The Moral Significance of Class by Sayer, Andrew (2005) Paperback

by Andrew Sayer

Excellent Book

Paperback

First published January 1, 2005

Reviews

[szymborskalyte · Rating 2 out of 5]

Unilluminating. The absence of empirics is also disappointing.

[John Carter McKnight · Rating 4 out of 5]

Theoretical sociology isn't a usual genre of mine, so this was a bit of a challenge. Largely the work is a thorough schooling of Bourdieu, at the same time rigorously logical and grounded in the empirical work of others in the field. Sayer's precision and clarity is a joy, if not a breeze, to read. It was a delight to see theory manipulated deftly in the service of clarification, rather than obfuscation, of difficult social phenomena. Sayer never loses his way, returning frequently to touchstones of gender and race in his analysis of class, and carefully slices between positive and normative claims, including a very nice section on how to engage with young students for whom discussions of class are a complex and unexamined bundle of normative and positive concepts.

The only reason I didn't give this a fifth star is that it's sufficiently afield for me that it's of a bit less utility in my work than I'd hoped, and I don't feel qualified enough to rate it within a genre I just don't know that well.