Synopses & Reviews
I found this book exciting, inspiring, and challenging. Some readers will disagree with its breadth and depth, but other readers will keenly seek out and embrace this volume. The book is bound to force further debate. . . .It is an excellent exemplar of the challenges and rewards of the multidisciplinary and internationally multicultural enterprise. I wish I felt optimistic that it might become required reading for all social scientists. --Stephen Small, University of Massachusetts, Amherst This synthesizing work on status and equality, utilizing a psychocultural approach is one of the most powerful analyses of relationships among the self, ethnicity, gender, status mobility, migration, and status inequality to have been produced by anyone to date. Many years of work on these matters among the Japanese abroad and in America by George DeVos and the recent work by Suarez-Orozco on Central American refugees in American Schools are well reflected in this analysis. --George Spindler, Stanford University The culmination of more than forty years of study, Status Inequality provides a theoretical integration of themes by George De Vos, long an influence in the field of psychological anthropology. With coauthor Marcelo Suarez-Orozco, De Vos explores anthropological, sociological, and psychoanalytical insights into human behavior. Their unified theory synthesizes social structure and personality structure, concepts heretofore seen as diametrically opposed. The authors point to the symbolic nature of groups, the experience of ethnicity and of inequality, and the impact of internal and external variables on the sense of self. Separating the effects of status inequality from other social andpsychological determinants of behavior, this intriguing and compelling work discusses the developmental experience of the self. Certain to be a welcome resource for scholars and students alike in psychology, anthropology, status inequality, and cross-cultural research.
Synopsis
With his co-author, De Vos - a major figure in psychological anthropology - explores anthropological, sociological and psychoanalytical insights into human behaviour. Their unified theory synthesizes social structure and personality structure, concepts previously seen as diametrically opposed. The authors point to the symbolic nature of groups, the experience of ethnicity and of inequality, and the impact of internal and external variables on the sense of self. Separating the effects of status inequality from other social and psychological determinants of behaviour, this intriguing work discusses the developmental experience of the self.
Description
Includes bibliographical references (p. 289-301) and indexes.