Social structure and inequality

2021 ◽  
pp. 11-28
Author(s):  
John Bynner ◽  
Walter R. Heinz
Keyword(s):  
Social Class ◽  
Social Inequality ◽  
Social Cohesion ◽  
Social Mechanisms ◽  
Life Chances ◽  
National Economic ◽  
The Us ◽  
Path Dependent ◽  
And Migration ◽  
Youth Transitions

Focuses on the meaning and effects of social inequality from a structural perspective, i.e. how life chances are based on wealth and income in populations distributed demographically according to such features as education, age, ethnicity, locality and nationality. Social class based patterns and dimensions of stratification that define young people’s life chances in the US and Europe characterise neo-liberal digital societies in which inequality is rising, threatening social cohesion. The book shows how Germany and England are marked by such ‘path-dependent’ inequalities that structure privileged and precarious youth transitions. In addition, inequality is impacted by such factors as globalisation, and migration showing how national economic and social policies respond. Social mechanisms structuring unequal youth transitions are also outlined.

scholarly journals Social Cohesion: Methods of Analysis and Ways of Achievement

2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 132-142
Author(s):  
Valentin Roik ◽  
Maria Yudina
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
Social Inequality ◽  
Social Services ◽  
Social Cohesion ◽  
Social Protection ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Accurate Analysis ◽  
Life Chances ◽  
Social Disintegration ◽  
Distribution Of Resources

The article is devoted to the issues of social cohesion, its conceptual foundations, and measurement methods that allow expanding the possibilities of studying the consequences of poverty and social inequality that lead to social disintegration of society. Trends in working conditions from the perspective of labour income, access to social protection systems, and stable employment are considered. Special attention is paid to the categories «social cohesion», «social disintegration», «life chances», methods of their classification and methodological relationships. It reflects the positions of international organizations, Western and domestic scientists on the phenomenon of social cohesion, the relevance of which in the life of modern societies is currently increasing. Existing and proposed methods of assessing social cohesion, social disintegration, and life chances can be used to analyze the effectiveness of social policy, allowing them to identify real opportunities to achieve certain levels of material well-being and quality of life for the most typical population groups by income levels, education, and duration of employment in professional groups. This provides a more accurate analysis of opportunities to achieve a higher level of education, social status, access to quality medical care, and reliable insurance institutions. The degree of access of individuals to knowledge, social services, employment, and social networks reflects not only their potential opportunities that can be realized in the future, but also describes the current state of Affairs: an uneven distribution of resources that generates poverty and social disunity. The triad of «poverty – social inequality – life chances» is considered in a union context to develop recommendations for improving social policy.

Identity Politics and Migration

2008 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 155-158
Author(s):  
Vytis Čiubrinskas
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Identity Politics ◽  
Host Country ◽  
Social Anthropology ◽  
The Us ◽  
And Migration ◽  
The Uk ◽  
A Current ◽  
Respective Host

The Centre of Social Anthropology (CSA) at Vytautas Magnus University (VMU) in Kaunas has coordinated projects on this, including a current project on 'Retention of Lithuanian Identity under Conditions of Europeanisation and Globalisation: Patterns of Lithuanian-ness in Response to Identity Politics in Ireland, Norway, Spain, the UK and the US'. This has been designed as a multidisciplinary project. The actual expressions of identity politics of migrant, 'diasporic' or displaced identity of Lithuanian immigrants in their respective host country are being examined alongside with the national identity politics of those countries.

Religion and Religiosity in the US

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Detlef Pollack ◽  
Gergely Rosta
Keyword(s):  
Social Inequality ◽  
Empirical Analysis ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
Religion And Politics ◽  
Economic Conditions ◽  
Religious Practices ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Empirical Analysis

Although the countries of Western Europe are very similar to the US in terms of their social, political, and economic conditions, they differ greatly when it comes to religion. Chapter 10 discusses how these differences can be explained. The empirical analysis shows that, besides the considerable differences in the level of religiosity between the US and Western Europe, there are also surprising similarities in the weakening church ties and religious practices. The findings demonstrate that it is in many respects not Europe but America that is the exception. This relates among other things to the level of social inequality, which is unusually high for a modern society, the strong tendencies towards functional dedifferentiation, such as between religion and politics, and the traditionalism of the culturally accepted system of values.

scholarly journals The Relevance of Inequality Research in Sociology for Inequality Reduction

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. 237802312110201
Author(s):  
Thomas A. DiPrete ◽  
Brittany N. Fox-Williams
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Policy ◽  
Social Inequality ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Sociological Research ◽  
Life Chances ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Social ◽  
Large Scale Change ◽  
The Subject

Social inequality is a central topic of research in the social sciences. Decades of research have deepened our understanding of the characteristics and causes of social inequality. At the same time, social inequality has markedly increased during the past 40 years, and progress on reducing poverty and improving the life chances of Americans in the bottom half of the distribution has been frustratingly slow. How useful has sociological research been to the task of reducing inequality? The authors analyze the stance taken by sociological research on the subject of reducing inequality. They identify an imbalance in the literature between the discipline’s continual efforts to motivate the plausibility of large-scale change and its lesser efforts to identify feasible strategies of change either through social policy or by enhancing individual and local agency with the potential to cumulate into meaningful progress on inequality reduction.

“We are not ignorant”: Transnational migrants’ experiences of racialized securitization

2018 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 197-215 ◽  
Author(s):  
Megan Ybarra
Keyword(s):  
The United States ◽  
State Violence ◽  
Central American ◽  
Immigration Enforcement ◽  
Mexican Migrants ◽  
Legal Violence ◽  
Life Chances ◽  
Mexican State ◽  
The Us ◽  
Transnational Migrants

This paper examines the dynamics of racialized securitization for transnational migrants across multiple borders—from Central America toward Mexico and the United States. Rather than a singular process where US policies, funding, and attitudes toward border security direct Mexican immigration enforcement, I argue that Mexican state collaboration redirects US xenophobia away from Mexican migrants and toward Central American migrants. Migrants’ testimonies point to the ways that US and Mexican discourses are mobilized in different—but complementary—ways that shape them as racialized subjects with differential life chances. This is clearest through a crude mapping of people onto nationalities for deportation based on hair, language, and tattoos. Beyond legal violence, deported migrants describe their vulnerability as constructed within tacit networks of collaboration between actors in the US and Mexico, both licit and illicit, in an effort to extort migrants and their families. While race is a key signifier in border securitization, the differences between these racial states have material consequences in the differential state violence in immigration enforcement.

Tracking in Israeli high schools: social inequality after 50 years of educational reforms

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eyal Bar-Haim ◽  
Yariv Feniger
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Secondary Education ◽  
Social Inequality ◽  
Structural Changes ◽  
Social Background ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Life Chances ◽  
Academic Tracks ◽  
Track Placement ◽  
Parental Class

This paper provides an overview of tracking in Israeli upper secondary education and assesses its effect on the attainment of higher education degrees and earnings. Since the early 1970’s, the Israeli education system has gone through three major reforms that profoundly transformed tracking and sorting mechanisms in secondary education. All three aimed at reducing social inequality in educational attainment through structural changes that expanded learning opportunities and replaced rigid top-down sorting mechanisms with concepts of differentiation and choice. Utilising a data set that includes a large representative sample of Israelis born between 1978 and 1981 who were fully affected by the reforms, the analysis shows that there is a clear link between social background and track placement. Track placement, in turn, is associated with attainment of higher education degrees and income. Moreover, tracking mediates a large proportion of the association between parental class and these two adult outcomes. We also show that the low-status academic tracks that replaced the vocational tracks did not improve the life chances of low-achieving students from disadvantaged social groups.<br /><br />Key messages<br /><ul><li>We analyze the relation between social background, secondary education tracking and later life achievements using registry data.</li><br /><li>The results show that tracking mediates a large proportion of the association between background and outcomes High-tier vocational tracks improved the chances of students.</li><br /><li>Low-status academic tracks did not improve the life chances of low background students.</li></ul>

Russia and Sanctions: The Transformational Domestic and International Effects of Unilateral Restrictive Measures

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 478-502
Author(s):  
Anastasia Likhacheva
Keyword(s):  
National Development ◽  
Spillover Effects ◽  
Economic Security ◽  
Official Discourse ◽  
Risk Sensitive ◽  
National Economic ◽  
The Us ◽  
Collateral Effects ◽  
International Projects ◽  
Restrictive Measures

Abstract Most studies of the US, EU and Ukraine’s sanctions against Russia and Russian counter sanctions focus on their immediate and intended effects and apply these to make judgements about their efficacy. However, the complex consequences of sanctions go far beyond the target countries’ immediate reactions, as sanctions have positive and negative spillover effects that are rarely acknowledged in official discourse, which focuses on issues of the sanction regimes’ legitimacy and effectiveness. Vulnerability to sanctions leads target countries to reposition their domestic and international priorities. This article will examine three critical ‘collateral effects’ of Western sanctions and Russian counter sanctions. First, they serve as a catalyst for Moscow’s efforts to diversify economic relationship through international projects such as the EAEU, BRICS, and the “Pivot to the East.” Second, they have triggered more risk-sensitive policies in the provision of national economic security, particularly when it comes to finance. Finally, they serve as a transformational tool for national development strategies both at the industrial and regional levels.

scholarly journals Influenza Vaccination and Migration at the US Southern Border

2020 ◽  
Vol 110 (4) ◽  
pp. 466-467
Author(s):  
Alia Sunderji ◽  
Katherine Narvaez Mena ◽  
Jonathan Winickoff ◽  
Judy Melinek ◽  
Joshua Sharfstein
Keyword(s):  
Influenza Vaccination ◽  
The Us ◽  
Southern Border ◽  
And Migration

scholarly journals Intake of sugar sweetened soft drinks among adolescents: Trends and social inequality in Denmark 2002-2018

2020 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-8
Author(s):  
Bjørn E. Holstein ◽  
Mogens Trab Damsgaard ◽  
Pernille Due ◽  
Rikke Fredenslund Krølner ◽  
Trine Pagh Pedersen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Class ◽  
Social Inequality ◽  
Health Behaviour ◽  
Odds Ratio ◽  
Soft Drinks ◽  
School Aged Children ◽  
Occupational Social Class ◽  
Nationally Representative ◽  
Representative Samples

Background: Intake of sugar sweetened soft drinks (SSSD) has decreased among adolescents, but trends in social inequality in SSSD intake are unknown. Aim: Examine trends in social inequality in SSSD intake among adolescents in Denmark during 2002–2018. Methods: Five Health Behaviour in School-aged Children surveys with data on SSSD intake and parents’ occupational social class (OSC) from nationally representative samples of 11, 13 and 15 year olds, n =20,112. Results: The overall prevalence of daily SSSD intake decreased from 10.1% in 2002 to 6.4% in 2018. The prevalence decreased in both high OSC (from 8% to 5%) and middle OSC (from 10% to 6%) but remained around 12% in low OSC. The odds ratio (OR) estimates of low compared with high OSC increased over the years around an overall OR of 2.01 (1.74–2.34). Conclusions: Danish adolescents’ SSSD intake decreased during 2002–2018 and was higher the lower the parents’ OSC. Thus, social inequality increased during 2002–2018.

‘Maybe Life Can Become Easier Because of My Good Grades’: Children’s Conflicting Repertoires on Aspirations and Life Chances

2020 ◽  
pp. 136078042097541
Author(s):  
Imane Kostet ◽  
Noel Clycq ◽  
Gert Verschraegen
Keyword(s):  
Social Inequality ◽  
Social Mobility ◽  
Education System ◽  
Personal Agency ◽  
Life Chances ◽  
The Future

In this article, we draw on interviews with pupils aged 11–13 years, to analyse children’s aspirations, expectations of the future, and reasonings about social inequality in the context of an early tracking education system. We highlight the conflicting yet creative ways in which children make sense of inequality in relation to life chances. Although our child-respondents prefer structural explanations for inequality, they strategically draw on repertoires of individual social mobility to express their faith in personal agency and meritocracy. In doing so, these children use narratives of upwards mobility that have arisen in very different socio-economic and political contexts to make sense of inequality in their own locality.

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