Higher Social Class Research Articles

Whiteness in Question: the Anatomy of a Taxonomy Across Transnational Contexts.

The idea of whiteness has been used in the Anglo-American, middle-class, liberal settings to denote an essential group appurtenance on phenotypical and cultural terms and to code such appurtenance as a universal marker of privilege that cuts across any other differentiating axes that allocate societal advantages and disadvantages. The assumption that racialized skin colour and low social status are inferiorizing attributes of racialization, while white skin colour and high social class are privileged attributes of whiteness, has constructed the idea of whiteness as one that encompasses and supersedes the idea of class. Immigrants to Anglo-American multicultural societies have always been relegated to the margins of their host societies, and their economic exclusion, in particular, has been theorized as resulting from their racialization. This paper, however, compares and contrasts the marginalization of two migrant populations—namely, high-skilled immigrants to Canada, and Eastern European low-skilled immigrants to the UK—to problematize the assumption that whiteness has an essential sameness that universally cuts across other stratifying axes in society, and to show that an essentialist understanding of whiteness disregards class-based explanations for the economic exclusion of migrants, explanations which are often bound with the global circulation of capital and the dominant economic position of the rich nations from the Global North.

Battle of the Classes. Social Class and Work Status in Determining Women Director Appointments

The literature on women on board of directors provides limited insights on how the social class origins of the women executives influence their selection on corporate boards and their career trajectories. Gender research in management has narrowly focused on the disadvantages women experience in the workplace. However, women's unique and complex social identities with multiple group memberships, such as social class and work status, can lead to paradoxical experiences in the workplace, with women experiencing both advantages and disadvantages. To shed new light on the role of multiple identities for women executives in gaining board directorship, I leverage the social classification based on “caste” in India. I develop a theoretical model to show the influence of social class, work status, and social class mobility in director selection market for women executives. The model predicts four distinct profiles of women executives and their outcomes in the director labor market. By using the intersectionality of social class and work status, I propose that women executives with high work status and low social class will be able to display their authority and dominance in the workplace and craft credible professional executive images at work, and hence will be buffered from the stereotypic bias of incompetence due to gender and social class. In contrast, for women directors with high social class but low work status, high social class will mitigate the adverse effects of low work status by signaling their high social capital through their homophilic kinship ties. Moreover, the director appointments of women executives with lower work status will allow upward mobility of these director profiles and improve their future career prospects in the corporate elite.

Social Class and Entrepreneur Resilience: How Entrepreneurs Respond to Institutional Deterioration

There has been a growing recognition of the role of social class in the field of entrepreneurship, and the prevailing view highlights that entrepreneurs from lower social classes will encounter more material deficiencies and cognitive constraints than those from higher social classes in their business. In this study, drawing on insights from social psychology, we argue that those lower-class entrepreneurs could also be more resilient in dealing with adverse situations. Specifically, our empirical analysis of Chinese private entrepreneurs reveals that while entrepreneurs with lower social class origins tends to invest less in long-term development activities (e.g., innovation and employee training), when encountering a deteriorating institutional environment that generally discourages long-term investment, lower-class entrepreneurs show greater resilience in embracing the challenges and the perseverance of their investments compared to those from higher social classes. This study bridges research on social class and entrepreneur resilience to reveal the dual impact of individuals’ social class origins in entrepreneurship.

Healthcare Inequities Experienced by Patients with Cancer: A Qualitative Study in Medellín, Colombia.

PurposeThis study aimed to understand the lived experiences of patients with cancer that facing inequities in oncological care in the city of Medellín.Patients and MethodsA qualitative study was conducted based on the theoretical and methodological elements of the grounded theory, specifically the description and conceptual ordering of Corbin and Strauss. Sixteen patients with cancer, who belonged to low (n=5), middle (n=4) and high (n=7) social classes, were included by theoretical sampling with category saturation. Data were collected using semi-structured interviews and analyzed in a category system based on the three social classes.ResultsThe patients were aged between 23 and 71 years old, and they were diagnosed with different types of cancer such as breast, cervical, prostate, stomach, leukemia and lymphoma. Patients’ experiences showed that diagnosis, specialized care, treatment and hospital discharge were different based on their social class.ConclusionPatients’ lived experiences associated with cancer reflect complex social situations, in which social determinants affect the level of citizens’ empowerment and self-management against the risks of get disease and die. Being part of low and middle social classes meant being subjected to a dehumanized, cold, impersonal and discontinuous treatment, in which healthcare was focused on the disease instead of individuals’ preferences and values. In contrast, patients belonging to the high class had the resources necessary to face risks, which ensured access to more humanized and individualized healthcare.

Trends in the academic achievement gap between high and low social class children: The case of Brazil

Since student achievement is related to educational attainment and to adult earnings, there is considerable interest in within-country achievement gaps between different social class groups, how they change over time, and the possible sources of those changes. In this paper, we analyze academic achievement gaps over a ten year period in Brazil. Our results suggest that social class inequality in public school student achievement on the Prova Brasil national test increased significantly among Brazilian 5th graders in the period 2007–2017, and that all of this increase was before 2013--indeed, mostly between 2011 and 2013. To the contrary, social class achievement inequality among 9th graders barely increased in 2007–2017, and that small increase appears to have occurred mainly in earlier years. We find that this increased achievement inequality among 5th graders was partly the result of increased inequality between schools with students of higher and lower average school class, and among municipalities with higher and lower income per capita and differing educational policies. Yet, a significant part of the increase is also related to changes in the within-school achievement gaps.

The mind of the beholder: congruence effects in luxury product placements

This research demonstrates that viewers increase purchase intentions when they view luxury product placements in movie scenes, particularly when luxury associations are activated and when background scenes are congruent with the product’s luxury image. In Study 1, participants view a luxury handbag appearing against upscale congruent or downscale incongruent backgrounds. In Study 2, participants are primed to associate with high or low social classes before they view a luxury product placed in upscale or downscale movie scenes. In Study 3, participants read a news article that describes the placed luxury product as a genuine high-end product or as a discount brand.

The Social status influences human growth

Background: In the animal kingdom body size is often linked to dominance and subsequently the standing in social hierarchy. Similarly, human growth has been associated and linked to socioeconomic factors, including one’s social status. This has already been proposed in the early 1900s where data on young German school girls from different social strata have been compared.
 Objectives: This paper aims to summarize and analyze these results and make them accessible for non-German speakers. The full English translation of the historic work of Dikanski (Dikanski, 1914) is available as a supplement. Further, this work aims to compare the historical data with modern references, to test three hypotheses: (1) higher social class is positively associated with body height and weight, (2) affluent people from the used historical data match modern references in weight and height and (3) weight distributions are skewed in both modern and historical populations.
 Methods: Comparison of historical data from 1914 with WHO and 1980s German data. The data sets, for both body weight and height for 6.0- and 7.0-year-old girls, were fitted onto centile curves and quantile correlation coefficients were calculated.
 Results: In historical data social status is positively associated with body height and weight while both are also normally distributed, which marks a significant difference to modern references.
 Conclusion: Social status is positively associated with height, signaling social dominance, making children of affluent classes taller. Children from the historical data do not reach the average height of modern children, even under the best environmental conditions. The children of the upper social class were not skewed in weight distribution, although they had the means to become as obese as modern children.

In Japan, individuals of higher social class engage in other-oriented humor

Previous research on individual social class (SC) and humor has found support for the hypothesis that those with higher SC will engage in more dominant humor (aggressive humor) that derogates or degrades others. One rationale for introducing this hypothesis is the well-known theory that people with higher SC are more self-oriented; however, it has recently been shown that there may be cultural differences in this theory. In this study, using a Japanese sample objective measures (income and educational attainment) and subjective measures (perceived social status) and examined in relation to humor. Four types of humor assessed by the Humor Styles Questionnaire and two types of humor measured by the Dual Self-Directed Humor Scale were considered to investigate the relationship between SC and humor. Unlike prior findings obtained in Western countries, Study 1 (N = 344) and Study 2 (N = 604) consistently showed that SC and aggressive humor were unrelated. Rather, SC was shown to be positively associated with other-oriented humor in Japan, a country belonging to the Confucian cultural sphere of East Asia. The differences in results from these previous studies were discussed from a cultural contextual perspective.

Cost-Effectiveness Analysis of Adherence to Nutrition Recommendations: 2015 Health Survey of Sao Paulo

ObjectivesTo evaluate costs and effectiveness of diets of adult individuals in the city of Sao Paulo, Brazil, in relation to the adherence to nutritional recommendations, estimating incremental cost-effectiveness ratio of diets according to nutritional quality. MethodsObservational study based on cross-sectional individual level data representative at population level in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Information on 24-hour recall of 1,188 adult individuals interviewed in the Health Survey of Sao Paulo (ISA-Capital), conducted in 2015 were assessed based on two nutritional recommendations: (1) Revised Brazilian Healthy Eating Index (BHEI-R) (0–100 points from worst to best diet quality), and (2) World Health Organization key dietary points (>400g of fruits, vegetables, and legumes/day; <5% of total energy intake from sugars; <10% of total energy intake from saturated fats; <2000 mg of sodium/day). The incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER) was estimated by dividing the differences between direct costs attributable to different alternatives of diet quality by the differences between health outcomes (BHEI-R or WHO recommendation scores). ResultsThe highest diet costs were observed among female, individuals with higher income, higher social class (A) and white skin color. On the one hand, individuals who buy foods mostly in grocery stores and specialized fresh fruits and vegetables stores, and individuals with better diet quality, presented higher diet costs. On the other hand, individuals who buy food at open air fairs had lower dietary costs, and higher frequency of purchases at open air fairs resulted in lower dietary costs. There was higher adherence to nutritional recommendations represented by the BHEI-R (between 1st and 5th quintile/nptrend: P < 0.001). Adherence to the WHO recommendations represented a saving of R$ 0.26 per quality point/day in comparison with individuals with no adherence. ConclusionsThere were higher costs for diets with greater adherence to dietary recommendations, according to the analysis of dietary patterns in Sao Paulo, Brazil. However, higher adherence to WHO recommendations represented lower dietary costs, an important finding that may be important input for public policies on food and nutrition in Brazil. Funding SourcesCAPES; FAPESP; Sao Paulo Municipal Health Department; CNPq.

PREDICTION OF SOCIAL LAG IN MEXICO: A MACHINE LEARNING APPROACH FROM ECONOMIC UNIT DATA

Social lag in Mexico is officially calculated at the municipal level every five years, based on data from the population and housing census, by the National Council for the Evaluation of Social Development Policy (Consejo Nacional para la Evaluación de la Política de Desarrollo Social, CONEVAL). However, it is advisable to have annual forecasts of social lag for the follow-up of public policies. This study presents a machine learning approach to predict the classes or degrees of social lag (high, medium, low) at the municipal level in Mexico, based on information on economic units from the 2015 National Statistical Directory of Economic Units (Directorio Estadístico Nacional de Unidades Económicas, DENUE). Three supervised machine learning classifiers were implemented: logistic regression, support vector machine and random forests; and they were trained and tested in prediction based on information from counts of economic units, in their different categories, population and geographic coordinates of the municipalities; likewise, objective social lag classes were used at the municipal level, calculated with 2015 census information, reported in the literature. The criteria for evaluating the performance of the classifiers were the F-macro value, the overall accuracy and the area under the curve (ROC). The results indicate that the best overall performance was obtained with the random forest classifier with an F-macro value of 0.713 and an overall classification accuracy of 0.716; and F1-macro values for the high, medium, and low social lag classes of 0.596, 0.730, and 0.822, respectively. This classifier was used to predict social lag for 2016 and 2017. The results showed that there is a relationship between social lag and economic units aggregated at the subsector level, and that the proposed approach represents a viable and low-cost alternative for predicting social lag when census information is lacking.

Assessing the Equity of Accessibility to Urban Green Space: A Study of 254 Cities in China.

Urban green space has environmental benefits of purifying the air, reducing the heat island effect and providing the social and economic benefits of rest places and social platforms. An integrated and organized green space system is important for fully realizing the positive functions of an urban ecosystem. Previous studies have considered green space supply and demand, but few studies have examined large-scale, diverse and small-scale systems, making it difficult to conduct a comparative study of urban green space accessibility and equity under the same conditions (such as data sources and calculation methods). Using the two-step floating catchment area method, this study evaluates the equity of 254 urban green spaces in China within four ranges of accessibility: 1 km, 2.5 km, 5 km and 10 km. The study also considers urban house price in the research. The results show the following: (1) There are large differences in the accessibility of green space between different cities in China. Within the accessibility threshold of 10 km, the city with the most accessible urban green spaces has an accessibility level that is 27,813 times that of the city with the lowest accessibility. (2) Within the range of walking/cycling, there are significant inequalities in green space access in the 254 cities; the inequality of green space accessibility in most of the studied cities is at the “dangerous” level. (3) The two-step floating catchment area method indicates that the social superiority (high social class) represented by high housing prices is associated with a greater opportunity to access urban green space services. This paper highlights the main problems associated with the accessibility of urban green space in China and proposes targeted development recommendations. These recommendations provide a reference for urban managers to develop effective green space development policies and realize the optimal allocation of urban green space.

Conversations after lateral reading: Supporting teachers to focus on process, not content

High school students need support learning to evaluate online information. As curricular resources are developed in this area, how teachers use these resources and engage students in learning to evaluate online information is a critical question. Research is needed that focuses on teachers in action in their classrooms, analyzing their areas of strength and identifying places they may need more support. This study analyzed whole-class conversations during four lessons in six high school social studies classes in a large U.S. district where students learned an approach to evaluating online sources called lateral reading. We used qualitative methods to investigate whether these conversations focused on content specific to the assigned examples or on knowledge and skills likely to apply to future experiences evaluating online information. We found that discussions focused on the original sources being investigated instead of on the process of lateral reading. Teachers often shared and prompted details about the original sources and put less focus on how or where students uncovered those details. Faced with teaching a new approach to evaluating online information, more specific and extended supports may be required for teachers as they learn to teach lateral reading.

Social Class Priming Effect on Prosociality: Evidence from Explicit and Implicit Measures

Although abundant research has explored the relationship between social class and prosociality, it remains controversial. This study aimed to investigate the effect of social class priming on prosociality among college students. Experiment 1 was an explicit experiment in which we employed the MacArthur scale to prime participants’ social class and then used a donation task. The results showed that students in a low social class priming group had more donation behaviors compared to ones in a high social class priming group. Experiment 2 was an implicit experiment in which we used a single category implicit association test (SC-IAT) to investigate the relationship between the self-concepts of different social classes and prosociality after priming participants’ social class. The results indicated that students in a low social class priming condition had a stronger connection between self-concepts and prosocial inclinations than ones in a high social class priming condition. Thus, our study demonstrated that students primed with low social class were more prosocial than those primed with high social class, and supported the empathy-altruism theory of prosocial behavior. These findings are of great practical significance to promote prosocial behavior of individuals of different social classes.

Machine Learning to Predict Executive Function in Adolescents with Repaired d-Transposition of the Great Arteries, Tetralogy of Fallot, and Fontan Palliation

To identify predictors of impaired executive function in adolescents after surgical repair of critical congenital heart disease (CHD). We analyzed patient factors, medical and surgical history, and family social class from 3 single-center studies of adolescents with d-transposition of the great arteries (d-TGA), tetralogy of Fallot (TOF), and Fontan repair. Machine learning models were developed using recursive partitioning to predict an executive function composite score based on five subtests (population mean 10, SD 3) of the Delis-Kaplan Executive Function System. The sample included 386 patients (139 d-TGA, 91 TOF, 156 Fontan) of age 15.1±2.1 (mean±SD) years and an executive function composite score of 8.6±2.4. Family social class emerged as the most important predictive factor. The lowest (worst) mean executive function score (5.3) occurred in patients with low to medium social class (Hollingshead index <56) with one or more neurologic events and a diagnosis of TOF. The highest (best) mean score (9.7) occurred in subjects with high social class (Hollingshead index ≥56) and shorter duration of deep hypothermic circulatory arrest. Other factors predicting lower executive function scores included low birth weight and a greater number of catheterizations. In regression tree modeling, family social class was the strongest predictor of executive function in adolescents with critical CHD, even in the presence of medical risk factors. Additional predictors included CHD diagnosis, birth weight, neurologic events, and number of procedures. These data highlight the importance of social class in mitigating risks of executive dysfunction in CHD.

Effects of aging on dichotic listening ability

BackgroundElderly patients frequently suffer from problems in speech discrimination especially in noisy situation, and they also have several problems from using amplifications devices especially binaural amplification. This necessitates the need for central auditory evaluation in association of peripheral auditory evaluation. The aim of the present study was to explore the effects of aging on dichotic listening performance. This was a case-control study conducted at the Audiology Unit, ENT Department. Participant were 46 individuals within the age range of 60 to 89 years with no history of neurological disorder or cognitive impairment, and all the participants were of high social class. Forty-five adult individuals (control group) with the age range 32–57 years, with no history of neurological disorders. Both cases and control groups were subjected to otological examination, immittancemetry, puretone audiometry, speech audiometry, and central auditory processing assessment by the use of central questionnaire for elderly and dichotic digits (version II) test.ResultsThe elderly group scored significantly depressed scores of dichotic digits’ test, especially in the left ear than in the adult group.ConclusionDichotic listening ability was significantly affected in elderly patients.

A comparison of single and intersectional social identities associated with discrimination and mental health service use: data from the 2014 Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey in England

Inequities in mental health service use (MHSU) and treatment are influenced by social stratification processes linked to socially contextualised interactions between individuals, organisations and institutions. These complex relations underpin observed inequities and their experience by people at the intersections of social statuses. Discrimination is one important mechanism influencing such differences. We compared inequities in MHSU/treatment through single and intersectional status analyses, accounting for need. We assessed whether past-year discrimination differentially influences MHSU/treatment across single and intersecting statuses. Data came from a population survey (collected 2014–2015) nationally representative of English households (N = 7546). We used a theory and datadriven approach (latent class analysis) which identified five intersectional groups in the population comprising common combinations of social statuses. Single status analyses identified characteristics associated with MHSU/treatment (being a sexual minority (adjusted odds ratio (AOR) 1.65 95% CI:1.09-2.50), female (AOR 1.71, 95% CI:1.45–2.02), economically inactive (AOR 2.02, 95% CI:1.05–3.90), in the most deprived quintile (AOR 1.33, 95% CI:1.02–1.74), and Black (AOR 0.36 95% CI:0.20–0.66)). Intersectional analyses detected patterns not apparent from single status analyses. Compared to the most privileged group (“White British, highly educated, employed, high social class”), “Retired WhiteBritish” had greater odds of MHSU/treatment (AOR 1.88, 95% CI:1.53-2.32) while “Employed migrants” had lower odds (AOR 0.39, 95% CI:0.27–0.55). Past-year discrimination was associated with certain disadvantaged social statuses and greater MHSU/treatment but—except for sexual minorities—adjusting for discrimination had little influence using either analytic approach. Observing patterns only by single social statuses masks potentially unanticipated and contextually varying inequities. The latent class approach offers policy-relevant insights into patterns and mechanisms of inequity but may mask other key intersectional patterns by statuses less common or under represented in surveys (e.g. UK-born ethnic minority groups). We propose multiple, context-relevant, theory-driven approaches to intersectional understanding of mental health inequalities.

Different starting lines, different finish times: The role of social class in the job search process.

Although social class is an important construct throughout the social sciences, it has received only minimal attention in the industrial-organizational psychology, organizational behavior, and human resource management literatures. As a result, little is known regarding the potential role of social class in the work and career context. The present study examines the role of social class during the job search process. We integrate self-regulation and social class perspectives to hypothesize ways social class may influence job search antecedents, behaviors, and outcomes. Analysis of longitudinal data from new job entrants (N = 516) indicated that job seekers from lower social classes possess lower job search self-efficacy, lower perceived social support, and higher perceived financial hardship compared with those from higher social classes. Further, results suggest that through the mechanism of lower self-efficacy, lower social class job seekers display lower job search intensity. Finally, one indicator of social class-parental income-was positively related to job acceptance rate, a hazard outcome that reflected whether and how quickly participants accepted a job. In contrast, subjective social class was negatively related to job acceptance rate. Overall, the present findings suggest that social class plays a multifaceted role in the job search process and, thus, warrants more attention within this and other areas of organizational research. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Malaria prevention practices and malaria prevalence among children living in a rural community in Southwest Nigeria.

Living conditions in most rural African communities favour malaria transmission and threaten global eradication. Prevention strategies and interventions such as the use of bed nets have reduced the prevalence of malaria. This study described the various methods employed to prevent malaria and their effects on malaria parasite prevalence among children living in a rural community in Nigeria. A community-based cross-sectional study conducted among 357 children aged 1-15 years, in a Nigerian rural community. Data was analyzed using SPSS version 25. Chi-squared test of association with a level of significance of p < 0.050 was used. Only 110 (30.8%) participants owned mosquito nets. Mostly those from the high social class (45; 40.9%) used the nets, and these were mostly 'under-five' children. Thirty-six (10.1%) were routinely given antimalarial drugs for malaria prophylaxis. Also, 102 (28.6%), 151 (42.3%), 278 (77.9%), 99 (27.7%) and 15 (5.0%) children used insecticides, local herbs, window nets, outlet door nets and mosquito repellent creams respectively. None of the methods employed to prevent malaria had statistically significant effect on malaria parasite prevalence among participants (p > 0.050). Malaria prevention methods were mostly practiced by participants of the high social class while children under-five considerably used mosquito nets. This study highlights the need to address the socio-demographic imbalance regarding malaria preventive measures in the community where the study was conducted. There is also a need to regulate the use of antimalarial drugs for malaria prophylaxis in the rural community. These suggest that the current malaria prevention methods in the community be reviewed.

Frontal EEG alpha-delta ratio and social anxiety across early adolescence

Although the mean age of onset of social anxiety disorder (SAD) is during adolescence, we know relatively little about the neurodevelopmental correlates of subsyndromal social anxiety in early adolescence before SAD manifests. Here we examined frontal EEG alpha/delta ratio (a putative proxy of brain maturation) in relation social anxiety symptoms across early adolescence. Resting regional EEG spectral power measures were collected continuously for 4 min (2 min eyes-open, 2 min eyes-closed) in slow (i.e., delta) and fast (i.e., alpha) frequencies at Time 1, and self-reported social anxiety measures were collected concurrently at Time 1 and then prospectively approximately one year later (Time 2) in 103 typically developing 12- to 14-year-olds (46.6% female, Mage = 12.91 years, SDage = 0.81 years). Using a latent class growth curve analysis, stable high and stable low social anxiety classes were derived from the two assessments. Controlling for children's age, sex, and pubertal development, we found that youth in the stable high social anxiety class were more likely to exhibit a relatively lower frontal alpha/delta ratio, reflecting ostensibly less brain maturation relative to youth in the stable low social anxiety class. Results were specific to social anxiety and did not extend to symptoms of generalized anxiety. Findings are discussed in terms of the putative functions of less brain maturation in understanding individual differences in complex human social behavior.

SUJETOS ENCAMINADOS HACIA LA SUBALTERNIDAD EN BALÚN-CANÁN (1957) DE ROSARIO CASTELLANOS

In this article we will address the novel Balún-Canán (1957) written by Rosario Castellanos, on the one hand, our analysis will focus on two female characters that we consider key within the plot, these are Matilde and the girl (whose identity is removed by not naming it). We believe that these female subjects, despite belonging to a high social class, either by their decisions or by the decisions of external agents, are destined to subalternity, an aspect that is announced from the beginning. On the other hand, we will also examine how subordinate subjects can find a space within literature, such as the representation that women do not have in the plot is obtained by establishing themselves as narrators of the novel.