Social Closure Theory Research Articles

The Ledger Does Not Balance for All: Experiences of Underrepresented Individuals in Accounting Academia

ABSTRACT Despite implementing diversity and inclusion initiatives in accounting academia, we lack a deep understanding of the experiences of historically underrepresented individuals (HUIs), including females, racial minorities, and members of the LGBTQ+ community. Applying an intersectional view, our study links social identity and social closure theories to understand how workplace interactions shape the experiences and perceptions of HUIs in accounting academia. Analyzing semistructured interviews with 16 HUI accounting faculty members identified five major themes: inequity among colleagues, pressure from expectations, lack of representation of HUIs in accounting academia, initiatives that promote inclusion, and academia’s current environment for HUIs. Specific quotes interwoven with the findings provide insight into the current state of diversity and inclusion in accounting schools and departments. These reveal that, although there have been some improvements in HUIs’ experiences with diversity and inclusion, biases and exclusionary practices remain firmly grounded.

The reasons for the gap between academic education and the required skills of the labor market in Iran

PurposeThe present study aims to investigate the reasons for the gap between academic education and the required skills of the labor market in Iran.Design/methodology/approachFor this purpose, the authors adopted a thematic analysis method. The participants in the study were connoisseurs from universities and research institutes in Iran, who were selected with purposeful sampling methods of snowball type. To collect the data, the authors used a semi-structured interview and performed a thematic analysis for data analysis.FindingsThe findings showed that the views and perceptions of the connoisseurs participating in the study about the reasons for the gap between academic education and the skills required in the labor market in Iran can be classified into four main themes including lack of attention to labor market needs in the academic curricula, lack of attention to practical and entrepreneurial skills in the academic curricula, the weak link between universities and industry and society, and shortage of academic resources and equipment in some academic disciplines.Originality/valueThe present study had three implications. First, the human capital theory, the social closure theory, the positional conflict theory and the labor market segmentation theory are more compatible with the labor market of Iranian graduates, compared to other theories of the labor market. Second, the lack of coordination between academic education and the required skills in the labor market has weakened the Iranian economy. Third, the absence of practical and entrepreneurial skills in academic graduates has led to increased unemployment in Iranian society.

Ageism in U.S. Higher Education: A Perspective from Social Closure Theory

Ageism in U.S. Higher Education: A Perspective from Social Closure Theory

Modes of Incorporation: The Inclusion of Migrant Academics in the UK

This article examines the internationalisation of professions in a qualitative study of migrant academics, drawing on social closure theory to understand how professions respond to the growing numbers of migrants. While studies of closure in professions tend to focus on forms of exclusion based on ascribed characteristics, this article is concerned with how professions include migrants in their ranks. Analysis of interviews with 62 foreign-born academics working in the UK reveals differences in degree of closure towards migrant academics, indicating that inclusion and exclusion are not binary opposites. The article captures degrees of closure in a novel concept – ‘modes of incorporation’ – identifying three inclusion patterns: integration, subordination and marginalisation. ‘Modes of incorporation’ extends closure theory by showing how inclusion is controlled and designed to preserve the status quo, thereby restricting internationalisation.

The Demographics of School District Secession

Abstract School segregation has been a topic of significant sociological research in the United States. Less attention has been devoted to understanding the relationship between school district inequalities and secession, a political tool that forms new boundaries after a formal withdrawal from an existing school district. This paper analyzes the school district secession attempts that have occurred since the year 2000 using national data and builds upon qualitative research and case studies focused on a single region or metropolitan area. Drawing on social closure theory, I explore the community characteristics associated with secession attempts. To do so, I create a measure of social imbalance that leverages the geographic variation between places attempting a secession and the school districts they are nested within. Results indicate that the percentage of residents with a college degree is among the strongest predictors of secession attempts, highlighting the salience of educational attainment at the population-level for selecting into the use of this political tool. Results also indicate that school districts successfully created through secession cleave onto racial and economic divides for both the residential and student populations, driven by secessions located in the South. School district secession processes elucidate the many pathways by which school segregation is produced and perpetuated, including micro-level school and neighborhood selection decisions, jurisdictional restructuring of district boundaries, and the national and state-level legal landscape.

Capital and Closure in the EU Field. Advancement in the European Economic and Social Committee

AbstractThis article explores what it takes to advance to the top of an EU institution (European Economic and Social Committee). The article combines Bourdieu’s theories of field and capital with Weber’s theory of social closure to study the interplay between required forms of capital and closure practices during three ideal‐typical phases of upward mobility: ‘getting in’, ‘fitting in’ and ‘moving on’. Drawing on 26 semi‐structured interviews, the article finds that capital and closure are mutually interdependent as members’ access to capital to advance depends on whether they pass the closure tests deployed by closure agents and manage to get in, fit in and move on in the EU field. By combining capital and closure approaches, the article suggests a new balance between structure and actor‐centred theories, which can help us better capture what is at stake in the EU field, and how the game of career advancement is played.

The myth of medical multiculturalism: how social closure marginalises traditional Chinese medicine in New Zealand

ABSTRACT This article uses neo-Weberian social closure theory and Bourdieu’s theory of symbolic violence to examine the epistemic tension between biomedicine and traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) in Aotearoa New Zealand (NZ), a country that aspires to a multicultural model of healthcare. Drawing on interviews with TCM practitioners and analysis of TCM practitioners’ attempt to become a regulated profession, we argue that a multicultural health model remains a myth as biomedical stakeholders deploy material and symbolic forms of social closure that limit the scope of TCM practice. Discourses of the need for scientific evidence, public safety, qualification standards and English language fluency undermine the culturally distinctive but pragmatic forms of medicine that TCM practitioners utilise. This has implications for TCM as practitioners are denied public funding, their scope of practice is limited, and the expectations for TCM to conform to a biomedical model of healthcare have created tensions within the TCM community.

Social closure and the reproduction of stratified international order

This article investigates how the means by which actors compete for position in the management of international society stratifies international order. Advancing scholarship on hierarchies, it applies a theory of social closure to examine two status groups, The Family of Civilised Nations and the G20, arguing that stratification is reproduced by a dynamic interplay of top-down collectivist exclusion on the part of superiorly positioned actors and bottom-up mimicry performed by those inferiorly positioned. As such, the same means of closure which used the Standard of Civilisation to exclude outsiders from the Family of Civilised Nations in the past stratifies non-state actors today, particularly international non-governmental organisations (INGOs) seeking to play a role in-the G20. This article offers amendments to closure theory in International Relations (IR), demonstrating its utility for analysing contemporary international politics, engaging in trans-historical analysis, and in incorporating non-state actors into enquiry.

The Professional Integration of Internationally Trained Accountants: Quebec Evidence

The purpose of our study is to understand the factors of barriers to the integration of internationally trained accountants into the accounting profession in Quebec. Using a qualitative methodology, our research is a multi-case study type based on semi-structured interviews with fourteen internationally trained accountants. Despite the increasing number of immigrants who decide to settle in Quebec, and the shortage of labor, many internationally trained professionals find it difficult to integrate into their professional field. With regard to the accounting profession, several studies have been conducted before but very few were looking to the Province of Quebec and the results obtained differ from one context to another. In addition, new barriers emerge with each study justifying the need for an exploratory approach to better understand the subject. Our theoretical framework is based on the work of Weber (1971, 1975) who focused on the theory of social closure. We find that the barrier factors to the integration of internationally trained accountants into the accounting profession are informational, discriminatory, procedural and related to technical skills. Other factors emerge such as family and social factors, age, the influence of people from the same ethnic community and the immigrant’s state of mind.

Inclusion/exclusion: Educational closure and social differentiation in world society

Niklas Luhmann’s late concept of inclusion/exclusion in world society compensates for the lack of a systems theory of social differentiation, but ultimately remains incomplete. Moreover, it is remarkable that Luhmann apparently never linked the inclusion/exclusion concept to his late theory of the education system. The following considerations seek this missing link, assuming that both functional and social differentiation constitute a double-sided form of societal structuring generated by the polycontextural operation of social closure mechanisms. The term ‘educational closure’ refers to the autopoietic form of inclusion/exclusion processed by an education system internally coupling operational and social closure. The article argues that organised education worldwide operates as an observing system autopoietically generating categorical differences, as well as inequalities between persons. While grouping, sorting, and tracking pupils, the education system seeks to maintain the recursion of educational communication, but also generates unequal social differentiation as a far-reaching side effect. Finally, reconstructing Weber’s theory of social closure as an earlier inclusion/exclusion concept may provide a theoretical basis for further empirical research into the social consequences of educational inclusion/exclusion in a world society.

Monopolistic professional closure, family credentials and examination procedures in the Venetian college of accountants (16th−17th century)

PurposeThe paper investigates the closure mechanisms and strategies of exclusion concerning the establishment and subsequent functioning of the Collegio dei Rasonati, the professional body of accountants that was established in Venice in 1581 and operated until the end of the 18th century.Design/methodology/approachThe research design offers a critical longitudinal explanation of the emergence of the Collegio dei Rasonati as a professional body in the context of Venetian society by relying on the social closure theory elaborated by Collins (1975); Parkin (1979) and Murphy (1988).FindingseThe Collegio dei Rasonati was established to overcome the prerogatives of a social class in accessing the accounting profession. However, the pre-existing professional elites enacted a set of social closure strategies able to transform this professional body into a stronghold of their privileges.Research limitations/implicationsAs virtually all of the evidence concerning the admission examinations has been lost over time, the investigation is restricted to the study of the few examples that have survived. The main implication of the study concerns the understanding of some dynamics leading to neutralize attempts to replace class privileges with a meritocratic system.Originality/valueThe research investigates the structure of the rules of social closure revealing the possibility of an antagonistic relationship between different co-existing forms of exclusion within the same structure. Moreover, it highlights that a form of exclusion can be made of different hierarchical levels.

Intersections on the Class Escalator: Gender, Race, and Occupational Segregation in Paid Care Work

As U.S. manufacturing and production industries have declined, the growth of the care sector has increasingly become an important source of jobs for workers without a college degree. Often requiring some form of postsecondary credentialing, many care occupations can provide better wages, job stability, and possible upward mobility for less educated workers. However, employment patterns in paid care work are both gendered and racialized: women and workers of color are overrepresented in care occupations with fewer entry barriers, benefits, and lower pay. Although these patterns are well documented, the mechanisms producing them are less well understood. Using event history analysis and the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY79), this study evaluates the explanatory power of neoclassical economic, status attainment, and social closure theories of occupational segregation for black women’s and men’s greater hazard or “risk” of entering care occupations, relative to white workers. Net of individual and closure mechanisms, significant residual effects suggest labor market discrimination remains a primary explanation for the over‐representation of black workers in less credentialed care jobs with fewer benefits.

Educational expansion and educational wage premiums of young male employees: A long-term analysis for West Germany 1976–2010

For decades, Western societies have experienced educational expansion accompanied by an upgrading of skills. The literature provides competing hypotheses on the consequences for educational wage returns — among them are the positional value theory, routine-biased technological change, and the social closure theory. We test these theoretical perspectives empirically on young, male full-time workers in West Germany between 1976 and 2010 in two ideal-type occupational segments using 2.34 million administrative earnings records (Sample of Integrated Labor Market Biographies, SIAB). Our findings show no credential inflation across all levels of education. Instead, the picture in both segments — negative effects of educational expansion on the returns to medium- but not high-level skills — confirms the predictions of routine-biased technological change. Wage premiums for medium-skilled workers differ between segments: the premiums worsen over time in the general segment whereas social-closure mechanisms seem to weaken this negative trend for vocational graduates in the specific segment.

Who Supports Professional Certification? Insights from Employment Arbitration

AbstractProfessional certification programmes became commonplace across the occupational structure in recent years, with many emerging and established professions opting to create their own certification programmes for reasons ranging from collective marketing to reducing malpractice litigation risk. Theories of social closure suggest that advantaged and established individual practitioners might want to use certification as a means of distinguishing themselves and enacting barriers to entry, though research on credentials and signalling theory leads to the expectation that certification is most valued by less secure and younger workers seeking to establish themselves in a profession. We use a survey of employment arbitrators as a case study in the dynamics of who supports certification, finding a surprisingly low overall level of support for certification. Arbitrators who are female, racial minorities and those who earn lower hourly rates are most supportive of creating and earning certification, suggesting that the most natural constituency for a new certification programme may be those looking to ‘break in’ to a profession rather than those already well established in their practice.

Open House? Class-Specific Career Opportunities within German Universities

This article focuses on the development of class-specific inequalities within German universities. Based on data on the social origin of students, doctoral students, and professors in the long-term cross-section, the article views the empirically observable dynamic of social closure of higher education since the 1950s. The focus of interest is on the level of the professorship. Data show that career conditions for underprivileged groups have deteriorated again. This finding is discussed in the context of social closure theories. The article argues that closure theories consider social closure processes primarily as intentional patterns of action, aimed at a strategic monopolization of participation, and securing social power. Such an analytical approach means that unintended closure processes remain understudied. Our conclusion is that concealed modes of reproduction of social structures ought to be examined and theorized more intensively due to their importance for the elimination of social inequality within universities.

The Peddlers’ Aristocracy: Social Closure, Path-Dependence, and Street Vendors in São Paulo

Disabled street vendors occupy the best licensed locations in downtown Sao Paulo and have done so for several decades, despite repeated attempts to remove them from the streets or open up the trade to the able-bodied. Drawing on social closure and new institutionalist theory, this paper analyzes the policymaking process toward disabled and elderly street vendors over the last 60 years. It argues that these social groups initially benefited from a policy granting them special rights, which evolved into a monopoly over street vending licenses, and that political stability during the military dictatorship (1964–1985) allowed them to accumulate nonmaterial assets such as symbolic capital and political influence. Organized disabled and elderly vendors subsequently used these assets to shape the outcomes of reforms and preserve their relative advantage, thereby constructing the unequal legacy of social closure.

An audit evidence planning model for the public sector

Orientation: Auditors have to exercise complex, multi-dimensional evidence-planning judgements. Research purpose: Drawing on social closure theory, the aim of this study is to develop a model to inform the flexible exercise of judgement regarding the types, extent and combinations of audit procedures implemented to gather sufficient appropriate audit evidence to respond to the assessed risks of material misstatement. Motivation for the study: The exercise of considerable judgements by auditors may mean that little consistency is achieved regarding the quantity and quality of the audit evidence obtained, especially in the public sectors of developing countries (which are often plagued by corruption), and where auditors and auditees have limited skills and experience. Research approach, design and method: The study employs a theory-building approach to develop a model intended to guide public sector auditors (following an audit risk approach), to exercise planning judgements for a class of transactions, account balance and/or disclosure. Main findings: The model clarifies the audit evidence decision-making sequences, interrelationships and contingent dependencies of the different audit procedures, and quantifies the compensatory inter-relationships between the types of audit procedures to be performed and the overall levels of assurance desired in response to the assessed risks of material misstatement. Practical and managerial implications: The model could aid public sector auditors to reduce uncertainty, ambiguity and judgement errors during their planning decision-making. Contribution or value-add: The model has been incorporated into the audit methodology of the Auditor-General of South Africa, and has been assessed for compliance with the International Standards on Auditing by the Independent Regulatory Board for Auditors in South Africa.

School-Family Cooperation, Social Closure, Educational Equality and Excellence: Evidences from China

Excellen ce and equality is an essential goal of compulsory education in China. This goal, however, is difficult to achieve in practice because of the difficulties in balancing between excellence and equality and in sustaining equality as a result of resource redistribution. This article uses the data of the nationally representative China Education Panel Survey (CEPS) and discusses the possibility of advancing educational excellence and equality in compulsory education based on Coleman's theory of social closure. To be more specific, social capital can be increased by means of school-family cooperation so as to achieve excellence and equality in compulsory education . Our main findings include: first, school-family cooperation system is conducive to the growth of social capital for families; second, it adjusts the direct influence of family background on the social closure production; third, it helps achieve excellent development of compulsory education by increasing family social capital; finally, the school-family cooperation system facilitates even distribution of social capital among different classes and equal development of compulsory education. On such a basis, this paper further discusses the policy implications of these findings.

Forms of Capital and Modes of Closure in Upper Class Reproduction

We investigate the recruitment into the upper class, analysing the impact of different forms of capital and modes of closure. Unlike many Bourdieu-influenced approaches to class, we systematically investigate divisions by composition of capital: the relative weight of economic to cultural capital. We find capital-specific barriers to mobility: access to the upper class fractions is not only differentiated by one’s parents’ volume of capital or the general class hierarchy, but also by the relative weight of cultural to economic capital. Drawing on theories of social closure, we further investigate the role of two distinct modes of closure – credentialism and private property. The degree of closure differs significantly between subfractions of the upper class, based on the degree to which they refer to positions involving specific credential requirements. Our findings underline the importance of capital composition, but also that closure operates by neither credentials nor property alone.

Policies, skills and earnings: how educational inequality affects earnings inequality

We study the impact of dispersions in education (both in student test scores and final educational attainment) on earnings inequality, in a country-cohort design. Neo-classical economic theory would predict a positive association between skill inequality (as measured in student test scores) and earnings inequality, while educational attainment inequality adds little on top of skills inequality. A sociological theory of social closure, however, argues that inequality in educational attainment is more important than skills inequality in the prediction of earnings inequality. Using educational policies as instruments, we find causal effects of skills inequality and educational attainment inequality, suggesting that a simple human capital model is insufficient to explain rising earnings inequalities. Nevertheless, skills inequality appeared a more important predictor of earnings inequality than educational attainment inequality. Some educational policy reforms (like public preschool provision or introducing standardized tests) led to reduced educational dispersions, and thereby reduced earnings inequality in adulthood.