In recent years, growing inequality in the U. S. has come head-to-head with the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. Not surprisingly, the resulting social tensions have sparked. In recent years, growing inequality in the U. S. has come head-to-head with the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. Not surprisingly, the resulting social tensions have sparked popular social protests from the left as well as the right. In this session, prominent political observers of these events discuss the social forces behind them. A long time observer of inequality in America and an acute analyst of the power of collective action, Barbara Ehrenreich is the author of such well known books Bait and Switch and Nickel and Dimed. Theda Skocpol is a distinguished political sociologist and scholar of social change and the author, most recently, of The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism. Adding his expertise to the discussion is political sociologist, Douglas McAdam, author of such works as Freedom Summer, Dynamics of Contention, and Putting Movements in Their Place: Explaining Opposition to Energy Projects in the U.S., 2000-2005.

Processes at multiple levels of analysis typically work together to support or undermine durable patterns of inequality between individuals and between social groups. Our task is to locate the key junctures among these multilevel processes that provide the levers by which different sorts of inequalities among people and groups are systematically made or unmade in the contemporary context. As part of this effort, this session focuses our attention on the less familiar micro level of the individual in social context. The first set of speakers address micro-level mechanisms that play significant roles in creating, maintaining, and/or changing racial, gender, and class based inequality. A final speaker looks across the micro-mechanisms that operate in these different types of inequalities to offer a more general analysis of the nature and significance of micro processes in the multilevel production, reproduction, and change of contemporary patterns of inequality.

The Presidential Plenary featuring the formal address of ASA President Cecilia L. Ridgeway will be held on Sunday, August 11, at 4:30p.m. The Awards Ceremony, conferring the 2013 major awards, will open this session. All registrants are invited to attend this plenary session and the Honorary Reception afterwards to honor President Cecilia L. Ridgeway and the award recipients.

The last few decades have witnessed increasing income inequality in the U.S. and substantial changes in the nature and patterns of gender, race, and class inequalities. What are the main features of these changes and what is driving them? What are the implications of such changes for the future? Major scholars in their fields address these questions separately for economic and class inequality, gender inequality, and racial inequality. The final distinguished speaker in the session asks whether a new narrative of change and stability should be developed. Are there common patterns or themes in the changes across these different types of contemporary inequality? If so, what is the best way to understand these patterns of change?