The Stone Center hosted its first in-person Inequality by the Numbers Workshop at the Graduate Center since 2019. The weeklong workshop was held in the Graduate Center’s Skylight Room from June 3 through June 7.
The workshop took a wide-ranging approach to the topic of socio-economic inequalities. Presentations focused on inequalities in various forms of economic resources and their intergenerational transfer — such as wages, income, wealth, and employment — as well as inequalities in politics, health, education, housing, the environment, and the criminal-legal system. Instructors analyzed inequalities through multiple lenses and in several geographic contexts: within New York City, across the U.S., across countries, and globally.
“The workshop is a unique place for participants to be exposed to leading scholarship from multiple social science disciplines and concerning multiple dimensions of inequality, most especially class, race, and gender,” said Leslie McCall, director of the workshop and the Stone Center’s associate director. “Creating such an environment can only happen with the commitment to education and social transformation shared by the phenomenal group of speakers and participants who took time out of their summers to join us.”
This year’s speakers included five Stone Center Senior Scholars, along with professors from other parts of the CUNY system, including Baruch, John Jay, and Queens Colleges. Speakers also came from Columbia University, Drexel University, the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, the New School, New York University, Roma Tre University, UCLA, the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and the University of Texas at Austin. Participants were able to have one-on-one and group consultations with speakers on each day of the workshop.
About 50 Ph.D. students, early-career scholars, journalists, and researchers from the nonprofit sector attended the workshop. “The opportunity to sit down with speakers for research consultations and speak with other participants was really generative,” said Adora Svitak, a Ph.D. candidate in Sociology and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Yale University who is working on a dissertation about socio-economic status, work, and young adults’ romantic relationships. “I got reading recommendations, learned about new datasets, and felt inspired to explore new methods.”
During the Covid-19 pandemic, the Center released a series of more than twenty videos as part of its virtual version of the workshop. To learn more about the conference, see the Inequality by the Numbers page on the Stone Center’s website.