Week 1 Readings -- only from textbook.  See review questions.
Week 2 Additional Readings

Item #1  These short opinion pieces by Freeman, Piven, Krugman and Cortes show some more nuanced approaches to how to think about the growing income disparity in America.  Be able to summarize the main points of each person, and see if you can categorize these people in terms of their general orientation toward inequality, how they would respond to other theorists discussed in class and in your textbook.

This exchange between Richard Freeman (a Harvard economist) and several other well known economists and sociologists will acquaint you with the current concerns about growing inequality in the United States.   In each person’s argument, see if you can detect the degree to which she or he regards inequality and its extent as inevitable, necessary, good, bad, etc.  You would do well to outline the basic arguments of each person in the debate and be able later in the course (either in a writing assignment or exam situation) to communicate confidently about these issues and to know who said what.

Note:  Online you will find that other people responded to Freeman’s ideas also, but you will only be responsible for knowing how Piven, Krugman, and Cortes responded.

Item #2   Immigrant's Progress is an article that uses publicly available census data to show variation in the attainment process of people who immigrated to America in the second half of the 20th century.

We will discuss the tables in class, but you should know the main arguments of the author.  In particular, ask yourself what this article accomplishes in terms of adding any knowledge to casual and formal debates that you could imagine people having about how America is a land of great opportunity.  Think in terms of different push and pull factors that brought certain groups of immigrants here, and about gender differences in attainment among nationalities.

Item #3  (handed out in class)     NY Times article by Johnston

This newspaper article reports on a certain kind of data.  What is in this article that speaks to ongoing concern about the gender gap in earnings, income, and wealth?  What important things does it alert us to think about?

Item #4 (not in packet, but available on line at following location):
        Brooks-Gunn, Jeanne and Greg J. Duncan. 1997. "The Effects of Poverty on Children." The Future of Children:
            Children and Poverty 7(2):55-71.
        URL: http://www.futureofchildren.org/usr_doc/vol7no2ART4%2Epdf

    What are the most important central findings, and major claims, that these authors make about the effects of poverty on children?     
    What do these effects suggest to us about:
        a)  the value of trying through public policy to reduce child poverty?
        b)  the theoretical issue of why poverty can be handed from one generation to the next?

Item #5 in packet  "Rich Kids/Poor Kids"

We will devote class time to discussing this article at some length.  It alerts us to historical changes, demography, decline of marriage, and racial differences in how children and their families have experienced an increase in income disparities.  You will need to nominally 
understand how the analyses should be interreted; that is, how to read the tables.

Item #6 in packet   Brown Collar Occupations

This academic article revisits the issue of immigrants, but it addresses a slightly different issue that can help us be more precise in our discussions of (a) variation in stratification processes within minority groups and (b) structural processes that influence whole groups, apart from individual differences in human capital.  How does this article accomplish “a” and “b” and what does the author conclude?

Item #7 Home Ownership and Child Outcomes

Item # 8 Home Ownership and Inequality