Claudia Strauss

Claudia Strauss, associate professor of anthropology at Pitzer College, will spend the fall semester at Russell Sage writing a book that examines the cultural assumptions and values that inform Americans' ideas of social justice. Relying on in-depth interviews with a racially and economically diverse sample from two Southern communities, Strauss will examine attitudes about immigration, sexual morality, and the government's role in providing social goods, such as food, housing, health care, welfare, higher education, and paid vacations. Preliminary findings show that beneath respondents' superficial support for minimal social provision (i.e., rigorous capitalism), a majority feels that a deserving individual should be rewarded by the state and not simply by the market.