Emergence Of Social Inequality Research Articles

The emergence of social inequality: A Co-Evolutionary analysis

Social inequality is an important issue at the core of economic thought. Based on a stylized pie-sharing game, this article proposes a co-evolutionary computational model to study the interaction between social classes, aiming to answer the following questions: Why do social classes exist, and how do they affect social efficiency and individual effectiveness? Why are wealth inequality and social exclusion persistent? From a methodological perspective, this article extends the pie-sharing game to include a network of interactions and classes, social mobility, evolving wealth, and learning agents. The results show that social inequality is self-emergent. Surprisingly, in the simulations, the existence of social classes increases individual effectiveness, mainly benefiting the poor. Nonetheless, flatter societies (where social classes exist) have a higher average individual effectiveness. As expected, it was observed that wealth inequality is persistent in hierarchical societies, and the upper classes keep a higher proportion of wealth. Furthermore, the analysis extends the bargaining game to include social mobility, showing that, surprisingly, it increases the robustness of the class system and wealth inequality. Finally, the simulation of dual societies shows that these are an evolutionary equilibrium: social exclusion is persistent and accepted by wealthy and poor individuals, and resources are efficiently used.

The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity

Samuel Bowles of Santa Fe Institute and CORE Econ reviews “The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity” by David Graeber and David Wengrow. The Econlit abstract of this book begins: “Presents an interpretation of human history that revises long-held assumptions about the emergence of social inequality and hierarchy, considering the implications of this counternarrative for accounts of the origins of farming, property, cities, democracy, slavery, and civilization itself.”

Investigating the co-development of academic competencies and educational aspirations in German primary education

Academic achievement and educational decisions, which are strongly related to primary and secondary effects, are the two main drivers behind the emergence of social inequality in education. To understand this process in more detail, even before final decisions have to be made, the reciprocal influence of achievement and aspirations is of greatest interest. By not simply looking at an ultimate outcome but investigating its antecedents in a longitudinal fashion over the course of multiple years more insight is gained. Using German large-scale NEPS panel data, it is possible to demonstrate this co-development quantitatively. Cross-lagged panel models are utilized to show that the achievement in mathematics (measured by comprehensive achievement tests) and parental realistic aspirations influence each other positively in a statistically significant way over the course of primary education from grade one to four, even under the control of various potential confounding variables. Further analyses reveal that this process is socially stratified and works differently for lowly and highly educated families. Lower educated parents pay more attention to the performance of the child when adjusting their aspirations than tertiary educated parents, who always hold high aspirations. The results are of interest to understand in more detail how social inequality emerges at a very early point in the highly tracked German educational system.

PENGARUH MEDIA PEMBELAJARAN BERBASIS ONLINE PADA MATA PELAJARAN IPS DI SMA NEGERI 2 TONDANO

It takes an innovation created by a teacher in order to get maximum learning outcomes because the teacher certainly knows better what the students need because it is the teacher who interacts the most with students in the teaching and learning process at school. Media and learning tools applied by teachers in schools will certainly affect student learning outcomes. The purpose of this study is to reveal the effect of online-based learning media on social studies subjects at SMA Negeri 2 Tondano. The method used is a qualitative research method. The results of this study are; Positive influence of online-based learning media on social studies subjects: Increased competence of teachers and students in using social media for social studies learning, Teachers are more flexible in elaborating social studies teaching materials by providing real examples that are viral on social media, Opening new job opportunities for students, Students more motivated to learn social studies subjects through various social media, students are easier to understand social studies material because it often appears on social media that students play. The negative influence of online-based learning media on social studies subjects; Teachers are "forced" to understand and master social media, Students are busy playing social media while studying, Students are required to have gadgets, The emergence of social inequality between students

Una entrevista con Antonio Gilman Guillén. Primera parte

Antonio Gilman Guillén, Profesor Emérito de la Cali­fornia State University-Northridge (EE. UU.) nació en New­ton (Massachusetts, EE. UU.) en 1944 del hispanista Stephen Gilman y Teresa Guillén, hija del poeta Jorge Guillén. Se educó en Harvard College (Grado en Filología Clásica, 1965), Cambridge University (Grado y Master en Arqueo­logía Prehistórica, 1967 y 1971 respectivamente) y Harvard University (Doctor en Antropología, 1974). El profesor Gilman es un autor de referencia en los EE. UU. sobre la Prehistoria Reciente europea desde hace 40 años. Su dedicación particular a la península ibérica des­de la década de 1970 ha influido en la investigación de este territorio en un doble sentido. Por una parte ha favorecido de manera significativa la internacionalización de los yaci­mientos peninsulares y de los arqueólogos que los estudian en la comunidad académica de lengua inglesa. Por otra, ha mostrado que hay alternativas a la arqueología histórico-cultural, predominante en las universidades europeas. Un buen ejemplo es su interpretación económico-política del registro arqueológico de la Prehistoria Reciente, cuya unidad de análisis es el surgimiento de la desigualdad social. La incorporación del Análisis de Captación de Recursos, entre otras estrategias de la investigación en Geografía, ha sido fundamental para mostrar la viabilidad del proyecto alterna­tivo. Su influencia debe mucho también a su disponibilidad a incorporarse tanto a equipos liderados por arqueólogos locales, como a tareas de evaluación y asesoramiento en organismos públicos de investigación y revistas científicas, como Trabajos de Prehistoria. La Junta de Andalucía así lo reconoció concediéndole en 2012 la Medalla Menga. La entrevista con Antonio Gilman aprovechó su estancia en la Residencia de Estudiantes (Madrid) durante noviembre de 2019 y se publicará en dos entregas. Este primer artícu­lo se centra en los aspectos biográficos de su formación intelectual y muestra el entrecruzamiento del azar y, por tanto, de la decisión individual, con las redes familiares, de clase, culturales y académicas en una trayectoria científica de excelencia.

Emergence of social inequality in the spatial harvesting of renewable public goods

Spatially extended ecological public goods, such as forests, grasslands, and fish stocks, are at risk of being overexploited by selfish consumers–a phenomenon widely recognized as the ‘tragedy of the commons.’ The interplay of spatial and ecological dimensions introduces new features absent in non-spatial ecological contexts, such as consumer mobility, local information availability, and strategy evolution through social learning in neighborhoods. It is unclear how these features interact to influence the harvesting and dispersal strategies of consumers. To answer these questions, we develop and analyze an individual-based, spatially structured, eco-evolutionary model with explicit resource dynamics. We report the following findings. (1) When harvesting efficiency is low, consumers evolve a sedentary consumption strategy, through which the resource is harvested sustainably, but with harvesting rates far below their maximum sustainable value. (2) As harvesting efficiency increases, consumers adopt a mobile ‘consume-and-disperse’ strategy, which is sustainable, equitable, and gives maximum sustainable yield. (3) A further increase in harvesting efficiency leads to large-scale overexploitation. (4) If costs of dispersal are significant, increased harvesting efficiency also leads to social inequality between frugal sedentary consumers and overexploitative mobile consumers. Whereas overexploitation can occur without social inequality, social inequality always leads to overexploitation. Thus, we identify four conditions that–while being characteristic of technological progress in modern societies–risk social inequality and overexploitation: high harvesting efficiency, moderately low costs of dispersal, high consumer density, and the tendency of consumers to adopt new strategies rapidly. We also show how access to global information–another feature widespread in modern societies–helps mitigate these risks.

Social origin, field of study and graduates' career progression: does social inequality vary across fields?

Research on stratification and mobility has consistently shown that in the UK there is a direct impact of social origin on occupational destination net of educational attainment even for degree‐holders. However, only a few studies applied a longitudinal and dynamic perspective on how intergenerational mobility shapes graduates’ working careers. Using multilevel growth curve modelling and data from the 1970 British cohort study (BCS70), we contribute to this research by looking at the emergence of social inequalities during the first ten years since labour market entry. We further distinguish between graduates of different fields of study as we expect social disparities to develop differently due to differences in initial occupational placement and upward mobility processes. We find that parental class does not affect occupational prestige over and above prior achievement. Separate analyses by the field of study show that initial differences in occupational prestige and career progression do not differ between graduates from different classes of origin in STEM fields, and arts and humanities. It is only in the social sciences that working‐class graduates start with lower occupational prestige but soon catch up with their peers from higher classes. Overall, our results indicate no direct effect of social origin on occupational attainment for degree‐holders once we broaden our focus to a dynamic life course perspective.

Biocultural consequences of the Late Woodland transition at Forbush Creek, North Carolina (AD 800-1200)

After several centuries of cultural continuity, the Late Woodland transition (AD 600-1000) in the Southeastern Woodlands involved a significant intensification of existing lifeways. This study examines the biocultural consequences of the Late Woodland transition at Forbush Creek (AD 800-1200), a Yadkin River Valley site from the Piedmont region of North Carolina. Twelve percent of individuals recovered from the site sustained violence-related trauma, including five individuals with healed blunt force trauma, two individuals with perimortem cranial trauma, and a single projectile point injury. Secondary burial individuals exhibited significantly more trauma (n = 10, 42%) and nutrient deficiencies (n = 12, 50%) than primary burial individuals (n = 1, 4%; and n = 5, 19%, respectively). The Forbush Creek remains provide new evidence of the biological impacts of cultural transitions and suggest that uncertainty, scarcity, and conflict arising from changing lifeways contributed to inequality in the Forbush Creek community. Secondary bundle burial inclusion may represent marginalization and an increased vulnerability to morbidity and mortality risks. The emergence of social inequality in the Late Woodland period likely shaped long-term cultural dynamics that preceded the complex sociopolitical hierarchies of the later Mississippian period.

Local Dynamics and the Emergence of Social Inequality in Iron Age Botswana

Since the earliest class-based societies, social leveling mechanisms have limited, actively as well as unconsciously, social stratification. Understanding how such power structures have operated in the past and present requires the integration of social dimensions to the political economy in a way that does not assume that elites and/or urban centers drive the course of history. Here, the Middle and Late Iron Age in southern Africa (AD 900–1650) highlight the importance of these local dynamics in tandem with broader regional changes. At a time when protoglobal trade links Africa to the Middle East and Asia, cities emerged up to 1,000 km inland along with the material evidence for hereditary inequality. Yet the population at the trade center of Bosutswe at the eastern edge of the Kalahari responded flexibly to environmental and social variables, which, perhaps unintentionally, limited the consolidation of power in the hands of the elite. The following case study of Khubu la Dintsa, a small agropastoral sit...

A funerary perspective on Bell Beaker period in the Western Mediterranean. Reading the social context of individual burials at La Vital (Gandía, Valencia)

The discussion about social dynamics in recent Prehistory is supported by the study of funerary practices. The presence and significance of individual and collective burials in Final Neolithic/Chalcolithic societies in the southeast of the Iberian Peninsula provides new evidence for the debate concerning the emergence of social inequalities in this region. Our contribution is based on the recent discovery and excavation of several individual pit burials in domestic contexts at the site of La Vital (Gandia, Valencia). The particularities of the identified burials (different ritual episodes) and their content (Bell Beaker pottery, metal objects, animal offerings) together with an accurate chronometric database allow us to consider several issues in relation to settlement dynamics, social networks and relationships for the period from the end of the 4th to the middle of the 3rd millennium cal BC in the central area of the Mediterranean coast of the Iberian Peninsula.

Tracking shifts in coca use in the Moche Valley: analysis of oral health indicators and dental calculus microfossils

In this article we explore the use of coca in the Moche Valley of north costal Perú during the Early Intermediate Period. To do so we examined the dental remains of 173 residents of Cerro Oreja. These remains date to the Salinar and Gallinazo phases and thus provide us with a picture of coca use before the emergence of the Southern Moche state. We find that patterns of oral health and micro-plant remains recovered from dental calculus suggest shifting use of coca during this period. These data suggest that coca was an important resource in the emergence of social inequality in the Moche Valley.

Provider and patient influences on the formation of socioeconomic health behavior disparities among pregnant women

Socially advantaged individuals are better positioned to benefit from advances in biomedicine, which frequently results in the emergence of social inequalities in health. I use survey and in-depth interviews with pregnant women and their health care providers from four Midwestern clinics in the United States, conducted in 2009 and 2010. I compare socioeconomic differences in intake of two new prenatal supplements: Vitamin D and omega-3 fatty acid. Although socioeconomic differences in omega-3 fatty acid supplementation emerged, there were no differences in the use of vitamin D. I argue that providers may have contributed to the prevention of a health disparity in vitamin D supplementation by implementing an aggressive uniform protocol. These results suggest that providers not only serve as a conduit for the dissemination of new biomedical information, the strength and uniformity of their recommendations have the potential to prevent or exacerbate socioeconomic differences in health behaviors.

The archaeology of China: from the late Paleolithic to the early Bronze Age

1. Chinese archaeology: past, present, and future 2. Environment and ecology 3. Foragers and collectors in the Pleistocene-Holocene transition (24,000-9000 cal. BP) 4. Domestication of plants and animals 5. Neolithization: sedentism and food production in the Early Neolithic (7000-5000 BC) 6. Emergence of social inequality: the Middle Neolithic (5000-3000 BC) 7. Rise and fall of early complex societies: the Late Neolithic (3000-2000 BC) 8. Formation of early states in the Central Plain: Erlitou and Erligang (1900/1800-1250 BC) 9. Bronze cultures of the north frontiers and beyond during the early second millennium BC 10. The Late Shang dynasty and its neighbors (1250-1046 BC) 11. Chinese civilization in comparative perspective.

Hunter-Gatherers of the North Pacific Rim (review)

Reviewed by: Hunter-Gatherers of the North Pacific Rim C. Melvin Aikens Hunter-Gatherers of the North Pacific Rim. Junko Habu, James M. Savelle, Shuzo Koyama, and Hitomi Hongo, eds. Senri Ethnological Studies No. 63. Osaka: National Museum of Ethnology, 2003. 277 + iv pp. This volume is made up of selected papers from academic sessions and public symposia held in Aomori, Japan, 21–25 October 1998. The Aomori conference followed [End Page 383] sessions at the National Museum of Ethnology in Osaka and preceded additional sessions in Hokkaido, each part of the traveling Monbusho International Symposium "Foraging and Post-Foraging Societies: History, Politics, and the Future." The editors introduce the book in a chapter titled "Complex Hunter-Gatherer Studies in Japan and the North Pacific Rim." Thence, it falls out in three parts: "Evolutionary Changes in Hunter-Gatherer Cultures: Theoretical Perspectives"; "Pacific Rim Hunter-Gatherers in Different Environments: Ecology, History, and Diversity"; and "Jomon Hunter-Gatherers at Sannai Maruyama and its Vicinity: Prehistoric Hunter-Gatherers in Northeastern Japan." The editors aptly trace the genealogy of this collection back to Affluent Foragers, published in 1981 as volume 9 of Senri Ethnological Studies (Shuzo Koyama and David Hurst Thomas, eds.). Following up on that beginning, the key themes variously explored by the different authors of the present volume are long-term change in hunter-gatherer sociocultural complexity and cultural variability in relation to environmental and historical contexts. Sites and localities from Okinawa to northern California figure in these discussions. Beginning Part I, Ben Fitzhugh discusses the evolution of complex hunter-gatherers on the Kodiak archipelago. He traces out a trajectory from colonization and expansion about 7,000 years ago to a subsequent advent of territoriality and reduced foraging ranges. This was fostered by mass-harvest fishing technology after about 4,000 years ago, and led on to increased population density, competition and the emergence of social inequality by about 2,000 years ago. Serious competition and warfare by about 1,000 years ago, and a consolidation of political power and social inequality within the last few centuries, lead up to the ethnographically known situation. William Prentiss and James Chatters follow Fitzhugh. They characterize in broad fashion the evolution of socioeconomic systems on both the northwest coast and interior parts of North America, envisioning an explicitly selectionist dynamic. As they read the evidence, an early array of diverse subsistence-settlement systems—mostly of the foraging type—was decimated by severe pressures of Neoglacial cooling about 4,000 years ago. The economies that survived this period of selective stress were logistically organized collector systems, which then flourished with ameliorating climate after about 3,500 years ago to spread the logistically organized and socially complex systems that have characterized the region ever since. It is an appealingly reasonable and straightforward perspective that can help focus much further investigation. Part II of the volume, which addresses the considerable cultural diversity that exists within the fairly homogeneous North Pacific environmental zone, appropriately begins with a paper by Peter Schweitzer. His thoughtful account, focused on the higher Beringian latitudes, demonstrates that there is yet reason to take account of cultural tradition and continuity (amidst our current preoccupation with ecological and sociocultural models) if we are to fully understand the uneven distribution of social inequality along the edge of the North Pacific. James Savelle and George Wenzel follow with an insightful interpretation of Thule social structure in the eastern Canadian arctic that also weaves together ethnographic, archaeological, and environmental considerations, but in a different way. Their task, which they accomplish very well, is to relate the social institutions of the Inuit whaling crew leader and men's house to the structuring of corporate groups in the eastern Arctic. The paper is both theoretical and concrete, anchored with reference to variably complex community patterns seen among eight Thule period archaeological sites on Somerset Island. The last three papers of Part II work with geographical extremes of the region under consideration. Carolyn Dean Kuhn Dillian uses obsidian source data to reexamine an old ethnographic question about territorial relationships among the Karok, Modoc, and other tribes of northern California. In adducing substantial geochemical evidence that the Modoc, rather than the [End Page...

People and Space in Early Agricultural Villages: Exploring Daily Lives, Community Size, and Architecture in the Late Pre-Pottery Neolithic

Population growth, or, more specifically, pressure, is often viewed as being critical to the development of food production in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic of the Near East. It is surprising, therefore, to recognize how little detailed archaeological research has explored the rates of population growth and how they might be related to social crowding in early village social environments. Combining archaeological and ethnographic perspectives, this article explores the possible links between demographic change, possible social crowding, and reasons for the “collapse” of large aggregate villages occupied between approximately 8500 to 8000 years before present. Reflection upon the timing, estimated magnitude, and rate of demographic change prompts the researcher to reconsider the perceived links between sedentism, food production, and the emergence of social inequality in the context of early agricultural villages of the south-central Levant.