ABSTRACT
316Throughout this book, we have shown how Australia has been a white racist society, how men and women are not equal, and how work is being distributed unequally. In this chapter, we look at the general idea that Australia is an unequal society. Social inequality and class are long-standing conceptual themes in sociology. We begin by considering the idea of inequality before discussing some of the ways in which the concept of class has been used to make sense of and explain certain patterns of inequality. We also introduce and critically analyse the idea of an underclass.
