Below is a first look at new and forthcoming books from the Foundation for Spring 2016. The list includes A Pound of Flesh, a new investigation of how monetary sanctions disproportionately punish the poor and perpetuate racial and economic inequality; Coming of Age in the Other America, a study of how neighborhoods and public policies affect the social mobility of low-income Baltimore youth; From High School to College, an analysis of how disparities across race, gender, and immigration status influence students’ paths to college completion; and Engines of Anxiety, an in-depth look at how law school rankings are reshaping legal education.

Three new issues of RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences will also be released this spring, and include “Higher Education Effectiveness,” which investigates the extent to which colleges and universities today are accessible, cost-effective, and able to prepare students for the labor market; “Inequality of Economic Opportunity”, which examines the barriers to social mobility that exist in the U.S.; and “Immigrants Inside Politics/Outside Culture,” which draws from a recent survey of the Latino population to analyze the political activity of both native-born and immigrant Latinos, including the undocumented.

To request a printed copy of our Spring 2016 catalog, please contact Bruce Thongsack at bruce@rsage.org, or view the complete list of RSF books on our publications page.

A Pound of Flesh: Monetary Sanctions as Punishment for the Poor
By Alexes Harris

Over seven million Americans are either incarcerated, on probation, or on parole, with their criminal records often following them for life and affecting access to higher education, jobs, and housing. Court-ordered monetary sanctions that compel criminal defendants to pay fines, fees, surcharges, and restitution further inhibit their ability to reenter society. In A Pound of Flesh, sociologist Alexes Harris analyzes the rise of monetary sanctions in the criminal justice system and shows how they permanently penalize and marginalize the poor. She exposes the damaging effects of a little-understood component of criminal sentencing and shows how it further perpetuates racial and economic inequality. Read more

Coming of Age in the Other America
By Stefanie DeLuca, Susan Clampet-Lundquist, and Kathryn Edin

Recent research on inequality and poverty has shown that those born into low-income families, especially African Americans, still have difficulty entering the middle class, in part because of the disadvantages of they experience living in more dangerous neighborhoods, going to inferior public schools, and persistent racial inequality. Coming of Age in the Other America shows that despite overwhelming odds, some disadvantaged urban youth do achieve upward mobility. Drawing from ten years of fieldwork with parents and children who resided in Baltimore public housing, sociologists Stefanie DeLuca, Susan Clampet-Lundquist, and Kathryn Edin highlight the remarkable resiliency of some of the youth who hailed from the nation’s poorest neighborhoods and show how the right public policies might help break the cycle of disadvantage. Read more

From High School to College: Gender, Immigrant Generation, and Race-Ethnicity
By Charles Hirschman

Today, over 75 percent of high school seniors aspire to graduate from college. However, only one-third of Americans hold a bachelor’s degree, and college graduation rates vary significantly by race/ethnicity and parental socioeconomic status. If most young adults aspire to obtain a college degree, why are these disparities so great? In From High School to College, Charles Hirschman analyzes the period between leaving high school and completing college for nearly 10,000 public and private school students across the Pacific Northwest and illuminates how gender, ethnicity, and immigration status all influence the path to college graduation. Read more

Engines of Anxiety: Academic Rankings, Reputation, and Accountability
By Wendy Nelson Espeland and Michael Sauder

Students and the public routinely consult various published college rankings to assess the quality of colleges and universities and easily compare different schools. However, many institutions have responded to the rankings in ways that benefit neither the schools nor their students. In Engines of Anxiety, sociologists Wendy Espeland and Michael Sauder delve deep into the mechanisms of law school rankings, which have become a top priority within legal education. Based on a wealth of observational data and over 200 in-depth interviews with law students, university deans, and other administrators, they show how the scramble for high rankings has affected the missions and practices of many law schools. Read more