Benefits Of Social Groups Research Articles

Asians and Asian Americans in the US Higher Education System: A Minority to Be Noticed

Under social movements calling to stop Asian Hate, inequality in higher education admissions became a key focus, especially race-based admissions. Asians, as one of the main minorities in America, have an impact that cant be ignored. The research investigates the cause of inequality and how different social groups benefit or lose from current admissions policies. The issue directly challenges Americas value of equity and is one of the greatest issues it ever faces. Research methods mainly include analysis of data from college official admissions office websites and government, along with a literature review of past authority scholars research and conclusions. It could be seen that current policies and Asians themselves should both make changes in order to improve the situation including breaking stereotypes and race-based admissions.

Evolution of genome fragility enables microbial division of labor

Division of labor can evolve when social groups benefit from the functional specialization of its members. Recently, a novel means of coordinating the division of labor was found in the antibiotic‐producing bacterium Streptomyces coelicolor, where specialized cells are generated through large‐scale genomic re‐organization. We investigate how the evolution of a genome architecture enables such mutation‐driven division of labor, using a multiscale computational model of bacterial evolution. In this model, bacterial behavior—antibiotic production or replication—is determined by the structure and composition of their genome, which encodes antibiotics, growth‐promoting genes, and fragile genomic loci that can induce chromosomal deletions. We find that a genomic organization evolves, which partitions growth‐promoting genes and antibiotic‐coding genes into distinct parts of the genome, separated by fragile genomic loci. Mutations caused by these fragile sites mostly delete growth‐promoting genes, generating sterile, and antibiotic‐producing mutants from weakly‐producing progenitors, in agreement with experimental observations. This division of labor enhances the competition between colonies by promoting antibiotic diversity. These results show that genomic organization can co‐evolve with genomic instabilities to enable reproductive division of labor.

More and Better Jobs, But Not for Everyone: Effects of Innovation in French Firms

The authors analyze the effect of technological innovation on employment and job quality using a difference-in-differences matching model and a unique matched data set of French firms (the Community Innovation Survey with administrative and fiscal data). Overall, they find evidence that product innovation increases employment and certain dimensions of job quality, such as the number of permanent contracts and working hours. The authors consider this virtuous circle between innovation, employment, and job quality to be nuanced, however, for two reasons. First, not all social groups benefit from firm innovation, as lower-skilled workers are less positively affected in terms of employment and are sometimes negatively affected in terms of wages. Second, the positive effects of innovation appear mainly in manufacturing and not in services. Public policy should pay attention, then, to the consequences of innovation across individuals and sectors to ensure that innovation is beneficial to all.

Investigating the impact of interventions on educational disparities: Estimating average treatment effects (ATEs) is not sufficient

In most national education systems, educational attainment depends heavily on parental socioeconomic status, which challenges the notion of equal opportunity. Educational interventions have increasingly become the focus of public and scientific debate as a tool for mitigating these disparities. Establishing appropriate methods for investigating the impact of these programs on inequality is of great interest to researchers, policymakers and practitioners. We help make methodological refinements in this research area. In defining educational disparities as unequal chances for educational attainment of different social groups on the macro level, we suggest considering not only how strongly participating persons from distinct social groups benefit from a program (i.e., group-specific ATEs) but also how many persons from distinct social groups take part in the program under real world conditions (i.e., group-specific participation rates (PRs)). As we define the PR as the share of a subpopulation participating in a program under real world conditions, PRs link the real world and macro level to the intervention level, and therefore, its consideration confers external validity. We develop a formula of how group-specific ATEs and PRs jointly contribute to an intervention’s effect on disparities, and we simulate their joint contributions to disparities in university enrollment within reasonable limits and by presenting a fictitious yet realistic example. Because the contributions of group-specific ATEs and PRs to disparities have not been formalized yet, our results underscore the essential importance of PRs for understanding the impact of educational interventions on disparities. Furthermore, the illustration helps to correct the misconception that focusing exclusively on group-specific ATEs (or on group-specific PRs) is sensible when drawing conclusions about a program’s effect on disparities. More specifically, interventions that appear to mitigate disparities based on a comparison of group-specific ATEs might in fact exacerbate inequality if low-SES persons are underrepresented in the program. We close with recommendations for future research and a review of the study’s limitations.

Battling the “headwinds”: the experiences of minoritised academics in the neoliberal Australian university

Academics who identify or are identified with minoritised groups in society and teach marginalised subjects are particularly prone to experiencing individual and systemic bias and discrimination which harm their wellbeing and restrict their career advancement. These challenges can be likened to “headwinds” that they must constantly battle against, whilst those belonging to dominant social groups benefit from “tailwind” effects. We critique the framing of the “ideal” academic in the neoliberalised university and argue that it entrenches the marginalisation of academics from minoritised backgrounds. Through a collaborative auto-ethnographic approach, we explore how we push back against “headwinds” in order to resist our marginalisation, in particular detailing how collaborative writing and research function as successful protective strategies within hyper-competitive environments. Whilst this article focusses specifically on the Australian context, the international resonances are apparent from connections we illustrate within the literature, and showcase how developments from a distance frame our local contexts.

Personalisation schemes in social care and inequality: review of the evidence and early theorising

BackgroundPersonalisation is a growing international policy paradigm that aims to create both improved outcomes for individuals, and reduce fiscal pressures on government, by giving greater choice and control to citizens accessing social services. In personalisation schemes, individuals purchase services from a ‘service market’ using individual budgets or vouchers given to them by governments. Personalisation schemes have grown in areas such as disability and aged care across Europe, the UK and Australia.There is a wealth of evidence in public health and health care that demonstrates that practically all forms of social services, programs and interventions produce unequal benefit depending on socio-economic position. Research has found that skills required to successfully negotiate service systems leads to disproportionate benefit to the ‘middle class. With an unprecedented emphasis on individual skills, personalisation has even greater potential to widen and entrench social inequalities. Despite the increase in numbers of people now accessing services through such schemes, there has been no examination of how different social groups benefit from these schemes, how this widens and entrenches social inequities, and – in turn – what can be done to mitigate this.MethodsThis article presents a meta-review of the evidence on personalisation and inequality. A qualitative meta-analysis was undertaking of existing research into personalisation schemes in social services to identify whether and how such schemes are impacting different socio-economic groups.ResultsNo research was identified which seeks to understand the impact of personalisation schemes on inequality. However, a number of ‘proxies’ for social class were identified, such as education, income, and employment, which had a bearing on outcome. We provide a theoretical framework for understanding why this is occurring, using concepts drawn from Bourdieu.ConclusionPersonalisation schemes are likely to be entrenching, and potentially expanding, social inequalities. More attention needs to be given to this aspect of personal budgets by policymakers and researchers.

Beyond Copenhagen: The Political Economy of Securitising “Outside Influences” in Bali

ABSTRACTSecuritisation theory has contributed greatly to critical security studies. However, the Copenhagen School’s focus on discursive analysis fails to answer the “so what” question of why issues are securitised and for whose benefit. This article contends that more nuanced explanations can be provided by taking seriously the political economy context within which the process of securitisation is embedded. The article has two aims. First, it contributes to further refining securitisation theory by embedding Balzacq’s pragmatic act – which implies that securitising actors gain the assent of an audience based on a shared view of vulnerabilities – within a broad social conflict analysis. This latter can explain the socio-political struggles that create popular support for securitisation, and what social groups benefit from it. Second, it contributes to explanations of Bali’s contemporary political economy by operationalising the refined approach to explain how struggles over the spoils of tourism have created a receptive audience among a cross-class section of Balinese for the securitisation of “outside influences” – a euphemism for migrants, non-local investors and Western cultural influences. Securitisation has resulted in conservative elite groups marginalising progressive voices; “traditional” institutions being favoured in accessing state resources; and in a policing landscape in which migrants are harassed and exploited.

Health, education, and retirement over the prolonged life cycle: a selective survey of recent research

This issue of the Vienna Yearbook of Population Research contains a selection of papers that were presented at the conference ‘Health, Education, and Retirement over the Prolonged Life Cycle’, which was organised by the Vienna Institute of Demography of the Austrian Academy of Sciences and held in Vienna in November 2013. The conference was devoted to the socio-economic causes and consequences at both the individual and the societal level of the unprecedented increase in life expectancy over the past few decades. At the micro level, a better understanding is needed regarding the extent to which the increase in human life expectancy has been shaped by individual health behaviour, rather than by other socio-economic influences, and through which channels this happened. Conversely, it is important to understand better how the prolongation of the life cycle will shape individual behaviour. The conference focused on behaviour relating to health, education, and the supply of labour. Although generally perceived as a positive development, the increase in life expectancy also poses policy challenges for social security and the cohesion of society, given that different social groups benefit from rising longevity to varying degrees. Important questions have been raised about the macro consequences of the prolongation of the individual life cycle, not least because having an understanding of the underlying mechanisms will be crucial for assessing the extent to which retirement, health, and educational policies need to be reformed. The recognition that the design of reforms should be guided by an awareness of the potential effects

From "we" to "me": Group identification enhances perceived personal control with consequences for health and well-being.

There is growing recognition that identification with social groups can protect and enhance health and well-being, thereby constituting a kind of "social cure." The present research explores the role of control as a novel mediator of the relationship between shared group identity and well-being. Five studies provide evidence for this process. Group identification predicted significantly greater perceived personal control across 47 countries (Study 1), and in groups that had experienced success and failure (Study 2). The relationship was observed longitudinally (Study 3) and experimentally (Study 4). Manipulated group identification also buffered a loss of personal control (Study 5). Across the studies, perceived personal control mediated social cure effects in political, academic, community, and national groups. The findings reveal that the personal benefits of social groups come not only from their ability to make people feel good, but also from their ability to make people feel capable and in control of their lives.

Regional inequality in distribution of the economic development results in China

Introduction Despite the fact that China’s economy on the whole has been developing at a fast pace for three decades this development and its positive results does not equally affect all regions of the country and social groups. The asymmetrical process of China’s economic development constitutes one of the main unfavourable consequences of the reforms introduced after 1978. The economic changes resulted in the modification of resource allocation, the improvement of economic effectiveness and partial decentralisation. However, only selected provinces and social groups benefit from these changes.

Transforming Normality into Pathology: The DSM and the Outcomes of Stressful Social Arrangements

The sociology of stress shows how nondisordered people often become distressed in contexts such as chronic subordination; the losses of status, resources, and attachments; or the inability to achieve valued goals. Evolutionary psychology indicates that distress arising in these contexts stems from psychological mechanisms that are responding appropriately to stressful circumstances. A diagnosis of mental disorder, in contrast, indicates that these mechanisms are not functioning as they are designed to function. The American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, however, has come to treat both the natural results of the stress process and individual pathology as mental disorders. A number of social groups benefit from and promote the conflation of normal emotions with dysfunctions. The result has been to overestimate the number of people who are considered to be disordered, to focus social policy on the supposedly unmet need for treatment, and to enlarge the social space of pathology in the general culture.

Gastos em saúde e incidência de benefício no município de Senhor do Bonfim (BA) em 2003

O objetivo deste artigo é analisar a desigualdade no acesso e utilização dos serviços de saúde no município de Senhor do Bonfim (BA). O método utilizado é o "benefit incidence", ou incidência de benefício, que permite identificar quais os grupos sociais que se beneficiam dos gastos do Governo. A incidência de benefício no município de Senhor do Bonfim, para 2003, foi estimada por grupos da população previamente definidos (renda, gênero e cor da pele), com o objetivo de avaliar o grau de iniqüidade dos gastos públicos em saúde. Os gastos públicos foram desagregados por nível de complexidade. Combinando os dados referentes aos subsídios com os resultados da pesquisa domiciliar, observou-se iniqüidade da distribuição dos gastos públicos com saúde em Senhor do Bonfim.