Stanford University Press Blog

Race Relations Reviewed in The Nation

In a recent review of books on race in The Nation, Thomas Sugrue wonders “How do we make sense out of a country where racial inequality is deeply entrenched but where racism is seldom overt? How can we square evidence of racial progress with the grim reality of persistent racialized poverty, unemployment, health and wealth gaps and educational disparities?”

Sugrue goes on to remark that, “While racial optimists emphasize the extraordinary progress blacks have made in the United States over the last half-century. Racial pessimists, by contrast, argue that racism is pervasive but well hidden. Peel away whites' colorblind rhetoric and beneath it you will find deep-rooted, perhaps subconscious, evidence of racial hatred.”

Stephen Steinberg author of, Race Relations (a book discussed in this review), would definitely qualify as a pessimist on this issue. Steinberg’s pessimism is based not only on the experiences of African-Americans in America today but also on how mainstream sociologists have theorized about concept of race, “reducing racism to the level of attitudes.” The preferred language of mainstream sociology when talking about race, “race relations” obfuscates the true nature and sources of racism. Steinberg writes: “A popular adage holds: ‘Don’t piss on me and call it rain.’ Applied to the sociologist, it might read: ‘Don’t deprive me of my rights, my livelihood, and my dignity and call it ‘race relations.’”

The book shows how sociologists, perhaps against their intentions, have advanced “a white sociology,” reflecting white interests and perspectives. This explains why they utterly failed to anticipate the black insurgency that culminated in a triumphant civil rights movement and why they fail to see the separate and unequal status of blacks today. In Steinberg's view, this is because sociology since its inception has been more preoccupied with pacification than with racial justice.

Steinberg is critical of both writers on the political right when they trample on the rights of minorities, including the right to preserve their native languages and cultures, and of writers on the political left who engage in wishful thinking about the viability of the multicultural project or who go the other way and are impatient to get "beyond race" and "beyond ethnicity.” According to Sugrue, “Steinberg is relentlessly polemical, often witty and sometimes brilliant in his debunking of the conventional wisdom. Like all iconoclasts, he overstates his case. But for all of his rhetorical excess, his argument that the mainstream of twentieth-century social science downplayed racial oppression and exploitation for individualistic understandings of race relations is powerful and convincing, and it needs to be heard as he shouts it from the rooftops.” 

Sugrue concludes that “Steinberg's larger argument--that racial inequality is ultimately a matter of oppression and exploitation, not personal prejudice and bigotry--stands. The story of inequality is one of the maldistribution of power and resources. Racial inequality has persisted in American life not just because whites harbor bad thoughts about blacks but because the advantages that redound to whites through racial segregation, especially in housing and education, have yet to be dismantled.”

Londa Schiebinger talks Gender and Science

A Q&A on gender and science with Londa Schiebinger, author of Gendered Innovations in Science and Engineering (2008), appears on the higher education news and resource website Inside Higher Ed.

Through her answers, Schiebinger provides insight into the significance of gender analysis—studying the impact of gender on scientific questions and findings, as well as who leads this research—in the sciences. In Gendered Innovations, she “explores how how gender analysis can profoundly enhance human knowledge in the areas of science, medicine, and engineering, offering concrete examples of new research results and future avenues for research.”

She clarifies that this volume does not focus on biases against women in the sciences, but rather how the natural sciences and engineering fields can benefit from gender analysis. These gendered innovations can take place at three levels: 1) Increasing participation of women in the sciences 2) changing the day-to-day culture of labs, universities, and corporations that foster the growth of both male and female scientists and 3) changing the gender inequalities that have been ingrained in scientific institutions and have influenced the knowledge coming out of those institutions. Schiebinger’s book offers detailed examples of how gender analysis has changed specific aspects of particular sciences.

In response to Scott Jaschik's question about the notion of difference possibly leading to biases suggesting inherent differences in women's scientific interests, Schiebinger notes that gender analysis is an inclusive discipline that can benefit both men and women. “We need to be open to the possibility that human knowledge—what we know, what we value, what we consider important—may change dramatically when women (as well as underrepresented minorities) become full partners in knowledge production.”

Reforming Sociology

In the January 2008 issue of Contemporary Sociology, Theodore Gerber described On Sociology, Second Edition by John Goldthorpe as “useful, erudite, and occasionally provocative.” Goldthorpe, one of the leading minds in the field of sociology and one of the architects of rational action theory (RAT), “finds sociology in a troubling state of disarray,” primarily due to a disconnect between research and theory.

This expanded and updated edition of On Sociology argues for a more empirically rigorous approach to sociology and illustrates the dangers of the pluralism that currently rules within sociology: Goldthorpe hopes that RAT will “serve not as a basis of exclusion but rather as an exemplar of shared standards, in relation to which methodological discussion and debate can be carried on expressive of a genuine pluralism rather than of a merely convenient, ‘anything goes’ counterfeit.”

In his review, Gerber discusses the limits of Goldthorpe’s proposal, pointing to the difficulty to establishing empirical regularities when doing sociological research. This critique should spark exactly the serious debate that Goldthorpe would like to see among sociologists.

The Social Ramifications of Retail

With the 2008 Beijing Olympics fast approaching, international eyes will be on China and its burgeoning economy more than ever. Some estimate the number of foreign visitors to China at over a million this July, which will most likely generate handsome tourism dollars from lodging, food, and retail shopping. According to an article by Josh Adams in Asia Times, Olympic preparation has seen "Chinese consumers acquiring a taste for Western-style superstores and exclusive, big-name brands" as developers construct more large malls to accommodate the influx of foreign shoppers expected this summer. But China’s economic boom is intensifying more than just retail space. Class differences and income disparities could also be on the rise.

Adams says, "While Prada boutiques and Tissot displays are seemingly de rigueur for many Chinese malls looking to display their stylish credentials, focusing on the wealthy elite may have effectively alienated them from the country's massed ranks of aspiring middle-income families."
   
Social difference in the retail world is an issue that Amy Hanser tackles in her book Service Encounters: Class, Gender, and the Market for Social Distinction in Urban China (2008). Hanser, an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of British Columbia, utilizes her personal experience working as a salesclerk in various retail stores in the city of Harbin to support this unique exploration of inequality in China.
   
With the goal of understanding how economic and social transformations reshape social relations in urban China, Hanser studies how different retail sites (among them a state-owned department store with working-class clientele, a high-end private department store, and a low-end clothing bazaar) represent various social strands within Harbin society. Hanser details how interactions between salesclerks and shoppers in these retail environments play out ideas of social difference, inequality, and entitlement.
   
Will Beijing's growth in luxury stores (and there are more on the way) exacerbate unequal relations between salesclerks and customers? According to Adams' article, these new mega malls may not survive long enough to make that impact. "10% or 20% of China's malls will realize their true profit potential…these places are just too big and too pricey…As the market becomes increasingly saturated the underperformers will naturally find themselves squeezed out."

The Democratic presidential primary is forcing the country to pay attention to its own sexism and racism, bigotries we have swept under the rug for years. In a recent New York Times Op-Ed, Gloria Steinem called sexism “the most restricting force in American life,” reinforced by NYTimes columnist Bob Hubert’s statement, “if there was ever a story that deserved more coverage by the news media, it’s the dark persistence of misogyny in America.” A San Francisco Chronicle op-ed has declared that “the race is now about race,” and the question of whether we are more misogynistic or more racist suddenly becomes of the utmost importance.

In The Difference “Difference” Makes, Deborah Rhode argues that “a central problem for American women is the lack of consensus that there is a significant problem. Gender inequalities in leadership opportunities are pervasive; perceptions of inequality are not.” It will be interesting to see how Hillary Clinton’s candidacy, propelled as it is by her husband’s career, influences this balance: her candidacy is bringing attention to institutionalized and individual misogynies, but her extraordinary chance at becoming President could be used to further dismiss the real obstacles that most women face in assuming leadership.

Despite the 1990s movement, exemplified by Tiger Woods and examined in Making Multiracials by Kimberly DaCosta, to create widespread recognition of multiracial and multiethnic identities, Barack Obama is identified, and appears to self-identify, as African-American. At the same time, he is a figure of potential reconciliation, presenting himself as a symbol that we can all move beyond black and white. Like Clinton, Obama’s position as a political leader is a challenge to the way American society conceives of its minority groups (discussed by Stephen Steinberg in Race Relations).

New Pathways to Fighting Poverty

 Author David Grusky is looking to further strengthen the fight against poverty with the new magazine Pathways. Grusky, a professor of Sociology at Stanford and founding director of its Center for the Study of Poverty and Inequality, serves as editor of the magazine. This role is not new to Grusky, as he has edited several books for Stanford University Press including Mobility and Inequality: Frontiers of Research in Sociology and Economics with Stephen L. Morgan and Gary S. Fields (2006) and Poverty and Inequality with Ravi Kanbur (2006), in addition to co-authoring Occupational Ghettos: The Worldwide Segregation of Women and Men with Maria Charles (2004).  All of his titles have been tremendous additions to SUP’s Studies in Social Inequality series.

Describing the goals of Pathways, Grusky says, "It provides new trend data detailing how some types of inequality are taking off, others are declining, and yet others are stable. It describes which interventions are working and which aren't. And it brings to the public new research that is changing how we understand the sources of and solutions to poverty and inequality."

The magazine has had quite the auspicious, and timely, beginning with its inaugural issue featuring essays from this year's top Democratic presidential nominees: Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, and Barack Obama. The candidates discuss their policies on reducing poverty and revitalizing the economy, discussions that dovetail nicely with the upcoming February 5 primary elections.

Pathways has received press in our area with articles in the San Francisco Chronicle and Stanford News Service. The magazine is published four times a year and is free to readers courtesy of the Elfenworks Foundation.

Let's talk about Race Relations

Is America living up to its motto E Pluribus Unum, the Latin for "From many, one" and rapidly advancing towards a melting pot? Have all races and ethnic groups enjoyed similar opportunities to assimilate into American culture? In his latest book, Race Relations: A Critique, sociologist Stephen Steinberg argues that the prediction of ultimate assimilation, replete in our history books, has been dead wrong with respect to African Americans.

In a recent interview with Znet magazine, Steinberg remarked that, “Today there is compelling evidence that Asians and light-skinned Latinos are following in the footsteps of earlier immigrants -- which is to say, footsteps leading to the melting pot. But it is another story altogether for peoples of African descent -- African Americans, Afro-Caribbeans, Afro-Latinos, and immigrants from Africa. In effect, we are witnessing the emergence of a dual melting pot--one for blacks, the other for everybody else.”

As we arrive at the two-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath (of the failed, or to say the least, badly mismanaged relief and recovery efforts), which disproportionately affected one side of our “dual melting pot,” these questions are worth revisiting.

Taxing the Family

In All In The Family, Patricia Strach shows how the family is used by the US government to implement policies and explores the challenges that arise when employing something as nebulous and uncontrolled as family relations to administer policy.

Since 1948, family has been the basic taxable unit in the US. This not only results in different tax rates based on an individual’s familial role (spouse, dependent, single parent, single childless adult, etc.), but also sets expectations for how members of a family act toward one another and taxes based on those expectations.

For example, parents are expected to provide food, clothing, and shelter for their offspring, and they are awarded tax credits, deductions, and exemptions to assist with those expenses. In using such tax expenditures to pay parents to support their children, the government saves itself the cost of creating an agency to accomplish that goal. At the same time, it presupposes that parents will use the savings from these tax expenditures for the goals the government intends, but there is no oversight to insure that this is the case, as their would be for an official government agency.

The government’s assumptions that family units have combined resources and act to help their members are seen in the prohibition from deducting student loan interest when the loan comes from a family member, whereas the interest on a loan from a stranger is tax deductible. This can be seen as a limit the government places on individual taxpayers to help their family financially.   

As the average American household increasingly moves away from the nuclear family with a single breadwinner around which these taxes were originally designed, definitions of family within various parts of the tax code struggle to keep up.  The so-called marriage tax penalty came about when a significant number of married women entered the workplace: suddenly, a tax code that had been seen as equitable and progressive for families with a single breadwinner was seen as taking resources away from families. Similarly, untraditional households—from unmarried parents to individuals or couples caring for children who are not their biological offspring—are not recognized in the same way across the tax code.

Amongst debates over gay marriage, the role of family in immigration, and adoption rights, our laws continue to use family as a determiner of responsibilities as well as rights. And responsibilities that are not given to or taken up by individuals often fall to the government itself.

A New Look at Changes in Higher Education

While curricula in elementary and middle schools across the United States shift to emphasize English and Math to the exclusion of other subjects, those involved in institutes of higher learning often bemoan a loss of interest in, and funding for, the humanities in favor of natural sciences. 

In their book, Reconstructing the University: Worldwide Shifts in Academia in the 20th Century, David John Frank and Jay Gabler  present the first comprehensive study of how university programs  changed around the world  over the course of the last century.  Contrary to popular perception,  Frank and Gabler found that, while the humanities have indeed been deemphasized, the beneficiaries of this change  have not  been the natural sciences.

A recent review in College and Research Libraries highlights the ways in which this work stands apart from  other recent publications about changing college curricula and praises Frank and Gabler's introduction of a scholarly study to a field that has been primarily based on anecdotal evidence.   

Reconstructing the University
Worldwide Shifts in Academia in the 20th Century