God, Grades, and Graduation

It’s widely acknowledged that American parents from different class backgrounds take different approaches to raising their children. But missing from the discussion is the fact that millions of parents on both sides of the class divide are raising their children to listen to God. What impact does a religious upbringing have on their academic trajectories? Drawing on 10 years of survey data with over 3,000 teenagers and over 200 interviews, God, Grades, and Graduation offers a revealing and at times surprising account of how teenagers’ religious upbringing influences their educational pathways from high school to college. God, Grades, and Graduation introduces readers to a childrearing logic that cuts across social class groups and accounts for Americans’ deep relationship with God: religious restraint. This book takes us inside the lives of these teenagers to discover why they achieve higher grades than their peers, why they are more likely to graduate from college, and why boys from lower-middle-class families particularly benefit from religious restraint. But readers also learn how for middle-upper-class kids—and for girls especially—religious restraint recalibrates their academic ambitions after graduation, leading them to question the value of attending a selective college despite their stellar grades in high school. By illuminating the far-reaching effects of the childrearing logic of religious restraint, God, Grades, and Graduation offers a compelling new narrative about the role of religion in academic outcomes and educational inequality.

A Domino Effect

Education during the early years of life lays the groundwork for educational trajectories over the course of life. A college degree has a profound effect on Americans over the life course, including how much they earn and how long they live. This chapter argues that religious restraint has a domino effect. Teenagers raised with religious restraint earn better grades in high school, and their higher grade point averages help them go on to complete more years of college than nonabiders. Abiders from working-class and middle-class families see the biggest educational attainment bump. However, abiders from poor families and from the professional class do not see a strong educational attainment bump.

People, Place, and Politics: Local Factors Shaping Middle‐Class Practices in Mixed‐Class German Neighbourhoods

This article takes a nuanced look at the role played by neighbourhood characteristics and local policies in facilitating or limiting the ways in which diversity‐oriented middle‐class families interact and deal with people of lower social classes in mixed‐class inner‐city neighbourhoods. The study draws on interviews and social network analysis conducted in neighbourhoods with different socio‐economic characteristics in the German cities of Hanover and Dusseldorf. A comparative view allows us to analyse how neighbourhood characteristics and local policies influence middle‐classes’ interactions across social boundaries. Our aim is to contribute to ongoing debates on urban policy options: In discussing the conditions encouraging cross‐boundary interactions of specific middle‐class fractions, we argue that the scope of local‐level action is not fully recognized in either policy or academic debates.

Self-segregation strategies through school choice in Chile: A middle-class domain?

Sociological research has shown that marketized educational systems favour middle-class families’ self-segregation strategies through school choice and, consequently, the reproduction of their social advantage over poorer families. Drawing on Pierre Bourdieu’s concepts of capitals, habitus and strategy, we analyse quantitative and ethnographic data on parents’ school choice from Chile to introduce nuances to this argument, evincing more extended and complex mechanisms of self-segregation in the Chilean marketized educational system. We found that not only middle-class parents but also parents from different socioeconomic groups displayed self-segregating school choice strategies. We also found that these strategies were performed both vertically (in relation to other social classes) and horizontally (in relation to other groups within the same social class). These findings unwrap a possible stronger effect of the Chilean school choice system over segregation.

Ethnic segregation and native out-migration in Copenhagen

In this article, we study how the local concentration of ethnic minorities relates to the likelihood of out-migration by natives in Copenhagen, the capital of Denmark. In US studies, a high or increasing proportion of racial or ethnic minorities in inner-city neighborhoods is seen as an important motivation for White middle-class families’ out-migration to racially and ethnically homogeneous suburbs. The relatively egalitarian Scandinavian setting offers a contrasting case, where inner cities are less deprived and where minority groups primarily consist of immigrants and the children of immigrants who have arrived over the past few decades. We use population-wide, longitudinal administrative data covering a 12-year period, and measures of individualized neighborhoods based on exact coordinates for place of residence, to examine whether out-migration is associated with minority concentrations in the Copenhagen area. Our results largely support the presence of a native out-migration mobility pattern, in contrast to much existing literature. We also show that responses to increasing minority concentrations vary across the life course and between natives and children of immigrants.

COVID19, Consumption and Inequality: A Systematic Analysis of Rural Population of India

COVID19 pandemic has impacted consumption levels and inequality within India. Government policy interventions have targeted poor households for cash and food transfers. It is important, however, to study the impact of the pandemic on consumption levels of non-poor in India, and in particular the middle class. In this paper, we aim to quantify the changes in consumption levels and inequality over time, across all groups of rural households in India. We analyse three rounds of COVID 19-related shock surveys between May and September 2020. These surveys cover rural households of six large states in India and are representative of more than 442 million (52% of rural population of India). In the early phase of the pandemic, it was the bottom 40% of households that experienced the most severe decline in consumption. But as the pandemic deepened, consumption declined across all classes of households. Besides the poorest, it was particularly severe for the middle class (defined as 40%-80%). We also measure consumption inequality over time and find that the Gini coefficient of consumption distribution increased significantly. In addition to focusing on poor households, policy responses to alleviate sufferings of people would have to consider a more comprehensive boost to consumption and compensate for the reduced consumption among middle class families as well.