The SSL ‘Book of the Month’ feature highlights a book in our collection that has been chosen by one of our Subject Consultants. This may be a recent addition to our stock or an existing item that we would like to share with you.

February’s Book of the Month was selected by John Southall, Bodleian Data Librarian and Subject Consultant for Economics and Sociology.

Uneven odds: social mobility in contemporary India
Divya Vaid
Oxford University Press, 2018
It was chosen because of the way it uses national-level datasets and advanced quantitative methods, to gain new insights and enrich the sociological as well as the anthropological literature.
Book Overview
This work addresses questions and approaches towards social mobility through interactions between social class, caste, and gender while adopting a rural-urban perspective, capturing changes over time, and the implications of social mobility on a national scale. Vaid successfully applies the class schematic approach to social mobility developed by John H. Goldthorpe amongst others. This neo-Weberian approach defines social class as similar positions embedded in market and work situations, characterizing common life chances.
This author plugs in crucial gaps in the research on social mobility, which has been marked by the lack of precision regarding the extent of mobility in contemporary India. Using a broad lens of both caste and class, this up-to-date statistical analysis enriches our understanding of Indian society, while also locating it within the larger context of social mobility research in the industrialized and industrializing world.
Reviews
“Uneven Odds is not only remarkable because it is the first book to really analyse class mobility in India, it is also a model of thorough quantitative analysis. It definitely opens the way for further quantitative research in social stratification as indicated in the book’s conclusion.”
Mathieu Ferry, South Asia Multidisciplinary Academic Journal
How can I access it?
We have one lending copy of this book, which is located on our New Books Display Area (around the corner from our Issue Desk). Its shelfmark is HN690.Z9.SOC 2018.
What would your SSL Book of the Month be? Do you have a favourite book in our collection? If so, we would love to know what it is. Add a comment below or email us.