Introductory description

What is the role of social research in understanding social inequalities? How can social research contribute to reducing social inequalities. This is a foundation module in the study of social inequality, providing students with in-depth understanding of contemporary research into global social inequality, and drawing out the relationships between individual, local and global patterning of inequality. It foregrounds race, class and gender,r whilst also asking students to think about the causes, intersections and effects of other inequalities that interest them (for example, intergenerational, urban/rural, sexuality, disability, health, education, citizenship status, wealth).

Module web page

Module aims

Outline syllabus

This is an indicative module outline only to give an indication of the sort of topics that may be covered. Actual sessions held may differ.

1. Introduction: does 'inequality' always mean economic inequality?
2. Wealth and inequality
3. Mobility: what is the relationship between origins and destinations?
4. Class: poverty, austerity and the end of the middle class?
5. Race: what does 'racial capitalism' enable us to understand?
6. Gender: (in)visibility and women's work
7. Lifecourse: growing up and growing old
8. Bodies: understanding health and illness
9. Designing inequality research

Learning outcomes

By the end of the module, students should be able to:

• Subject knowledge Advanced knowledge of complex debates in the contemporary study of social inequalities. Advanced knowledge and understanding of the state of the art of research and research methodologies used in studying social inequalities.
• Key skills Selection and assessment of published research, written and oral communication skills.
• Cognitive skills Ability to systematically apply critical thinking to published research in social inequalities, to interpret this research. Ability to apply the critical reading of other research to develop an independent research design.
• Subject-specific skills Ability to understand, interpret and assess a wide-range of research into social inequalities in order to develop independent lines of argument. Ability to develop creative and valid research designs with which to study selected forms of social inequality.

Indicative reading list

Auspurg, K., Hinz, T., and Sauer, C. (2017). Why Should Women Get Less? Evidence on the Gender Pay Gap from Multifactorial Survey Experiments. American Sociological Review, 82, 179–210.
Blaikie, N., & Priest, J. (2019). Designing social research: The logic of anticipation. John Wiley & Sons.
Gibson-Graham, J.K. (1996). The end of capitalism (as we knew it): a feminist critique of political economy. Oxford: Blackwell.
Glenn, E. N. (2002). Unequal freedom: how race and gender shaped American citizenship and labor. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press.
Grusky, D. B. (2018). Social stratification: Class, race, and gender in sociological perspective. Routledge.
Hatton, E. (2017). Mechanisms of invisibility: rethinking the concept of invisible work. Work, Employment and Society, 31(2), 336–351.
Lee, C. K., and Kofman, Y. (2012). The politics of precarity: views beyond the United States. Work and Occupations, 39(4), 388–408.

Lorde, A. (2017). The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. In Your Silence Will Not Protect You: Essays and Poems. London: Silver Press.
McIntyre, Michael, and Heidi Nast. 2011. “Bio(necro)polis: Marx, Surplus Populations, and the Spatial Dialectics of Reproduction and ‘Race’.” Antipode 43 (5): 1465–1488.
Mills, C. (2014). The Great British Class Fiasco: A Comment on Savage et al. Sociology, 48(3), 437–444.
Piketty, T. (2015). About capital in the twenty-first century. American Economic Review, 105(5), 48-53.
Platt, L. (2019). Understanding inequalities: Stratification and difference. John Wiley & Sons.
Savage, M., Devine, F., Cunningham, N., et al. (2013). A new model of social class? Findings from the BBC’s Great Class survey experiment. Sociology, 47(2), 219–250.
Sernau, S. (2016). Social inequality in a global age. Sage Publications.
Simone, A., and Fauzan, A. U. (2013). On the way to being middle class: The practices of emergence in Jakarta. City, 17(3), 279–298.
Wright, E.O. (2000). Class Counts: Comparative Studies in Class Analysis. Cambridge University Press.

Research element

Development of a research design for a potential project.

Subject specific skills

Advanced knowledge of complex debates in the contemporary study of social inequalities.
Advanced knowledge and understanding of the state of the art of research and research methodologies used in studying social inequalities.
Ability to understand, interpret and assess a wide-range of research into social inequalities in order to develop independent lines of argument.
Ability to develop creative and valid research designs with which to study selected forms of social inequality.

Transferable skills

written and oral communication skills.
Selection and assessment of complex materials
Systematic critical thinking
ability to work independently