INEQUALITY HOME PAGE

****See first of the New Education Readings Below at Week 9.

See Syllabus immediately below, and additional assignments will be posted below as they become available.

Inequality: Class, Race, and Gender
Sociology 322
Fall 2004

Instructor: Dr. Cynthia M. Hewitt Email: chewitt@morehouse.edu
Office: Sale Hall Annex Office Hours: Mon. 3-5; Wed./Fri. 10-11.

Course Website: http://facstaff.morehouse.edu/~chewitt/ or enter via CampusConnex.

Course Goals

This course will encourage you to think and study about the fundamental deep structures into which people are born and navigate their lives, resulting in social positions characterized as poor or rich, powerful or oppressed, honored or despised, and all gradations in between. We look at what factors impact group and individual earnings, wealth, occupation, prestige and respect in society, and how this social structure is changing, or can be changed, particularly focusing on issues of class, race, gender, and nationality. Facts about inequality are presented primarily through looking at the research of various social scientists, and theories for why these findings occur are summarized. The class is then encouraged to evaluate the explanations and reach their own conclusions. This course covers both the contemporary situation and trends, and the historical context which is necessary to achieve a full understanding. The focus is on U.S. society, however, it can best be understood within a larger world historic context of global inequality.

Required Readings:
Melvin Oliver and Thomas Shapiro, Black Wealth/White Wealth
Robert Reich, The Work of Nations

Selected readings available on this website (see highlighted links)or in the reading packet at the copy center.

Recommended Readings:
Denny Braun, The Rich Get Richer

Course Requirements:

The primary requirement for this course is to read the materials and be prepared to discuss them. Extra credit is given for those who miss no more than three (3) classes in the semester (2 points on the final grade).

1. Midterm and Final exams. The final focuses on the latter half but include material from the entire course. Midterm is 20% and Final is 30% of the course grade.
2. Five (5) pop-quizzes to encourage keeping up with the reading. The lowest score will be dropped. Twenty percent of final grade.
3. Write two (2) Response Papers from the readings list below. These must be five (5) pages in length and include reference to two other sources for comparison and discussion. Fifteen percent each.

Course Schedule

8/25-27 Week 1: Earning and Deserving: The Idea of Meritocracy

Marconis Text: Ch 10, Inequality
Fu-Kiau, “African Cosmology of the Bantu-Kongo”

8/30-9/3 Week 2: Earning and Deserving (Continued)

Marconis Text: Ch. 12, Global Inequality
Davis and Moore, “The Functions of Stratification”

9/6-10 Week 3: Evolution of Social Stratification Structures: Class and Race

Labor Day
The Marx-Engels Reader, Karl Marx, Capital, “The So-Called Primitive
Accumulation”, pp. 431-438; and,
“The Manifesto of the Communist Party,” pp. 473-491.
Cheikh Anta Diop, Civilization or Barbarism, Ch. 5-8
FIRST WRITING ASSIGNMENT or QUIZ

9/13-17 Week 4: : Evolution of Social Stratification Structures: Race and Gender
Oliver Cox, “The Progress of Race Relations”
Maria Mies, Patriarchy and Accumulation on a World Scale,” Chapter 2 and Chapter 3.

9/20-24 Week 5: Power: Nation, Politics and Ownership

Tilly, State Building as a Form of Racketeering
Gransci, and Hegemony
Block, “The Ruling Class Does Not Rule”
Sheila Henry, “Ethnic Identity, Nationalism, and International Stratification, the Case of the African American”
Recommended: Bloch, and the Church

9/27-10/1 Week 6: The Modern World-System

Denny Braun, The Rich Get Richer
Shannon on Wallerstein and World-Systems Theory
Wallerstein, Ch. 2, The New International Division of Labor
SECOND WRITING ASSIGNMENT

10/4-10/8 Week 7: What is Capitalism?

Karl Marx, “Wage Labour and Capital”
Ross and Trachte, Crisis Theory and Tools for Analysis
Recommended:
Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation, “The Fictitious Commodities”

10/11-15 Week 8: MIDTERM

10/18-22 Week 9: What is Socialism?

New Education Readings: "Reconnecting Black males to Higher Education," by Clayton, Hewitt and Gafney

Gosta Esping-Anderson, The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism, pp. 1-54.
John McMurtry, Unequal Freedoms, Introduction, pp. 5-37.
Ana Julia Jatar-Hausmann, The Cuban Way, “Understanding Salaires in Cuba,”
pp. 113-115,
Readings on Venezuela.

10/25-10/29 Week 10: The Dimensions of Class

Eric Olin Wright, “Classes”
Thomas Boston, Race, Class, and Conservatism, Ch. 1

11/1-5 Week 11: Social Class, Status and Consumerism

Max Weber, “Class, Status, Power,” “Open and Closed Relationships”
Thorstein Veblen, “The Theory of the Leisure Class”
Baran and Sweezy, Monopoly Capitalism, “The Sales Effort”

Recommended:
Juliet Schor, The Overspent American
Pierre Bourdieu, “Distinction”
Papers on conspicuous consumption and consumerism

11/8-12 Week 12: Wealth and Income

Oliver and Shapiro, Black Wealth/White Wealth, Intro, Chs. 6&7 (70 pgs.)

11/15-19 Week 13: The Middle-Class

Marconis Text, Ch. 11, “Social Class in the United States”
Robert Reich, The Wealth of Nations, Part I & II

11/22-26 Week 14: The Middle-Class Continued…

Robert Reich, The Wealth of Nations, Part III & IV
Waitress article (handout)
Thanksgiving Break.

12/29-1 Week 15: Summary

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