American Democracy and the Pursuit of Equality

by Merlin Chowkwanyun, Randa Serhan

Overview

This collection assembles some of the country s foremost social scientists in one volume. It contains diverse investigations of metropolitan transformation, recent education policy, the (in)justice of disaster relief, the politics of aesthetics and design, immigration, the mass media, social movements, and the practice of social science itself, among others. Whatever their subjects, the writers investigate the promise and constraints of democratic practice in a time of disturbing growth in inequality and political disempowerment. Although they at times differ from one another, more often, they challenge popular received wisdom on a number of these topics. Cumulatively, the volume amounts to a critical sociological excavation of the United States from its leading social critics that will prove useful to specialists and general readers alike."

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781594513534
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	03/30/2011
Pages:	278
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Merlin Chowkwanyun is a PhD student in the Department of History at the University of Pennsylvania. Randa Serhan is a PhD student in the Department of Sociology at Columbia University. She graduated with high distinction from the American University of Beirut.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix

Introduction Merlin Chowkwanyun Randa Serhan 1

The Social Scientist as a Human Being

1 On Getting People to Tell You More Than They Want to Todd Gitlin 5

2 Fact and Fiction: Sociology and the Novel Peter Marris 12

Urbanism and Suburbanism as Ways of Life

3 What is an American City? Michael B. Katz 20

4 American Community in Transition William Kornblum 43

5 Building the American Way: Public Subsidy, Private Space Dolores Hayden 60

6 Towards an "Active Socioplastics" Denise Scott Brown 73

People, Plans, and Policies

7 The Right Hand and the Left Hand: Contradictory Social Policies in the Lives of the Working Poor Katherine S. Newman Margaret M. Chin 99

8 Understanding the Emergence and Persistence of Concentrated Urban Poverty William Julius Wilson 117

9 Ignoring Justice in Disaster Planning: An Agenda for Research on 9/11, Katrina, and Social Policy Peter Marcuse 132

The Future of Ethnic Groups and Cultures in America

10 The Battle over Assimilation Richard Alba 163

11 Assimilation's Bumpy Road Rubén G. Rumbaut 184

Democracy and the News

12 The Concept of Politics in Contemporary United States Journalism Michael Schudson 220

13 Convergence: News Production in a Digital Age Eric Klinenberg 234

More Equality

14 Movements and Reform in Twentieth-Century America Frances Fox Piven 250

Contributor Biographies 277

Editorial Reviews

This collection of fourteen essays on democracy and modern society examines recent trends in American politics, economics and culture in relation to their effects on the disenfranchisement of citizens and the destruction of cherished, if largely fictional, democratic principles. The papers focus on five key contemporary issues: urban form, public policy, immigration, ethno-racial stratification and mobility, mass media and social movements. Contributors are important academics in a variety of fields, including sociology, history, political science and urban planning, from major US universities.”
—Eithne O’Leyne, June 2011 Reference and Research Book News

"What an amazing collection of writers and ideas! Leading figures in the study of cities, poverty, education, media, immigration, and politics build on decades' worth of research to speak to the policy challenges of the present. Together, the contributors make a powerful case for an engaged sociology that refuses to be limited to small questions. To the contrary, they remind us that rethinking what a city is, what a community is, what poverty is, and what an American is may be essential to good policy."
—Francesca Polletta, Professor of Sociology, University of California-Irvine, Author of It Was Like a Fever: Storytelling in Protest and Politics and Freedom Is an Endless Meeting: Democracy in American Social Movements

"This volume is a solid and robust renewal of the sociological vision at its very best. The authors insist on relevance, criticality, conceptual rigor and substantive clarity. American Democracy and the Pursuit of Equality will become a classic, and because authors reveal their hopefulness about social change, it is an excellent text for the classroom."
—Judith Blau, Professor of Sociology, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, Co-Author of Sociology and Human Rights: A Bill of Rights for the Twenty-First Century and President of Sociologists Without Borders (US).

From the Publisher