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Introduces a special issue on race, ethnicity, & inequality in the U. S. labor market; critical issues in the new millennium. A range of emerging trends pose new research challenges for sociologists. References.

Considerations of how socioeconomic outcomes are racialized within discrete class categories have been neglected in assessing the race/class determinants of life-chance opportunities of African Americans. This article addresses this shortcoming. Specifically, it synthesizes findings from recent sociological research concerning how segregation in two institutional spheres, residence & employment, produce racialization at two class levels -- among the impoverished & the middle class. The article documents that segregation plays a significant role in producing racial inequality at both class levels, though it exerts different influences across class categories: at the impoverished level, segregation in the residential sphere, & at the middle-class level, segregation in the employment sphere, emerge as critical underpinnings of African Americans' inferior life-chance opportunities. The implications of the findings for using traditional Weberian & Marxist modes of class analyses in assessing the life-chance opportunities for African Americans as well as how the findings contribute to the resolution of the race/class debate are discussed. Tables, References. [Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications Inc., copyright 2007 The American Academy of Political and Social Science.]

Considerations of how socioeconomic outcomes are racialized within discrete class categories have been neglected in assessing the race/class determinants of life-chance opportunities of African Americans. This article addresses this shortcoming. Specifically, it synthesizes findings from recent sociological research concerning how segregation in two institutional spheres, residence and employment, produce racialization at two class levels— among the impoverished and the middle class. The article documents that segregation plays a significant role in producing racial inequality at both class levels, though it exerts different influences across class categories: at the impoverished level, segregation in the residential sphere, and at the middle-class level, segregation in the employment sphere, emerge as critical underpinnings of African Americans' inferior life-chance opportunities. The implications of the findings for using traditional Weberian and Marxist modes of class analyses in assessing the life-chance opportunities for African Americans as well as how the findings contribute to the resolution of the race/class debate are discussed.

This article assesses several likely consequences of moving from a traditional tenure to an at-will system of employment for patterns of racial inequality in the public sector. On the basis of these consequences, it is argued that an at-will system may negate the long-standing status of the public arena as the labor market niche for African Americans. The broad discretion of employers may increase susceptibility of African Americans to discrimination-induced job dismissals. In addition, employment at will may reduce the social-psychological benefits traditionally associated with government employment.

This study combines data from 8 years (1991 to 1997 and 1999) of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics to assess predictions from the compositional and particularistic perspectives concerning the determinants of job dismissal among African American and White males during 3 years of the early work career. The findings from logistic regression analyses provide most support for the particularistic perspective. Specifically, dismissal for African Americans, relative to Whites, is widespread. Compared to Whites, African Americans are susceptible to dismissal across categories of traditional stratification-based causal factors—namely, human capital credentials (e.g., education, job absences), background socioeconomic status, and job/labor market characteristics (e.g., union status, economic sector, industry). In addition, analyses indicate that particularism as a determinant of dismissal is more pronounced in working-class than middle-class occupations.