“Douglas Massey and Stefanie Brodmann provide an ambitious and rigorous examination of how inequality exerts its influence in the lives of young Americans. Analyzing a national longitudinal study and focusing on multiple social contexts—including school, religion, peers, and neighborhoods—the authors discover important new facts and evaluate competing explanations for a diverse set of outcomes. Whether about depression, crime, sexual behavior, obesity, drinking, or human capital attainment, the results are fascinating. Spheres of Influence should be required reading for social scientists and policymakers seeking comprehensive knowledge on the social ecology of class and race inequality.”

—Robert J. Sampson,  Henry Ford II Professor of the Social Sciences, Harvard University

“Spheres of Influence is a pathbreaking book exposing the vast complexities in how race and class intersect in affecting development and well-being as people move from adolescence into adulthood in the United States. The comprehensiveness of the theory and findings about the ways that highly diverse social ecologies of family, school, neighborhood, peers, and religion set the stage for vast inequalities in social outcomes is unparalleled.”

—Lauren J. Krivo, professor of sociology and criminal Justice, Rutgers University

The black-white divide has long haunted the United States as a driving force behind social inequality. Yet, the civil rights movement, the increase in immigration, and the restructuring of the economy in favor of the rich over the last several decades have begun to alter the contours of inequality. Spheres of Influence, co-authored by noted social scientists Douglas S. Massey and Stefanie Brodmann, presents a rigorous new study of the intersections of racial and class disparities today. Massey and Brodmann argue that despite the persistence of potent racial inequality, class effects are drastically transforming social stratification in America.

This data-intensive volume examines the differences in access to material, symbolic, and emotional resources across major racial groups. The authors find that the effects of racial inequality are exacerbated by the class differences within racial groups. For example, when measuring family incomes solely according to race, Massey and Brodmann found that black families’ average income measured $28,400, compared to Hispanic families’ $35,200. But this gap was amplified significantly when class differences within each group were taken into account. With class factored in, inequality across blacks’ and Hispanics’ family incomes increased by a factor of almost four, with lower class black families earning an average income of only $9,300 compared to $97,000 for upper class Hispanics. Massey and Brodmann found similar interactions between class and racial effects on the distribution of symbolic resources, such as occupational status, and emotional resources, such as the presence of a biological father—across racial groups. Although there are racial differences in each group’s access to these resources, like income, these disparities are even more pronounced once class is factored in.

The complex interactions between race and class are apparent in other social spheres, such as health and education. In looking at health disparities across groups, Massey and Brodmann observed no single class effect on the propensity to smoke cigarettes. Among whites, cigarette smoking declined with rising class standing, whereas among Hispanics it increased as class rose. Among Asians and blacks, there was no class difference at all. Similarly, the authors found no single effect of race alone on health: Health differences between whites, Asians, Hispanics, and blacks were small and non-significant in the upper class, but among those in the lower class, intergroup differences were pronounced.

As Massey and Brodmann show, in the United States, a growing kaleidoscope of race-class interactions has replaced pure racial and class disadvantages. By advancing an ecological model of human development that considers the dynamics of race and class across multiple social spheres, Spheres of Influence sheds important light on the factors that are currently driving inequality today.

DOUGLAS S. MASSEY is Henry G. Bryant Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs at the Woodrow Wilson School.

STEFANIE BRODMANN is an economist at the Social Protection and Labor Unit of the World Bank.

A Volume in the American Sociological Association’s Rose Series in Sociology

Winner of the 2015 Grawemeyer Award for the Best Book in Education

Honorable Mention, 2016 Robert E. Park Award Presented by the American Sociological Association’s Community and Urban Sociology Section

“A fitting capstone for the efforts of a remarkable team of collaborators and their longitudinalstudy of working class children growing up in Baltimore.”

—GREG J. DUNCAN, Distinguished Professor, University of California, Irvine

“The Long Shadow profoundly challenges our understanding of schooling in the lives of disadvantaged urban children, black and white. They and their more privileged classmates are followed from first grade into young adulthood. Numerous policy- relevant observations emerge, including the
persistence of first grade inequalities and the recurrence of summer setbacks in learning. This is an essential book for all who care about children’s education.”

—GLEN H. ELDER, JR., Howard W. Odum Research Professor of Sociology and Research Professor of Psychology, Carolina Population Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

West Baltimore stands out in the popular imagination as the quintessential “inner city”—gritty, run-down, and marred by drugs and gang violence. Indeed, with the collapse of manufacturing jobs in the 1970s, the area experienced a rapid onset of poverty and high unemployment, with few public resources available to alleviate economic distress. But in stark contrast to the image of a perpetual “urban underclass” depicted in television by shows like The Wire, sociologists Karl Alexander, Doris Entwisle, and Linda Olson present a more nuanced portrait of Baltimore’s inner city residents that employs important new research on the significance of early-life opportunities available to low-income populations. The Long Shadow focuses on children who grew up in west Baltimore neighborhoods and others like them throughout the city, tracing how their early lives in the inner city have affected their long-term well-being. Although research for this book was conducted in Baltimore, that city’s struggles with deindustrialization, white flight, and concentrated poverty were characteristic of most East Coast and Midwest manufacturing cities. The experience of Baltimore’s children who came of age during this era is mirrored in the experiences of urban children across the nation.

For 25 years, the authors of The Long Shadow tracked the life progress of a group of almost 800 predominantly low-income Baltimore school children through the Beginning School Study Youth Panel (BSSYP). The study monitored the children’s transitions to young adulthood with special attention to how opportunities available to them as early as first grade shaped their socioeconomic status as adults. The authors’ fine-grained analysis confirms that the children who lived in more cohesive neighborhoods, had stronger families, and attended better schools tended to maintain a higher economic status later in life. As young adults, they held higher-income jobs and had achieved more personal milestones (such as marriage) than their lower-status counterparts. Differences in race and gender further stratified life opportunities for the Baltimore children. As one of the first studies to closely examine the outcomes of inner-city whites in addition to African Americans, data from the BSSYP shows that by adulthood, white men of lower status family background, despite attaining less education on average, were more likely to be employed than any other group in part due to family connections and long-standing racial biases in Baltimore’s industrial economy. Gender imbalances were also evident: the women, who were more likely to be working in low-wage service and clerical jobs, earned less than men. African American women were doubly disadvantaged insofar as they were less likely to be in a stable relationship than white women, and therefore less likely to benefit from a second income.

Combining original interviews with Baltimore families, teachers, and other community members with the empirical data gathered from the authors’ groundbreaking research, The Long Shadow unravels the complex connections between socioeconomic origins and socioeconomic destinations to reveal a startling and much-needed examination of who succeeds and why.

KARL ALEXANDER is John Dewey Professor of Sociology at Johns Hopkins University.

The late DORIS ENTWISLE was Research Professor in Sociology at Johns Hopkins University.

LINDA OLSEN is associate research scientist at Johns Hopkins University.

“Where children live and attend school can exert powerful influences on their educational and social development. Understanding the forces at work in shaping patterns of residential and school segregation, therefore, is essential to understanding educational and social inequality in America. This thoughtful, theoretically rich, and empirically-grounded volume combines careful statistical analyses with rich, evocative parental interviews to provide a wealth of new evidence and insight into these complex forces. It is a ‘must-read’ for urban sociologists and education policy makers interested in understanding modern American inequality, segregation, and educational opportunity.”

—Sean Reardon, professor of sociology and director, Stanford Interdisciplinary Doctoral Training Program in Quantitative Education Policy Analysis

“Choosing Homes, Choosing Schools is an outstanding volume with contributions from prominent scholars that provides a detailed accounting of how residential and school sorting processes are intricately linked. The central theme is that residential segregation directly contributes to educational inequality, which in turn reinforces segregation when affluent (often white) families seek to avoid poor and minority schools. The book describes these processes in a changing social, demographic, economic, and policy context, and is informed by an excellent mix of theory, quantitative analysis, and qualitative work.”

                       —John Iceland, professor of sociology and demography, Penn State University

A series of policy shifts over the past decade promises to change how Americans decide where to send their children to school. In theory, the expanded use of standardized test scores and the boom in charter schools will allow parents to evaluate their assigned neighborhood school, or move in search of a better option. But what kind of data do parents actually use while choosing schools? Are there differences among suburban and urban families? How do parents’ choices influence school and residential segregation? Choosing Homes, Choosing Schools presents a breakthrough analysis of the new era of school choice, and what it portends for American neighborhoods.

The distinguished contributors to Choosing Homes, Choosing Schools investigate the complex relationships among education, neighborhood social networks, and larger patterns of inequality. Paul Jargowsky reviews recent trends in segregation by race and class, and shows that while segregation between blacks and whites has declined overall since 1970, white parents are still more likely to choose to live in predominantly white neighborhoods. This skewed residential selection in turn drives racial inequality in public schools. Annette Lareau draws on interviews with parents in three suburban neighborhoods to analyze school-choice decisions. Surprisingly, she finds that middle- and upper-class parents do not rely on active research, such as school tours or test scores. Instead, their decision-making was largely informal and passive, with most simply trusting advice from friends and others in their network. Elliot Weinginer looks at how class differences among urban parents affect their approaches to choosing schools. He finds that while parents of all backgrounds actively consider their children’s education choices, middle- and upper-class parents relied more on federally mandated school report cards, district websites, and online forums, while working-class parents used network contacts to gain information on school quality. Amy Schwartz and Leanna Stiefel explore the connections between housing policy and education reform. They demonstrate the shortcomings of policies focused exclusively on “school choice”—or the practice of allowing students to cross district boundaries to better schools—and instead advocate for reducing educational inequality by expanding residential choice through measures such as housing subsidies and the redevelopment of public housing to include schools and community centers.

Little previous research has explored what role school concerns play in the preferences of white and minority parents for particular neighborhoods, and how the racial and economic makeup of both neighborhoods and schools mutually reinforce each other. Choosing Homes, Choosing Schools adroitly addresses this gap and provides a firmer understanding of how Americans choose where to live and send their children to school.

ANNETTE LAREAU is Stanley I. Sheerr Term Professor in the Social Sciences and professor of sociology at the University of Pennsylvania.

KIMBERLY GOYETTE is associate professor of sociology at Temple University.

CONTRIBUTORS: Michael D. M. Bader, Felicia Butts, Kyle Crowder, Lori Delale-O’Connor, Stefanie DeLuca, Kimberly Goyette, Caroline Hanley, Paul A. Jargowsky, Shelley McDonough Kimelberg, Maria Krysan, Annette Lareau, Mary Pattillo, Anna Rhodes, Salvatore Saporito, Amy Ellen Schwartz, Leanna Stiefel, Elliot B. Weininger

“Children Crossing Borders is a richly textured study that invites the reader into the perspectives of immigrant parents and early childhood educators through an engaging style and thought-provoking data. The vivid portraits of immigrant parents in very different locales in the United States negotiating the complexity of their children’s early education is a challenging reminder that ‘crossing borders’ is never unproblematic. The authors are able to thoughtfully narrate the contradictions that can sometimes emerge when immigrant parents and early childhood educators have differing concepts of what should happen in preschools. This is an inspiring and stimulating book that breaks new ground in its compelling themes and forward-looking account of the intersection of immigration and early childhood education.”
—NORMA GONZALEZ, University of Arizona

“This landmark volume explores how preschools can be sites of incorporation and integration of America’s immigrant families. By capturing the beliefs and practices of parents and teachers across the country with groundbreaking new methods, the authors greatly expand our understanding of how culture and immigration should be taken into account in early childhood practice and policy.”
—HIROKAZU YOSHIKAWA, New York University

In many school districts in America, the majority of students in preschools are children of recent immigrants. For both immigrant families and educators, the changing composition of preschool classes presents new and sometimes divisive questions about educational instruction, cultural norms and academic priorities. Drawing from an innovative study of preschools across the nation, Children Crossing Borders provides the first systematic comparison of the beliefs and perspectives of immigrant parents and the preschool teachers to whom they entrust their children.

Children Crossing Borders presents valuable evidence from the U.S. portion of a landmark five-country study on the intersection of early education and immigration. The volume shows that immigrant parents and early childhood educators often have differing notions of what should happen in preschool. Most immigrant parents want preschool teachers to teach English, prepare their children academically, and help them adjust to life in the United States. Many said it was unrealistic to expect a preschool to play a major role in helping children retain their cultural and religious values. The authors examine the different ways that language and cultural differences prevent immigrant parents and school administrations from working together to achieve educational goals. For their part, many early education teachers who work with immigrant children find themselves caught between two core beliefs: on one hand, the desire to be culturally sensitive and responsive to parents, and on the other hand adhering to their core professional codes of best practice. While immigrant parents generally prefer traditional methods of academic instruction, many teachers use play-based curricula that give children opportunities to be creative and construct their own knowledge. Worryingly, most preschool teachers say they have received little to no training in working with immigrant children who are still learning English.

For most young children of recent immigrants, preschools are the first and most profound context in which they confront the conflicts between their home culture and the United States. Policymakers and educators, however, are still struggling with how best to serve these children and their parents. Children Crossing Borders provides valuable research on these questions, and on the ways schools can effectively and sensitively incorporate new immigrants into the social fabric.

JOSEPH TOBIN is professor in the educational theory and practice department at the University of Georgia.

ANGELA ARZUBIAGA is associate professor of justice and social inquiry at Arizona State University School of Social Transformation.

JENNIFER KEYS ADAIR is assistant professor of early childhood education at the University of Texas, Austin.

“[Waldfogel’s] carefully researched and balanced account demonstrates that committed governments can indeed implement social policies that improve the well-being of their citizens. Her very readable assessment of the British experiment also has relevance for other countries, especially the United States, and her excellent book deserves to be widely consulted.”
—POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY 

“A developed country declaring a major war on poverty comes around once in a generation. People will want to know why they did it, how they went about it, but, even more crucially what the impact was on children. This book is the only one to cover all these dimensions and to do it with style. Britain’s War on Poverty isn’t about Britain—it’s about declaring war on poverty.”
—PAUL GREGG, University of Bristol 

“America had a war on poverty and poverty won; the United Kingdom has waged the same war and is winning it by making steady progress against child poverty. Their child poverty rate is down by half from its starting point, and children are demonstrably better off based on polices they adopted and consistently financed and delivered. Why did the Brits do so much better than the Americans? This splendid book convincingly shows why and how a ‘true to its aims,’ well-financed, and persistent war on poverty can work in an Anglo- Saxon democracy. Jane Waldfogel shows how and why policy can make a difference against poverty if it is a high priority for a nation. Britain’s War on Poverty should be widely and carefully read by social policy analysts and advocates who seek a better future for America’s young children.”
—TIMOTHY M. SMEEDING, University of Wisconsin–Madison 

“This timely volume tells the remarkable story of the British government’s attempt to end child poverty. Professor Waldfogel, who resides in the United Kingdom for several months every year, tells the story with color and passion, emphasizing the similarities and differences between anti-poverty policy in the United States and Britain. Perhaps most interesting and provocative are the lessons she draws from the British experience for a more sweeping commitment by America to greatly reduce the nation’s child poverty rate, which is now higher than it was in the 1970s. Scholars, advocates, and policymakers committed to reducing child poverty will find Britain’s War on Poverty packed with insights about how we should proceed.”
—RON HASKINS, Brookings Institution

In 1999, one in four British children lived in poverty—the third highest child poverty rate among industrialized countries. Five years later, the child poverty rate in Britain had fallen by more than half in absolute terms. How did the British government accomplish this and what can the United States learn from the British experience? Jane Waldfogel offers a sharp analysis of the New Labour government’s anti-poverty agenda, its dramatic early success and eventual stalled progress. Comparing Britain’s anti-poverty initiative to U.S. welfare reform, the book shows how the policies of both countries have affected child poverty, living standards, and well-being in low-income families and suggests next steps for future reforms.

Britain’s War on Poverty evaluates the three-pronged anti-poverty strategy employed by the British government and what these efforts accomplished. British reforms sought to promote work and make work pay, to increase financial support for families with children, and to invest in the health, early-life development, and education of children. The latter two features set the British reforms apart from the work-oriented U.S. welfare reforms, which did not specifically target income or program supports for children. Plagued by premature initiatives and what some experts called an overly ambitious agenda, the British reforms fell short of their intended goal but nevertheless significantly increased single-parent employment, raised incomes for low-income families, and improved child outcomes. Poverty has fallen, and the pattern of low-income family expenditures on child enrichment and healthy food has begun to converge with higher-income families.

As Waldfogel sees it, further success in reducing child poverty in Britain will rely on understanding who is poor and who is at highest risk. More than half of poor children live in families where at least one parent is working, followed by unemployed single- and two-parent homes, respectively. Poverty rates are also notably higher for children with disabled parents, large families, and for Pakistani and Bangladeshi children. Based on these demographics, Waldfogel argues that future reforms must, among other goals, raise working-family incomes, provide more work for single parents, and better engage high-risk racial and ethnic minority groups.

What can the United States learn from the British example? Britain’s War on Poverty is a primer in the triumphs and pitfalls of protracted policy. Notable differences distinguish the British and U.S. models, but Waldfogel asserts that a future U.S. poverty agenda must specifically address child poverty and the income inequality that helps create it. By any measurement and despite obstacles, Britain has significantly reduced child poverty. The book’s key lesson is that it can be done.

JANE WALDFOGEL is professor of social work and public affairs at the Columbia University School of Social Work and visiting professor at the Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

“This book will bring joy to the hearts of high school debaters who study social sciences: these experiences build active citizenship in later adulthood, especially among the children of immigrants who may grow up in neighborhoods that are low on civic engagement. Coming of Political Age is a clear-eyed, carefully justified plan for just how schools can help us address the decline of political engagement.”
—John Mollenkopf, Distinguished Professor of Political Science and Sociology and director, Center for Urban Research, the Graduate Center, CUNY 

“Coming of Political Age offers valuable insight into how schools serve as an important force in the political socialization and education of children of immigrants. Through careful analysis of nationally representative longitudinal survey data and qualitative data, Rebecca M. Callahan and Chandra Muller convincingly argue that civic goals of schools in twenty-first-century America are as relevant as academic goals in shaping America’s future citizenry and that expanding social science curriculum is central to achieving civic goals. This book is an essential reading for scholars, school administrators, policymakers, and citizens concerning school reform and student outcomes.”
—Min Zhou, professor of sociology and Asian American studies, University of California, Los Angeles

As one of the fastest-growing segments of the American population, the children of immigrants are poised to reshape the country’s political future. The massive rallies for immigration rights in 2006 and the recent push for the DREAM Act, both heavily supported by immigrant youth, signal the growing political potential of this crucial group. While many studies have explored the political participation of immigrant adults, we know comparatively little about what influences civic participation among the children of immigrants. Coming of Political Age persuasively argues that schools play a central role in integrating immigrant youth into the political system. The volume shows that the choices we make now in our educational system will have major consequences for the country’s civic health as the children of immigrants grow and mature as citizens.

Coming of Political Age draws from an impressive range of data, including two large surveys of adolescents in high schools and interviews with teachers and students, to provide an insightful analysis of trends in youth participation in politics. Although the children of both immigrant and native-born parents register and vote at similar rates, the factors associated with this likelihood are very different. While parental educational levels largely explain voting behavior among children of native-born parents, this volume demonstrates that immigrant children’s own education, in particular their exposure to social studies, strongly predicts their future political participation. Learning more about civic society and putting effort into these classes may encourage an interest in politics, suggesting that the high school civics curriculum remains highly relevant in an increasingly disconnected society. Interestingly, although their schooling predicts whether children of immigrants will vote, how they identify politically depends more on family and community influences. As budget cuts force school administrators to realign academic priorities, this volume argues that any cutback to social science programs may effectively curtail the political and civic engagement of the next generation of voters.

While much of the literature on immigrant assimilation focuses on family and community, Coming of Political Age argues that schools—and social science courses in particular—may be central to preparing the leaders of tomorrow. The insights and conclusions presented in this volume are essential to understand how we can encourage more participation in civic action and improve the functioning of our political system.

REBECCA M. CALLAHAN is assistant professor of education at the University of Texas at Austin.

CHANDRA MULLER is professor of sociology at the University of Texas at Austin.

Winner of the 2015 Otis Dudley Duncan Award for Outstanding Scholarship in Social Demography

Winner of the 2015 Inequality, Poverty, and Mobility Outstanding Book Award Presented by the American Sociological Association's Section on Inequality, Poverty, and Mobility

While powerful gender inequalities remain in American society, women have made substantial gains and now largely surpass men in one crucial arena: education. Women now outperform men academically at all levels of school, and are more likely to obtain college degrees and enroll in graduate school. What accounts for this enormous reversal in the gender education gap? In The Rise of Women: The Growing Gender Gap in Education and What It Means for American Schools, Thomas DiPrete and Claudia Buchmann provide a detailed and accessible account of women’s educational advantage and suggest new strategies to improve schooling outcomes for both boys and girls.

The Rise of Women opens with a masterful overview of the broader societal changes that accompanied the change in gender trends in higher education. The rise of egalitarian gender norms and a growing demand for college-educated workers allowed more women to enroll in colleges and universities nationwide. As this shift occurred, women quickly reversed the historical male advantage in education. By 2010, young women in their mid-twenties surpassed their male counterparts in earning college degrees by more than eight percentage points. The authors, however, reveal an important exception: While women have achieved parity in fields such as medicine and the law, they lag far behind men in engineering and physical science degrees. To explain these trends, The Rise of Women charts the performance of boys and girls over the course of their schooling. At each stage in the education process, they consider the gender-specific impact of factors such as families, schools, peers, race and class. Important differences emerge as early as kindergarten, where girls show higher levels of essential learning skills such as persistence and self-control. Girls also derive more intrinsic gratification from performing well on a day-to-day basis, a crucial advantage in the learning process. By contrast, boys must often navigate a conflict between their emerging masculine identity and a strong attachment to school. Families and peers play a crucial role at this juncture. The authors show the gender gap in educational attainment between children in the same families tends to be lower when the father is present and more highly educated. A strong academic climate, both among friends and at home, also tends to erode stereotypes that disconnect academic prowess and a healthy, masculine identity. Similarly, high schools with strong science curricula reduce the power of gender stereotypes concerning science and technology and encourage girls to major in scientific fields.

As the value of a highly skilled workforce continues to grow, The Rise of Women argues that understanding the source and extent of the gender gap in higher education is essential to improving our schools and the economy. With its rigorous data and clear recommendations, this volume illuminates new ground for future education policies and research.

THOMAS A. DIPRETE is professor of sociology at Columbia University.

CLAUDIA BUCHMANN is professor of sociology at Ohio State University.