A space to explore, share and shape the issues facing social and behavioral scientists
Here’s a clear, scientific reason drawn from the field of complexity economics to combat rising inequality: good business models that serve many people are becoming less profitable. Solid entrepreneurial ideas that would benefit everyone get passed over when there are easier opportunities to make money by catering to a few individuals with a whole lot of dollars to spend.
Metrics on the average living standards from the best-off countries in the world (say, Norway) to the worst-off (such as the Central African Republic) vary by a factor of 40 to 50. So notes James Robinson
One thing has become clear to sociologist Diane Reay across her research – “It’s primarily working-class children who turn out to be losers in the educational system.” Whether it’s through the worst-funded schools, least-qualified teachers, most-temporary teaching arrangements or narrowest curricula, students from working class backgrounds in the United Kingdom (and the United States) draw the shortest educational straws.
When Robert Dingwall was younger, sociology departments routinely taught a course on ‘industry,’, ‘work’ or ‘economic life.’ “Most of this turf has now been abandoned to business schools in the form of organization studies, where it increasingly struggles to resist the expansion of finance and accounting studies,” he says, and to our detriment.
In this Social Science Bites podcast, social epidemiologist Richard Wilkinson lays out the case that inequality should be fought specifically because it fosters a litany of ill effects.
Speaking before a sell-out audience of policymakers, journalists and academics in Whitehall, Louise Richardson FAcSS, vice chancellor of the University of Oxford, said we must bridge the educational divide to prevent populism for threatening democracy
By one estimate of U.S. universities, there are about 300,000 fewer women students in the field of economics than there should be if sexism were not so rampant.
How well do sociology departments in the UK teach sociology that originated in the UK? Asking that surprisingly hard question may produce usable insights for academic Britain, argues our Robert Dingwall.
David Canter reviews the evidence amassing to show the depredations of economic inequality.
The Social Security Administration has shown its ability to cut monthly checks for elderly, survivors and disabled. So why not for kids via their parents?
The Urban Affairs Association will present this year’s Marilyn J. Gittell Activist Scholar Award to Samuel Myers Jr., an economist who has pioneered methods that prove the pervasiveness of inequality.
Our Robert Dingwall reflects on Tinder’s in-house sociologist and on the just-announced New Year’s Honours list to question just how diverse are current understandings of diversity.
