Abstract
This review essay focuses on the concept of inequality in Daniel Dorling’s The Population of the United Kingdom and Reza Hasmath’s A Comparative Study of Minority Development. The review discusses the structure of social inequality and the principal social cleavages that are shown in both books. The books raise different issues of ethnicity, visible minority (Hasmath) and class, and life outcomes (Dorling) as they relate to the broader processes and consequences of human efforts to stratify the social world. Whether those investigations are done at the micro or macro level, they provide strong empirical evidence that social and cultural standards will be never seen as adequate as long as great social inequalities prevail. This essay also discusses the problematic use of social inequalities for empirical research. Dorling is especially sensitive to inequalities and has a strong interest in uncovering those ‘deep structure[s]’ of social differentiation that are concealed from ordinary view. Broad categories, such as poor/affluent or minority/majority, with masking of in-group differences within categories, are appropriate for a rough scan of inequalities. However, this crude classification is inappropriate for a precise summary measurement of inequalities among social/ethnic distributions.
Published Version
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call