{"title":"Rank, M., Eppard, L., and Bullock, H. (2021) Poorly Understood: What America Gets Wrong About Poverty. Oxford University Press","authors":"Ryan S. Pettengill","doi":"10.13001/jwcs.v6i2.6845","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.13001/jwcs.v6i2.6845","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":258091,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Working-Class Studies","volume":"32 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127073405","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Lawrence M. Eppard, E. Nelson, Michael McLaughlin, Theresa Ward
This study examined selected social and economic costs of inequality in the state of Virginia. We explored the extent of inequality of place across the state, finding significant inequalities between counties on measures such as household income, poverty, college completion, single parenthood, and racial segregation. These inequalities of place were strongly associated with inequalities in the adult outcomes of children raised in different areas of the state, including unequal household income and unequal rates of upward mobility, college completion, incarceration, and marriage in adulthood. When examining the association between homicides and concentrated disadvantage in the capital city of Richmond, our mapping techniques demonstrated a strong association. Finally, we estimated that child poverty results in billions of dollars of economic costs to the state each year.
{"title":"Social and Economic Costs of Inequality in the State of Virginia","authors":"Lawrence M. Eppard, E. Nelson, Michael McLaughlin, Theresa Ward","doi":"10.13001/jwcs.v6i2.6837","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.13001/jwcs.v6i2.6837","url":null,"abstract":"This study examined selected social and economic costs of inequality in the state of Virginia. We explored the extent of inequality of place across the state, finding significant inequalities between counties on measures such as household income, poverty, college completion, single parenthood, and racial segregation. These inequalities of place were strongly associated with inequalities in the adult outcomes of children raised in different areas of the state, including unequal household income and unequal rates of upward mobility, college completion, incarceration, and marriage in adulthood. When examining the association between homicides and concentrated disadvantage in the capital city of Richmond, our mapping techniques demonstrated a strong association. Finally, we estimated that child poverty results in billions of dollars of economic costs to the state each year. \u0000 ","PeriodicalId":258091,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Working-Class Studies","volume":"18 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128434099","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Recent research has noted declining labor force participation among working class men in the United States, but with little attention to the mechanisms underlying such withdrawal. In this article—drawing on in-depth interviews with 61 working-class men from rural Pennsylvania—I address this gap in the literature by prodding respondents on the sequential character of their employment experiences, their perceived vulnerabilities, and the calculations they make in the contexts in which they live. Findings reveal fluctuations in their engagement with work, something I refer to as participation churn. However, respondents’ labor force narratives also show how they adapt to local employment conditions and personal circumstances, a phenomenon referred to as adaptive nonparticipation. The results highlight key mechanisms underlying labor force dropout and have implications for how declining labor force participation should be understood. These findings advance the sociological understanding of how workers—even in precarious positions—assert agency.
{"title":"Missing Men? Precarity and Declining Labor Force Participation Among Working-Class Men","authors":"Robert D. Francis","doi":"10.13001/jwcs.v6i2.6835","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.13001/jwcs.v6i2.6835","url":null,"abstract":"Recent research has noted declining labor force participation among working class men in the United States, but with little attention to the mechanisms underlying such withdrawal. In this article—drawing on in-depth interviews with 61 working-class men from rural Pennsylvania—I address this gap in the literature by prodding respondents on the sequential character of their employment experiences, their perceived vulnerabilities, and the calculations they make in the contexts in which they live. Findings reveal fluctuations in their engagement with work, something I refer to as participation churn. However, respondents’ labor force narratives also show how they adapt to local employment conditions and personal circumstances, a phenomenon referred to as adaptive nonparticipation. The results highlight key mechanisms underlying labor force dropout and have implications for how declining labor force participation should be understood. These findings advance the sociological understanding of how workers—even in precarious positions—assert agency.","PeriodicalId":258091,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Working-Class Studies","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130130420","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Attfield, S. (2020) Class on Screen: The Global Working Class in Contemporary Cinema. Palgrave Macmillan","authors":"Tom Zaniello","doi":"10.13001/jwcs.v6i2.6851","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.13001/jwcs.v6i2.6851","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":258091,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Working-Class Studies","volume":"18 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133824024","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Jennifer Forsberg, Isabel Roque, Rebecca A. Temple
{"title":"Fazio, M., Launius, C., and Strangleman, T., eds. (2021) Routledge International Handbook of Working-Class Studies. Routledge","authors":"Jennifer Forsberg, Isabel Roque, Rebecca A. Temple","doi":"10.13001/jwcs.v6i2.6843","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.13001/jwcs.v6i2.6843","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":258091,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Working-Class Studies","volume":"20 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123131825","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In recent years, selective colleges and universities have made diversifying their student bodies a top priority, yet the class diversity on these campuses has barely shifted. While most research on class disparities in college admissions focuses on student explanations, this study seeks to understand how campus admissions approaches to recruitment may also contribute to why so few lower-income, first-generation, and/or working-class students (LIFGWC students) attend selective colleges. To address this question, we conducted interviews with seven admissions officers from selective campuses with both relatively strong and weak records of LIFGWC students recruitment. Institutions with stronger records of recruiting LIFGWC students actively sought out new initiatives to make their college more accessible for LIFGWC students, and these actions were motivated by a shared focus on improving larger societal inequality. Although campuses with weaker records also expanded their recruitment strategies, their efforts were often piecemeal and motivated by competition for students and institutional rankings rather than a larger mission to improve diversity and equity. These findings suggest that institutional missions and philosophies are central to increasing access.
{"title":"Divergent Approaches to Access: How Selective College Admissions Offices Recruit Lower-Income, First-Generation, and Working-Class Students","authors":"Hannah Gunther, J. Benson","doi":"10.13001/jwcs.v6i2.6829","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.13001/jwcs.v6i2.6829","url":null,"abstract":"In recent years, selective colleges and universities have made diversifying their student bodies a top priority, yet the class diversity on these campuses has barely shifted. While most research on class disparities in college admissions focuses on student explanations, this study seeks to understand how campus admissions approaches to recruitment may also contribute to why so few lower-income, first-generation, and/or working-class students (LIFGWC students) attend selective colleges. To address this question, we conducted interviews with seven admissions officers from selective campuses with both relatively strong and weak records of LIFGWC students recruitment. Institutions with stronger records of recruiting LIFGWC students actively sought out new initiatives to make their college more accessible for LIFGWC students, and these actions were motivated by a shared focus on improving larger societal inequality. Although campuses with weaker records also expanded their recruitment strategies, their efforts were often piecemeal and motivated by competition for students and institutional rankings rather than a larger mission to improve diversity and equity. These findings suggest that institutional missions and philosophies are central to increasing access. \u0000 ","PeriodicalId":258091,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Working-Class Studies","volume":"75 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129488317","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Vasiliki Petsa, Sofia Zisimopoulou, A. Natsina, Ioannis Dimitrakakis
Surveying a large corpus of Modern Greek fiction from the interwar years to the decade of the financial crisis (2010-2020) we set out to delineate the national inflection of ‘working-class fiction’ along the axes of theme and style as well as answerability, i.e. the engagement with working-class interests in distinct periods (interwar years, WWII and postwar, Metapolitefsi and beyond). Characterized by quantitative and aesthetic variability, the Greek version of the genre is shown to engage actively with topical contextual issues as well as with changing imperatives of authorial commitment and the shifting composition of the working class.
{"title":"The Transformations of Greek Working-Class Fiction from the Interwar Period to the Present","authors":"Vasiliki Petsa, Sofia Zisimopoulou, A. Natsina, Ioannis Dimitrakakis","doi":"10.13001/jwcs.v6i2.6825","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.13001/jwcs.v6i2.6825","url":null,"abstract":"Surveying a large corpus of Modern Greek fiction from the interwar years to the decade of the financial crisis (2010-2020) we set out to delineate the national inflection of ‘working-class fiction’ along the axes of theme and style as well as answerability, i.e. the engagement with working-class interests in distinct periods (interwar years, WWII and postwar, Metapolitefsi and beyond). Characterized by quantitative and aesthetic variability, the Greek version of the genre is shown to engage actively with topical contextual issues as well as with changing imperatives of authorial commitment and the shifting composition of the working class.","PeriodicalId":258091,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Working-Class Studies","volume":"246 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123769221","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Volume 6 Issue 1: Full Issue","authors":"Journal Of Working-Class Studies","doi":"10.13001/jwcs.v6i1.6469","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.13001/jwcs.v6i1.6469","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":258091,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Working-Class Studies","volume":"4 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-06-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116149111","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
There is an urgent need to address a range of environmental issues, including climate change, but the policies enacted to date have usually done nothing to address class inequities and have often led to increased working-class disadvantage. The causes of the climate and other environmental crises have often been located in problematic individual lifestyles, with little recognition of the time, economic and health constraints that make it difficult for working-class people to adopt green lifestyles. The Green New Deal (GND) presented an alternative policy paradigm that argued for environmental policies that, rather than increasing the pressure on disadvantaged groups, would have co-benefits for working-class people, low-income groups and communities of colour. However, the policy did not lead to electoral success for the political leaders that proposed it, in the United States (US) and the United Kingdom (UK), due to opposition representations of it as costly and threatening to working-class jobs. We interviewed 40 working-class people in the UK to find out how much they knew about the Green New Deal, what they thought about it as an environmental policy and how they felt about environmentalism, more generally. Our research indicates that there was a general lack of knowledge about GND, but great enthusiasm about it once explained, albeit with reservations about its implementation and limitations. The GND has huge potential to benefit the lives of working-class people but, we conclude, more, and better, outreach is needed for people to understand its potential to improve their lives.
{"title":"The Failure of Lifestyle Environmentalism and the Promise of the Green New Deal for Working-Class People","authors":"K. Bell, G. Bevan","doi":"10.13001/jwcs.v6i1.6465","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.13001/jwcs.v6i1.6465","url":null,"abstract":"There is an urgent need to address a range of environmental issues, including climate change, but the policies enacted to date have usually done nothing to address class inequities and have often led to increased working-class disadvantage. The causes of the climate and other environmental crises have often been located in problematic individual lifestyles, with little recognition of the time, economic and health constraints that make it difficult for working-class people to adopt green lifestyles. The Green New Deal (GND) presented an alternative policy paradigm that argued for environmental policies that, rather than increasing the pressure on disadvantaged groups, would have co-benefits for working-class people, low-income groups and communities of colour. However, the policy did not lead to electoral success for the political leaders that proposed it, in the United States (US) and the United Kingdom (UK), due to opposition representations of it as costly and threatening to working-class jobs. We interviewed 40 working-class people in the UK to find out how much they knew about the Green New Deal, what they thought about it as an environmental policy and how they felt about environmentalism, more generally. Our research indicates that there was a general lack of knowledge about GND, but great enthusiasm about it once explained, albeit with reservations about its implementation and limitations. The GND has huge potential to benefit the lives of working-class people but, we conclude, more, and better, outreach is needed for people to understand its potential to improve their lives.","PeriodicalId":258091,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Working-Class Studies","volume":"4 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-06-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131040945","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Lauter, Paul (2020) Our Sixties: An Activist’s History, Rochester University Press.","authors":"Michael. Zweig","doi":"10.13001/jwcs.v6i1.6451","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.13001/jwcs.v6i1.6451","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":258091,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Working-Class Studies","volume":"60 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-06-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115342132","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}