ABSTRACT
Inequality and oppression are deeply woven into the tapestry of American life. Historical linkages and systemic interrelationships that reveal the underlying ways any one dimension of inequality is shaped by another are rarely fully examined. This chapter discusses intersectionality as an innovative and emerging field of study that provides a critical analytic lens to interrogate racial, ethnic, class, physical ability, age, sexuality, and gender disparities and to contest existing ways of looking at these structures of inequality. Research and teaching that focuses on the intersections of race, ethnicity, gender, and other dimensions of identity is a relatively new approach to studying inequality. The intersectional approach to the study of inequality, as it has developed in US social thought, is rooted in illuminating the complexities of race and ethnicity as it intersects with other dimensions of difference.
