“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.

In recent years, increasing concern has been voiced about the nature and extent of human experimentation and its impact on the investigator, subject, science, and society. This casebook represents the first attempt to provide comprehensive materials for studying the human experimentation process.

Through case studies from medicine, biology, psychology, sociology, and law—as well as evaluative materials from many other disciplines—Dr. Katz examines the problems raised by human experimentation from the vantage points of each of its major participants—investigator, subject, professions, and state. He analyzes what kinds of authority should be delegated to these participants in the formulation, administration, and review of the human experimentation process. Alternative proposals, from allowing investigators a completely free hand to imposing centralized governmental control, are examined from both theoretical and practical perspectives.

The conceptual framework of Experimentation with Human Beings is designed to facilitate not only the analysis of such concepts as “harm,” “benefit,” and “informed consent,” but also the exploration of the problems raised by man’s quest for knowledge and mastery, his willingness to risk human life, and his readiness to delegate authority to professionals and rely on their judgment.

JAY KATZ is the Elizabeth K. Dollard Professor Emeritus of Law, Medicine, and Psychoanalysis at the Yale Law School.

In January 1980 a panel of distinguished social scientists and statisticians assembled at the National Academy of Sciences to begin a thorough review of the uses, reliability, and validity of surveys purporting to measure such subjective phenomena as attitudes, opinions, beliefs, and preferences. This review was prompted not only by the widespread use of survey results in both academic and non-academic settings, but also by a proliferation of apparent discrepancies in allegedly equivalent measurements and by growing public concern over the value of such measurements.

This two-volume report of the panel’s findings is certain to become one of the standard works in the field of survey measurement. Volume I summarizes the state of the art of surveying subjective phenomena, evaluates contemporary measurement programs, examines the uses and abuses of such surveys, and candidly assesses the problems affecting them. The panel also offers strategies for improving the quality and usefulness of subjective survey data. In volume II, individual panel members and other experts explore in greater depth particular theoretical and empirical topics relevant to the panel’s conclusions.

For social scientists and policymakers who conduct, analyze, and rely on surveys of the national state of mind, this comprehensive and current review will be an invaluable resource.

CHARLES F. TURNER is professor of Applied Social Research at the City University of New York.

ELIZABETH MARTIN is research associate at the National Research Council.

CONTRIBUTORS: Robert P. Abelson, Barbara A. Bailar, Marian Ballard, Theresa J. Demaio, Otis Dudley Duncan, Baruch Fischhoff, Lester R. Frankel, William H. Kruskal, Michael B. Mackuen, Catherine Marsch, Elizabeth Martin, Sara B. Nerlove, Howard Schuman, Tom W. Smith, Charles F. Turner

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

“This book’s all-star team of scholars cogently summarizes the state of the art in improving—and supplementing—bad jobs. What Works for Workers? belongs on the shelf of anyone concerned about workforce policies.”
—CHRIS TILLY, UCLA Institute for Research on Labor and Employment

“What Works for Workers? is an outstanding collection of essays on the condition of low wage workers and how to improve it from the leading experts in the area. Anyone who is serious about research, policy, or advocacy should read it from cover to cover.”
—DEAN BAKER, Center for Economic and Policy Research

The majority of new jobs created in the United States today are low-wage jobs, and a fourth of the labor force earns no more than poverty-level wages. Policymakers and citizens alike agree that declining real wages and constrained spending among such a large segment of workers imperil economic prosperity and living standards for all Americans. Though many policies to assist low-wage workers have been proposed, there is little agreement across the political spectrum about which policies actually reduce poverty and raise income among the working poor. What Works for Workers provides a comprehensive analysis of policy measures designed to address the widening income gap in the United States.

Featuring contributions from an eminent group of social scientists, What Works for Workers evaluates the most high-profile strategies for poverty reduction, including innovative “living wage” ordinances, education programs for African American youth, and better regulation of labor laws pertaining to immigrants. The contributors delve into an extensive body of scholarship on low-wage work to reveal a number of surprising findings. Richard Freeman suggests that labor unions, long assumed to be moribund, have a fighting chance to reclaim their historic redistributive role if they move beyond traditional collective bargaining and establish new ties with other community actors. John Schmitt predicts that the Affordable Care Act will substantially increase insurance coverage for low-wage workers, 38 percent of whom currently lack any kind of health insurance.

Other contributors explore the shortcomings of popular solutions: Stephanie Luce shows that while living wage ordinances rarely lead to job losses, they have not yet covered most low-wage workers. And Jennifer Gordon corrects the notion that a path to legalization alone will fix the plight of immigrant workers. Without energetic regulatory enforcement, she argues, legalization may have limited impact on the exploitation of undocumented workers. Ruth Milkman and Eileen Appelbaum conclude with an analysis of California’s paid family leave program, a policy designed to benefit the working poor, who have few resources that allow them to take time off work to care for children or ill family members. Despite initial opposition, the paid leave program proved more acceptable than expected among employers and provided a much-needed system of wage replacement for low-income workers. In the wake of its success, the initiative has emerged as a useful blueprint for paid leave programs in other states.

Alleviating the low-wage crisis will require a comprehensive set of programs rather than piecemeal interventions. With its rigorous analysis of what works and what doesn’t, What Works for Workers points the way toward effective reform. For social scientists, policymakers, and activists grappling with the practical realities of low-wage work, this book provides a valuable guide for narrowing the gap separating rich and poor.

STEPHANIE LUCE is associate professor of labor studies at the Murphy Institute, CUNY School for Professional Studies.

JENNIFER LUFF is lecturer in the department of history, Durham University, U.K.

JOSEPH A. McCARTIN is professor of history at Georgetown University.

RUTH MILKMAN is professor of sociology at the CUNY Graduate Center.

CONTRIBUTORS: Eileen Appelbaum, Peter B. Edelman, Richard B. Freeman, Jennifer Gordon, Sarah Hamersma, Harry J. Holzer, Stephanie Luce, Jennifer Luff, Joseph McCartin, Ruth Milkman, Alice O’Connor, John Schmitt, Paul Osterman, David Weil, Jeffrey B. Wenger