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Week 1
Readings
- inequality.org. 2025. Wealth inequality in the United States.
- Kingsley Davis and Wilbert Moore. 1944. Some principles of stratification. American Sociological Review 10(2):242-49.
- inequality.org. 2019. Ten solutions to bridge the racial wealth divide. April 19, inequality.org.
- Robert Coates. 1947. The Law. New Yorker Magazine, Nov 29: 41-43.
Lecture pages
Course resources: Thinking about social problems (these are here for your use throughout the course–you’ll understand why as we progress and discuss social problems and the ‘framework of questions’)
- Causes (pdf)
- Consequences (pdf)
- Who benefits? (pdf)
- How are problems framed, and by whom? (pdf)
- What to do? (pdf)
Week 1
- Outline / summary for the week (pdf)
- What is a social problem? (pdf)
- More on social problems (pdf)
- Structural and individual explanations (pdf)
- Some basic questions to ask (pdf)
- Walking through some of the questions surrounding tax cuts, DOGE, and the firings of tens if not hundreds of thousands of federal workers.
Videos
- CBS News. 2020. Americans know wealth in equality is a problem, but what does it look like? Jan 31, CBS This Morning.
