Social closure and processes of race/sex employment discrimination

Research on race and gender inequalities in employment typically infers discrimination as an important causal mechanism. The authors' systematic explication of social closure as a discriminatory mechanism reveals that traditional analyses of structural effects and process are not competing, but rather complementary. Analyzing race and sex discrimination cases filed in Ohio from 1988 to 2003, the authors highlight dominant processes of social closure that impact discriminatory exclusion, expulsion, mobility, and harassment on the job. Rather than employing the typical cause and effect modeling centering on outcomes, qualitative analyses serve to clarify discriminatory processes at play. Commonalities between race and sex (e.g., partic-laristic criteria in evaluation) emerge, as do specific racialized and gendered processes. The authors discuss similarities and differences in process; tie qualitative insights to the existing literature; and discuss the implications of their results for theoretical formulations of structure, agency, and inequality within institutional/organizational environments and society at large.