Implications For Social Inequalities Research Articles

Students on the move? Intellectual migration and international student mobility

ABSTRACT International student mobility, taking place within the framework of globalisation, internationalisation and transnationalism, has attained much attention. This paper adopts the Intellectual Migration framework to further our understanding of mobility regarding international higher education. It simultaneously studies China-born students in both China and North America to empirically examine the propensity for student mobility across national borders and the determining factors behind the realisation of such mobility under the same set of geopolitical and international circumstances. The analysis is based on a set of cross-sectional surveys conducted in the 2017–2019 period that yields over 1600 data points. We compare the ‘who’, ‘why’ and ‘where’ aspects of migration between domestic students in China and Chinese international students in North America to delineate the factors underlying international student mobility. By highlighting aspirations and capabilities on mobility outcomes, this paper contributes to differentiating mobility between undergraduate and graduate students and the implications for social inequality. Our analysis also reveals the unequal spatial distributions of educational resources between intellectual gateways and peripheries, and by extension between the Global North and the Global South. The findings of this paper have policy implications on improving the quality, accessibility, and equity of higher education.

Understanding private supplementary tutoring: metaphors, diversities and agendas for shadow education research (Comprendiendo las clases particulares complementarias: metáforas, variedades y agendas para la investigación sobre educación en la sombra)

ABSTRACT In the academic literature, private supplementary tutoring is widely called shadow education because much of its content mimics that of schooling. The author of this paper wrote the first global study of the phenomenon, which was published in 1999 and set the agenda for much subsequent research. The present paper considers research emphases over the decades, noting strengths and gaps. Much initial and ongoing research has focused on economic and social implications of shadow education. Global, regional and national mapping has particularly highlighted cultural contexts and implications for social inequalities. However, inadequate attention has focused on pedagogical and psychological issues. Fitting the theme of the special issue of the journal in which the paper is included, the commentary gives particular attention to teaching, learning and development. It presents multiple levels of analysis to stress the value of, and relationships between, macro, meso and micro perspectives. The paper also highlights the value of quantitative, qualitative and mixed approaches for more complete understanding of dynamics in particular settings and suggests some specific themes for future research.

COVID-19 and heterogeneous vulnerabilities in the Peruvian labor market: implications for social inequalities and for gender gaps

Using quarterly data from the 2020 Peruvian National Household Survey (ENAHO), this paper estimates the differentiated impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on a set of labor market indicators, such as labor participation, occupational categories, informality, and number of hours worked. The impacts are calculated from an individual perspective (effects on the activities of the heads of household and their spouses, distinguishing them according to sex) and also from a joint strategy perspective among the partners. The results indicate that the intersectionalities of vulnerability considered (rural/urban area, and those contained in the type of households and in the situation of single-parenting or two-parenting of household heads and their spouses) determine that women, who live in rural areas, have children and do not have a partner were the most affected by the global health crisis.

Is it “Good” to Have a Stay-at-Home Mom? Parental Childcare Time and Work–Family Arrangements in Italy, 1988–2014

Abstract This article investigates whether there are childcare penalties and premiums at the intersection of gender, work–family arrangements, and education among parents in Italy, a country with a familistic welfare state and a traditional division of labor within couples. The results indicate that children in male breadwinner households are not exposed to more childcare time than those living in a dual-earner arrangement, except when both parents are highly educated, in which case a childcare premium emerges. The implications for social inequalities are discussed in light of the societal transformations that have occurred in the country over the past few decades.

Assessing conservation conflict: Does intertidal oyster aquaculture inhibit foraging behavior of migratory shorebirds?

AbstractConservation is increasingly in conflict with human activities due to global human population growth, particularly in areas that support threatened species. Conflicts often impede effective implementation of needed conservation measures and also have implications for social inequality, resource use and economic development. Bivalve molluscan shellfish aquaculture is commonly considered one of the least impactful forms of protein production worldwide but, in some locations, may interfere with essential activities of threatened species such as the stopover ecology of migrating shorebirds. Here we assess the impact of oyster aquaculture as practiced in Delaware Bay (New Jersey, USA) on the presence and foraging behavior of migratory shorebird species of conservation concern. We conducted counts and behavioral observations of shorebirds across a 4.8‐km stretch of the Delaware Bay and tested the effect of regulated aquaculture structures and activities on shorebird presence relative to various environmental factors. We also evaluated differences in mean peck rates for each species within and away from aquaculture areas, and we examined multiple factors influencing foraging rates for each species. For all species, we found that oyster tending reduced the probability of shorebird presence by 1–7%, whereas the untended aquaculture structures had no detectable impact. Foraging rates were mostly influenced by environmental conditions, particularly the presence of competitors (gulls or other shorebirds), and the foraging substrate. None of the focal species substantially altered their time budget or foraging rates in the presence of tended or untended oyster aquaculture. This evidence suggests that intertidal oyster aquaculture and migrating shorebirds can co‐utilize the resource rich intertidal areas on which they occur.

Credit, Debt, and Inequality

Increasing access to diverse types of credit and spreading indebtedness across many social groups were significant economic developments of the twentieth century and into the twenty-first, with implications for social inequality and insecurity. This review evaluates the role of credit and debt in social inequality in the United States. Credit and debt shape inequalities along multiple pathways, in defining social inclusion and exclusion, directing life chances, and facilitating oppression. On the basis of this review, I conclude that building on the progress made in prior research calls for a relational approach to understanding credit, debt, and inequality that includes a focus on the powerful actors that benefit from a political economy increasingly dependent on credit and debt to distribute, regulate, and control social resources. I close by identifying outstanding questions that need to be answered in order to move forward our understanding of economic inequality and insecurity, as well as for social policy and the prospects for collective action.

Cumulation or compensation? Returns to adult education and social inequalities in Soviet and Post-Soviet Russia

ABSTRACTAdult education may mitigate social inequalities during the life course by allowing educationally disadvantaged groups to catch up to their advantaged peers and thereby improve their career prospects. To challenge this idea, I analyze returns to adult education and implications for social inequality in transition economies, particularly in Russia. The results, based on longitudinal data from the Russian Education and Employment Survey, show that adult education either pays off equally for all groups or has a greater benefit for those who already occupy more advantageous positions. Accordingly, adult education does not facilitate mobility among those who need it most to improve their labor market prospects and opportunities. Moreover, in many cases, those who are least advantaged (e.g. lower educated, unskilled) appear to be effectively excluded from any positive payoffs of adult education due to their lower participation. Hence, despite the promise of adult education to lower social inequality, initial social inequalities are not offset but are often amplified through adult education in Russia.

Seeking Out and Avoiding the News Media: Young Adults’ Proposed Strategies for Obtaining Current Events Information

This study takes a closer look at the role the news media plays in how young adults inform themselves in the high-choice media age. In-depth interview data with 21 young adults from varying socioeconomic backgrounds were used to identify the strategies they had for locating current events information. During the interviews, the young adult participants responded to six hypothetical “vignettes” by articulating the steps that they would take to find information about current events. Findings revealed two strategy patterns that interviewees voiced—one set of strategies directly involved use of the news media, and another set avoided the news media in favor of functional information alternatives. Common among all the interviewees, however, was the need for information skepticism when navigating the contemporary media environment. Implications for social inequality and news media literacy are discussed.

Creativity and Critique: Gap Analysis of Support for Critical Research on Big Data

We define big data as large amounts of information, collected about many people, over multiple devices. We define critical big data research as efforts to demonstrate how flaws — ethical or methodological — in the collection and use and of big have implications for social inequality. There are many critical and creative big data research endeavors around the world. Here we present an annotated catalog of projects that: are both critical and creative in their analysis of big data; have a distinct Principal Investigator (PI) or clear team; and, are producing an identifiable body of public essays, original research, or civic engagement projects. We have catalogued these endeavors with as much descriptive information as possible, and organized projects by the domains of big data critique and creativity in which they are having an impact. We identify some 35 distinct projects, and several dozen individual researchers, artists and civic leaders, operating in 16 domains of inquiry. We recommend expanding critical and creative work in several domains: expanding work in China; supporting policy initiatives in Latin America’s young democracies; expanding work on algorithmic manipulation originating in authoritarian countries; identifying best practices for how public agencies in the United States should develop big data initiatives. We recommend that the next stage of support for these lines of inquiry is to help publicize the output of these projects, many of which are of interest to a handful of specialists but should be made accessible to policy makers, journalists, and the interested public.

Education as a positional good: Implications for social inequalities in educational attainment in Italy

The article examines trends of social inequalities in educational attainment in the second half of the twentieth century in Italy, comparing two approaches. The traditional approach uses years of education as a dependent variable and implicitly looks at the absolute/nominal value of education. The second approach refers to education as a ‘positional good’ and it captures its possibly changing occupational value over time. In this article, following this second perspective, two measures are developed and used: the Educational Competitive Advantage Score (ECAS) measures the value of educational degrees on the basis of their incidence in the population (credential inflation perspective). The second is an effect-proportional scale of education based on the average occupational prestige attained by individuals in each qualification (demand–supply balance perspective). Using data with large sample size from three waves of the Istat Multi-Purpose Survey (1998, 2003 and 2009), the article shows that inequalities based both on social class of origin and parental education declined between 1940 and 1980 birth cohorts, but the effect of parental education reduced less and it is stronger than that of social class in recent cohorts. Considering education as a positional good does not change the main findings obtained using years of education as outcome in the Italian case.

Geographies of International Education: Mobilities and the Reproduction of Social (Dis)advantage

AbstractThis paper provides a critical perspective on emergent geographies of international education, suggesting what these might mean for the reproduction of social (dis)advantage. The assertion that formal education may have regressive consequences for social mobility is hardly new – work on the sociology and geography of education has for a long time shown uncontrovertibly that the opportunities and rewards associated with formal education are unevenly distributed across space, as well as being differentiated by social class. Until relatively recently, however, work focussing on the remarkable transformation of formal education through internationalisation, and its implications for social inequalities, has been limited. This paper provides a critical review of a now burgeoning area of geographical scholarship around international education and student mobilities. It argues that the evidence, to date, suggests that international education entrenches (and in some cases, within emerging economies, actively creates) social inequalities.

Digital inequalities and implications for social inequalities: A study of Internet penetration amongst university students in South Africa

International and national data sources confirm the limited access to the Internet in South Africa. However, there is a need to study how this limited access is distributed amongst population groups in the country. This study investigates the pattern of Internet access amongst university students in South Africa. University students are a relevant population group for studying technology penetration; this population is a generation born in the current era of digital revolution, they are presumably early adopters of technology and are adept in using them. A survey conducted in ten South African universities reveals that beyond publicly available access on campuses – with its attendant constraints, personal/household Internet access is a challenge and it reflects a pattern of inequalities in South Africa. Bearing in mind that social and economic exclusion is the biggest challenge for South Africa, this study reveals that digital inequalities amongst students replicate the pattern of social inequalities in the country. This exacerbates existing social inequalities, specifically amongst university students in South Africa, with certain categories of students being disproportionately disadvantaged.

Gender budgets and beyond: feminist fiscal policy in the context of globalisation

Macro-economic theories and macro-economic policies in general, and fiscal policies in particular, are seldom, if ever, gender-neutral. Since the mid-eighties, gender budget analysis, which has been undertaken in many countries, has been a key strategy to challenge macro-economic theorising and policy-making. Such initiatives, along with a variety of pro-poor budget initiatives, constitute the major challenge to the prevailing fiscal policy stance in many countries. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the changes in the fiscal policy stance in the context of liberalisation and globalisation in order to draw out their implications for social inequality, especially gender inequality. The article ends by discussing a variety of policy advocacy positions open to feminist activists, to build on thework of gender budget initiatives.