The Bootstrap Myth: Facing Systemic Inequality in Political Participation

Join Dr. Daniel Laurison to discuss how people from poor and working-class backgrounds face barriers to fully participating in a democratic society. More specifically, he will address how class mobility in the United States often glosses over the large differences between white and Black Americans' class positions and mobility trajectories. Dr. Laurison is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Swarthmore College who studies class inequality and American politics. He earned a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of California and did a post-doctoral fellowship at the London School of Economics. He co-authored "The Class Ceiling: Why it Pays to be Privileged" along with Sam Friedman (2020). This webinar is co-sponsored by the Department of Political Science and the Sociology Club at NIU.