The impact of inequalities on active citizenship, social justice and social cohesion.
The aim of the symposium is to identify the relationship between individual experiences and perceptions of inequalities and social outcomes. Wilkinson and Pickett (2009) have demonstrated that unequal countries have lower levels of social cohesion for almost all indicators used including health, crime, gender equality and sustainable development. Green, Preston and Janmaat (2006) suggested that attitudes and behaviours at the individual level, such as active citizenship, tolerance and trust, could well be key to understanding the macro-level relationship between inequality and (lack of) social cohesion. The hypothesis that this project investigates centres on the individual level mechanisms and tests the thesis that there is a negative relationship between perceptions and experiences of inequalities and democratic and socially responsible values and behaviour. In addition, it explores possible links between inequalities and negative social outcomes such as apathy, victim blaming or racially motivated political participation. In the last section of the symposium we will investigate how some young people are overcoming the effects of inequalities to succeed in learning and employment. This research will identify the mechanisms for success.
This symposium is based on research from the Inequalities project that is situated within the ESRC LLAKES centre (Centre for Learning and Life Chances in Knowledge Economies and Societies). The aim of the project is to identify the relationship between inequalities and active citizenship and social cohesion. The symposium combines analysis of existing data with new data (2009/2010), where already available, for this project. The new data is both quantitative in the form of questionnaires and qualitative in the form of interviews. It is being collected in five countries; England, Denmark, Germany, France and Singapore in lower, upper and tertiary education. The symposium, like the project, is interdisciplinary and uses mixed methods. It combines researchers from the fields of education, sociology, economy and psychology.
The symposium begins with a conceptual mapping of inequalities and their social effets. It is followed by three quantitative papers, the first provides a comparison of the inequalities of educational outcomes according to social, economic and peer effects. The next two presentations will reflect upon the association between different forms of real and perceived inequalities (including ethnic segregation) and various civic attitudes, including active citizenship and tolerance. The final two presentations (1 quantitative and 1 qualitative) will examine the life-course of young people who have experienced disadvantages but have managed to succeed in learning, employment and civic engagement.
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