The Accidental Equalizer

A startling discovery—that job market success after college is largely random—forces a reappraisal of education, opportunity, and the American dream. As a gateway to economic opportunity, a college degree is viewed by many as America’s great equalizer. And it’s true: wealthier, more connected, and seemingly better-qualified students earn exactly the same pay as their less privileged peers. Yet, the reasons why may have little to do with bootstraps or self-improvement—it might just be dumb luck. That’s what sociologist Jessi Streib proposes in The Accidental Equalizer, a conclusion she reaches after interviewing dozens of hiring agents and job-seeking graduates. Streib finds that luck shapes the hiring process from start to finish in a way that limits class privilege in the job market. Employers hide information about how to get ahead and force students to guess which jobs pay the most and how best to obtain them. Without clear routes to success, graduates from all class backgrounds face the same odds at high pay. The Accidental Equalizer is a frank appraisal of how this “luckocracy” works and its implications for the future of higher education and the middle class. Although this system is far from eliminating American inequality, Streib shows that it may just be the best opportunity structure we have—for better and for worse.

Offering a unique, comprehensive, and critical introduction to increasingly visible social inequalities, this textbook examines the political and economic causes and cultural consequences of a stratifying system that allocates material resources and human dignity on the basis of private profit and labor exploitation. Mapping Inequality in an Era of Neoliberalism foregrounds capitalism as the major source of the power relations in the United States, as a class system that serves the dominant vector of inequality and sets the parameters of social mobility. The book starts with racialized capitalist power and shows how this power is constituted in structures of opportunity and constraint. It also uses ethnographic accounts to “flip the script” to show how individuals in the class structure construct identities. Providing students with tools for understanding, Valocchi engagingly introduces many of the crucial concepts in this area of sociology – power, opportunity structures, ideology, social and cultural capitals, and intersectional class identities – connecting them as part of a uniquely critical approach.

There are two narratives of the American class structure: one of a country with boundless opportunities for upward mobility and one of a rigid class system in which the rich stay rich while the poor stay poor. Each of these narratives holds some truth, but each overlooks another. In Privilege Lost, Jessi Streib traces the lives of over 100 youth born into the upper-middle-class. Following them for over ten years as they transition from teens to young adults, Streib examines who falls from the upper-middle-class, how, and why don't they see it coming. In doing so, she reveals the patterned ways that individuals' resources and identities push them onto mobility paths--and the complicated choices youth make between staying true to themselves and staying in their class position. Engaging and eye-opening, Privilege Lost brings to life the stories of the downwardly mobile and highlights what they reveal about class, privilege, and American family life.

Drawing upon interviews with adults married to a partner of a different class background, The Power of the Past reveals the intimate connections between love and class and how enduring class attributes shape who they love and how their marriage unfolds.

Two young women, dormitory mates, embark on their education at a big state university. Five years later, one is earning a good salary at a prestigious accounting firm. With no loans to repay, she lives in a fashionable apartment with her fiancé. The other woman, saddled with burdensome debt and a low GPA, is still struggling to finish her degree in tourism. In an era of skyrocketing tuition and mounting concern over whether college is "worth it," Paying for the Party is an indispensable contribution to the dialogue assessing the state of American higher education. A powerful exposé of unmet obligations and misplaced priorities, it explains in vivid detail why so many leave college with so little to show for it. Drawing on findings from a five-year interview study, Elizabeth Armstrong and Laura Hamilton bring us to the campus of "MU," a flagship Midwestern public university, where we follow a group of women drawn into a culture of status seeking and sororities. Mapping different pathways available to MU students, the authors demonstrate that the most well-resourced and seductive route is a "party pathway" anchored in the Greek system and facilitated by the administration. This pathway exerts influence over the academic and social experiences of all students, and while it benefits the affluent and well-connected, Armstrong and Hamilton make clear how it seriously disadvantages the majority. Eye-opening and provocative, Paying for the Party reveals how outcomes can differ so dramatically for those whom universities enroll.

The Problemata physica is the third longest work in the corpus Aristotelicum, but among the least studied. It consists of 38 books, over 900 chapters, covering a vast range of subjects, including medicine and music, sex and salt water, fatigue and fruit, animals and astronomy, moderation and malodorous things, wind and wine, bruises and barley, voice and virtue. Aristotelian Problemata Physica: Philosophical and Scientific Investigations consists of 21 essays by scholars of ancient Greek philosophy and science. These essays shed light on this mysterious work, providing insights into the nature of philosophical and scientific inquiry in the Lyceum during Aristotle’s life and especially in the years following his death.

The ultimate guide to leading remote employees and teams, tackling the key challenges that managers face-from hiring and onboarding new members to building culture remotely, tracking productivity, communicating speedily, and retaining star employees