Winner of the Midwest Sociological Society's 2018 Distinguished Book Award 

Honorable Mention for the 2017 Distinguished Book Award from the Sociology of Law Section of the American Sociological Association

Honorable Mention for the 2017 Max Weber Award for Distinguished Scholarship from the Organizations, Occupations, and Work Section of the American Sociological Association

“Engines of Anxiety is essential reading for anyone involved in legal education or considering a career in law. In this meticulously researched book, Wendy Espeland and Michael Sauder show how media rankings have profound and harmful effects  on  how  administrators  admit  students,  deans  allocate  resources, and employers select applicants. The book’s powerful take-away is that, if law school was once  an  equalizer,  offering  a  gateway  to  career  opportunities  and  social  advancement  for  people  of  modest means, today it serves to entrench the wealth inequality and status hierarchy that permeate American society.”

—Tanina Rostain, Professor of Law, Georgetown University Law Center

“This splendid book unmasks the power of ostensibly objective rankings, showing how metrics create social hierarchies. Even though our collective enthusiasm for rankings seems closely tethered to America’s populist yearnings, scholars and consumers alike will be staggered at Wendy Espeland and Michael Sauder’s superb analysis of how profoundly transformative these metrics have become.”

—Walter W. Powell, Professor of Education and (by courtesy) Sociology, Organizational Behavior,Management Science and Engineering, Communication, and Public Policy, Stanford University

“Engines of Anxiety is one of these rare books that will profoundly reshape how we think of contemporary higher education and organizational life more generally. Wendy Espeland and Michael Sauder provide a magisterial demonstration of how the quantification of performance is revolutionizing our world on so many dimensions. Their book is a ‘must-read’ for anyone concerned with some of the most important questions we face in our hyper-competitive world, namely: what is success, how can we achieve it, and how can we insure that multiple forms of excellence continue to flourish side by side.”

—Michèle Lamont, Robert I. Goldman Professor of European Studies, Professor of Sociology and African and African-American Studies, Harvard University

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.

Engines of Anxiety tracks how rankings, such as those published annually by the U.S. News & World Report, permeate every aspect of legal education, beginning with the admissions process. The authors find that prospective law students not only rely heavily on such rankings to evaluate school quality, but also internalize rankings as expressions of their own abilities and flaws. For example, they often view rejections from “first-tier” schools as a sign of personal failure. The rankings also affect the decisions of admissions officers, who try to balance admitting diverse classes with preserving the school’s ranking, which is dependent on factors such as the median LSAT score of the entering class. Espeland and Sauder find that law schools face pressure to admit applicants with high test scores over lower-scoring candidates who possess other favorable credentials.

Engines of Anxiety also reveals how rankings have influenced law schools’ career service departments. Because graduates’ job placements play a major role in the rankings, many institutions have shifted their career-services resources toward tracking placements, and away from counseling and network-building. In turn, law firms regularly use school rankings to recruit and screen job candidates, perpetuating a cycle in which highly ranked schools enjoy increasing prestige. As a result, the rankings create and reinforce a rigid hierarchy that penalizes lower-tier schools that do not conform to the restrictive standards used in the rankings. The authors show that as law schools compete to improve their rankings, their programs become more homogenized and less accessible to non-traditional students.

The ranking system is considered a valuable resource for learning about more than 200 law schools. Yet, Engines of Anxiety shows that the drive to increase a school’s rankings has negative consequences for students, educators, and administrators and has implications for all educational programs that are quantified in similar ways.

Wendy Nelson Espeland is professor of sociology at Northwestern University.

Michael Sauder is associate professor of sociology at the University of Iowa.

“At a time of increasing diversity and inequality in U.S. society, understanding inequality in college graduation is more important than ever. With unique data and a nuanced understanding of the college attainment process, Charles Hirschman offers new insights on how inequality is generated and how greater equity may be pursued.”

—ADAM GAMORAN, president, William T. Grant Foundation

“Charles Hirschman takes on one of the most vexing questions in American social stratification—why have rates of college completion stagnated for the last few decades? And why do traits like ethnicity and race and gender continue to shape young people’s educational attainment? This masterful study of 10,000 students provides a sophisticated and rigorous examination of the college pathways of young Americans. From High School to College teases out the effects of immigrant generation, parental social class, and cultural variables to explain why men and some racial and ethnic minorities have fallen behind. This welcome addition to our knowledge of why some children succeed in getting a college education should be required reading for policy makers, social scientists, and everyone concerned with America’s educational inequalities.”

—MARY C. WATERS, M.E. Zukerman Professor of Sociology, Harvard University

“Charles Hirschman has ably extended the conditional educational transition model of Robert Mare and combined it with the insights of William Sewell and his colleagues in a comprehensive and intensive analysis of college aspirations, preparation, and attainment. Beginning with a simple, five-step model of the post-high school educational process, From High School to College addresses the influences of socioeconomic background, gender, academic performance, social influences, culture, work, and social participation in the high school years. The ethnic heterogeneity of Hirschman’s Washington State sample and an embedded experiment in support for low-income students add dimensions to the analysis that amplify its implications for educational policy and practice.”

—ROBERT M. HAUSER, executive director, Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education, National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine

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.

Hirschman finds that although there are few gender, racial, or immigration-related disparities in students’ aspirations to attend and complete college, certain groups succeed at the highest rates. For example, he finds that women achieve better high school grades and report receiving more support and encouragement from family, peers, and educators. They tend to outperform men in terms of preparing for college, enrolling in college within a year of finishing high school, and completing a degree. Similarly, second-generation immigrants are better prepared for college than first-generation immigrants, in part because they do not have to face language barriers or learn how to navigate the American educational system.

Hirschman also documents that racial disparities in college graduation rates remain stark. In his sample, 35 percent of white students graduated from college within seven years of completing high school, compared to only 19 percent of black students and 18 percent of Hispanic students. Students’ socioeconomic origins—including parental education and employment, home ownership, and family structure—account for most of the college graduation gap between disadvantaged minorities and white students. Further, while a few Asian ethnic groups have achieved college completion rates on par with whites, such as Chinese and Koreans, others, whose socioeconomic origins more resemble those of black and Hispanic students, such as Filipinos and Cambodians, also lag behind in preparedness, enrollment, and graduation from college.

With a growing number of young adults seeking college degrees, understanding the barriers that different students encounter provides vital information for social scientists and educators. From High School to College illuminates how gender, immigration, and ethnicity influence the path to college graduation.

CHARLES HIRSCHMAN is Boeing International Professor in the Department of Sociology and the Daniel J. Evans School of Public Policy and Governance at the University of Washington.

Winner of the 2017 William T. Goode Distinguished Book Award from the Family Section of the American Sociological Association

2017 Choice Outstanding Academic Title 

“Tracing the journeys to adulthood of 150 impoverished kids from inner-city Baltimore, this powerful book illuminates the importance of both neighborhood and personal identity. These kids are our kids too, and this book helps us understand their lives more fully.”

—ROBERT D. PUTNAM, Peter and Isabel Malkin Professor of Public Policy, Harvard University

“Stefanie DeLuca, Susan Clampet-Lundquist, and Kathryn Edin have written a deeply empathetic and insightful book providing a nuanced portrait of the tremendous resilience and untapped potential of low-income minority youth attempting to pursue the American Dream in the face of profound neighborhood and educational disadvantages in the other America. Their analysis suggests large gains from housing mobility and community development policies to improve the neighborhood environments experienced by disadvantaged children and youth.”

—LAWRENCE F. KATZ, Elisabeth Allison Professor of Economics, Harvard University

“Coming of Age in the Other America tells the complex story of becoming an adult today in cities like Baltimore, where opportunities for youth are extremely limited. In contrast to stereotypes about minority inner-city adolescents, many of these resilient youth escaped the pull of the streets andachieved far more than their own parents. Yet, given the myriad of barriers that they face, too many others fall short of their potential. The account is heartwarming and heartbreaking at the same time. Anyone who wishes to understand how and why the path to adulthood is constrained for youth in our cities today must read this remarkable book. Coming of Age in the Other America is riveting, distressing, and uplifting all at once.”

—JEANNE BROOKS-GUNN, Virginia and Leonard Marx Professor of Child Development, Teachers College and College of Physicians and Surgeons

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 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.

Coming of Age in the Other America illuminates the profound effects of neighborhoods on impoverished families. The authors conducted in-depth interviews and fieldwork with 150 young adults, and found that those who had been able to move to better neighborhoods—either as part of the Moving to Opportunity program or by other means—achieved much higher rates of high school completion and college enrollment than their parents. About half the youth surveyed reported being motivated by an “identity project”—or a strong passion such as music, art, or a dream job—to finish school and build a career.

Yet the authors also found troubling evidence that some of the most promising young adults often fell short of their goals and remained mired in poverty. Factors such as neighborhood violence and family trauma put these youth on expedited paths to adulthood, forcing them to shorten or end their schooling and find jobs much earlier than their middle-class counterparts. Weak labor markets and subpar postsecondary educational institutions, including exploitative for-profit trade schools and under-funded community colleges, saddle some young adults with debt and trap them in low-wage jobs. A third of the youth surveyed—particularly those who had not developed identity projects—were neither employed nor in school. To address these barriers to success, the authors recommend initiatives that help transform poor neighborhoods and provide institutional support for the identity projects that motivate youth to stay in school. They propose increased regulation of for-profit schools and increased college resources for low-income high school students.

Coming of Age in the Other America presents a sensitive, nuanced account of how a generation of ambitious but underprivileged young Baltimoreans has struggled to succeed. It both challenges long-held myths about inner-city youth and shows how the process of “social reproduction”—where children end up stuck in the same place as their parents—is far from inevitable.

STEFANIE DELUCA is associate professor of sociology at Johns Hopkins University.

SUSAN CLAMPET-LUNDQUIST is associate professor of sociology at Saint Joseph’s University.

KATHRYN EDIN is Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of Sociology at Johns Hopkins University.

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

“A Pound of Flesh is a critical and timely book on a great contemporary American injustice: the imposition of legal fines and fees through the criminal courts. Alexes Harris’ pioneering research documents the widespread practice of charging fines and fees to people who have contact with the criminal justice system—including some who are never convicted of a crime. The imposition of fines and fees creates a two-tiered legal system that separates those who have the ability to pay from those who don’t. Through careful fieldwork and revealing interviews, Harris shows how judges and court clerks use fines and fees to punish poor people in unequal and enduring ways. Even small amounts of legal debt can be insurmountable obstacles for people living on the margins. A Pound of Flesh is a revolutionary book that has already made an impact on the national policy conversation. It provides an eye-opening account of how the American legal system shapes inequality and how inequality impacts access to justice.”

—Becky Pettit, professor of sociology, The University of Texas at Austin

“A Pound of Flesh is a rich and disturbing account of the new administrative penology that has seeped into every corner of contemporary criminal justice. Alexes Harris uses a full analytic toolkit to show the structure of legal financial obligations that have eclipsed the traditional adjudication role of the courts. Everyone pays, both the guilty and the innocent. Her chilling account reveals the strong embrace of these fines and fees—a regime of defendant taxation—in the everyday culture of criminal justice. Harris sounds an alarm for those who place the principles of due process above the power of the administrative state.”

—Jeffrey Fagan, Isidor and Seville Sulzbacher Professor of Law, Columbia Law School

“Until recently, monetary sanctions remained a largely hidden element of the criminal justice system. Alexes Harris exposes the costs and consequences of these sanctions through a detailed and far-reaching examination. Drawing on legal precedent, state practices, and in-depth interviews, Harris uncovers the unique penalties faced by the poor in encounters with the criminal justice system, as unpayable legal debt becomes a source of permanent punishment. A Pound of Flesh is a must read for those interested in punishment and inequality in America.”

—Devah Pager, professor of sociology and public policy,John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University

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.

Harris draws from extensive sentencing data, legal documents, observations of court hearings, and interviews with defendants, judges, prosecutors, and other court officials. She documents how low-income defendants are affected by monetary sanctions, which include fees for public defenders and a variety of processing charges. Until these debts are paid in full, individuals remain under judicial supervision, subject to court summons, warrants, and jail stays. As a result of interest and surcharges that accumulate on unpaid financial penalties, these monetary sanctions often become insurmountable legal debts which many offenders carry for the remainder of their lives. Harris finds that such fiscal sentences, which are imposed disproportionately on low-income minorities, help create a permanent economic underclass and deepen social stratification.

A Pound of Flesh delves into the court practices of five counties in Washington State to illustrate the ways in which subjective sentencing shapes the practice of monetary sanctions. Judges and court clerks hold a considerable degree of discretion in the sentencing and monitoring of monetary sanctions and rely on individual values—such as personal responsibility, meritocracy, and paternalism—to determine how much and when offenders should pay. Harris shows that monetary sanctions are imposed at different rates across jurisdictions, with little or no state government oversight. Local officials’ reliance on their own values and beliefs can also push offenders further into debt—for example, when judges charge defendants who lack the means to pay their fines with contempt of court and penalize them with additional fines or jail time.

A Pound of Flesh provides a timely examination of how monetary sanctions permanently bind poor offenders to the judicial system. Harris concludes that in letting monetary sanctions go unchecked, we have created a two-tiered legal system that imposes additional burdens on already-marginalized groups.

ALEXES HARRIS is associate professor of sociology at the University of Washington.