Social Closure and Inequality

This class will examine the social phenomenon of exclusion. Attempts to understand the social behavior of creating insiders and outsiders is a hallmark in Sociology. How does it happen? What purpose does it serve? Who decides who is in and who is out? While some forms of social closure, like segregation, are more well known, there are numerous mechanisms of social exclusion people and groups employ in the social world. Additionally, forms of exclusion do not always come from the top down as a form of domination, but sometimes from the bottom up, with the goal of resource redistribution. We will study these different forms of exclusion along with the theorized aims these forms of closure seek to achieve to get a more comprehensive picture of how social exclusion is used in the social world.