Understanding Social Inequality

Chapter 1: Introduction Chapter 2: Modernity, Postmodernity and Globalization The end of certainty The Enlightenment 'project', modernity and postmodernity Globalization Models of globalization Globalization and migration Chapter 3: The Collar Line and Urban Boundaries Collars and classes Work and stratification in post-war Britain Class theory in British post-war sociology The Marxist response to sociology Urban boundaries Chapter 4: The Aftermath of Affluence Dual labour markets Marxism and the labour process Restructuring and the collapse of work The new space economy Emerging spatial divisions of labour and capitalist transformations Whatever happened to the collar line? Chapter 5: New Spatial and Social Divisions of Labour World cities Los Angeles and the 'LA School' Social polarization Gentrification and the urban-seeking middle classes The ghetto and the urban underclass Methodology and urban social polarization Chapter 6: Poverty, Social Exclusion and the Welfare State Welfare state regimes Poverty and social exclusion Poverty in the United States Poverty and social exclusion in Britain Poverty and social exclusion in Europe Towards a liberal welfare convergence? Chapter 7: New Work and New Workers New work Fast food workers - flipping burgers in the globally branded restaurant Call centres - taking calls in the interactive service factory Paid domestic workers - caring and cleaning in global cities Cash-in-hand jobs - informal work in marginal localities Young people - working and playing in a restructured region Chapter 8: Class Identity Class interests From class consciousness to class identity The French connection - Bourdieu Debating class identity Identity and organization

This is a book that should be read by anyone interested in class, inequality, poverty and politics. Actually, probably more importantly it should be read by people who think that those things do not matter! It provides a wonderful summation of the huge amount of work on these topics that now exists and it also offers its own distinctive perspectives on a set of issues that are - despite the claims of some influential commentators - still central to the sociological enterprise and, indeed to political life. -- Roger Burrows With theoretical ease and the use of telling examples, Butler and Watt offer a clear and compelling analysis of the dynamics of social and spatial inequality in an era of globalisation. This is an invaluable resource for students and scholars in sociology, human geography and the social sciences more generally. -- Gary Bridge