The reach of the social and behavioral sciences is currently so broad and interdisciplinary that staying abreast of developments has become a daunting task. The thirty papers that constitute Leading Edges in Social and Behavioral Science provide a unique composite picture of recent findings and promising new research opportunities within most areas of social and behavioral research. Prepared by expert scholars under the auspices of the National Academy of Sciences, these timely and well-documented reports define research priorities for an impressive range of topics:

Part I: Mind and Brain

Part II: Behavior in Social Context

Part III: Choice and Allocation

Part IV: Evolving Institutions

Part V: Societies and International Orders

Part VI: Data and Analysis

R. DUNCAN LUCE is Distinguished Professor of Cognitive Science and director of the Irvine Research Center in Mathematic Behavioral Science at the University of California, Irvine.

NEIL J. SMELSER is University Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley.

DEAN R. GERSTEIN is study director at the National Research Council, National Academy of Sciences.

CONTRIBUTORS: Norma Graham, Linda Bartosik, Albert S. Bregman, Julian Hichberg, Azriel Rosenfeld, Michael Studdert-Kennedy, R. Duncan Luce, Richard Thompson, Carol Barnes, Thomas Carew, Lon Cooper, Michela Gallagher, Michael Posner, Robert Rescola, Daniel Schachter, Larry Squire, Alan Wagner, Saul Steinebers, Fergus I.M. Clark, John Jonedes, Walter Kinsch, Stephen M. Kosslyn, James L. McClelland, Raymond S. Nickerson, James Greeno, Frederick J. Newmeyer, Antonio R. Damasio, Merrill Garrett, Mark Lieberman, David Lightfoot, Howard Poizner, Thomas Roeper, Eleanor Saffran, Ivan Sag, Victoria Fromkin, Herbert Pick, Ann L. Brown, Carol Dweck, Robert Emde, Frank Keil, David Klahr, Ross S. Parke, Steven Pinker, Rochel Gelman, David S. Krantz, Leonard Epstein, Norman Garmezy, Marcha Ory, Leonard Perlin, Judith Rodin, Marvin Stein, John F. Kihlstrom, Ellen Berscheid, John Darley, Reid Hastie, Harold Kelley, Sheldon Stryker, Edward E. Jones, Nancy M,. Henley, Rose Laub Cosner, Jane Flax, Naomi Quinn, Kathryn Rish Sklar, Sherry B. Ortner, Alfred Blumstein, Richard Berk, Philip Cook, David Farrington, Samuel Krislov, Albert J. Reiss Jr., Franklin Zimring, William Riker, James S. Coleman, Bernard Grofman, Michael Hechter, John Ledyard, Charles Plott, Kenneth Shepsle, John Ferejohn,  Mark Machina, Robin Hogarth, Kenneth MacCrimmon, John Roberts, Alvin Roth, Paul Slovic, Rihard Thaler, Oliver Williamson, Jerry Hausman, Paul Joskow, Roger Noll, Vernon Smith, David Wise, Stanley Reiter, Kenneth Arrow, Lance Davis, Paul Dimaggio, Mark Granovetter, Jerry Green, Theodore Groves, Michael Hannan, Andrew Postlewaite, Roy Radner, Karl Shell, Leonid Hurwicz, Frank Stafford, Jamoes Baron, Danier Hamermesh, Christopher Jencks, Ross Stolzenberg, Donald J. Treiman, Stanley Fischer, William Beeman, Rudiger Dornbusch, Thomas Sargent, Robert Schiller, Lawrence Summers, Glynn Isaac, Robert Blumenschine, Margaret Conkey, Terry Deacon, Irven Devore, Peter Ellison, Richard Milton, David Pilbeam, Richard Potts, Kathy Schick, Margaret Schoeninger, Andrew Sillen, John Speth, Nicholas Toth, Sherwood Washburn, Douglas C. North, Robert Bates, Robert Brenner, Elizabeth Colson, Kent Flannery, Vernon Smith, Neil Smelser, Samuel Preson, Ansley Coale, Kingsley Davis, Geoffrey McNicoll, Jane Menken, T. Paul Schultz, Daniel Vining, John Modell, Margaret Clark, William Goode, William Kessen, Robert Willis, John Quigley, Alex Anas, Geoffrey Hewings, Risa Palm, James Fernandez, Keith Basso, Karen Blu, Kenneth Boulding, Stepher Gudeman, Michael Kearney, Goerge Marcus, Dennis McGilvary, Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney, William Sewell, Daniel H. Levine, Leonard Binder, Thomas Bruneau, Jean Comaroff, Susan Harding, Charles Keyes, Robert Wuthnow, Dorothy Nelkin, Charles Rosenberg, Theda Skocpol, Martin Bulmer, Thomas Joster, Donald McCloskey, Arnold Thackeray, Carol Weiss, Peter Evans, Bruce Cumings, Albert Fishlow, Peter Gourevitch, John Meyer, Alejandro Portes, Barbara Stallings, Robert Jervis, Josh Lederberg, Robert North, Steven Rosen, Dina Zinnes, Warren Miller, Martin David, James Davis, Bruce Russett, Kimball Romney, Norman Bradburn, J. Douglas Carol. Roy D'Andrade, Jean Claude Falmagne, Paul Holland, Lawrence Hubert, Edward E. Leamer, John W. Pratt, Cliffors C. Clogg, Bert F. Green, Michael Hannan, Jerry A. Hausman, William H. Kruskal, Donald B. Rubin, I. Richard Savaga, John W. Turkey, Kenneth W. Wachter, Leo A. Goodman.

"How to inform the judicial mind," Justice Frankfurter remarked during the school desegregation cases, "is one of the most complicated problems." Social research is a potential source of such information. Indeed, in the 1960s and 1970s, with activist courts at the forefront of social reform, the field of law and social science came of age. But for all the recent activity and scholarship in this area, few books have attempted to create an intellectual framework, a systematic introduction to applied social-legal research.

Social Research in the Judicial Process addresses this need for a broader picture. Designed for use by both law students and social science students, it constructs a conceptual bridge between social research (the realm of social facts) and judicial decision making (the realm of social values). Its unique casebook format weaves together judicial opinions, empirical studies, and original text. It is a process-oriented book that teaches skills and perspectives, cultivating an informed sensitivity to the use and misuse of psychology, social psychology, and sociology in apellate and trial adjudication. Among the social-legal topics explored are school desegregation, capital punishment, jury impartiality, and eyewitness identification.

This casebook is remarkable for its scope, its accessibility, and the intelligence of its conceptual integration. It provides the kind of interdisciplinary teaching framework that should eventually help lawyers to make knowledgeable use of social research, and social scientists to conduct useful research within a legally sophisticated context.

WALLACE D. LOH is professor of law and adjunct professor of psychology at the University of Washington.

A penetrating analysis of the Selective Service System: its recruiting services, the makeup and attitude of those who serve on local draft boards, the criteria for deferment or rejection from service, and the application of the principle of universality in the present draft laws. Using data from several sources, the study also explores the position of blacks with respect to military service. Comprehensive recommendations are set forth.

ROGER W. LITTLE is associate professor of sociology at the University of Illinois at Chicago Circle.

CONTRIBUTORS:  Harry A. Marimon, James W. Davis Jr., Gary Wamsley, Merrill Roff,  Charles C. Moskos Jr., Irvin G. Katenbrink Jr. 

Many social scientists lament the increasing fragmentation of their discipline, the trend toward specialization and away from engagement with overarching issues. Opportunities to transcend established subdisciplinary boundaries are rare, but the extraordinary conference that gave rise to this volume was one such occasion.

The W. I. Thomas and Florian Znaniecki Memorial Conference on Social Theory, held at the University of Chicago, brought together an outstanding array of scholars representing a variety of contending approaches to social theory. In panels, presentations, and general discussions, these scholars confronted one another in the context of an entire range of approaches. But as readers of this deftly edited collection will discover, the conference was more than a forum for abstract theoretical debate. These papers and discussions represent original scholarly contributions that exemplify orientations to social theory by examining real problems in the functioning of society—from large-scale economic growth and decline to the dynamics of interpersonal interaction.

By exploring a few central issues in different ways, this unique conference worked through some lively theoretical incompatibilities and established genuine potential for communication, for complementary and collaborative effort at the core of sociology. The excitement of that dialogue, and the intellectual vitality it generated, are captured for the reader in Approaches to Social Theory.

"Meaty presentations and confrontations of ideas by people whose views we respect...Recommended to anyone interested in the current state of social theory." —Contemporary Sociology

SIEGWART LINDENBERG is at the University of Groningen.

JAMES S. COLEMAN is at the University of Chicago.

CONTRIBUTORS: Robert McCormick Adams, Howard Aldrich, Gary S. Becker, Joseph Ben-David, Peter M. Blau, Ronald S. Burt, James S. Coleman, Randall Collins, Robert G. Eccles, David L. Featherman, John Freeman, Allen Grimshaw, Joseph R. Gusfield, Michael T. Hannan, Russell Hardin, Michael Hechter, David R. Heise, Morris Janowitz, John Kitsuse, David Knoke, William Labov, Edward O. Laumann, Siegwart Lindenberg, Arthur Mann, Anthony Oberschall, Mancur Olson, Ann Shola Orloff, John Padgett, Edward Shils, Theda Skocpol, Arthur L. Stinchcombe, Fred L. Strodtbeck, Nigel Tomes, Immanuel Wallerstein, and Harrison C. White

"In The Colors of Poverty Ann Chih Lin and David Harris bring together a stellar roster of scholars to argue that racial inequality does not stem from a single powerful socioeconomic disadvantage, but from multiple disadvantages that accumulate over time to undermine decisively the life chances of poor minorities. Attempts to find one underlying cause of poverty and eliminate it with a magic policy bullet, they argue, are doomed to failure. This insight should guide all future research and policy on poverty in the United States."
-DOUGLAS S. MASSEY, Henry G. Bryant Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs, Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University

"The Colors of Poverty has it all–theory, data, and policy. It treats a wide range of substantive topics and is inclusive of the full 'color' spectrum in the United States, not just blacks and whites. Ann Chih Lin and David R. Harris, and the chapter authors, bring a fresh perspective to the vexing problem of race-based disadvantage. You may not need any other book on your syllabus."
-MARY PATTILLO, professor of sociology and African American studies, Northwestern University

"The Colors of Poverty, the product of an interdisciplinary team of leading scholars, explores the key issues at the intersection of race, poverty, and public policy. The book's eleven chapters are sophisticated, comprehensive, and well-balanced. Anyone who wants to understand the multiple and overlapping causes of the persistence of racial disadvantage in the United States could not do better than to study this book."
-PAUL A. JARGOWSKY, professor of public policy, University of Texas at Dallas

Given the increasing diversity of the nation—particularly with respect to its growing Hispanic and Asian populations—why does racial and ethnic difference so often lead to disadvantage? In The Colors of Poverty, a multidisciplinary group of experts provides a breakthrough analysis of the complex mechanisms that connect poverty and race.

The Colors of Poverty reframes the debate over the causes of minority poverty by emphasizing the cumulative effects of disadvantage in perpetuating poverty across generations. The contributors consider a kaleidoscope of factors that contribute to widening racial gaps, including education, racial discrimination, social capital, immigration, and incarceration. Michèle Lamont and Mario Small grapple with the theoretical ambiguities of existing cultural explanations for poverty disparities.  They argue that culture and structure are not competing explanations for poverty, but rather collaborate to produce disparities. Looking at how attitudes and beliefs exacerbate racial stratification, social psychologist Heather Bullock links the rise of inequality in the United States to an increase in public tolerance for disparity. She suggests that the American ethos of rugged individualism and meritocracy erodes support for antipoverty programs and reinforces the belief that people are responsible for their own poverty. Sociologists Darren Wheelock and Christopher Uggen focus on the collateral consequences of incarceration in exacerbating racial disparities and are the first to propose a link between legislation that blocks former drug felons from obtaining federal aid for higher education and the black/white educational attainment gap. Joe Soss and Sanford Schram argue that the increasingly decentralized and discretionary nature of state welfare programs allows for different treatment of racial groups, even when such policies are touted as “race-neutral.” They find that states with more blacks and Hispanics on welfare rolls are consistently more likely to impose lifetime limits, caps on benefits for mothers with children, and stricter sanctions.

The Colors of Poverty is a comprehensive and evocative introduction to the dynamics of race and inequality. The research in this landmark volume moves scholarship on inequality beyond a simple black-white paradigm, beyond the search for a single cause of poverty, and beyond the promise of one “magic bullet” solution.

ANN CHIH LIN is associate professor in the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy and Department of Political Science at the University of Michigan.

DAVID R. HARRIS is professor of sociology and deputy provost at Cornell University.

CONTRIBUTORS: Scott W. Allard, Heather E. Bullock, George Farkas, David R. Harris, Michèle Lamont, Ann Chih Lin, Selina A. Mohammed, Devah Pager, Lincoln Quillian, Rozlyn Reed, Sanford F. Schram, Mario Luis Small, Joe Soss, Michael A. Stoll, Christopher Uggen, Darren Wheelock, and David R. Williams

A Volume in the National Poverty Center Series on Poverty and Public Policy

Winner of the 2008 Thomas and Znaniecki Award from the International Migration Section of the American Sociological Association

"Ivan Light's Deflecting Immigration makes a valuable contribution, one that illuminates various trends either overlooked or left unaddressed in the standard scholarship about immigration in the United States."
-SCIENCE MAGAZINE

"Ivan Light offers a bold thesis of how local policies shape immigrant incorporation in middle-class America ... Deflecting Immigration argues immigration policy in America is implemented at the municipal, not federal level."
-DOWELL MYERS, professor of urban planning and demography, University of Southern California

"Ivan Light's Deflecting Immigration is a book of multiple and long overdue contributions to immigration research at a time when existing paradigms are reaching exhaustion ... [T]his book has filled a gap in the emerging literature on new immigrant destinations, showing that in order to explain what is happening in uncharted areas of settlement, we need to understand what is unfolding in America's premier immigrant gateway."
-RUBÉN HERNÁNDEZ-LEÓN, assistant professor of sociology, University of California, Los Angeles

"Deflecting Immigration provides a new and insightful interpretation of the reason for the growing immigrant diaspora from the coastal gateway cites of the United States ... The book is an important contribution to the debate about immigration, its intersection with local communities, and the long-term implications for the spatial redistribution of immigrants."
-WILLIAM A. V. CLARK, professor of geography, University of California, Los Angeles

As international travel became cheaper and national economies grew more connected over the past thirty years, millions of people from the Third World emigrated to richer countries. A tenth of the population of Mexico relocated to the United States between 1980 and 2000. Globalization theorists claimed that reception cities could do nothing about this trend, since nations make immigration policy, not cities. In Deflecting Immigration, sociologist Ivan Light shows how Los Angeles reduced the sustained, high-volume influx of poor Latinos who settled there by deflecting a portion of the migration to other cities in the United States. In this manner, Los Angeles tamed globalization’s local impact, and helped to nationalize what had been a regional immigration issue.

Los Angeles deflected immigration elsewhere in two ways. First, the protracted network-driven settlement of Mexicans naturally drove up rents in Mexican neighborhoods while reducing immigrants’ wages, rendering Los Angeles a less attractive place to settle. Second, as migration outstripped the city’s capacity to absorb newcomers, Los Angeles gradually became poverty-intolerant. By enforcing existing industrial, occupational, and housing ordinances, Los Angeles shut down some unwanted sweatshops and reduced slums. Their loss reduced the metropolitan region’s accessibility to poor immigrants without reducing its attractiveness to wealthier immigrants. Additionally, ordinances mandating that homes be built on minimum-sized plots of land with attached garages made home ownership in L.A.’s suburbs unaffordable for poor immigrants and prevented low-cost rental housing from being built. Local rules concerning home occupancy and yard maintenance also prevented poor immigrants from crowding together to share housing costs. Unable to find affordable housing or low-wage jobs, approximately one million Latinos were deflected from Los Angeles between 1980 and 2000.

The realities of a new global economy are still unfolding, with uncertain consequences for the future of advanced societies, but mass migration from the Third World is unlikely to stop in the next generation. Deflecting Immigration offers a shrewd analysis of how America’s largest immigrant destination independently managed the challenges posed by millions of poor immigrants and, in the process, helped focus attention on immigration as an issue of national importance.

IVAN LIGHT is professor of sociology at the University of California, Los Angeles.

"[T]his is a valuable guide to the current state of transnational research and theory, and as such should be considered essential
reading for immigration scholars."
-JOURNAL OF AMERICAN ETHNIC HISTORY

"Levitt and Waters have assembled, in this book, engaging, provocative approaches to transnationalism and the second generation that should be read by all scholars in these fields."
- CONTEMPORARY SOCIOLOGY

"In The Changing Face of Home, leading scholars integrate diverse methodologies and theoretical positions to investigate the extent to which the children of immigrants will retain ties to their families' countries of origin. Offering the best definition of the concept of transnationalism available, and drawing upon evidence collected from a wide array of brilliant case studies, it contributes significantly to our understanding of contemporary migrants' identities and behaviors. It is a must read for those who wish to keep abreast of the ways by which human movement continues to transform social life."
- STEVEN J. GOLD, Michigan State University

"This is one of these rare books that clears a wide and exciting path for future scholarship. By putting together such an impressive collection of insightful articles, Peggy Levitt and Mary C. Waters add considerable knowledge and precision to a disorderly interdisciplinary field that has attracted, and can only continue to attract, enormous interest. They and their coauthors are particularly sensitive to how transnationalism shapes definitions of personal and collective identities and imagined communities. As such, they help push the field of immigration toward a truly multidimensional understanding of the transnational lives of the second generation."
- MICHÈLE LAMONT, Princeton University

"A treasure trove anthology that includes chapters on a wide array of different immigrant groups, this book breaks new ground through comparative, nuanced analysis and searing research questions that offer readers a state-of-the-art summary while setting the stage for a new generation of scholarship. Provocative and pioneering, The Changing Face of Home shifts research on second generation immigrants in a critical new direction that will keenly interest policy makers, planners and academics alike."
- SARAH J. MAHLER, Florida International University

The children of immigrants account for the fastest growing segment of the U.S. population under eighteen years old—one out of every five children in the United States. Will this generation of immigrant children follow the path of earlier waves of immigrants and gradually assimilate into mainstream American life, or does the global nature of the contemporary world mean that the trajectory of today's immigrants will be fundamentally different? Rather than severing their ties to their home countries, many immigrants today sustain economic, political, and religious ties to their homelands, even as they work, vote, and pray in the countries that receive them. The Changing Face of Home is the first book to examine the extent to which the children of immigrants engage in such transnational practices.

Because most second generation immigrants are still young, there is much debate among immigration scholars about the extent to which these children will engage in transnational practices in the future. While the contributors to this volume find some evidence of transnationalism among the children of immigrants, they disagree over whether these activities will have any long-term effects. Part I of the volume explores how the practice and consequences of transnationalism vary among different groups. Contributors Philip Kasinitz, Mary Waters, and John Mollenkopf use findings from their large study of immigrant communities in New York City to show how both distance and politics play important roles in determining levels of transnational activity. For example, many Latin American and Caribbean immigrants are "circular migrants" spending much time in both their home countries and the United States, while Russian Jews and Chinese immigrants have far less contact of any kind with their homelands.

In Part II, the contributors comment on these findings, offering suggestions for reconceptualizing the issue and bridging analytical differences. In her chapter, Nancy Foner makes valuable comparisons with past waves of immigrants as a way of understanding the conditions that may foster or mitigate transnationalism among today's immigrants. The final set of chapters examines how home and host country value systems shape how second generation immigrants construct their identities, and the economic, social, and political communities to which they ultimately express allegiance.

The Changing Face of Home presents an important first round of research and dialogue on the activities and identities of the second generation vis-a-vis their ancestral homelands, and raises important questions for future research.

PEGGY LEVITT is assistant professor of sociology, Wellesley College.

MARY C. WATERS is professor of sociology, Harvard University.

CONTRIBUTORS: Merih Anil, Susan Eckstein, Yen Le Espiritu, Nancy Foner, Georges E. Fouron, Nina Glick-Schiller, Michael Jones-Correa, Philip Kasinitz, Nazli Kibria, Peggy Levitt, Andrea Louie, John H. Mollenkopf, Joel Perlmann, Ruben G. Rumbaut, Robert C. Smith, Thom Tran, Reed Ueda, Milton Vickerman, Mary C. Waters, and Diane L. Wolf.

Winner of the 2011 Otis Dudley Duncan Award for Outstanding Scholarship in Social Demography

“The Diversity Paradox provides much needed clarity on the complex issues of the new (and old) diversity in American society. . . . Lee and Bean provide a thorough documentation of recent demographic changes and a clear and compelling synthesis of the research literature on the new American diversity.”
–CONTEMPORARY SOCIOLOGY 

“Using an impressive arsenal of quantitative and qualitative data, Jennifer Lee and Frank Bean offer an authoritative analysis of the color line in American society, revealing a remarkable paradox at the heart of contemporary intergroup relations. . . . Their careful analysis challenges both glib assertions of a post-racial order as well as pronouncements about the immutability of America’s racial categories.”
–DOUGLAS S. MASSEY, Henry G. Bryant Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs, the Woodrow Wilson School 

“The study of multiracial identification is both timely and theoretically significant. Jennifer Lee and Frank Bean combine their distinct sensibility and nuanced sociological imagination with rigorous application of qualitative and quantitative methodologies to make a seminal contribution to research on interracial dynamics that will forever challenge our understanding of race in twenty-first century America.”
–MIN ZHOU, professor of sociology and Asian American studies, UCLA 

“Jennifer Lee and Frank D. Bean have produced a penetrating analysis of how the new immigration and a rapidly growing multiracial population have complicated America’s racial and ethnic hierarchies. Through a combination of demographic analysis and in-depth interviews, they reveal a remarkable blurring of racialized boundaries for some groups in many places, while they also detect the stubborn persistence of a color line. The Diversity Paradox challenges old notions of race and ethnicity and brings unusual clarity to understanding a changing America.”
–EDWARD TELLES, professor of sociology, Princeton University 

“Jennifer Lee and Frank Bean’s comprehensive, data-filled, and insightful analysis adds considerably to our understanding of multiracial life in America. The Diversity Paradox is a very welcome and greatly needed book, for the study of multiracials will be high on immigration, race, and ethnicity research agendas in the coming years. The book’s report about the country’s ethnoracial present and future should be of special interest to students. They will be spending their adult lives in an America marked by the paradoxical treatment of diverse nonwhite people about which Lee and Bean write.”
–HERBERT J. GANS, Robert S. Lynd Professor Emeritus of Sociology, Columbia University

African Americans grappled with Jim Crow segregation until it was legally overturned in the 1960s. In subsequent decades, the country witnessed a new wave of immigration from Asia and Latin America—forever changing the face of American society and making it more racially diverse than ever before. In The Diversity Paradox, authors Jennifer Lee and Frank Bean take these two poles of American collective identity—the legacy of slavery and immigration—and ask if today’s immigrants are destined to become racialized minorities akin to African Americans or if their incorporation into U.S. society will more closely resemble that of their European predecessors. They also tackle the vexing question of whether America’s new racial diversity is helping to erode the tenacious black/white color line.

The Diversity Paradox uses population-based analyses and in-depth interviews to examine patterns of intermarriage and multiracial identification among Asians, Latinos, and African Americans. Lee and Bean analyze where the color line—and the economic and social advantage it demarcates—is drawn today and on what side these new arrivals fall. They show that Asians and Latinos with mixed ancestry are not constrained by strict racial categories. Racial status often shifts according to situation. Individuals can choose to identify along ethnic lines or as white, and their decisions are rarely questioned by outsiders or institutions. These groups also intermarry at higher rates, which is viewed as part of the process of becoming “American” and a form of upward social mobility. African Americans, in contrast, intermarry at significantly lower rates than Asians and Latinos. Further, multiracial blacks often choose not to identify as such and are typically perceived as being black only—underscoring the stigma attached to being African American and the entrenchment of the “one-drop” rule. Asians and Latinos are successfully disengaging their national origins from the concept of race—like European immigrants before them—and these patterns are most evident in racially diverse parts of the country.

For the first time in 2000, the U.S. Census enabled multiracial Americans to identify themselves as belonging to more than one race. Eight years later, multiracial Barack Obama was elected as the 44th President of the United States. For many, these events give credibility to the claim that the death knell has been sounded for institutionalized racial exclusion. The Diversity Paradox is an extensive and eloquent examination of how contemporary immigration and the country’s new diversity are redefining the boundaries of race. The book also lays bare the powerful reality that as the old black/white color line fades a new one may well be emerging—with many African Americans still on the other side.

JENNIFER LEE is professor of sociology at the University of California, Irvine.

FRANK D. BEAN is Chancellor’s Professor of Sociology and Economics and director of the Center for Research on Immigration, Population, and Public Policy at the University of California, Irvine.

Winner of the 2010 Best Book Award from the Rationality and Society Section of the American Sociological Association

"Social Commitments in a Depersonalized World does not simply restate earlier findings but proposes a highly significant theory based on much prior research by its authors which both adds to sociological competencies and provides direction for institutional design .... The theory of social commitments outlined by Lawler, Thye, and Yoon, like all fundamental notions, is obvious once it is stated but the provision of the statement in the first place requires much effort, insight, and ingenuity."
-SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW

"Social Commitments in a Depersonalized World is one of the most important books ever< written in sociology and, indeed, the social sciences in general .... What makes this work special is that it is not yet another speculative treatise, but a very careful, micro-based analysis. At a more theoretical level, this is one of the very few works in the last half century that has addressed the issue of micro-macro linkages with a theory capable of bridging these two realms of the social universe. This is one of the most important theory books written in sociology in my forty-five years as a sociologist."
-JONATHAN TURNER, University of California, Riverside

"This important book provides a general theory of how social solidarity is created in a world of individualized and marketized transactions. The authors show how the Hobbesian problem of order is solved by emotions that tie individual to individual. Even more important for upholding larger social structure are emotional ties from individual to group that charge up meaningful categories of social identity. This kind of solidarity does not happen automatically but only in certain kinds of group structures, especially those generating contagious emotions through shared responsibility for organizational tasks. The authors provide the micro-mechanisms, which solve macro problems, thereby giving key practical advice for organizations in business and nonprofit sector alike, for social movements and even for government."
-RANDALL COLLINS, University of Pennsylvania

"Edward Lawler, Shane Thye, and Jeongkoo Yoon are to be congratulated for an original and ingenious solution to the enduring problem of cohesion in fragmented world. Their thesis is that personal interaction and the dynamics of affect are the pervasive engines in the complex journey from micro- to macro-integration. Their story is thorough, scientifically based, and compelling. I predict that the sheer power of this story will guarantee its continuing influence in the coming decades."
-NEIL J. SMELSER, University of California, Berkeley

As individuals’ ties to community organizations and the companies they work for weaken, many analysts worry that the fabric of our society is deteriorating. But others counter that new social networks, especially those forming online, create important and possibly even stronger social bonds than those of the past. In Social Commitments in a Depersonalized World, Edward Lawler, Shane Thye, and Jeongkoo Yoon examine interpersonal and group ties and propose a new theory of social commitments, showing that multiple interactions, group activities and, particularly, emotional attachment, are essential for creating and sustaining alignments between individuals and groups.

Lawler, Thye, and Yoon acknowledge that long-term social attachments have proven fragile in a volatile economy where people increasingly form transactional associations—based not on collective interest but on what will yield the most personal advantage in a society shaped by market logic. Although person-to-group bonds may have become harder to sustain, they continue to play a vital role in maintaining healthy interactions in larger social groups from companies to communities. Drawing on classical and contemporary sociology, organizational psychology, and behavioral economics, Social Commitments in a Depersonalized World shows how affiliations—particularly those that involve a profound emotional component—can transcend merely instrumental or transactional ties and can even transform these impersonal bonds into deeply personal ones.

The authors study the structures of small groups, corporations, economic transactions, and modern nation-states to determine how hierarchies, task allocation, and social identities help or hinder a group’s vitality. They find that such conditions as equal status, interdependence, and overlapping affiliations figure significantly in creating and sustaining strong person-to-group bonds. Recurring collaboration with others to achieve common goals—along with shared responsibilities and equally valued importance within an organization—promote positive and enduring feelings that enlarge a person’s experience of a group and the significance of their place within it. Employees in organizations with strong person-to-group ties experience a more unified, collective identity. They tend to work more cost effectively, meet company expectations, and better regulate their own productivity and behavior.

The authors make clear that the principles of their theory have implications beyond business. With cultures pulling apart and crashing together like tectonic plates, much depends on our ability to work collectively across racial, cultural, and political divides. The new theory in Social Commitments in a Depersonalized World provides a way of thinking about how groups form and what it takes to sustain them in the modern world.

EDWARD J. LAWLER is Martin P. Catherwood Professor of Industrial and Labor Relations and professor of sociology at Cornell Univeristy.

SHANE R. THYE is professor of sociology at the University of South Carolina.

JEONGKOO YOON is professor of business administration at the Ewha University, South Korea.

"Annette Lareau and Dalton Conley have brought together an outstanding group of scholars who have written thoughtful and original articles on conceptions of social class as applied to education, politics, health, identity, family, gender inequality, and urban life. Social Class is an important book that will become a standard reference for those interested in a more sophisticated understanding of the workings of social class in daily life."
-WILLIAM JULIUS WILSON, Harvard University

"In a time of large income inequalities and high college tuitions, it is natural to ask whether social class is becoming an increasingly important feature in American life. Social Class: How Does It Work? provides the theory, data, and range of scholarly views needed to address this question."
- FRANK LEVY, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

"For years to come, Social Class will feed an as of yet too infrequent dialogue between experts who draw on qualitative and quantitative data to advance the study of inequality. In their frontier research, contributors develop an empirically-based definition of class, study new manifestations of class inequality, analyze how it intersects racial and gender inequality, specify mechanisms of class reproduction, and definitely put to rest the view that class does not matter. In doing so, this first-rate collection moves us toward a more integrated under- standing of the cultural and structural determinants and manifestations of inequality."
-MICHÈLE LAMONT, Harvard University

Class differences permeate the neighborhoods, classrooms, and workplaces where we lead our daily lives. But little is known about how class really works, and its importance is often downplayed or denied. In this important new volume, leading sociologists systematically examine how social class operates in the United States today. Social Class argues against the view that we are becoming a classless society. The authors show instead the decisive ways social class matters—from how long people live, to how they raise their children, to how they vote.

The distinguished contributors to Social Class examine how class works in a variety of domains including politics, health, education, gender, and the family. Michael Hout shows that class membership remains an integral part of identity in the U.S.—in two large national surveys, over 97 percent of Americans, when prompted, identify themselves with a particular class. Dalton Conley identifies an intangible but crucial source of class difference that he calls the “opportunity horizon”—children form aspirations based on what they have seen is possible. The best predictor of earning a college degree isn’t race, income, or even parental occupation—it is, rather, the level of education that one’s parents achieved. Annette Lareau and Elliot Weininger find that parental involvement in the college application process, which significantly contributes to student success, is overwhelmingly a middle-class phenomenon. David Grusky and Kim Weeden introduce a new model for measuring inequality that allows researchers to assess not just the extent of inequality, but also whether it is taking on a more polarized, class-based form. John Goldthorpe and Michelle Jackson examine the academic careers of students in three social classes and find that poorly performing students from high-status families do much better in many instances than talented students from less-advantaged families. Erik Olin Wright critically assesses the emphasis on individual life chances in many studies of class and calls for a more structural conception of class. In an epilogue, journalists Ray Suarez, Janny Scott, and Roger Hodge reflect on the media’s failure to report hardening class lines in the United States, even when images on the nightly news—such as those involving health, crime, or immigration—are profoundly shaped by issues of class.

Until now, class scholarship has been highly specialized, with researchers working on only one part of a larger puzzle. Social Class gathers the most current research in one volume, and persuasively illustrates that class remains a powerful force in American society.

ANNETTE LAREAU is professor of sociology at University of Maryland, College Park.

DALTON CONLEY is University Professor at New York University.

CONTRIBUTORS:  Clem Brooks, Richard M. Carpiano, John Goldthorpe, David B. Grusky,  Angel L. Harris, Roger D. Hodge,  Michael Hout,  Michelle Jackson,  Kathryn Lacy, Bruce G. Link,  Jeff Manza,  Leslie McCall,  Mary Pattillo,  Jo C. Phelan,  Janny Scott,  Ray Suarez,  Kim A. Weeden, Elliot B. Weininger, Erik Olin Wright.