Dieter Vandebroeck - Böcker

This book examines the processes through which children effectively 'inherit' their position in the social world.It asks: How does class inequality affect one of the most formative periods in human development, that is, early childhood?When do differences in class background manifest themselves in children's actions and attitudes?How do class divisions intersect with racial and gender inequality to shape the way that children navigate the social world?When do children become aware of the fact that 'inequality' is a key feature of their lifeworld?Bringing together original research from France, Norway, Sweden, Belgium and the USA, this book unravels the ways in which class inequality shapes our earliest experiences of the social world. It will appeal to scholars and students interested in class and social stratification, the sociology of childhood and family, cultural sociology, sociolinguistics, child and developmental psychology and educational science.

This book examines the processes through which children effectively 'inherit' their position in the social world.It asks: How does class inequality affect one of the most formative periods in human development, that is, early childhood?When do differences in class background manifest themselves in children's actions and attitudes?How do class divisions intersect with racial and gender inequality to shape the way that children navigate the social world?When do children become aware of the fact that 'inequality' is a key feature of their lifeworld?Bringing together original research from France, Norway, Sweden, Belgium and the USA, this book unravels the ways in which class inequality shapes our earliest experiences of the social world. It will appeal to scholars and students interested in class and social stratification, the sociology of childhood and family, cultural sociology, sociolinguistics, child and developmental psychology and educational science.

The past decades have witnessed a surge of sociological interest in the body. From the focal point of aesthetic investment, political regulation and moral anxiety, to a means of redefining traditional conceptions of agency and identity, the body has been cast in a wide variety of sociological roles. However, there is one topic that proves conspicuously absent from this burgeoning literature on the body, namely its role in the everyday (re)production of class-boundaries.Distinctions in the Flesh aims to fill that void by showing that the way individuals perceive, use and manage their bodies is fundamentally intertwined with their social position and trajectory. Drawing on a wide array of survey-data – from food-preferences to sporting-practices and from weight-concern to tastes in clothing – this book shows how bodies not only function as key markers of class-differences, but also help to naturalize and legitimize such differences. Along the way, it scrutinizes popular notions like the ‘obesity epidemic’, questions the role of ‘the media’ in shaping the way people judge their bodies and sheds doubt on sociological narratives that cast the body as a malleable object that is increasingly open to individual control and reflexive management.This book will be of interest to scholars of class, lifestyle and identity, but also to social epidemiologists, health professionals and anyone interested in the way that social inequalities become, quite literally, inscribed in the body.