Policy Press

Project Work and Writing Tasks - Chapter 8

Project work I

The world to come may well combine the worst of the two past worlds: both very large inequality of inherited wealth and very high wage inequalities justified in terms of merit and productivity (claims with very little factual basis, as noted). Meritocratic extremism can thus lead to a race between supermanagers and rentiers to the detriment of those who are neither. (Piketty 2015, 417)

Please read Erik Olin Wright on Thomas Piketty’s best-seller, Capital in the Twenty-First Century available free here.

In this mini project you will identify and look at two aspects economic inequality: income and wealth. You will then

  1. What is the difference between income and wealth and why is this an important sociological concern?

  2. What do Piketty’s reflections on the trajectory of income inequality tell us about the world?

  3. What do Piketty’s reflections on the trajectory of wealth inequality tell us about the world?

  4. Why does Erik Olin Wright suggest Piketty should include a class analysis of social relations to make his work more sociological?

Working in groups, in so far as feasible, summarise your findings and display them in a poster presentation.

  1. What does ‘social inequality’ mean to the sociologist?

  2. Are classes a scientific construct or do they exist in reality?

  3. What do sociologists mean when they say that poverty is man-made?


Project work II

Please visit this URL: www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/23251042.2015.1066084 and read the editorial ‘What is environmental sociology?’ in the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Sociology, 1:3, 139–42. The article is Open Access.

When you are ready please answer these questions:

  1. What is environmental sociology?

  2. How is the relationship between the environment and society understood in environmental sociology?

  3. What does it mean when the sociologist claims that environmental issues are socially constructed? Why is this a useful paradigm for the sociologist? How is this not a useful paradigm for the sociologist? What social forces do you think push environmental degradation and our responses to environmental issues?

  4. Why does the author claim a redefinition of ‘environmental sociology’ is necessary at this time?

  5. What does the term ‘environmental justice’ mean? Please define what the reading suggests to you is meant by the term ‘environmentalism of the poor’ and what forms it might take.

  6. For example, how does the distribution of environmental resources and vulnerability to environmental risk intersect with patterns of social inequality?


Writing task

In this chapter we used some sociological terms that need defining. Using sociology resources please define the following terms and their associated questions.

  1. Habitus What does this term mean? Which sociologist is the originator of the term and what do you think was their sociological purpose in defining such a term? What are the implications of this term and how does it help you to better understand the social world?

  2. Opportunity hoarding How does opportunity hoarding function? How and why can it be described as a mechanism of difference making and social class differentiation?

  3. Social class What is a social class? What are its qualities? What does social class analysis add to the sociological imagination?