Reproduction Of Social Inequalities Research Articles

A Life Jacket or an Art of Living: Inequality in Social Competence Education

After a period in which the emphasis in education was on “the basics,” increasing attention has been paid at the turn of the century to the “moral task of education” in the Netherlands. Schools are not only expected to prepare students for further education and/or the labour market but also for participating in society in the broadest sense, for example, in politics, care, and culture. In this article we will focus on one aspect of students’ development as a task of the school, namely, the furthering of students’ social competence. Six case studies were conducted in which projects aimed at social competence were analysed in general secondary education and prevocational education. The results show that in the general secondary education projects the emphasis was on the meaning of changes in society for students and the contribution they can make to such changes (social competence in education as an “art of living”). The prevocational education projects focused on improving the chances of students at school and in society by developing aspects of social competence that they have not acquired at home or earlier in their school careers, such as self-confidence and social and communicative skills (social competence as a “life jacket”). We interpret these different focuses in terms of the production and reproduction of social inequality and discuss how such reproduction processes can be countered in the context of educating for social competence.

Reflections on the Subtractive Underpinnings of Education Research and Policy

The study of teacher education generally, including that conducted by Wilson, Floden, and Ferrini-Mundy (2002 [this issue]), begs for analyses from a minority perspective. Specifically, their analysis fails to incorporate in a substantive manner the problem of unequal power relations between a dominant Anglo research and policy establishment and the diverse and often disempowered communities about whom they frequently write. Taken together, advances in minority scholarship alongside the fact of changing demographics in a prevailing context of chauvinist schooling suggest, as I propose here, a need for scholarship on teacher education that is increasingly centered on these developments and issues. My goal here is to suggest, therefore, the utility of key constructs like additive schooling and relevant pedagogy to guide a refashioning of schools, teacher preparation programs, evaluation research of teacher quality, and ultimately, education policy itself. Cloaked in the language of objective social science, Florio-Ruane (2002 [this issue]) aptly critiques the nomological approach as privileging the method and language of social policy while portraying teaching as causally related to student learning. A complex view of teaching and learning is not only desirable but necessary given the conditions created by a predominantly Anglo teaching force in increasingly poor and minority inner-city schools throughout our nation. This complex perspective needs to be grounded in an understanding of majority-minority relations, where issues of race, class, gender, culture, and language are viewed as central to the mission of teacher education. Although a lack of attention to diversity issues is probably in some measure due to its lack of centrality in most teacher preparation programs, researchers are no less responsible to the communities served by the schools that they study. Not to address majority-minority relations is to participate in the reproduction of social inequality. THE CONTRIBUTIONS OF MINORITY SCHOLARSHIP Much scholarship on minority youth points to the central role of relevant, politically aware teaching in urban, minority education (Delgado-Gaitan, 1991, 1996; Delpit, 1995; Foster, 1995; Henry, 1998; Ladson-Billings, 1994; Stanton-Salazar, 2001; Valenzuela, 1999; Vasquez, Pease-Alvarez, and Shannon, 1994). For this to occur, teacher education and teaching need to be evaluated in terms of their commitment to social justice. The research framework for evaluating teacher education programs and outcomes needs to be expanded beyond objective data like students' test scores (regressed on a multiplicity of teacher preparation variables) to include the extent to which schools promote success in terms valued by the communities that they serve. (1) To move in this direction, every single practitioner needs to possess the intellectual capital that enables him or her to distinguish between teaching that is relevant and politically aware and that which is subtractive and politically unaware (Bartolome, 1994; Valenzuela, 1999). The central paradigm war in teacher education evaluation research is therefore not between quantitative and interpretive methods but rather between their ideological underpinnings, regardless of method. In Subtractive Schooling: U.S.-Mexican Youth and the Politics of Caring (Valenzuela, 1999), I make the case that schools and teaching are fraught with cultural and political content even if unbeknownst to the teachers themselves. Specifically, I argue that in Texas, a neutral perspective on teaching is untenable because the existing educational framework inscribed in Texas education policy is culturally subtractive. That is, if schools are in compliance with state law, their function is not to promote bilingualism, biliteracy, and biculturalism in an additive fashion but rather to subtract Mexican American children's culture, language, and community-based identities. …

The Paradox of Social Class and Sports Involvement

Studies in the sociology of sport have found that the higher one's social class, the greater is one's overall involvement in sports, but the less likely is one's involvement in what have come to be called `prole' sports. Using data from the 1993 General Social Survey, this study tests two explanations for this paradox, one stressing class-based differences in cultural capital and the other emphasizing class-based differences in economic capital. Findings show that those who are richest in cultural capital and those richest in economic capital are most likely to be involved in sports generally, and that these tendencies are independent of one another. However, those richest in cultural capital are least likely to be involved in `prole' sports, and economic capital has no bearing on `prole' sports involvement. In all, cultural capital explains the paradox of social class and sports involvement better than economic capital does. Inferences are drawn for the role of sports involvement in the reproduction of social inequality, and for the `cultural omnivore' thesis.

Unitary Social Science for Causal Understanding: Experiences and Prospects of Life Course Research

Longitudinal data are superior to cross-sectional data for explaining social processes. Yet, the existing division of labour in social science is a serious handicap for causal understanding of human behaviour. This is demonstrated in this article with the quite unrelated coexistence of sociological research on life histories and psychological research on individual development. Two examples are discussed: the intergenerational reproduction of social inequalities and the openness versus closedness of labour markets. Though there is an increasing awareness of problems of selectivity and unobserved heterogeneity in conventional social research, statistical modelling of these problems cannot replace the need for transdiciplinary data collection and research.

From aesthetic principles to collective sentiments: The logics of everyday judgements of taste

Contemporary research into the sociology of taste has, following Bourdieu (1984), primarily emphasised the role of taste judgements as mechanisms of social and cultural power, as distinctive markers of social position, or more broadly as implicated in the reproduction of social inequality. We argue that although important, such a preoccupation with the social distribution of objectified tastes—for example in music, literature, and art—has been at the expense of investigating the everyday perceptual schemes and resources used by actors to accomplish a judgement of taste. Our argument is traced using a range of classical and contemporary literature which deals with the personal/collective tension in taste, aesthetics and fashion. We use data from a recent national survey to investigate how a sample of ordinary actors understand the categories of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ taste. The analysis shows a strong collective strand in everyday definitions of taste, often linked to moral codes of interpersonal conduct. Also, taste is largely defined by people as a strategy for managing relations with others, and as a mode of self-discipline which relies on the mastery of a number of general principles that are resources for people to position their own tastes within an imagined social sphere. The paper proposes a schematic model which accounts for the range of discriminatory resources used to make judgements of taste.

‘A fist is stronger than five fingers’: caste and dominance in rural north India

This paper explores the spatiality of caste and power in contemporary rural north India. I aim to introduce the social institution of caste to a non‐specialist audience and illustrate how caste is changing. The paper draws upon Pierre Bourdieu’s notions of social capital and habitus and the India‐based research ofSrinivas (1955) andMendelsohn (1993). I argue that while caste as a religiously sanctioned system of resource transfer is in decline, caste organization and identity are important forms of social or symbolic capital for rural elites. Drawing on detailed empirical research in western Uttar Pradesh, I demonstrate the continuing importance of caste dominance in the reproduction of social inequality and relate caste to other axes of power.

Sharecropping and the management of large rural estates in Catalonia, 1850–1950

This article examines the role of sharecropping in the operation of great estates in Catalonia (Spain) from the mid‐nineteenth to the mid‐twentieth century. Noting that the sharecropping option was not the fruit of inertia, but of the failure of alternatives, we look at the various factors which led to its predominance. Next, we show the adaptability of sharecropping to a variety of ecological and social contexts. Finally, we argue that the backwardness of Catalan agriculture is not to be attributed to sharecropping, which, on the contrary, proved comparable to other forms of tenure in terms of economic efficiency, and was also a successful instrument for the reproduction of social inequalities and labour exploitation.

Building Blocks of Social Inequality: A Critique of Durable Inequality

Durable Inequality is an important and insightful book. In this work, Charles Tilly links organizational needs to the production and reproduction of social inequality. For some time now, organizational theorists have demonstrated that formal organizations are central actors in modern society, and that the significant environment of formal organizations are other formal organizations. Durable Inequality demonstrates how social inequality is directly tied to solving organizational problems. His four master mechanisms—exploitation, opportunity hoarding, emulation, and adaptation—tell us a great deal about how inequality is produced and maintained. The argument about categorical pairing and how such pairing is used by organizations to generate inequality is plausible and seductive.

The Mexican Outsiders: A Community History of Marginalization and Discrimination in California.

Acknowledgments Introduction Chapter One. Political Relations and Land Tenure Cycles in Santa Paula: Chumash Indians, Mexicans, and Anglo Americans Chapter Two. White Racism, Religious Segregation, and Violence against Mexicans, 1913 to 1930 Chapter Three. School Segregation: The Social Reproduction of Inequality, 1870 to 1934 Chapter Four. Mexican Resistance to the Peonage System: Movements to Unionize Farm Labor Chapter Five. Movements to Desegregate the Mexican Community, the 1940s and 1950s Chapter Six. The Segmentation of the Farm Labor Market, 1965 to 1976 Chapter Seven. Interethnic City Council Politics: The Case of the Housing Cooperative Movement Chapter Eight. Modern Racism: Social Apartness and the Evolution of a Segregated Society Chapter Nine. The Impact of Anglo American Racism on Mexican-Origin Intragroup Relations Chapter Ten. Historical Reconstruction Notes Bibliography Index

The Reproduction of Social Inequality

Ideological assumptions of equality and economic individualism have permeated the traditional analysis of social mobility. This is shown most clearly in the use of perfect mobility as the theoretical model that underlies most of the empirical analyses. A major consequence is that these analyses have offered a poor conceptualisation of the nature of the structure within which movement occurs, and have tended to ignore the question of relative distances between the objects, typically conceived as social classes, making up that structure. A further consequence is that they have concentrated on the issue of how much mobility, rather than on why it does, or does not, occur. It is argued that a more adequate conceptualisation would involve a move away from rigidly defined class categories towards a recognition of the hierarchical structure of occupational groups.

Approaches to Social Inequality in the Sociology of Sport

Sport, by its very nature, produces and reveals inequalities in terms of physicality and athletic performance. In social terms, however, sport has often been considered the great social leveller. This paper considers the production and reproduction of social inequality in sport in regard to the development of ideas and research about social inequality in the sociology of sport. Specifically, inequality in sport is considered in terms of the progression from reflection to reproduction to resistance theses and the progression from categorical to distributive to relational levels of analysis. The paper concludes with a consideration of some ways in which sport may be involved in the production of social equality.

Image Ideology and Inequality: Cultural Domination, Hegemony and Schooling in India.

1. Introduction 2. Social Class? Cultural Formation and Educational Inequality 3. Reproduction Theory, Schooling and Textbooks 4. Textbooks, Labour and Class Formation 5. Textbooks and the Reproduction of Social Inequality 6. Class and Cultural Bias in Textbook Themes Conclusion

Marriage, Social Inequality, and Women's Contact with Their Natal Families in Alliance Societies: Two Tamang Examples

Anthropological and other approaches to women's natal kin links demonstrate a relationship between these linkages and the reproduction of social inequality, in addition to noting implications for the social standing of women themselves. Few studies have, however, dynamically considered the simultaneous dimensions of individual history, community context, and interfamilial politics influencing such contact. Using data from two Tamang communities in Nepal, this article examines the impact of changing individual experience and interfamilial relations on home visits in the first year of marriage. Explicit attention is given to these forms of social action as a critical moment in the construction of social inequality. Informant testimony is combined with statistical analysis to demonstrate the salience of these natal visits in the early months of marriage for individual and wider social relationships. The visits are shown to be strongly related to the nature of interfamilial relations organized by marriage in addition to earlier life‐course experiences of women. Different community contexts, however, condition the direction of effects for these variables in ways consistent with enduring structures of relationship.

Educational Policy as Text and Action

Concern over the complicity of mass compulsory schooling in the reproduction of social inequality prompted the development of educational policies that increased resources for schools attended by students considered to be at risk of school failure. This article examines one such policy that provided for the differential distribution of educational resources in the inner city of Toronto, Canada. It is argued that while this policy addressed systemic inequality through schooling by placing increased resources in the hands of inner-city school staff it also structured educational knowledge about families. As such, it reaffirmed a normative relation between mass compulsory schooling and the nuclear; two-parent family. Other family forms, such as single-parent families, were constructed as deviant from the normative order embedded in the educational policy. Data are derived from interviews with principals, teachers, administrators, and school social workers involved in developing, implementing, and administering the policy.

Bored and Busy: Sociology of Knowledge of Clerical Workers

This article uses a sociology of knowledge approach to discuss the reproduction of inequality within the sociocultural world of clerical workers. A model of a semiotic square is used to analyze the experiences of bored and busy work. Through this analysis of bored and busy work, the author discovered clerical workers' perceptions and activities which were both subordinating and empowering. Clerical workers participate in the process of subordination through bored/busy work. However, they also participate in empowering strategies through not-bored/not-busy work. This sociology of knowledge approach shows that people are not automatons and strengthens our understanding of the social reproduction of inequality as a multi-faceted phenomenon.

Entre État et populations : l’école et l’éducation en devenir

Between state and people : the destiny of school and education. Since 1980, the Malian school is less and less frequented in great part because of the school policies adopted from 1962 to our days : the school «does not pay» as it did before and is no longer able to teach a knowledge useful to the society and, as a result, it collects less and less children. People prefer to diversify their choices and are now turning toward private, non religious or religious (Muslim) education. Without consideration for the legal rules, they spontaneously create their own schools apart from the official system. In doing so, they set their own logic in education against the State. School policies ignore this evolution; on the opposite, they maintain the choice of primary school profitability as a priority. Consequently, they carry the seeds of social inequality reproduction, but also take part in the appearance of new educational dynamics.

Fracture mode transitions during fatigue crack growth in Ti6Al4V alloy: Ravichandran, K.S.Scr. Metall. Mater. July 1990 24, (7), 1275–1280

This paper analyses whether social origins affect labor market outcomes (wage and occupational status) of a recent cohort of graduates and whether the type of qualification obtained (program length, field of study and institutional quality) accounts for this relationship. We use data from the 2005 Reflex survey on European graduates in 4 countries (Germany, Norway, Italy, and Spain) which were selected on the basis of their institutional profiles. Results from binomial logistic regression models indicate that those with tertiary educated parents are more likely to have a highly rewarded occupation in all the countries except Germany. Moreover, the effect of parental education is greater on occupational status than on wages. The Karlson-Holm-Breen decomposition method shows that the type of qualification obtained contributes to the reproduction of social inequality in the labor market, but its mediating role is greater in Norway and smaller in Italy, with Spain in the middle. A discussion of the institutional differences between the countries tries to explain the sources of this variation.

Unequal Schooling as a Factor in the Reproduction of Social Inequality in India

Unequal Schooling as a Factor in the Reproduction of Social Inequality in India

Reproduction of social inequality: access to health services in Mexico City

Statistics of disease and mortality rates in Mexico paint a familiar picture: a high birth rate coincides with a rapidly falling death rate giving a high rate of population increase; the most prevalent diseases are ones which are caused by poor living conditions and poverty. Yet the orientation of health care policies is still largely curative: the primary health care approach which would be the most suitable for tackling the health problems of Mexico receives lip service but little concrete support. The coverage with basic health care facilities is better in Mexico City than elsewhere in the country but there are considerable inequalities within the urban areas. This shows up clearly when the location of health service facilities is considered. Although all those living in the irregular settlements in the poorer areas of Mexico City are eligible for care either by 1 of the social security institutes or by the state a high proportion elected to pay for private care. The evidence suggests that this is due not to a dissatisfaction with the quality of the public health care but rather to the inconvenience and cost of attending public health facilities many of which are located far away from the poorer irregular settlements. For minor ailments requiring inexpensive treatment many would rather pay for private treatment. The richer areas of the city in contrast are well served with public health care facilities. (authors)

On Agency and Structure: Pierre Bourdieu and Jean-Claude Passeron's Theory of Symbolic Violence

(1984). On Agency and Structure: Pierre Bourdieu and Jean-Claude Passeron's Theory of Symbolic Violence. Curriculum Inquiry: Vol. 14, No. 2, pp. 151-163.