Inequality in America: America's Social and Economic Inequities
Leadership Seminars Session II
The US is the most unequal high-income economy in the world, with wealth inequality rising. The top ten percent of American families controlled nearly 70 percent of the wealth in the US in 2022. Over the last fifty years, the poverty rate in the US has remained stagnant. How do we explain America's social and economic inequities and stasis? How do these facts change when examining intersectional identities based on race, class, and gender, particularly in the context of anti-immigrant xenophobia and anti-black racism? Students in this course will develop a critical understanding of the historical and contemporary causes and consequences of inequality and how it is reproduced in society.
The first half of this course will center on a critical analysis of various sources and outcomes of inequality, focusing on education, political representation, residential segregation, and racial disparities. The second half of the course will explore the opportunities of countervailing inequality, asking what is to be done. Students will research policy solutions, drawing on a range of interdisciplinary sources.
Academic Directors
Ricardo Ramirez
Ricardo Ramirez is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Notre Dame. He is the director of the Hesburgh Program in Public Service and a faculty fellow in the Institute for Latino Studies. He is past President of the Western Political Science Association (WPSA). He received his B.A., cum laude, from UCLA and his Ph.D. in Political Science from Stanford University. His broad research interests include political behavior, state and local politics, the politics of race and ethnicity, and immigrant politics. His research is geared to understanding the transformation of civic and political participation in American democracy by focusing on the effects of political context on participation, the political mobilization of and outreach to Latino immigrants and other minority groups, and the causes and consequences of increasing diversity among elected officials.
Amy Langenkamp
Amy Langenkamp is an Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Notre Dame. She is the interim director for the Center for Research on Educational Inequality. She received her B.A. from Villanova University and her Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Texas at Austin.
Amy Langenkamp’s main fields of research are education, stratification, and life course transitions. Her research explores transitions between major societal institutions and processes of inequality within those institutions. Langenkamp’s published research on transitions documents different types of institutional pathways taken by students as they transition, explores how social relationships can become protective factors for low achieving students, and investigates the lasting effects of school context across transitions. Langenkamp is currently researching how new patterns in school and community composition, from resegregation to new immigrant destinations, affect student achievement.