San Antonio College Library

"Privilege--the word, the idea, the j'accuse that cannot be answered with equanimity--is the new rhetorical power play. From social media to academia, public speech to casual conversation, "Check your privilege" or "Your privilege is showing" are utilized to brand people of all kinds with a term once reserved for wealthy, old-money denizens of exclusive communities. Today, "privileged" applies to anyone who enjoys an unearned advantage in life, about...

A social scientist examines the physical, psychological, and moral effects of inequality. In the twenty-first century. inequality is on a scale that none of us has seen in our lifetimes, yet this disparity between rich and poor has ramifications that extend far beyond mere financial means. While conservatives look at poverty and see its roots in personal failures and liberals attribute it to a lack of opportunity, what both sides miss is that the...

"In today's world, the leisure class has been replaced by a new elite. Highly educated and defined by cultural capital rather than income bracket, these individuals earnestly buy organic, carry NPR tote bags, and breast-feed their babies. They care about discreet, inconspicuous consumption--like eating free-range chicken and heirloom tomatoes, wearing organic cotton shirts and TOMS shoes, and listening to the Serial podcast. They use their purchasing...

"With income inequality on the rise and the ongoing economic downturn, the causes, consequences, and politics of inequality are undergoing a fundamental transformation. Updated and highly accessible, the fourth edition of Social Stratification provides refreshing take on existing theories, incorporates the latest data, and lends new perspectives to classic debates. The fourth edition includes fifty new or updated readings and a new streamlined organization...

"Gender Capital at Work uses new data from interviews with nurses, social workers, exotic dancers and hairdressers to explore the processes involved in producing and reproducing gendered and classed workers and occupations. In doing so, this book argues that femininity, femaleness, masculinity and maleness work as assets in feminised occupations and that the concept 'gender capital' may help researches to better understand the complex relationship...

"A Washington Post reporter's intimate account of the fallout from the closing of a General Motors' assembly plant in Janesville, Wisconsin--Paul Ryan's hometown--and a larger story of the hollowing of the American middle class. This is the story of what happens to an industrial town in the American heartland when its factory stills--but it's not the familiar tale. Most observers record the immediate shock of vanished jobs, but few stay around long...

"This book explores the possibilities and limitations re-theorizing disability using historical materialism in the interdisciplinary contexts of social theory, cultural studies, social and education policy, feminist ethics, and theories of citizenship"-- "This book deploys a relational analysis to theorize disability at the intersections of race, class, gender, and sexuality within both U.S. and global contexts. Critically engaging post humanist...

This work of narrative nonfiction uncovers a cultural phenomenon, the limbo existence of people raised in blue-collar families, living white-collar lives. Its approach is threefold: first, the personal story of the author himself, a working-class kid from Brooklyn who crossed over to the middle class after attaining an Ivy League education; second, a distillation of thought about class and mobility from leading experts; and finally, and most importantly,...

The state of Indiana denied one million applications for health care, food stamps, and cash benefits in three years - because a new computer system interpreted any application mistake as "failure to cooperate." In Los Angeles, an algorithm calculates the comparative vulnerability of tens of thousands of homeless people in order to prioritize them for an inadequate pool of housing resources. In Pittsburgh, a child welfare agency uses a statistical...