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This paper points out that common human resource manageement (HRM) research and practice have overlooked employee's class of origin. Workers' class of origin can be seen as “the elephant in the room” in current HRM, being that it significantly affects organizational decision-making with negative social (increased class-based inequality) and organizational (inefficient allocation of human re-sources) effects.

The paper summarizes the partial, fragmented and multi-disciplinary literature on HRM and employees’ social class of origin.

The paper shows how recruiting, selection, training and development practices systematically reinforce class-based inequality by providing high-class employees with more resources and opportunities compared to low-class employees.

The paper provides sustainable HR practitioners, educators and researchers with recommendations on how to address employees' social class of origin, improving organizational competitive advantage and reducing class-based inequality at the societal level.

The paper focuses on a topic which, in diversity management, is an elephant in the room (i.e. workers social class of origin).

Against the recent reversal of the gender gap in higher education that has been observed in many countries, this paper aims to explore why there are better chances for lower social class women to access higher education than for higher social class women in a relative comparison with the same groups of men. Based on the occupational approach and the Breen–Goldthorpe model, we demonstrate those country conditions under which stratification in individual chances to obtain higher education is more severe.

We use contextual characteristics which capture gender-based and occupational differentiation, including female labour force participation, the share of females in the service sector, and the share of males in upper-secondary vocational education. By using multilevel modelling techniques and data provided by the European Social Survey (2002–2018) for 33 countries, we have made a cross-country analysis of how the relationship between gender and class, as well as the achievement of higher education, is moderated by these features.

Our results show that a higher share of males in upper secondary vocational education in a given country is negatively associated with the likelihood of obtaining higher education, whereas a high share of females employed in services in a given country has a positive association with this likelihood. We have also found cross-level interactions between a higher share of employed females and women in the service sector, on the one hand, and those of working-class origin, on the other, that are positively associated with higher education achievement. In higher education achievement, the growing importance of horizontal differentiation based on occupation and gender has accompanied the declining power of vertical inequality based on social class.

This study combines gender and class in an analysis of patterns of inequalities of educational opportunity in different societies undergoing a post-industrialist shift.

The purpose of this article is to highlight inequalities created and sustained through gendered, raced, and classed organizational processes and practices using Joan Acker's work as a lens for perceiving the mechanisms that support such practices. It aims to use home health aide work as an example of how US labor laws and court decisions create and support disadvantages for workers who are largely economically‐disadvantaged and often women of color.

The article considers processes of inequality based on demographic characteristics and the resulting stereotyping, discrimination, and gender, race, and class inequalities.

The article finds that multiple intersecting processes of inequality exist in organizations, manifested in practices of stereotyping and discrimination for some job applicants and workers and advantageous positioning for certain others.

Future research should more specifically consider the effects of multiple processes of inequality on individuals' organizational experiences and the intersections of gender, race, and class (as well as other markers such as ethnicity, sexual orientation, and disability) in organizational practices.

Managers and human resources practitioners should be aware of the effects of processes related to the intersectionality of gender, race, and class and work to eliminate resulting stereotyping and other discriminatory organizational practices linked to these processes in their organizations.

Identification of processes of inequality resulting in stereotyping and discrimination may help reduce them, thus increasing opportunities for work, wages, and benefits, and reducing poverty for members of the most devalued groups.

This research contributes to the literature on the intersecting nature of gender, race, and class‐based inequalities and on human resources decision making in organizations.

This chapter reflects on an undergraduate dissertation study that explored the idea of school choice with parents from different socioeconomic backgrounds who were all connected through their son’s football team. The project became ‘lost’ when the author’s doctoral work took a different direction; however, this loss was not complete as there was an extended physical engagement with the research site, a social tapestry of ongoing connections, and a psychological and intellectual reflexive process that has both influenced and guided the author’s future studies and writing. The original study involved individual interviews with the boys’ parents, discussing the transition from junior school to secondary school. As well as some informal ethnographic observations of the football games and wider community activities. It employed the theory of reasoned action (TRA) and the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) to explore the extent to which parents have a ‘choice’ about their children’s education. The findings of the study supported the premise that there are pervasive forms of classed based inequalities in education and the idea of a ‘fallacy’ of school choice. The theoretical frameworks applied highlighted the ways in which ‘choice’ is constrained in relation to finance, place, class and ideas of belonging and community. The ‘lost’ project would have taken a longitudinal approach to follow the journeys of boys using multimodal forms of ethnography. The chapter argues that even though projects may be lost, they are not forgotten. It details how the author’s ideas for following up the football boys and the findings of the initial study have done, and continue to permeate the author’s thinking, research and understandings of place, class, stigma, constraint and the absence of choice for individuals and communities.

This study aims to deepen the understanding of inequality regimes in male-dominated industries, specifically in Swedish forestry and mining, by exploring how conceptions of gender, class and place are articulated and intertwined when doing gender equality in these organizations.

The article draws on empirical material from four research and development projects inspired by a feminist action research methodology.

This paper shows how gender equality works in these male-dominated organizations simultaneously constructing gender, class and place. When men are at the focal point of gender equality, our empirical findings suggest that blue-collar workers in rural areas are described as “being the problem” for gender inequality in these organizations. Addressing specific groups such as women or blue-collar workers in rural areas is not enough to challenge the inequality regimes that exist in these organizations, since a unilateral focus on certain groups leads to skewed problem formulations.

Research on gender equality work and its relation to intersectionality in male-dominated industries is limited, and by focusing on men and masculinities, this paper contributes to knowledge concerning gender equality in male-dominated industrial organizations.

Purpose – This study examines religious stratification in America from the colonial period until the present.

Design/Methodology/Approach – We use a conflict theoretical approach to examine trends in religious stratification over time. The rankings of religious groups are based on tabulations of the religious affiliations of economic, political, and cultural elites collected at 37 data points from the colonial era until the present.

Findings – In the colonial period, the Upper stratum religious groups (Anglicans, Presbyterians, and Congregationalists) accounted for nearly 90 percent of elites in cultural, economic, and political spheres. The representation of Upper stratum groups among American elites declined from the 1800s to the early 1900s, rebounded somewhat after the 1930s, and then declined after the 1960s. The four groups that comprise the New Upper stratum (Episcopalians, Jews, Presbyterians, and Unitarian-Universalists) account for nearly half of the nation's elites while representing less than 10 percent of the total population.

Research implications – Our research indicates that religious stratification has had largely destabilizing effects on society. In line with other research on stratification, we find that the harmful effects were somewhat muted when inequality was most severe, and these negative effects increased as religious inequality became less pronounced.

Originality/Value – This chapter highlights the importance of religion as a factor in stratification. The use of a conflict perspective allows us to bridge the gap between the stratification literature and the religion literature.