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Wysong study cited in New York Times story
January 28, 2003 | |||||
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Research co-authored by Earl Wysong, Ph.D., IU Kokomo professor of sociology, was cited in a January 18, 2003, New York Times (NYT) article regarding social class issues. Written by Felicia R. Lee, the article is titled “Does Class Count in Today's Land of Opportunity?” Reviewing several academic studies, Lee found “contradictory conclusions” regarding how sociologists define social class in today’s America. For example, is class membership based on income, education, race or lifestyle—or some other factors? And, she queried, does movement between “have” and “have not” status happen as easily as Hollywood depicts in such films as the recent Maid in Manhattan? Lee cited evidence collected by Wysong, Robert Perrucci of Purdue University and David Wright of Wichita State University that class mobility decreased in the last two decades. In their research paper “Organizations, Resources, and Class Analysis: The Distributional Model and the U.S. Class Structure," the professors “compared the incomes and occupations of 2,749 fathers and sons from the 1970s to the late 1990s,” Lee wrote. “From the upper to the lower levels, the researchers found that sons retained the same levels of income and occupational prestige as their fathers. At the upper level, affluent sons gained prestigious positions—like doctors and lawyers—even more frequently than their fathers did 30 years ago.” “What has happened in the last 25 years is that a large segment of American society has become more vulnerable,” Perrucci told Lee. “Twenty years ago, going to college was enough. Now, it has to be an elite school. The American dream is being sorely tested.” Wysong, Perrucci and Wright proposed four measures of class scale: social capital (whom you know); credential capital (such as where you received your degree); income or consumption capital; and investment capital (stocks and bonds). “We presented an earlier version of this paper at the American Sociological Association national meetings in Chicago in August 2002,”said Wysong. The paper is now under review for publication by a major sociology journal. Other sources for Lee’s article included professors from Cornell University, the University of Chicago and the University of Virginia. Wysong said the article “effectively captured the major ideas of current approaches in sociology to class analysis” and raised significant issues. “I think the issue of growing class inequalities in the United States and the implications of this trend for the ‘American Dream’ deserve attention and discussion both within sociology and the wider public arena,” he said. Wysong is currently working with Wright on a related research project, to be presented at the Midwest Sociological Society meetings in April 2003. The paper is titled “Are the Kids Alright? Recent Trends in Intergenerational Mobility.” The NYT article also referred to a book that Wysong co-authored with Perrucci, The New Class Society: Goodbye, American Dream? (Rowman and Littlefield, 2003). The book was first published in 1999. The authors have extensively revised the second edition to consider class issues as well as gender and racial inequalities. Lee’s complete article can be viewed at http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/18/arts/18CLAS.html?ex=1044248499andei=1anden=80b0dcafbc1f1bec.
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