The American Class Structure in an Age of Growing Inequality

New edition - now published by SAGE's Pine Forge Press

New Table of Contents with new page numbers is available by clicking 'Sample Materials and Chapters' at left to help with syllabus updates.

The Seventh Edition of The American Class Structure in an Age of Growing Inequality is a current, concise treatment of America’s ever-changing class structure. Author Dennis Gilbert asks a deceptively simple question: Why is social inequality in America increasing? This question is answered through discussion of nine key variables and the best historical and contemporary empirical studies of class inequality in American society, providing students with a broad overview of this social issue.

With fresh data on income, wealth, earnings, residential segregation by income, and other topics, The American Class Structure describes a consistent pattern of growing inequality in the United States since the early 1970s. Focusing on the socioeconomic core of the American class system, Gilbert addresses why class and inequality disparities are ever increasing by examining changes in the economy, family life, and politics in search of an answer-with a praised writing style that readily draws students into the debate.

New to This Edition!

• Boasts updated data on income, wealth, earnings, occupation, poverty, class segregation in residential patterns, and politics to provide the most current material on social mobility
• Features a new section on Bourdieu and coverage of Lareau’s new research on child rearing
• Provides updates in nearly every chapter, including current research on marriage patterns and a 10-year assessment of the 1996 welfare reform and its effects
• Presents an analysis of data on intergenerational occupational mobility from the 1970s to 2004 that shows the increase in downward mobility and a corresponding decrease in upward mobility
• Includes first-person accounts from the PBS documentary People Like Us in the chapter about position and prestige to illustrate vividly the human emotion wrapped up in class issues
• Incorporates a revised glossary

Instructor Resources on CD are available to qualified instructors (contact Customer Care at 1-800-818-7243 or info@sagepub.com)

Intended Audience
This unique text is ideal for Social Stratification, Social Class, or Social Inequality courses in departments of sociology.

Dennis Gilbert is a professor of Sociology at Hamilton College His primary research interests are Latin American and American class system. Gilbert is the author of The American Class Structure in an Age of Growing Inequality (Sage, 2008), Mexico's Middle Class in the Neoliberal Era (University of Arizona Press, 2007), Sandinistas: the Party and the Revolution (Blackwell, 1988), and La Oligarquía Peruana: Historia de Tres familias (Horizonte, 1982). In 1990, he was research director to the successful congressional campaign of Bernard Sanders (Independent-VT) and later served as legislative assistant in Representative Sanders' congressional office. At Hamilton, Gilbert teaches a course on public opinion polling. In collaboration with the polling firm Zogby International, Gilbert and his students have conducted a series of widely reported national surveys, most examining the views of high school students, on such topics as gun control, gay rights, abortion, Muslims in America and patriotism.