The Temporal Disciplining of Doctoral Research in the Neoliberal Academy

The neoliberal agenda in higher education has led to expectations and targets of market-likeness in student enrolment and completion demographics through the widening participation agenda. However, the reality is that disadvantaged groups such as students with a disability and Indigenous students are still underrepresented, particularly in advanced research degrees. This disadvantage is compounded by the temporal disciplining imposed by bureaucratically-defined completion deadlines. Taking Australia as a paradigmatic case, this chapter explores the temporal disciplining of doctoral research in the broader context of neoTaylorism and the projectification of research. It argues that a care-inspired slowness is needed to counterbalance the harms created by the managerialist push for ‘timely' completion.

Understanding How Socioeconomic Inequalities Drive Inequalities In COVID-19 Infections

Background: Across the world, the COVID-19 pandemic has disproportionately affected economically disadvantaged groups. This differential impact has numerous possible explanations, each with significantly different policy implications. We examine, for the first time in a low- or middle-income country, which mechanisms best explain the disproportionate impact of the virus on the poor. Methods: We use primary data from the CoVIDA project, including the results of 59,770 RT-PCR tests in Bogotá, targeted on a mostly asymptomatic adult population June 2020 to March 3rd, 2021. This is combined with administrative data that covers all reported cases in Bogotá. We estimate a number of parameters that are likely to drive inequality in COVID-19 infection rates across socioeconomic groups, then use these estimates in an individual-level branching process model of the epidemic. We use counterfactual scenarios to estimate the relative importance of different channels for explaining inequality in infection rates. Findings: Total infections and inequalities in infections are largely driven by inequalities in the ability to work remotely and in within-home secondary attack rates. Inequalities in isolation behavior are less important but non-negligible, while access to testing and contract-tracing plays practically no role. Interventions that mitigate transmission are found to be more effective when targeted on socioeconomically disadvantaged groups.Interpretation: Socioeconomically disadvantaged groups are particularly vulnerable to COVID-19 infections, and this appears to be primarily driven by the need to work out of home, higher transmission within home, and to some extent, the ability to isolate when needed. Policies that can successfully reduce these channels of transmission among the poor are likely to have large benefits.

Social Representations in the Classroom

In this chapter, the authors briefly summarize relevant research in two distinct fields of research before suggesting their merging to show how teachers’ help might promote their pupils’ future growth, eventually challenging the current unequal social status quo between advantaged and disadvantaged groups. Two studies, conducted with original research methodology, illustrate the point and conclude with practical suggestions for effective helping relationships in the classroom, underlying the pivotal role of social interactions in fostering the child’s active involvement in relevant social groups. Relaunching and employing the concepts of contingent scaffolding, as a provisional structure of knowledge offered by the adult, the teacher’s capacity of fading, in accordance with the growing capacity of students, and the transfer of responsibilities from teachers to students, the “thirdness” in the knowing process and its potential role in changing existing unequal status quo stands out.

Collateral Damage: The Relationship Between High-Salience Events and Variation in Racial Discrimination

To what extent are individual or organizational biases affected by racially salient events? We propose that acts of discrimination and the individual biases that undergird them are sensitive to high-salience events and will oscillate with the salience of the focal attribute. In short, that the propensity to discriminate reflects both individual and environmental differences, and therefore a given person may become more prone to discriminate in the aftermath of a high-salience event. We test our hypothesis in three online experiments that examine how varying the salience of race affects the evaluation of in-group or out-group founders. We find that respondents evaluate their in-group members more favorably, and out-group members less favorably, when exposed to a high-salience event, which translates into a significant disadvantage for the minority (African American) group. We complement these studies with an assessment of how police shootings affect fundraising outcomes on Kickstarter to confirm the external validity of our findings. Together, these studies indicate that racially salient events depress the quality evaluations and success odds of African American entrepreneurs relative to others. Hence, discrimination levels can be affected by salient yet unrelated events, and such events are consequential for the economic fortunes of individuals belonging to minority and disadvantaged groups.

Faith-Driven Gentrification and Displacement in Education in Israeli Urban Neighborhoods

Community-based, Judaism-intensive action groups (Hebrew: Gar’inim Toraniim—GTs) are religiously motivated to settle in Israeli development towns, seeking to narrow social gaps through education. However, their influence has never been fully clarified. This study is grounded in the theory of educational gentrification and introduces the concept of Faith-Driven Gentrification. Until now research has lacked voice from local people forced to face the intervention of settlers driven by religion and their influence on urban school systems. The findings, based on institutional data and in-depth interviews, show that GTs alter the structure of educational systems and the dominant educational ethos. They drive achievement and strict religiosity; nevertheless, their actions impair disadvantaged groups and opponents of their religious lifestyle, intensifying segregation. By giving voice to these communities, this study claims that despite gentrifiers’ commitment to social justice in urban communities, they harm longtime residents through indirect displacement, fueled by religious and ethnic elitism.

Measuring Social Mobility in Historic and Less Developed Societies

In societies where surnames are inherited from parents, we can use these names to estimate rates of intergenerational mobility. This chapter explains how to make such estimates, and illustrates their use in pre-industrial England and modern Chile and India. These surname estimates have the advantage that they require much less data than traditional parent–child estimates. They are also more robust to errors in status data. Thus, they can be used to estimate social mobility rates in early societies such as England 1300–1800, or in less developed societies now. Surnames measure a different aspect of social mobility than conventional measures, but this surname measure is the one that matters when we consider group-level convergence of social status, or the time needed for any disadvantaged groups to attain at least average status measured in generations. Surnames thus allow us to measure a key element in the multigenerational mobility process.

The AMIGAS Model: Reconciling Prejudice Reduction and Collective Action Approaches Through a Multicultural Commitment in Intergroup Relations

Social psychology’s search for ways to address intergroup inequality has grappled with two approaches that have been considered incompatible: (a) the prejudice reduction approach, that argues that changing individual negative attitudes will undermine the basis for discrimination and lead to intergroup harmony; and (b) the collective action approach, that argues that social protest and activism can improve the position of disadvantaged groups. The problem is that efforts toward prejudice reduction may serve to suppress genuine efforts to change. We propose the Achieving Multicultural Integration of Groups Across Society (AMIGAS) model, in which a multicultural commitment is proposed as a driver of both improved intergroup evaluations and promotion of collective action for reduced inequality, especially in contexts where there are conditions for a respectful intercultural dialogue. The AMIGAS model is a theoretical advance in the field of intergroup relations and a basis for implementing effective egalitarian policies and practices.

Equal Opportunities Through Education

An inclusive society is a society that offers its members equal opportunities to participate in all aspects of public life, without discrimination, by exercising rights and assuming responsibilities so that progress is equally desired by the individuals and the society to which they belong. The human personality is formed by the interaction of the biological (heredity) with the factors of the social environment and under the influence of education. That is why it is necessary for education to be a modeling continuum, a process that begins in the family and is continued in school, the nucleus around which the free, independent, creative personalities of future adults will be formed. Today’s children are tomorrow’s adults, the ones who will make their mark on the future society. Whether tomorrow’s society will be an inclusive society or whether it will raise barriers and generate hostility depends on how we form the young generation today. This exploratory research, based on the analysis of official documents, statistics and concrete data of the observed reality, highlights important aspects regarding the access to education of disadvantaged groups, in a society that wants to be inclusive.

Equality, Reciprocity, or Need? Mitigating Ethnocentric Bias in Policy Evaluation with Distributive Fairness

The literature on welfare chauvinism shows that ethnocentrism reduces support for outgroup redistribution. To limit bias, scholarship suggests framing policies universally or addressing beneficiary deservingness. However, policies to support disadvantaged groups and ensure equity cannot always be framed in universal terms. Moreover, dominant groups often hold minoritized groups to a deservingness double standard. Thus, we ask: what are effective ways of mollifying ethnocentric bias in policy evaluation? We argue that principles of distributive justice -- normative justifications for who should get what and why -- can reduce ethnocentric bias. We test through three experiments in Slovakia and with the Roma as the outgroup. Frames using the distributive principle of reciprocity reduce ethnocentric bias amongst majorities; conversely, frames centered around the principle of need garner minority support. Given salient anti-Roma prejudice, we consider our findings a floor. For less stigmatized outgroups, reciprocity frames may bolster support for redistributive policies even further.