Sense of Inequality

Wendy Bottero is Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Manchester, UK.

In this fascinating monograph, Bottero (Univ. of Manchester, UK) provides a detailed review and critical assessment of the social processes involved in the toleration, acceptance, condemnation, and resistance to inequality. Offering a wide-ranging overview of the topic, this book serves as an in-depth exercise in the social psychology of inequality, probing the propagandistic, affective, and pragmatic dynamics that make revolutions rare but not unthinkable. Undertaking an extensive analysis of previous major works on the subject, Bottero actively engages with the questions and answers that shaped the field. Acknowledging the importance of the symbolic legitimation of inequality, she argues that people are not ignorant of social relations, nor hoodwinked by the powers that be, so much as constrained by the realistic practices of their everyday lives. Her argument is compelling, well researched, well argued, and relevant to all social facets of inequality. This poignant study is particularly beneficial for graduate students of the social psychology of inequality. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Graduate students, faculty, and professionals.

• Chapter 1: Restricted Visions?Chapter 2: Attitudes to InequalityChapter 3: Misrecognising InequalityChapter 4: Affective InequalityChapter 5: Protesting InequalityChapter 6: Resisting InequalityChapter 7: Making Sense of InequalityChapter 8: Conclusion —Analysing InequalityBibliography