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Class Inequalities (class + inequality)
Selected AbstractsSocial class inequalities in childhood mortality and morbidity in an English populationPAEDIATRIC & PERINATAL EPIDEMIOLOGY, Issue 1 2006Stavros Petrou Summary The objective of this study was to examine the association between social class of the head of household at the time of birth and mortality and morbidity during the first 10 years of life in a cohort of all 117 212 children born to women who both lived, and delivered in hospital, in Oxfordshire or West Berkshire during the period 1 January 1979 to 31 December 1988. Logistic regression was used to estimate social class gradients, with odds ratios (OR), for mortality during the early neonatal period, late neonatal period, post-neonatal period, post-infancy period and throughout the first 10 years of life. Logistic regression was also used to estimate social class gradients, with ORs, for hospital admission rates for 16 broad groups of diseases during years 0,3, 4,6, 7,10 and throughout the first 10 years of life. Poisson regression was used to estimate social class gradients, with effect sizes, for overall hospital admission rates during years 0,3, 4,6, 7,10 and throughout the first 10 years of life. The study revealed a significant social class gradient in mortality during the first 10 years of life (adjusted OR for each decrement in social class category 1.08; [95% confidence interval 1.03, 1.14]). The study also revealed a significant adjusted social class gradient in hospital admission rates for 14 of the 16 groups of diseases during the first 10 years of life. For the majority of these, the social class gradients had attenuated somewhat by the later childhood years. However, the social class gradient persisted throughout the first 10 years of life for diseases of the respiratory system (1.07 [1.05, 1.08]), diseases of the digestive system (1.06 [1.04, 1.09]), and injury and poisoning (1.07 [1.06, 1.09]). In addition, a significant adjusted social class gradient was found in overall hospital admission rates for each age group studied. This study suggests that there are significant social class inequalities in a wide range of adverse child health outcomes. [source] Capitals, assets, and resources: some critical issues1THE BRITISH JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY, Issue 1 2005Mike Savage Abstract This paper explores the potential of Bourdieu's approach to capital as a way of understanding class dynamics in contemporary capitalism. Recent rethinking of class analysis has sought to move beyond what Rosemary Crompton (1998) calls the ,employment aggregate approach', one which involves categorizing people into class groups according to whether they have certain attributes (e.g. occupations). Instead, recent contributions by Pierre Bourdieu, Erik Wright, Aage Sorensen, and Charles Tilly have concentrated on understanding the mechanisms that produce class inequalities. Concepts such as assets, capitals and resources (CARs) are often used to explain how class inequalities are produced, but there remain ambiguities and differences in how such terms are understood. This paper identifies problems faced both by game theoretical Marxism and by the rational choice approach of Goldthorpe in developing an adequate approach to CARs. It then turns to critically consider how elements of Bourdieu's approach, where his concept of capital is related to those of habitus and field, might overcome these weaknesses. Our rendering of his arguments leads us to conclude that our understanding of CARs might be enriched by considering how capital is distinctive not in terms of distinct relations of exploitation, but through its potential to accumulate and to be converted to other resources. This focus, we suggest, sidesteps otherwise intractable problems in CAR based approaches. [source] Who Went to College?HIGHER EDUCATION QUARTERLY, Issue 4 2006Socio-Economic Inequality in Entry to Higher Education in the Republic of Ireland in 200 Ireland has experienced substantial increases in participation in higher education in recent years. This paper examines whether or not increased admission rates between the mid-1990s and 2000s led to a reduction in social class inequality in access to higher education. We draw on two data sets, one, a dedicated survey of new entrants to higher education in 2004, the other, a combination of the results of a series of school leavers' surveys conducted in the mid-1990s and early 2000s. We show that the period has been characterised by both continuity and change. Continuity is reflected in persistent social inequalities in access to higher education: the children of higher professionals and farmers, in particular, have maintained their privileged access to higher education. Change is reflected in some closing in relative social inequalities, partly arising as more advantaged groups reach a saturation point in progression to higher education, and partly due to the children of manual workers increasing their participation rates. [source] Designs of Deception: Concepts of Consciousness, Spirituality and Survival in Capoeira Angola in Salvador, BrazilANTHROPOLOGY OF CONSCIOUSNESS, Issue 1 2001Margaret WillsonArticle first published online: 8 JAN 200 This paper addresses various questions concerning "consciousness" and related folk concepts through an examination of fundamental principles of capoeira angola. These include, for instance, ideas such as ginga, the sensing of the mind/body through specific movements; or energia, a type of psychic force believed to be engendered through engagement within a group or with an opponent; or mentalidade, the kind of "head" one develops in capoeira angola, referring in part to what we conceptualize as a "state of consciousness," and in this case a highly alert and perceptive state with other elements of psychic ties and influences. This mentalidade includes "street smarts" and a highly developed knowledge about the various ways deception can be used to "get what one needs" in life, in other words, these are tools for survival in a specific kind of environment. Such a discussion must include "race," and class in Brazil. Racial and class discrimination in Brazilian society is seldom expressed explicitly; indeed a rhetoric of "racial democracy" has been popularized in direct contradiction to the reality of a racial oppression that includes class. In this paper, I integrate related issues of "states of consciousness" that have developed in capoeira angola to the conditions of racial and class inequality, power and history that have been its nurturance. In the conclusions, I speculate that notions of consciousness are in the process of change as capoeira angola is being regimented, taken out of context and taught increasingly among middle-class Brazilians and in such places as the United States. [source] | ||||||||||