Reproduction Of Social Inequalities Research Articles

The Making of New Elites and the Reproduction of Social Inequality at St. Paul’s: An Analysis from the Perspective of Classical Sociological Theories

This paper examines how social inequality is reproduced in elite educational institutions through a meritocratic system, using Shamus Khan’s Privilege: The Making of Adolescent Elite at St. Paul’s School as a case study. Drawing upon classical sociological theories, including Goffman’s performance theory, Weber’s work ethic, and Veblen’s concept of vicarious consumption, the paper explores how the new elite learn to maintain their social status. It argues that, while the appearance of diversity and meritocracy in these elite spaces suggests equality, these institutions continue to cultivate privilege through subtle yet powerful social practices. Key mechanisms include the cultivation of 'ease' in social situations, the performance of 'hard work,' and the idealization of students as inherently extraordinary. The study also investigates the role of elite parents, arguing that sending children to prestigious schools serves as a form of vicarious consumption, displaying the family's wealth and social capital. Despite the appearance of openness and fluid social mobility, the paper concludes that access to elite training remains restricted, reinforcing entrenched inequalities.

Change and Inequality in German Teenagers’ Typical Time-Use Sequences Between 1991 and 2013

How children spend their time is widely regarded as a key factor shaping their development and wellbeing, as well as the intergenerational transmission of socio-economic and gender inequalities. While there is much evidence on the aggregate amount of time teenagers spent on different activities, we know little about how teenagers’ activities unfold during a typical day. We use social sequence analysis and data collected in 1991/92, 2001/02 and 2012/13 via high-frequency time-use diaries of teenagers aged 12-16 in Germany to provide a fine-grained description of teenagers’ everyday time-use sequences. We identify and visualize a typology of teenagers’ time-use during weekdays and weekend days, respectively, which groups teenagers into clusters of typical time-use sequences. These typical time-use sequences change in prevalence over time, and are stratified by teenagers’ socio-economic background, gender, and age. Our findings reveal the sequential structure of teenagers’ time use, provide new evidence corroborating theories of the social stratification of teenagers’ time use, and complement existing evidence on teenagers’ aggregate time-use. Our identification of teenagers’ typical time-use sequences forms the basis for future research to examine their causes and consequences, as well as their role in the reproduction of social inequalities.

Change and Inequality in German Teenagers’ Typical Time-Use Sequences Between 1991 and 2013. Online Appendix

How children spend their time is widely regarded as a key factor shaping their development and wellbeing, as well as the intergenerational transmission of socio-economic and gender inequalities. While there is much evidence on the aggregate amount of time teenagers spent on different activities, we know little about how teenagers’ activities unfold during a typical day. We use social sequence analysis and data collected in 1991/92, 2001/02 and 2012/13 via high-frequency time-use diaries of teenagers aged 12-16 in Germany to provide a fine-grained description of teenagers’ everyday time-use sequences. We identify and visualize a typology of teenagers’ time-use during weekdays and weekend days, respectively, which groups teenagers into clusters of typical time-use sequences. These typical time-use sequences change in prevalence over time, and are stratified by teenagers’ socio-economic background, gender, and age. Our findings reveal the sequential structure of teenagers’ time use, provide new evidence corroborating theories of the social stratification of teenagers’ time use, and complement existing evidence on teenagers’ aggregate time-use. Our identification of teenagers’ typical time-use sequences forms the basis for future research to examine their causes and consequences, as well as their role in the reproduction of social inequalities.

Embodied Suzhi: Constituting Middle-Class Subjectivity in Post-Socialist China

Suzhi has grown into a key bio-policy that is crucial to governance and individual life in post-socialist China. Drawing upon Bourdieusian habitus, this article examines how millennial middle-class women live the class-based suzhi on a daily basis in the fields of education, marriage and real estate. Class divisions configure women’s habitual pursuit of cultural suzhi, and their embodied capital is reflected in practical situations. Women embody cultural suzhi and specific life experiences as middle-class daughters. They are inclined to have matched marriages to ensure personal happiness. But middle-class women demonstrate high neoliberal reflexivity in performing civil suzhi in the field of real estate. Neoliberal feminism is materialised through suzhi: Women exhibit reflexivity in their embodied experiences of suzhi while also internalising class structures and state power, thus reinforcing the insidious reproduction of social inequality.

Pathways to higher education for vocationally qualified students. The case of Norway

ABSTRACT This article investigates six pathways through which students possessing initial vocational qualifications can enter higher education in Norway. In Norway, vocational education and training (VET) tracks in upper secondary education are popular nationwide with the youth population, catering to almost half of every youth cohort. However, despite explicit goals to promote social mobility through education, there is evident reproduction of social inequalities in attraction to and completion of higher education programmes. This issue is of paramount importance for the welfare state context, given that students in VET tracks typically come from lower socioeconomic backgrounds compared to their peers in general education pathways. Therefore, prohibited permeability between VET and higher education undermines universal access to higher education. This study is designed in a threefold manner: First, the connection between VET and socioeconomic background is investigated, leading to the conclusion that underprivileged youth are overly represented in VET pathways. Secondly, we explore alternative routes to higher education available to vocationally qualified students in Norway; and thirdly, we present available data on to what extend these pathways facilitate access to higher education. We conclude that limited permeability is a social problem and discuss possible means to address the issue.

Working with constructs of inclusion for understanding teachers’ literacy practices and their impact on student learning

ABSTRACT The paper explores teachers’ language literacy practices in underprivileged, inner-city schools in Athens, Greece, and their implications for student learning and educational inclusion. The current developments of global/European and national education policy agendas on literacy and inclusion inform the research questions of the study. Bernstein’s theory of pedagogic discourse frames our analysis on the reproduction of social inequalities through schooling and informs our discussion on the discursive means and the pedagogic practices for their interruption. Findings, based on interview data and classroom observations, indicate that global discourses on inclusion, (re)articulated in the disadvantaged school settings of the study, invest the notion of inclusion with three different meanings: a. inclusion as assimilation and absorption into the dominant culture and society; b. inclusion as therapy for students’ emotional ‘traumas’; and c. inclusion as recognition of difference. We argue that these constructs of inclusion shape teaching practices that either promote or undermine student learning and empowerment.

Finansjeryzacja lokalności i kulturowe spojrzenie na pieniądz finansowy

Financialization is “a pattern of accumulation in which profits accrue primarily through financial channels rather than through trade and commodity production”. The expansion of the financial sector is enabled by a credit money mechanism that takes on a fictitious character. As a result, financialization leads to the reproduction of social inequality and the subordination of individual behavior to the logic of financial markets. According to critics of the process, local culture is being destroyed by credit money. In this paper, the author points to the social basis of financialization by demonstrating the ways in which local communities produce money – personalizing it and creating its meaning based on debt relationships. He illustrates the influence of culture on money using the example of microfinance and its criticism. Finally, the author proposes a different perspective on financialization, which – by combining the mutual influence of culture and money – allows for changing the categories of thinking about contemporary sources of locality and the divide between the global and the local. Key-words: financialization, microfinance, money theory, credit money, debt relationships, local communities

Discursive subjugation and the ways out: Narratives of othering among Czech Roma mothers

This paper introduces the analysis of biographical interviews focusing on the negotiation of the day-to-day child-raising by Czech Roma mothers. We demonstrate the narrative reflection of ethnic identity, as well as coping strategies and ways out of the discursive subjugation of being marginalized by ethnic othering. We present coping strategies based on 1) vacillating between refusal and resigned acceptance of the negative discourse among the ethnic majority, 2) claiming normality through universal humanism, the submission of racialized microaggression, and the psychologizing of an aggressor, and 3) embracing family pride and social dissent. We find that primary socialization is an important element in tackling the discursive subjugation of ethnic othering. Further, we outline suggestions for the following research of othering mechanisms that seem to endure in European societies in terms of the reproduction of social inequalities. This article was published open access under a CC BY licence: https://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0 .

What to Compare When Comparing Inequalities in Educational Systems? Beyond School Disparities, Social Reproduction

Objective: International comparisons influence educational policies, but their foundations are seldom examined. The academic dimension is emphasized, despite the goal of integrating youth into the social and economic life of most countries. This research supports this perspective and aims to assess the role of educational systems in the reproduction of social inequalities in Latin America. Theoretical Framework: The research is grounded in the theories of social reproduction and conflict, addressing concepts such as school segregation and the valuation of diplomas in social mobility. Method: A qualitative and comparative methodology was adopted, focusing on the educational systems of Latin America. It was structured into four components: literature review, comparative analysis, analysis of public data, and synthesis of findings. Data collection involved the analysis of secondary data. Results and Discussion: The results revealed persistent educational inequalities in the region, such as school segregation and differences in diploma valuation. The discussion highlighted how schools and diplomas perpetuate social inequalities, influencing the social and economic trajectories of young people. Research Implications: It emphasizes the need to evaluate educational systems beyond academic performance, considering their impact on social integration. It underscores the urgency of reforms for inclusion, equity, and intersectoral collaboration. Originality/Value: This study offers a new perspective on educational inequality in Latin America, examining the impact of school segregation and diploma valuation on social mobility. It enriches academic dialogue and educational practices.

‘Definitely plan to read them’: cultural goodwill as habitus of a middle class-in-the-making in Czech Republic

Cultural hierarchies enable an understanding of how consumption takes part in the reproduction of social inequalities in current societies. The changing nature of these hierarchies reveals a tension between established and emerging forms of cultural capital. This article explores this tension in the context of an understudied European cultural semi-periphery country. It focuses on young university students in a social milieu where new trends, established legitimate culture and cosmopolitan cultural flows intersect. The article uses a mixed-method approach and analyses cultural space both through survey data and follow-up in-depth interviews. Detailed exploration of cultural repertoires shows that while survey analysis shows both established and emerging forms of legitimate culture, there is widespread deference among the students towards the former. While cultural goods associated with emerging cultural capital are widely consumed, they are not related to repertoires of legitimisation. This points to the continuing importance of national institutions and their pedagogical practices in delineating what is understood as legitimate culture.

‘It’s One Rule for Them and One for Us’: Occupational Classification, Gender and Worktime Domestic Labour

In this article, we focus on gender and class to investigate worktime domestic labour. Methodologically, we extend a novel, comparative critical realist method in which occupation-based and gendered positions in productive and reproductive labour are foregrounded. By building theoretical connections between labour process conditions and collective rule-following practices, we illustrate how inequalities are inscribed organisationally. Our analysis provides a more critical contextualisation of technological affordances to develop the literature on how technology is implicated in the reproduction of social inequality. Moreover, our analysis identifies multi-level causal processes, which combine to explain the presence and actualisation of worktime domestic labour or its absence, which is due, principally, to fear of sanction. For realist researchers interested in diversity-based challenges, absences are important because they can point towards specific discriminatory mechanisms. Our investigation thus revealed a surprising level of class-related in-work inequality within the gendered dynamics of domestic work.

Stratification and Inequality in the Secondary Education System in Romania

Education is a complex system with implications for educational policy and management. Education systems that are more comprehensive generate more equal outcomes, fostering access to opportunities for all children. On the other hand, systems with early selection and tracking are more stratified and register higher inequalities in educational outcomes. Educational inequalities imply unequal access to education and, subsequently, career opportunities. The present study employs classification techniques, such as decision trees, in order to highlight lines of stratification and inequality in the upper secondary education system in Romania, focusing on the selection of students in general or vocational programs. Our results show that the education of parents and area of residence are factors that influence the stratification of students in the Romanian secondary education system, and the selection process contributes to the reproduction of social inequalities. The conclusions of this study are consistent with the cultural capital theory in education. Policy and strategic management implications are discussed in light of our results.

Teen Courts as Alternative Justice? Teens’ Carceral Habitus and the Reproduction of Social Inequality

Teen Courts as Alternative Justice? Teens’ Carceral Habitus and the Reproduction of Social Inequality

The Politics of Policing Hate: Boundary Work, Social Inequalities, and Legitimacy

This article investigates how police officers and prosecutors make sense of and speak about their work with hate crimes. Our analysis rests upon Robert Reiner's widely acknowledged claim that policing is inherently political. We identified three core issues that illustrate the political nature of policing hate crimes. First, the politically contingent boundary work of distinguishing criminal from legal acts. Second, the impact of the enforcement of hate crime laws on the reproduction of social inequalities. Third, the “diversity politics” of gaining legitimacy and trust among minorities, which hate crime legislation is meant to protect. While a strong commitment to policing hate crimes is evident among our interviewees, we ask if the politically invested discourse they present may contribute to an absence of critical reflections regarding the limited effect of law enforcement, as well as a lack of engagement with pressing concerns regarding racialized crime control and racism.

IS EDUCATION A RIGHT OR A SERVICE IN COLOMBIA? A system for the reproduction of social inequalities

Education is still an important instrument of public policy and a cultural mechanism. However, depending on different conditions, it can be a scenario for constant exclusion in society or the promoter of social development, innovation, science, and technology. The starting question of this reflection article seeks to know how education is approached: is it a right or a service that reproduces social inequalities in Colombia? To answer this, this paper is divided into four parts. The first is a brief introduction contextualizing the identified problem. The second one presents the causes that originate the system for the reproduction of social inequalities in the education system based on two hypotheses raised by García Villegas and Gómez-Estrada. These are: i) the confrontation between liberal and conservative parties that conditions the State-Church relationship when implementing an educational model; and ii) the continuous tension between governments, teachers’ unions and university students who defend leftist political ideas. The third part contains a descriptive analysis on segregation in terms of quality and class of the national education system, which comprises early childhood education, primary education (elementary school), lower secondary and upper secondary education (middle school and high school), and post-secondary or tertiary education (higher education). Finally, conclusions and final considerations are made.

Practises and Processes of Symbolic Reproduction of Racial, Ethnic and National Boundaries in Low-Waged Workplaces

The introduction present key research questions addressed by the Special Issue: What is the character of the symbolic reproduction of racial, ethnic and/ or national boundaries and how are they interwoven into international migrants’ practices, experiences, and strategies within Europe’s low-waged workplaces? The four IS papers address this question from different perspectives; three of them by drawing on materials from the food production industries in the Scandinavian countries and the UK, the last discussing how Polish labour migrant in Norwegian society are objects of ‘gray racialization’ setting them apart from the majority population. A main contribution of the SI lies in the bridging of disparate literature in the fields of labour markets, migration, and social and symbolic boundary processes: The in-depth qualitative analysis demonstrates how migrants working in low wage, low skill labour markets are the object of ongoing processes of othering along racial, ethnic and national lines. Various agents representing the majority society – the state, employers, trade unions and local communities – each in their own ways contribute to these processes and thereby to the reproduction of social inequalities. Combined, the SI papers also demonstrate the role the migrants themselves play in the production and reproduction of these dynamics.

Inequalities and social sciences in neoliberal Indonesia

AbstractRising wealth and social inequalities around the world place great pressure on social researchers to interpret and explain the impact. However, it is equally important to recognise that scientists too have been part of the reproduction of social inequalities. This article expands on Burawoy's (2015) appeal to social scientists to acknowledge that social inequalities are not only external to the social science community specifically – and the scientific community more generally – but they also pervade academic labour and the way universities are managed and reformed. By taking the case of Indonesia, the largest economy in understudied Southeast Asia, this article reveals types of social inequalities reproduced and sustained through policies and practices within universities. These inequalities are the exclusionary effects of internationalisation, selective inclusion and corporatist bureaucracies, as well as regional inequalities in terms of infrastructure and capacity. We problematise the detrimental effects of marketisation in higher education on academic imagination and how it extends authoritarian developmentalism (1966–1998) to suit neoliberal demands. The article ends with propositions on how academics from the Global South can better understand their social position in an increasingly networked yet disconnected world skewed by multiple configurations of social inequalities.

Socioeconomic differences in parental financial support, coresidence, and advice: A portrait of undergraduate students in the Canadian Prairies.

In this paper, we examine the intersections of parental support and family socioeconomic background within an undergraduate sample (N = 596) in a mid-sized Canadian Prairie city. Coresidence, financial support, and parental and professional financial advice are examined as types of 'family capital' that may be distributed unequally across socioeconomic groups. In keeping with previous literature, findings showed that students whose parents had university education and higher incomes received more robust coverage of their housing and school expenses. Students whose parents were university-educated were also more likely to be living with a parent, though no relationship was found between parental income and coresidence. Contrasting with previous literature, few relationships were found between socioeconomic background and receipt or influence of financial advice. These results contribute to the literature by generalising claims about family capital to a Canadian student sample, where relatively few studies have empirically examined intergenerational transfers as mechanisms for transmitting privilege during the transition to adulthood. With increasing demands for higher education and simultaneous declines in government subsidisation of its costs, disparate access to family capital is likely to intensify the reproduction of social inequality across generations.

Bureaucratising Social Justice: The reproduction of social inequality through scholarship programs in Nepal

AbstractThis article draws on ethnographic data on the distribution of scholarship programs at two Nepali state‐run schools. Anchored in the cross‐field of educational anthropology and the anthropology of bureaucracy, this article examines schools not just as sites of learning but as institutions that control and regulate access through bureaucratized mechanisms. We draw attention to scholarship processes as inherently selective and requiring social and cultural capital, thus leading to what we term “the bureaucratization of social justice.”

Administrative Burdens in Chinese Public Services: A Case of Selective Affinity

AbstractThe non-take-up of public services has the potential to undermine civil rights and deepen social inequality. Looking at the case of the Youth Community College Programme in China, an innovation in governance to facilitate community integration of the migrant population by providing free education, this study finds that the targeted disadvantaged groups are systematically excluded due to the disproportionate imposition of various administrative burdens on them. We propose that an interaction mechanism – which we term “selective affinity” – between the policy process and individuals’ human capital leads to this unintended outcome. The study contributes to a deeper understanding of the causal mechanisms underlying vulnerable people's non-take-up of public services, while highlighting an example of dysfunctional state–society interaction and a mechanism for the reproduction of social inequality under authoritarianism in China.