Crisis in American Institutions

by Skolnick, Jerome H.; Currie, Elliott

• ISBN13: 9780205472154
• ISBN10: 020547215X
• Edition: 13th
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2007-01-01
• Publisher: Allyn & Bacon

Summary

KEY BENEFIT:Crisis in American Institutionsprovides readers with an array of engaging articles that reflect America's social problems and encourage critical thought.The text contains a breadth of articles that encompasses a review of the best of contemporary writing on American social problems. New topics include: the erosion of retirement security, the rise in debt among young adullts, the limits of social mobility in the U.S., gender discrimination in the workplace, white privilege, global terrorism, police reform, racial disparities in the criminal justice system.For anyone interested in social problems, American society, or social work.

Table of Contents

Preface	xi
Introduction: Approaches to Social Problems	1	(16)
SYSTEMIC PROBLEMS
PART ONE Corporate Power	17	(34)
Take the Rich off Welfare	20	(7)
Mark Zepezauer
Tax Cheats and Their Enablers	27	(6)
Robert S. McIntyre
The Cost of Money	33	(11)
Mark Green
Water for Profit	44	(7)
John Luoma
PART TWO Economic Crisis	51	(42)
Nickel-and-Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America	53	(12)
Barbara Ehrenreich
Generation Broke: The Growth of Debt among Young Americans	65	(10)
Tamara Draut
Javier Silva
Retirement's Unraveling Safety Net	75	(7)
Dale Russakoff
The Limits of Markets	82	(11)
Robert Kuttner
PART THREE Inequality	93	(34)
Top Heavy	95	(9)
Edward N. Wolff
Doing Poorly: The Real Income of American Children in a Comparative Perspective	104	(8)
Lee Rainwater
Timothy M. Smeeding
Day by Day: The Lives of Homeless Women	112	(9)
Elliot Liebow
As Rich-Poor Gap Widens in the U.S., Class Mobility Stalls	121	(6)
David Wessel
PART FOUR Racism	127	(28)
The Roots of White Advantage	130	(12)
Michael K. Brown
Martin Carnoy
Elliott Currie
Troy Duster
David B. Oppenheimer
Marjorie M. Shultz
David Wellman
Schools and Prisons: Fifty Years after Brown v. Board of Education	136
At Many Colleges, the Rich Kids Get Affirmative Action	142	(6)
Daniel Golden
Asian Americans: The Myth of the Model Minority	148	(7)
Ronald Takaki
PART FIVE Sexism	155	(40)
The Conundrum of the Glass Ceiling	158	(7)
Selling Women Short	165	(10)
Liza Featherstone
Learning Silence	175	(8)
Peggy Orenstein
Domestica	183	(12)
Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo
INSTITUTIONS IN CRISIS
PART SIX The Family	195	(22)
Families on the Fault Line	197	(7)
Lillian B. Rubin
More Than Welcome: Families Come First in Sweden	204	(6)
Brittany Shahmehri
Decent and Street Families	210	(7)
Elijah Anderson
PART SEVEN The Environment	217	(26)
A World of Wounds	219	(6)
James Gustave Speth
The Heat Is On	225	(8)
Ross Gelbspan
Diamond: A Struggle for Environmental Justice in Louisiana's Chemical Corridor	233	(10)
Steve Lerner
PART EIGHT Work and Welfare	243	(44)
Importing the Third World	246	(8)
David K. Shipler
The Political Economy and Urban Racial Tensions	254	(12)
William Julius Wilson
The Underclass Label	266	(12)
Herbert J. Gans
So How Did I Get Here? Growing Up on Welfare	278	(9)
Rosemary L. Bray
PART NINE Health and Medical Care	287	(46)
Sick Out of Luck: The Uninsured in America	290	(7)
Susan Starr Sered
Rushika Fernandopulle
Universal Health Care: What the United States Can Learn from the Canadian Experience	297	(12)
Pat Armstrong
Hugh Armstrong
Claudia Fegan
The Shame of Our Nursing Homes	309	(11)
Eric Bates
Cater to the Children	320	(13)
Gerald Markowitz
David Rosner
PART TEN The Schools	333	(30)
In the Deep Heart's Core	335	(8)
Michael Johnston
Class Conflict: The Rising Costs of College	343	(7)
Ellen Mutari
Melaku Lakew
Reading, Writing, and . . . Buying?	350	(5)
Hired Education	355	(8)
Jennifer Washburn
PART ELEVEN Crime and Justice	363	(46)
The Myth of Leniency	365	(10)
Elliott Currie
Wild Pitch: ``Three Strikes, You're Out'' and Other Bad Calls on Crime	375	(18)
Jerome H. Skolnick
Instant Replay: Three Strikes Was the Right Call	384	(4)
John J. Dilulio Jr.
Jerome H. Skolnick Replies	388	(5)
Jerome H. Skolnick
Workaday World, Crack Economy	393	(8)
Philippe Bourgois
Unjust Rewards	401	(8)
Ken Silverstein
PART TWELVE America in the World	409	(2)
Five Wars We're Losing	411	(10)
Moises Naim
Oil, Geography, and War	421	(9)
Michael T. Klare
Blowback	430	(10)
Chalmers Johnson
What to Do? A Global Strategy against Terrorism	440