Getting Real About Inequality: Intersectionality in Real Life

Getting Real About Inequality is a contributed reader for undergraduate courses in Race/Class/Gender, Social Inequality, or the Social Construction of Difference and Inequality. It gives instructors in these courses a set of materials to help them moderate civil,  productive, and social science-based discussions with their students about social statuses and identities. Like the book it is modeled after, Getting Real About Race, it is organized around myths and stereotypes that students might already believe or be familiar with through the media or popular culture. A panel of expert contributors were enlisted to write short, accessible essays address the same questions (What is the myth or stereotype under investigation? How do we know that the myth or stereotype is widespread? What does the empirical data tell us?) and  provide the same pedagogical features (a summary of the research data, discussion questions, suggestions for further study, suggested activities and assignments). All of pieces in the book employ an intersectional perspective, to help students see the nuanced mechanisms of power and inequality that are often lost in everyday discourse.

Stephanie M. McClure is a professor of sociology at Georgia College. She teaches classes on racial stratification, social theory, and the sociology of education. Her research interests are in the area of higher education, with a focus on college student persistence and retention across race, class, and gender, and a special emphasis on post-college student experiences that increase student social and academic integration. She has published in the Journal of Higher Education, Symbolic Interaction, and the Journal of African American Studies.