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Reviewed by:
  • Social Inequalities in Comparative Perspective
  • John Moland Jr.
Social Inequalities in Comparative Perspective. Edited by Fiona Devine and Mary C. Waters. Blackwell Publishing, 2004. 318 pp.

In Social Inequalities in Comparative Perspective, Fiona Devine and Mary C. Waters have assembled a collection of essays by scholars from the U.S.A, Canada, France, UK, Portugal, Australia, Japan, and Finland. They have produced a textbook aimed at helping students learn about inequalities in a comparative global perspective. Contributors call attention to globalization as involving not only extensive economic shifts and changes, but also extensive immigration flows and influences on identities and public policies. The essays in this comparative work demonstrate how meanings [End Page 1303] and identities are socially influenced and constructed in contextual settings relative to issues of social inequalities in areas of race, ethnicity, class, gender, and sexuality. To achieve leverage on social inequalities and the contextual nature of experiences, identity paths, meanings, and social processes, contributors used two or more qualitative research tools, including observation, participant observation, in-depth interviews, field studies, and documentary analysis. An integrating theme running throughout the essays is the significant value of qualitative research methods for providing insight into the meanings and understandings of contextual experiences in the making and perpetuation of inequalities in each country.

The essays are grouped into three sections. The first section, "Inequalities of Race and Ethnicity," begins with a chapter by Mary C. Waters that examines race, ethnicity, and immigration in the United States with emphasis on second generation West Indian immigrants in New York City. Waters identifies three paths of identify development: (1) identifying as Americans, (2) identifying as ethnic American with some distancing from black Americans, or (3) identifying as an immigrant in a way that does not equate with American racial and ethnic categories. Micheline Labelle considers the "language of race," identity development, and inequality as related to second generation Haitian and Jamaican immigrants and their integration into Canadian and/or Quebec society. Using qualitative research methods, including field studies and in-depth interviews, she reveals four types of national identities. Riva Kastoryano provides an examination of race and ethnic inequalities in France with emphasis on ethnicity as a developmental process. The French state has pursued a national secular identity emphasizing separation of church and state while avoiding giving legitimacy to diversities. However, immigrant associations have emerged with identities developed around cultural factors, particularly religious identities, such as Islam and the head scarf, which has become highly politicized. Liviu Popoviciu and Mairtin Mac An Ghaill point to the making of racisms and ethnicities in the development of British nationalism. Based on their in-depth research on young Irish men and women and on immigrants, they call for a reexamination of ethnic and racial theory and research in light of the study of whiteness and the use of qualitative methods to uncover contextual meanings and understandings.

The second section of the book focuses attention on "Inequalities of Income and Class" in four countries: U.S., Britain, Portugal, and Australia. The contributors show how the use of qualitative methods allow for an exploration of the subjective understandings of class relations and in the process demonstrate the influence of the particular social history of each country.

Katherine Newman and Chauncy Lennon focus attention on the working poor in Harlem, New York, and report findings from intensive interviews conducted in a panel study of the career trajectories of those at the bottom of the labor market. Although the participants had experienced only limited advancement, their subjective understandings of values regarding individualism and education sustained their optimism. Newman and Lennon make the case for more qualitative longitudinal research on the working poor in the U.S. in light of recent policy changes. Elisio Estanque presents information from his ethnographic study involving participant observation of working-class practices on the shop floor and discusses contextual historical factors contributing to class, gender, and ethnic [End Page 1304] exploitation and inequalities in Portugal. Bill Martin and Judy Wajcman discuss class and inequality in Australia by drawing on both quantitative and qualitative data. Using in-depth qualitative studies, they found three ways in which education is understood as contributing to mobility based...

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