Michael Schwalbe

Edward J. Lawler

Jane D. McLeod

This volume provides the first comprehensive overview of social psychological research on inequality for a graduate student and professional audience. Drawing on all of the major theoretical traditions in sociological social psychology, its chapters demonstrate the relevance of social psychological processes to this central sociological concern. Each chapter in the volume has a distinct substantive focus, but the chapters will also share common emphases on: • The unique contributions of sociological social psychology • The historical roots of social psychological concepts and theories in classic sociological writings • The complementary and conflicting insights that derive from different social psychological traditions in sociology. This Handbook is of interest to graduate students preparing for careers in social psychology or in inequality, professional sociologists and university/college libraries.

Handbook of the Social Psychology of Inequality

In Rigging the Game--a brief, accessible introduction to the study of inequality in American society--Michael Schwalbe investigates how inequality is both created and reproduced. Guided by the questions How did the situation get this way? and How does it stay this way?, Schwalbe tracks inequality from its roots to its regulation. In the final chapter, "Escaping the Inequality Trap," he also shows how inequality can be overcome. Throughout, Schwalbe's engaging writing style draws students into the material, providing instructors with a solid foundation for discussing this challenging and provocative subject. With its lively combination of incisive analysis and compelling fictional narratives, Rigging the Game is an innovative teaching tool--not only for courses on stratification, but also for social problems courses, introductory sociology courses, and any course that takes a close look at how the inequalities of race, class, and gender are perpetuated.

How Inequality is Reproduced in Everyday Life

Rigging the Game

In Manhood Acts Michael Schwalbe offers a new perspective on the social construction of manhood and its relationship to male domination. Schwalbe argues that study of masculinity has lost touch with its feminist roots and has been seduced by the politically safe notion of 'multiple masculinities'. Manhood Acts delineates the practices males use to construct 'women' and 'men' as unequal categories. Schwalbe reclaims the radical feminist insights that gender is a field of domination, not a field of play, and that manhood is fundamentally about exerting or resisting control. Manhood Acts arrives at the conclusion that abolishing gender as a system of oppression will require more than transgressive self-presentation. It will be necessary to end the exploitive economic relationships that necessitate manhood itself.

Gender and the Practices of Domination

Manhood Acts

Professor of Sociology Michael Schwalbe

He finds mostly middle-class men trying to cope with the legacy of fathers who gave little emotional sustenance and with a competitive society they find unsatisfying, who sympathize with many of women's complaints about men and sexism (though Schwalbe also finds that many joined as a reaction to what they saw as feminism's blanket indictment of men), and who are searching for an alternative to the traditional image of a man as rational, tough, ambitious, and in control.

The Men's Movement, Gender Politics, and American Culture

Unlocking the Iron Cage

The Psychosocial Consequences of Natural and Alienated Labor offers a new perspective on how the capitalist labor process shapes the character of its participants. Schwalbe argues that with appropriate social-psychological elaboration, Marx's original analysis of alienated labor can provide a powerful theoretical framework for understanding the psychological consequences of working for capitalism. What is needed, Schwalbe contends, is a social psychology compatible with Marx's naturalist view of human nature and which specifies more precisely the processes whereby alienated labor produces particular psychological outcomes. This social psychology is found in the work of G. H. Mead. Drawing principally on Mead's philosophy of the act and theory of aesthetic experience, Schwalbe forges a natural labor perspective that is then used to guide an empirical study of work experiences and their consequences among employees in five capitalist firms. This study shows how capitalist production limits opportunities for problem solving, role taking, means-ends comprehension, and self-objectification in work, and how the lack of these experiences affects intellectual and moral development. Schwalbe also discusses the directions implied by the natural labor perspective for pursuing a transformation of capitalist society.

Psychosocial Consequences of Natural and Alienated Labor

The Psychosocial Consequences of Natural and Alienated Labor offers a new perspective on how the capitalist labor process shapes the character of its participants. Schwalbe argues that with appropriate social-psychological elaboration, Marxs original analysis of alienated labor can provide a powerful theoretical framework for understanding the psychological consequences of working for capitalism. What is needed, Schwalbe contends, is a social psychology compatible with Marxs naturalist view of human nature and which specifies more precisely the processes whereby alienated labor produces particular psychological outcomes. This social psychology is found in the work of G. H. Mead. Drawing principally on Meads philosophy of the act and theory of aesthetic experience, Schwalbe forges a natural labor perspective that is then used to guide an empirical study of work experiences and their consequences among employees in five capitalist firms. This study shows how capitalist production limits opportunities for problem solving, role taking, means-ends comprehension, and self-objectification in work, and how the lack of these experiences affects intellectual and moral development. Schwalbe also discusses the directions implied by the natural labor perspective for pursuing a transformation of capitalist society.

Michael Schwalbe

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