures, we address this gap in this article through a historically informed labor market analysis of poverty—an analysis that considers the pervasiveness of contemporary Native poverty, its potential basis in labor market opportunities, and the extent to which it has been patterned by two major demographic and economic shifts: (1) the rapid urbanization of the American Indian population and (2) the proliferation of tribally owned casinos. Findings reveal, most notably, the incredibly rigid and durable character of poverty for this population, historically and currently and across geographic space, and with little overall impact of local labor market opportunity. The presence of tribal casinos reduces such poverty, but only to a small degree and not nearly enough to compensate for sizable American Indian and white poverty differentials. Group history is key, we conclude, to shaping how space, labor markets, and economic development reduce or buttress relations of inequality.     

The Black-White Achievement Gap, Family-School Links, and the Importance of Place

African American students continue to drop out of school at a level higher than that of their White counterparts and perform lower, on average, in math and reading achievement. Research has documented influences at the family and school levels, yet little work has dealt with both simultaneously. Equally important, few analyses acknowledge that family and school influences are themselves embedded in, and partially a function of, broader structures and spatial variations in class- and race-based opportunity. I draw from the restricted-use National Educational Longitudinal Survey and 1990 Census data in addressing these concerns. Findings suggest that disparities in family background and educational resources influence racial gaps in achievement, and sometimes in an interrelated manner. These more proximate influences on achievement are, for all students, influenced by spatial patterns of general, class-based opportunity. Notably, Black disadvantage is exacerbated even further in areas of high racial inequality. Thus, broader structures of racial and class opportunity, rather than one or the other, are important determinants of educational stratification and achievement. Implications for future research are discussed.     

Neo‐liberal reform,the public sector and Black–White inequality

In this article, we offer an overview and critical assessment of recent changes wrought by “new governance” reforms within public sector work, highlighting the implications specifically for Black–White inequality, and denote where further sociological analyses are warranted. These foci are important given the widely accepted—though hardly comprehensively examined—assumption that public sector employment remains a favorable “economic niche” for African Americans. Recent sociological research, including our own, suggests that this is likely no longer the case. The very structure and functioning of public sector work have changed owing to neoliberal agendas and reforms toward privatization over the last two decades, becoming less bureaucratic and increasingly mirroring processes and inequalities more traditionally characteristic of the private sector. We emphasize the consequences particularly for African Americans and call for deeper sociological analyses of public sector racial inequalities, processes, and their consequences.