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Over the last few months, in various parts of the country, several scholars have been invited to critique and discuss fellow OOW members Kevin Stainback and Don Tomaskovic-Devey’s new book, Documenting Desegregation: Racial and Gender Segregation in Private-Sector Employment Since the Civil Rights Act. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2012.

This panel brings together a few of these scholars’ voices in an attempt to kick start a conversation about occupational sex and race segregation and, in many cases to move forward with more research.

You will want to read OOW member and Work in Progress blog editorial board member Steve Vallas’ summary below.

The book is the first major study use EEO-1 data to examine the nature and consequences of the 1964 Civil Rights Act (CRA) over time. The book is painstaking in its use of data, but also careful and creative in its application of theory (largely, social closure theory). Major findings emerge in the book, some of which confirm existing assumptions about corporate policy, and others that are highly counter-intuitive. The book has generated much debate in the few months since its publication, and seems destined to provide a touchstone in this field now and for the foreseeable future.

A view from the balcony and the dance floor

By irenepadavic

The book’s scope is sweeping: it details a half century of the political landscape of social change and also attends to the micro–organizational and local–levels. In other words, the authors successfully position themselves both on the balcony and the dance floor: The balcony gives them the wide-ranging view, and the dance floor lets them show off the intricate footwork at the local and organizational levels.

The legal definition of “discrimination”; the declining significance of occupational segregation?

By Elizabeth Gorman

1 Comment

I’d like to focus on two issues that are not addressed in-depth in this otherwise wonderful book. First, the book overlooks the importance of the substantive legal doctrine that emerged between 1966 and the 1980s. Title VII says that employers may not “discriminate against any individual with respect to . . . employment, because of such individual’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.” But what exactly does it mean to “discriminate . . . because of”? Over time, the courts converged on the view that the employer must have been consciously motivated by the relevant characteristic at the time of making the adverse employment decision. Under this definition, only a very narrow range of behavior gives rise to legal liability.

Race, Gender, and the EEOC-Shifting Social Contracts—or not (by Beth Rubin)

By Julie Kmec

One of the fundamental social contracts that under girds American society is that between individuals and the larger society, that we are a land of opportunity, that what one does—rather than who one is—predicts how one will fare in the ongoing effort to achieve social status, security and economic and social well-being.

No More Invisible Man: Race and Gender in Men’s Work

By Adia Harvey Wingfield

April 9, 2013

Commentary

Commentary, News Analysis

If you only looked at media portrayals (and a great deal of sociological research), you might write off black men as mostly trapped by an educational system that too often fails them, labor market that under-employs them, and criminal justice system that over-incarcerates them. You might conclude that there are a few black men who happen to beat these social structures and become highly visible role models who advocate for adopting appropriate values as a way of achieving social and personal success. Overall, however, it would be easy to conclude that most black men fall somewhere in these two camps.

My research challenges this generalization. Realizing that black men who work in professional jobs are virtually absent from much sociological research, I conducted a study of the ways that race, gender, and class shape their work experiences to get a sense of how we can learn more about the sociological processes that impact various aspects of their occupational trajectories. The findings are reported in my new book, No More Invisible Man: Race and Gender in Men’s Work.

Black Unemployment Remains High

By Adia Harvey Wingfield

December 20, 2012