2025-2026 Spring Seminar V

The Weatherhead Research Cluster on Comparative Inequality and Inclusion draws on expertise from across disciplines to gain international and comparative perspectives on how to extend cultural membership to the greatest number in society, to gain a better understanding of the social and cultural processes behind recognition gaps, and to determine how social scientists and policy makers can better respond to help make societies more inclusive. 

Advanced industrial societies have become increasingly characterized by two trends: growing inequality and an increasing recognition gap. As the distribution of wealth and income have grown more unequal, a growing number of groups are making claims for recognition as the poor, workers, immigrants, Muslims, LGBTQ people, and various ethnoracial and religious minority groups experience stigmatization. This double tension will serve as a fruitful point of entry for future multidisciplinary inquiries into the conditions for collective well-being.

A major challenge for contemporary societies is to extend cultural membership to the greatest number. Thus we need to gain a better understanding of the social and cultural processes behind recognition gaps, and determine how social scientists and policy makers can better respond to help make societies more inclusive. 

This seminar brings together cluster affiliates and colleagues across departments to share their published and in-progress work in an effort to find responses to the timely questions related to inequality and the recognition gap. For more information, please check the seminar’s upcoming events. 

Co-Sponsored by the Department of Sociology Culture and Social Analysis Workshop.

Presenters:

Jarmo Kallunki (Tampere University, Finland)

“Experiences of Recognition among Working-Class Youth in Finland”

Abstract: Recognition has gained in salience as a concept and theory to understand and explain contemporary social struggles. Empirical research shows that claims for recognition are gaining traction, especially among young people, as a basis for defending the dignity and worth of individuals and groups against social and political discrimination that is on the rise in various countries’ contemporary polities. Contributing to this literature, this presentation reports results from a Finnish case study investigating experiences of recognition among working-class young people. The data consists of 40 in-depth interviews with individuals aged 18–30, working in manual or low-level service occupations, collected in Tampere in Spring 2025. This presentation addresses the following question: what reasons do the research participants give for their experiences of recognition or misrecognition? This way, this analysis builds an understanding of recognition from a bottom-up perspective, contributing to the development of an empirical theory of recognition.
 

Jane Choi (Harvard University)

Michèle Lamont (Harvard University)

Andrew Miles (The University of Manchester, United Kingdom)

Hilary Pilkington (The University of Manchester, United Kingdom)

“The Two Manchesters: Differences in how Young US and UK Workers Think about Recognition in the Context of Growing Inequality”

Abstract: We present early findings from a comparative case study analyzing how non-college educated low-status white collar workers and blue-collar workers living in and around Manchester, New Hampshire, and in the region of Manchester UK, experience recognition and misrecognition in the context of growing inequality. We draw on random stratified samples of in-depth interviews (45 in the US and 43 in the UK) conducted in 2024 and 2025 with white and non-white workers to analyze how these experiences vary with subjective class identification and the boundaries respondents draw toward “people above” and “people below.” We argue that their views are shaped by shared understanding of cultural citizenship where in the US more than the UK, diversity consideration and neoliberal scripts of self (concerning self-reliance, socioeconomic success and consumption) have greater centrality. We discuss the social and political implications of these findings in a context where the radical right is gaining in popularity among youth in both countries.