A textbook for an interdisciplinary undergraduate course that addresses what Marger (sociology, Michigan State U.) sees as a major deficiency that others either analyze only one form of social equality or analytically conflate them making it difficult to distinguish them. She engages class, racial a

Chafe's analysis of changing social patterns is both solid and imaginative in the best sense....His book will certainly increase our understanding of where we are going--and why.""--Elizabeth Janeway ""Adopted as required reading - tremendously popular with students - provokes lively debates.""--John Rhinehart, Riverside Community College ""A trenchant analysis of the underlying social and economic changes of the past century....Particularly insightful in analyzing the ways in which racial and sexual inequality are both similar and fundamentally different.""--Alice S. Rossi, University of Ma.

Chafe's analysis of changing social patterns is both solid and imaginative in the best sense ... His book will certainly increase our understanding of where we are going--and why."--Elizabeth Janeway "Adopted as required reading - tremendously popular with students - provokes lively debates."--John Rhinehart, Riverside Community College "A trenchant analysis of the underlying social and economic changes of the past century ... Particularly insightful in analyzing the ways in which racial and sexual inequality are both similar and fundamentally different."--Alice S. Rossi, University of Massachus.

Caste hierarchy has frequently been singled out as the overriding principle of Indian society. This book examines its significance among the highly-educated middle class in the Tamil town of Madurai. As part of their distinctive status as `educated persons', young graduates form egalitarian constellations by ostensibly subverting the boundaries inscribed by caste hierarchy. Stephanie Stocker explores how these friendships are maintained in wider social contexts, finding that the actors engage in supportive networks throughout career and marriage events. Instead of assuming these relationships to be of an entirely different, `alternative category', however, Stocker's study proposes a dynamic character of friendship which in fact remains in conjunction with Indian values of hierarchy.