Categorical Inequalities Research Articles

Categorical and resource inequalities in self-reliant internet use and use-by-proxy among older adults in Slovenia during the COVID-19 pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic had considerable impact on how older adults engaged online, with many using the internet for the first time or relying on family, friends, and peers to perform an activity online on their behalf, a form of internet use known as use-by-proxy. Since we lack large-scale research that compares what factors influence self-reliant internet use and use-by-proxy in older adults during the pandemic, this study seeks to fill this gap. Drawing on resources and appropriation theory, we examine how categorical (e.g., age, gender, education) and resource inequalities (e.g., social, material) shape internet use among older adults as well as the availability and activation of use-by-proxy among older internet non-users. We conducted three binary logistic regression models to analyze survey data collected in 2021 during the fourth wave of pandemic public health measures in Slovenia from a sample of 701 older adults aged 65+. The results show that personal and positional categorical disparities among older adults were significantly associated with their internet use during the pandemic, whereas bridging social capital was the only social resource positively associated with internet use. Conversely, categorical inequalities played a less important role in the availability of use-by-proxy than social resources. In fact, apart from occupation, bonding and bridging social capital were the only positive correlates of availability of proxy users among older internet non-users. Surprisingly, neither type of social capital was linked with the activation of use-by-proxy, which was only associated with two positional categorical disparities: marital status and residential area. Our findings suggest that addressing age-related digital inequalities after the pandemic requires a diversified approach that considers the heterogeneity of categorical and resource inequalities shaping older adults' self-reliant internet use and use-by-proxy.

Categorical Inequalities and Canadian Attitudes toward Positive and Negative Rights

Abstract Liberal democracies are expected to provide residents with both negative rights, such as limitations against the abuse of police powers, and some range of positive (social) rights, such as access to social benefits. These rights are commonly deemed to apply equally, without respect to individuals’ ascriptive backgrounds. Existing research, often in the US context and focused on social programs, shows both support for abstract rights and group-specific prejudices. We interrogate whether similar patterns exist in Canada and innovate by directly examining negative and positive rights in the same study. Using a series of novel survey experiments, we demonstrate the degree to which categorical inequalities based on race and legal status affect public support for rights provision in Canada. Both rights are more recognized for citizens relative to out-of-status migrants, and legal status at times interacts with racialized minority status. Rights appear far from universal in the minds of Canadians.

Organizational demography and gender authority gaps in Dutch workplaces

Social stratification research increasingly draws attention to the role of workplaces for the (re)production of categorical inequalities. This article studies the relationship between differences between men’s and women’s chances of having a position of workplace authority – the gender authority gap – and the demographic characteristics of the organization they work in. Using unique linked employer-employee data representative of large workplaces in the Netherlands and individuals working in these organizations, I document larger gender authority gaps in organizations with larger shares of men and organizations where men have higher status than women in terms of other categorical distinctions, for example where their percentage of non-migrants is higher relative to women’s. Crucially, these findings are net of women’s and men’s individual status characteristics and human capital and related organizational characteristics. This article contributes to the literature on the gender authority gap by showing that women may be unable to reach desired jobs partially because of working in an organization with a particular demographic composition or intersection of status distinctions even when they have the qualifications to do so. In addition, the study contributes to the emerging relational inequalities literature that has thus far focused on earnings inequality by showing that predictions from this literature are consistent with the unequal distribution of desirable jobs.

TESTING THE ROLE OF CATEGORICAL AND RESOURCE INEQUALITIES IN INDIRECT INTERNET USES OF OLDER ADULTS: A PATH ANALYSIS

Age-related digital inequalities have been one of the key aspects to understand and enable better ageing in the digitalized world. Although there is a large body of literature on direct forms and determinants of digital engagement among older internet users and non-users, only a few studies have focused on determinants of indirect internet uses among older non-users. To address this gap, this study investigates how the unequal distribution of resources among older non-users affects the availability and activation of supportive relationships, which enable them to ask other internet users to perform internet activities on their behalf—a practice known as use-by-proxy (UBP). Drawing on van Dijk’s (2005) resources and appropriation theory, we build a conceptual model with seven hypotheses. These hypotheses specify sequential pathways between categorical inequalities and differences in social and material resources as determinants of the heterogeneity of UBP availability and activation of networks. In turn, availability and activation affect the breadth of UBP engagement among older non-users. The model is tested on a representative survey sample of 241 respondents aged 65+ from Slovenia. Results from path analysis partly support the model and demonstrate the importance of investigating the sequential paths between social and age-related digital inequalities with respect to indirect forms of internet uses. The results also suggest that interventions aimed at supporting older non-users in their access to online services can be targeted at different levels, from addressing categorical and resource inequalities to providing UBP services.

The different worlds of Google – A comparison of search results on conspiracy theories in 12 countries

Search engines play an important role in the spread of disinformation and conspiracy theories, accentuating the power of global platform companies such as Google to contribute to the digital (information) divide by providing search results of lesser quality in certain countries. We investigated this phenomenon by asking what kind of results users see when they search for information on eleven popular conspiracy theories (CTs) via Google. We analysed links from Google search results ( N = 1259) in 12 Western and non-Western countries and 10 languages. Overall, users are more likely to encounter neutral or debunking content when using Google to search for prominent CTs. However, for some CTs, strong country differences in the quality of search results emerge, showing clear correlations between categorical inequalities and unequal access to reliable information. In countries where journalists enjoy less freedom, people enjoy fewer democratic rights and are less able to rely on social elites, Google also provides less enlightening content on CTs than in developed and prosperous democracies. The countries thus disadvantaged are precisely those countries where there is a high propensity to believe in CTs according to comparative survey research. However, in countries where a global language is spoken, for example, English or Portuguese, there is no correlation between structural, country-specific factors and the quality of search results. In this sense, structurally disadvantaged countries seem to benefit from belonging to a larger language community.

Neutralising the digital divide: is blended learning a viable solution?

The digital divide (DD), which refers to the gap resulting from unequal access to digital technology hardware, software and ideological-ware resources, arises from disparities in accessing, material and physical resources that enable internet access. In the contemporary world, this divide extends beyond internet access to include the ability to manipulate educational technologies in the knowledge building process. Therefore, the installation of the internet infrastructure in communities should not be considered as the sole facility to access. In attempting to curb the DD, blended learning is seen to be a possible viable option. It is against this backdrop that this article sought to explore the role of blended learning in neutralising DD. This qualitative case study employed the resources and appropriation theory as a lens to analyse DD as a result of societal inequalities and unequal distribution of resources. The community of Inquiry (COI) framework was also used as a theoretical lens to guide the implementation of social and cognitive knowledge-building in a blended learning context. The reported study employed purposive sampling involving 26 participants who were the recipients of blended learning in one institution of higher learning (HEI) in Lesotho. Data were generated through reflective journals and one-on-one semi-structured interviews, and guided analysis was used to interpret the generated data. The findings established that blended learning has the capacity to neutralise DD, as it affords students the flexibility to design and engage in individualised learning experiences through both offline and online modes of teaching and learning, thereby meeting their access needs. The recommendation proposed in this article, thus, is for HEIs to adopt blended learning to eliminate categorical inequalities and social divisions in education, ideally promoting equilibrated inclusion of individuals from diverse socio-economic backgrounds in the teaching and learning process.

Racial-ethnic, gender identity, and sexual orientation disparities in COVID-19-related social and health outcomes: A decomposition analysis

Despite the growing literature on racial-ethnic disparities during the pandemic, less is known about the explanatory mechanisms of these disparities and inequalities across other axes, such as gender and sexual identities. We studied the levels and sources of racial-ethnic, gender identity, and sexual minority disparities in social (i.e., unmet resource needs) and health (i.e., hospitalization) outcomes among individuals diagnosed with COVID-19, hypothesizing differential age structure, underlying health, and work and living arrangements as contributors to inequalities. Using large-scale administrative data from Chicago and adjusting for covariates, we found substantial racial-ethnic and gender identity disparities in both outcomes, and weak evidence of sexual minority disparities in unmet needs. Subsequent decomposition analyses revealed that living in larger households, having a higher share of non-adult cases, and facing higher burdens of chronic illness, obesity, and unemployment each statistically significantly drove racial-ethnic disparities in unmet needs, but these together explained less than 15% of the disparities. Similarly, about 20% of the Black-White gap in hospitalization resulted from disparities in underlying health and unemployment, whereas a higher proportion of non-adult cases or higher unemployment rates respectively proved the only significant pathways to partially explain transgender individuals’ disadvantages in unmet needs (12%) or hospitalization (6%). These findings highlight the importance of considering multiple dimensions of social differences in studying health disparities, the vulnerabilities of transgender and non-adult communities during the pandemic, and the valid yet quite limited roles of previously suggested sociodemographic factors in accounting for COVID-19-related categorical inequalities.

Standardizing Refuge: Pipelines and Pathways in the U.S. Refugee Resettlement Program

How do bureaucracies pattern durable inequalities? Predominant approaches emphasize the role of administrative categories, which prioritize certain populations for valued resources based on broader regimes of human worth. This article extends this body of work by examining how categorical inequalities become embedded within administrative infrastructures and institutional pathways. I develop this argument through a case study of the United States’ refugee resettlement program. Drawing together previously unseen government statistics, expert interviews, and documentary analysis, I show that U.S. resettlement is organized through administrative pipelines that create path dependent imbalances in the distribution of scarce resettlement spaces. Social and political logics of immigrant worthiness are important, yet a full understanding of these imbalances requires attention to the tendency of pipelines to become self-reproducing. I identify three factors that account for this tendency: calculative rationales, administrative reactivity, and structured visibility. This three-part conceptualization of pipelines can be applied to other institutional contexts to study the origins, dynamics, and durability of social inequalities. My findings also demonstrate the analytically autonomous role of policy administration in shaping ethnoracial imbalances in immigrant selection.

Bridging the Digital Divide: Participation Inequality in Eastern Croatia

The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the digital transformation that has brought great changes and new opportunities in all aspects of the everyday life of people worldwide. The overall objective of this research was to gain a better understanding of the digital inequality among ICT and Internet users in Eastern Croatia by identifying categorical inequalities (Van Dijk 2005, 2017) in the form of key obstacles that affect their successful use in everyday life, among them being age, insufficient digital literacy and knowledge of the English language. The research was conducted using a questionnaire (Google Forms) covering different age groups and their user characteristics and experiences in acquiring digital knowledge and skills such as understanding multimodal icons that combine verbal and visual material, use of translation tools, use of the English language on the Internet and use of online content. Building upon previous research on the digital divide, this research contributes to broadening perspectives on the importance of caring for older users of digital technologies and understanding the barriers that lead to participation inequality in an increasingly digitized society. The results of the survey show that obstacles related to the lack of knowledge of ICT, difficulty finding their way around search engines, and insufficient knowledge of the English language are the obstacles of respondents over the age of 36.

North–South digital divide: A comparative study of personal and positional inequalities in USA and India

The COVID-19 pandemic created one of the biggest disruptions in human life. We were all confined within the walls of our homes or offices with day-to-day life worldwide seriously affected. In this context, access to and efficient use of technology determined the course of daily life for vast sections of the world’s population. However, there was (and still is) a severe pre-existing global divide between the Global North and Global South vis-à-vis digital access. This paper attempts to understand this digital divide and how it has widened during the pandemic in the Global North and Global South with reference to India and the United States (US). This is initiated by analyzing certain factors within each country, namely positional and personal categorical inequalities. Through the cases of the US and India, the authors conclude that the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the global digital divide between the two worlds, affecting core social sectors like education and health. The larger implication of this is a broadening inequality between the Global North and Global South in leading development indicators like the Human Development Index.

Life, learning, and legacy: retired Black educators and the quest for education

Abstract Students from culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) backgrounds face negative perceptions about their academic potential (Smith, C. A. (2005). School factors that contribute to the underachievement of students of color and what culturally competent school leaders can do. Educational Leadership and Administration: Teaching and Program Development, 17, 21–32). They are more often tracked into special education classes, and receive harsher punishments than their White peers (Shores, K., Kim, H. E., & Still, M. (2020). Categorical inequalities between Black and White students are common in US schools—but they don’t have to be. Brookings Center Chalkboard. https://www.brookings.edu/blog/brown-center-chalkboard/2020/02/21/categorical-inequalities-between-black-and-white-students-are-common-in-us-schools-but-they-dont-have-to-be/). Further, changing student demographics across the United States makes it imperative that students’ experiences within the classroom are positive, affirming, and reflective of their cultures and realities (Ladson-Billings, G. (2021). I’m here for the hard re-set: Post pandemic pedagogy to preserve our culture. Equity & Excellence in Education, 54(1), 68–78). While research in education has focused on the various teaching and leadership experiences of CLD educators, there are only a few which have specifically explored those of Black educators who taught in the era after the Great Migration. Unearthing such stories would be instructive for informing and improving current pedagogical practices for Blacks and other CLD students. Further, centering Black educators’ narratives is a way to disrupt the pervasive hegemonic narratives that typically focus on the experiences of White educators. Consequently, this small-scale study sought, through qualitative inquiry, to explore the perspectives of Black educational leaders and educators who attended segregated schools and then taught in more integrated settings after the Great Migration. Data collected through semi-structured interviews revealed three main themes: boundaries, community, and enhanced education. Importantly, the findings also revealed that as these Black educators shared their teaching and leadership experiences after migrating, they somehow could not escape the physical or psychological burden associated with being Black. The study has implications for how current educators interface with Black and CLD students to help them navigate a system that is still marked by anti-Black racism.

Inequality Interactions: The Dynamics of Multidimensional Inequalities

ABSTRACTThis article offers a multidimensional, interdisciplinary and dynamic framework for understanding socio‐economic inequalities. It uses the tools of economic inequality measurement to demonstrate the link between interpersonal and categorical inequalities and to show the effect of progressive redistribution on both. It then presents two new concepts for analysing interactions between varieties of inequality:inequality re‐orderingis defined as a reduction in categorical or group inequalities that leaves interpersonal inequality unchanged, andinequality diversionis defined as a reduction in one form of inequality that increases another form of inequality. The argument that inequality diversion arises across economic and social dimensions is illuminated through two case studies: the transition to increasing meritocracy, and the relationship between professional female labour market participation and domestic service. Exploring these relationships is essential to a joined‐up approach to inequality reduction, enabling us to understand trade‐offs and complementarities in tackling inequalities, and to identify policies required to reduce them.

The role of trust in the positioning of children with Migrant Backgrounds: Reflections on teachers’ narratives from London primary schools

Based on qualitative interviews with primary school teachers in Greater London, this article explores teachers’ narratives to uncover how Children with Migrant Backgrounds (CMB) are positioned in the contexts of their learning experience. In particular, the article utilises the analytical category of trust to argue that the position of CMB in teachers’ narratives is related to the form of teachers’ trust. When trust is based on categorical inequalities, CMB are often considered untrustworthy partners in the construction of the learning and teaching experience. Trust based on categorical inequalities becomes a form of trust in distrust and CMB are positioned in the children’s needs paradigm where decision-making is reserved to teachers who act for them and on their behalf. When trust is based on personal relationships, CMB are positioned as agents who are capable to voice their interests, bringing about consequential changes in the contexts of their experiences. CMB are positioned in the children’s interests paradigm, where agency is expected and promoted as a right of children who are socially constructed as agents who can make a difference with their choices.

Between Marginalisation and Agency. Primary School Teachers’ Narratives in London and the Position of Children with Migrant Backgrounds

Based on qualitative interviews with primary school teachers in Greater London, this article explores teachers’ narratives to uncover how children with migrant backgrounds (CMB) are positioned in the contexts of their learning experience. In particular, the article utilises the analytical category of trust to argue that the position of CMB in teachers’ narratives is related to the form of teachers’ trust. When trust is based on categorical inequalities, CMB are often considered untrustworthy partners construction of the learning and teaching experience. Trust based on categorical inequalities becomes a form of trust in distrust and CMB are positioned in the children’s needs paradigm where decision-making is reserved to teachers who act for them and on their behalf. When trust is based on personal relationships, CMB are positioned as agents who are capable to voice their interests, bringing about consequential changes in the contexts of their experiences. CMB are positioned in the children’s interests paradigm, where agency is expected and promoted as a right of children who are socially constructed as agents who can make a difference with their choices.

Articulating the Pueblo Cubano: Women’s Politicization and Productivity in Revolutionary Cuba, 1959 to 1969

How do political actors forge social solidarity across preexisting axes of social difference? This article investigates how political elites undertaking projects of political articulation—understood as linking together diverse constituencies to create integrated political blocs—contend with preexisting cultural constraints embedded in the social fabric. I do so by tracing how the post-1959 Cuban regime attempted to build a population-wide revolutionary identity despite persisting cultural understandings of women primarily as apolitical housewives. Through systematic analysis of a large corpus of state discourse in the form of speeches and women’s magazines, I show how regime leaders negotiated, with varying degrees of success over time, the cultural constraints that gender posed to their unifying project. Ultimately, the regime’s initiatives to politicize women through including them in mass campaigns and radicalizing their traditional household tasks were relatively successful, but cultural backlash against women’s increasing presence in the labor force prompted the institutionalization of a gendered division of labor in the economy that traditionalized their initially radical entry into the workplace. Analyzing how political elites confront and manage social differences within political blocs promises to contribute to a better understanding of the political production of social solidarity and its downstream effects on categorical inequalities.

Education and “Categorical Inequalities’’: Manifestation of Segregation in Six Country Contexts in Europe

This article deals with the educational arrangements and the multiple inequalities that they reproduce from a comparative perspective. Drawing on a qualitative study conducted in six countries (Austria, Hungary, Netherlands, Portugal, Turkey, and the UK) as part of a multinational research project concerning justice in Europe, the article explores the mechanisms through which education sustains and reproduces “categorical inequalities.” Although equal access to education is granted by constitutional laws as well as by incorporation of international treaties in the national legal frameworks, it is commonly the educational arrangements that identify the features of access to good quality education in a given context. Dealing with different country cases that have their path dependencies in the arrangements of education, the article provides insights on understanding how different features of segregation in education operate as mechanisms of exclusion for students from a disadvantaged background. Hence, the disadvantages manifest themselves concerning socio‐economic status, ethnicity, race, and minority background. By focusing on the country‐based debates around school segregation, which goes together with the segregated character of urban settings and school choice patterns, the article shows how the institutional context with or without residency‐based registration rules and different types of schools with different resources perpetuate multiple inequalities. In a context where educational arrangements operate as a mechanism of sustaining categorical inequalities, identity‐based differences, combined with economic disadvantages lead to a situation where students from vulnerable and minority groups face multiple forms of exclusion.

Unequal Inclusion: The Production of Social Differences in Education Systems

The article raises the question of whether and how education systems produce social differences internally rather than reproducing pre‐existing “external” inequalities. Linking Niklas Luhmann’s theory of inclusion/exclusion with Charles Tilly’s theory of categorical inequalities, and based on empirical data from various qualitative studies, the article identifies an “observation regime” epistemically constituting the social classification of students and legitimising organisational closure mechanisms in the school system. As an alternative to the “reproduction paradigm,” a research approach guided by differentiation theory is proposed that takes into account that educational inequality operationally arises on the “inside” of the educational system and is caused by unequal inclusion processes.

Workplace volatility and gender inequality: a comparison of the Netherlands and South Korea

Abstract Workplaces have become more unstable in recent decades, but how such instability shapes categorical inequalities remains little understood. This study explores how the rise of employment precarity, re-conceptualized as an attribute of workplaces, affects gender inequality. We argue that gender inequality increases in volatile workplaces where employee tenure is short and turnover is common. In such workplaces, gender stereotyping and opportunity hoarding by men may become prevalent, because members have little incentive to acquire individualized information about each other and those who are not satisfied with unequal distribution of rewards simply leave rather than raising their voice. To test our argument, we analyze the effect of workplace volatility on the gender-wage gap, using employer–employee linked data from two separate national contexts: South Korea and the Netherlands. Leveraging on the different institutional contexts of the two countries, we also examine the moderating roles of unionization and public sector employment. Our theory and empirical findings contribute to our understanding of the workplace-level mechanisms of inequality, especially in the context of recent structural changes in the labor market.

From the Child to the Pupil to the Child. Trust Based on Categorical Inequalities and the Quest for Alternatives Towards a More Inclusive Education

This article discusses the function of trust as a medium of communication specialised in creating the conditions for the acceptance of educational communication, therefore in creating the conditions for the education system to fulfil its societal function. The specific contribution offered by the article is to introduce a form of trust, trust based on categorical inequalities, arguing for its pivotal role in structuring educational communication. However, the article also discusses that, to fulfil its function, that is, to generate stability and allow expectations to be constructed, trust based on categorical inequalities legitimizes self-fulfilling prophecies of academic achievements and failures. The side effects of trust based on categorical inequalities are all related to dis-trust: marginalisation, disempowerment, exclusion of some children. Based on the argument developed, the article concludes by inviting reflection on possible, more inclusive, forms of trust that are based on the replacement of the pupil, the self-reassuring as well as daunting persona generated by the semantics of education, with the child, as the internal reference of the education system.

More Than a Sorting Machine: Ethnic Boundary Making in a Stratified School System

This article examines the structural conditions that shape ethnic boundary making in the school setting. While previous work has focused on the ethnic composition of student bodies, this study places schools in their institutional and local contexts. The authors argue that the formation of identities and networks varies across local areas depending on the extent of ethnic stratification across schools. Empirically, the authors turn to the case of Germany, where the role of schools as producers of categorical inequalities is particularly obvious. The analysis links large-scale survey data on adolescents’ identification and networks with administrative geocoded information on local stratification across secondary schools. The authors find that minority students in schools with identical ethnic compositions show different inclinations to identify as a majority group member and to form friendships with majority peers, depending on the local extent of ethnic stratification across schools. To place these findin...