“Urban Inequality and Policy in the US” is a course using readings from sociologists and taught by a sociologist. Topics will include segregation, mass incarceration and reentry, gentrification, violence, education, politics and governance, and much more. Readings will include, for instance, Miller’s Halfway Home, Stuart’s Ballad of the Bullet, Krysan and Crowder’s Cycle of Segregation, Shedd’s Unequal City, as well as other articles, popular media, and documentaries.

Much of the class will be adapted from the format of “Urban Inequality and The Wire,” a seminar I co-taught with William Julius Wilson at Harvard. Each topic will address inequality—how structure, culture, or some combination produces social inequality—as well as policy, moving beyond interpretation of the world and focusing on actions to change it. Assignments will include a number of traditional elements—reading responses, short answer + essay midterm—as well as tasks designed to push students to apply lessons from sociology to real world policy situations.

This course is a meet-together between OS 495.002 and SOC 495.007

Class Format:

Two 1.5 hour lectures/week