Social Inequalities in Comparative Perspective

327 Pages·2003·1.26 MB·English

Social Inequalities in Comparative Perspective
Social Inequalities
in
Comparative Perspective
Edited by
Fiona Devine and
Mary C. Waters
© 2004 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd
Except for editorial material and organization © 2004 by Fiona Devine and
Mary C. Waters
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Contents
Notes on Contributors vii
Introduction 1
Fiona Devine and Mary C. Waters
1 Race, Ethnicity, and Immigration in the United States 20
Mary C. Waters
2 The “Language of Race,” Identity Options, and “Belonging” in
the Quebec Context 39
Micheline Labelle
3 Race and Ethnicity in France 66
Riva Kastoryano
4 Racisms, Ethnicities, and British Nation-Making 89
Liviu Popoviciu and Mairtin Mac an Ghaill
5 Working Poor, Working Hard: Trajectories at the Bottom of the
American Labor Market 116
Katherine Newman and Chauncy Lennon
6 Class and Social Inequalities in Portugal: From Class Structure
to Working-Class Practices on the Shop Floor 141
Elísio Estanque
7 Understanding Class Inequality in Australia 163
Bill Martin and Judy Wajcman
8 Talking about Class in Britain 191
Fiona Devine
vi contents
9 Research on Gender Stratification in the US 214
Christine L. Williams, Patti A. Giuffre, and
Kirsten A. Dellinger
10 The Japanese Paradox: Women’s Voices of Fulfillment in the Face
of Inequalities 237
Yuko Ogasawara
11 Catching Up? Changing Inequalities of Gender at Work and in
the Family in the UK 257
Harriet Bradley
12 Gender and Work-Related Inequalities in Finland 283
Päivi Korvajärvi
Index 307
Notes on Contributors
HarrietBradleyis Professor of Sociology and Dean of Social Sciences
at the University of Bristol, UK. Her publications include Myths at Work
(with M. Erickson, C. Stephenson and S. Williams, 2000), Gender and
Power in the Workplace (1999) and Fractured Identities (1996). Current
research projects include the study of minority ethnic women in trade
unions, young adults’ employment trajectories and an evaluation of the
Connexions personal adviser system.
KirstenDellingeris Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University
of Mississippi. Her research and teaching focuses on gender and sexu-
ality in the workplace. She has published on organizational culture and
sexual harassment (Social Problems, 2002), dress norms and makeup at
work (Gender Issues2002; Gender & Society1997), and organizational sex-
uality (Annual Review of Sociology 1999). She is currently working on a
comparative case study of the catfish and casino industries in Mississippi.
Fiona Devine is Professor of Sociology at the University of Manches-
ter. She is the author of Affluent Workers Revisited: Privatism and the
Working Class(1992), Social Class in America and Britain (1997), and Class
Practices: How Parents Help their Children Get Good Jobs (2004). She is the
co-author, with Sue Heath, of Sociological Research Methods in Context
(1999).
Elísio Estanque is Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Economics,
University of Coimbra, Portugal, where he is attached to the Center for
Social Studies. His areas of research include the sociology of inequali-
ties and social classes; labor relations and trade unionism; youth cul-
tures and associative movements. His is the author of Entre a Fábrica e
a Comunidade (2000) and the co-author of Classes e Desigualdades Sociais
em Portugal (1998).
viii notes on contributors
PattiA. Giuffreis Associate Professor of Sociology at Southwest Texas
State University. She conducts research about sexuality in the workplace
and sexual harassment in different workplace contexts. Her most recent
work, a study about sexuality in a teaching hospital, appeared in Gender
& Society (2000).
RivaKastoryanois a senior research fellow at the National Center for
Scientific Research and teaches at the Institute for Political Studies in
Paris. Her work focuses on relationships between identity and states, on
minority and community formation in western democratic societies. A
recent book by her is La France, l’Allemagne et leurs Immigré: Négocier
l’identité(1997), of which the English translation is Negotiating Identities:
States and Immigrants in France and Germany (2002). She has also edited
Quelle identité pour l’Europe? Le multiculturalisme à l’épreuve (1998) and
Nationalismes en mutation en Méditerranée Orientale (with A. Dieckhoff)
(2002).
Päivi Korvajärvi is Professor of Women’s Studies at the University of
Tampere, Finland. Her research interests include gendering practices
in work organizations, especially in the service sector. She has published
articles in English in Gender, Work and Organization, in Culture and
Organization, and in several anthologies.
Micheline Labelle is Professor of Sociology at the Université du
Québec à Montréal (UQAM). She is head of the Centre de recherche
sur l’immigration, l’ethnicité et la citoyenneté (CRIEC) and the
Oberservatoire international sur le racisme et les discriminations,
which is part of the Institut d’études internationales de Montréal. She
is the author of Idéologie de couleur et classes sociales en Haïti (1987); co-
author of Histoires d’immigrées. Itinéraires d’ouvrières colombiennes, haïti-
ennes, grecques, protugaises de Montréal (1987), and Ethnicité et enjeux
sociaux. Le Québec vu par les leaders de groupes ethnoculturels (1995).
Diversité et contestation transnationale: Vers une reconfiguration démocratique
des espaces de citoyenneté will be published in 2004.
Chauncy H. Lennon is a Program Associate in the Economic Devel-
opment Unit of the Ford Foundation’s Asset Building and Community
Development Program. He has been a member of the research team
led by Katherine S. Newman examining the employment trajectories
and family dynamics of low-wage workers in New York City. He has also
conducted research on racial integration and education politics.
Mairtin Mac an Ghaill works in the Faculty of Social Sciences and
Humanities at the University of Newcastle. He is author of Contemporary
notes on contributors ix
Racisms and Ethnicities (1999) and Men and Masculinities (with Chris
Haywood) (2003).
Bill Martin is Associate Professor of Sociology at Flinders University
in Adelaide, Australia. His current research focuses on the changing
experience of work, particularly among managerial, professional, and
“knowledge” workers. His research with Judy Wajcman on the chang-
ing careers of managers in large firms after organizational restructur-
ing has been published in The British Journal of Sociology, the Journal of
Sociology, and Sociology.
Katherine S. Newman is the Malcolm Wiener Professor of Urban
Studies at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government
and the Dean of Social Science at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced
Studies. She is the author of several books on middle-class economic
insecurity, including Falling From Grace (1988) and Declining Fortunes
(1993). Her 1999 book, No Shame in My Game: The Working Poor in the
Inner City, received the Sidney Hillman Book Prize and the Robert
F. Kennedy Book Award. Her recent volume, A Different Shade of Grey
(2003) focuses on the lives of inner-city residents who are aging in
impoverished neighborhoods.
Yuko Ogasawara is Associate Professor of Sociology at Nihon Uni-
versity in Tokyo, Japan. Her recent publications in English include
“Women’s solidarity: company policies and Japanese office ladies,” in
Mary C. Brinton (ed.) Working Lives in East Asia(2001). She is currently
researching issues on gender-based differentiation in commitment to
making a living and the work-family balance among Japanese dual-
earner couples.
Liviu Popoviciu works in the Department of Education, Communi-
cation and Language Sciences at the University of Newcastle. He is
currently completing his PhD: Conceptualizing National Identity: A
Comparative Case Study of Romania and England.
Judy Wajcman is Professor of Sociology in the Research School of
Social Sciences at the Australian National University and a Visiting Cen-
tennial Professor in the Gender Institute at the London School of Eco-
nomics. Her books include Managing Like a Man: Women and Men in
Corporate Management (1998), Feminism Confronts Technology (1991), and
The Social Shaping of Technology, edited with D. MacKenzie (1999). Her
forthcoming book, TechnoFeminism (2004), explores the gender rela-
tions of technology.
x notes on contributors
Mary C. Waters is Harvard College Professor and Chair of the Soci-
ology Department at Harvard University. Her many publications in the
areas of race and ethnicity, immigration, and demography include
Ethnic Options: Choosing Identities in America (1990) and Black Identities:
West Indian Immigrant Dreams and American Realities (1999), a winner of
numerous awards. She is co-director of the New York Second Genera-
tion Project, a study of the incorporation into American society of
young adults whose parents were immigrants. She recently completed
an edited volume, The New Race Question (2002) (with Joel Perlmann),
which examines that issue in the 2000 US Census. She is currently
editing, with historian Reed Ueda, The New Americans: A Handbook to
Immigration since 1965, which will update the landmark Harvard
Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups.
Christine L. Williams is Professor of Sociology at the University of
Texas, Austin. Most of her research has examined gender inequality
and sexual harassment in the workplace. She is the author of Gender
Differences at Work (1989) and Still a Man’s World (1995), and co-editor
of Sexuality and Gender (2002). She also edits the journal, Gender &
Society. She is currently working on an ethnography of toy stores.
Social Inequalities in Comparative Perspective
Edited by Fiona Devine, Mary C. Waters
Copyright © 2004 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd
Introduction
Fiona Devine and Mary C. Waters
This book brings together a collection of essays on social inequalities
by contributors from around the globe, including North America,
Europe, Australia, and Asia. More specifically, the chapters consider
race and ethnicity, income and class, and gender and sexuality in the
US, Canada, Britain, France, Finland, Portugal, Australia, and Japan.
Above all else, therefore, the book is comparative in its focus. There
are numerous excellent anthologies and textbooks that introduce
students to the study of social inequalities in the societies in which they
live. Few expose them, however, to theoretical ideas and empirical find-
ings on race, class, and gender in other nations. This is surprising since
it is now a cliché to say we live in a global world where everything is
connected to everything else! It is important, to be sure, that students
come to know aspects of their own society first of all. This is an obvious
starting point for all students embarking on sociology degree programs.
There is no good reason, however, why students should stop there and
plenty of good reasons why they should learn about other places too.
A comparative focus, like international travel, broadens the mind.
We are familiar with our own social worlds through our everyday lives
although systematic study, of course, provides us with new insights and
understanding about that world. When we study other countries,
however, we are aware of how things are different. Differences strike us
immediately because they are unfamiliar. Learning about the ways in
which other societies vary from our own, especially why they might do
so, is challenging as we come to understand things that are novel to us.
Moreover, examining these differences allows us to reflect back on our
own social world and appreciate how the way it is structured is neither
obvious nor inevitable. A comparative perspective is not just about
admiring difference, however. There are many similarities between