What's Class Got to Do with It?: American Society in the Twenty-first Century

Front Cover
Michael Zweig
Cornell University Press, 2004 - Business & Economics - 211 pages

"Whether in regard to the economy or issues of war and peace, class is central to our everyday lives. Yet class has not been as visible as race or gender, not nearly as much a part of our conversations and sense of ourselves as these and other 'identities.' We are of course all individuals, but our individuality and personal life chances are shaped--limited or enhanced--by the economic and social class in which we have grown up and in which we exist as adults."--from the IntroductionThe contributors to this volume argue that class identity in the United States has been hidden for too long. Their essays, published here for the first time, cover the relation of class to race and gender, to globalization and public policy, and to the lives of young adults. They describe how class, defined in terms of economic and political power rather than income, is in fact central to Americans' everyday lives. What's Class Got to Do with It? is an important resource for the new field of working class studies.

 

Contents

The Mosaic of Class Race and Gender
19
How Race Enters Class in the United States
35
Class in a Global Economy
61
and Its Aftermath through the Lens of Class
77
How Class Analysis Clarifies
94
Class and Working People
111
Economic Crisis the Working Class and Organized Labor
125
Class and Young Adults
141
Working Class Students and Higher Education
161
Notes
185
List of Contributors
201
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About the author (2004)

Michael Zweig is a professor of economics and director of the Center for Study of Working Class Life at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, where he has received the SUNY Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Teaching. He is active in his union, United University Professions (AFT Local 2190), representing 35,000 faculty and professional staff throughout SUNY and has been elected to two terms on its state executive board. His earlier books include What's Class Got to Do with It?: American Society in the Twenty-first Century, Religion and Economic Justice, and The Idea of a World University.

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