Gender Inequality Across the Academic Life Course

Recent decades have witnessed increasing scholarly and public attention to the status of women in academia. Although women are now the majority of degree recipients and their share of initial academic appointments approximates their representation among degree recipients, substantial gender inequality persists. In this article, we review existing research on this topic, focusing on how gender inequality manifests and unfolds throughout the academic career life course, from graduate school experiences, through initial academic appointments, into the associate professor years, and, finally, to women's experiences as full professors and administrators. Throughout, we emphasize how institutionalized policies and subtle biases, rather than overt discrimination, perpetuate gender inequality. We conclude with suggested areas for future research.     

Social Capital Across the Life Course: Age and Gendered Patterns of Network Resources1

Despite increasing research interest in network dynamics and cumulative advantage/disadvantage processes, little remains known about how social capital varies across the life course. While some researchers suggest that social capital increases with age and others argue the opposite, this study tests these contradictory assertions by analyzing multiple indicators of social capital from a nationally representative data set on working‐age U.S. respondents. The findings reveal evidence of both social capital accumulation and decline. Social resources from occupational contacts tend to increase with age, but eventually level off among older respondents. Changes in voluntary memberships follow a similar pattern. However, daily social interaction is negatively associated with age. Overall, the results suggest that social capital embedded in occupational networks tends to accumulate across the career, even in the face of a general decline in sociability. The study also uncovers gender differences in these social capital trajectories that are linked to the distinct life experiences of men and women.     

Social Capital and the Human Psyche: Why Is Social Life "Capital"?

In this article, we propose a revised definition of social capital, premised on the principles of evolutionary psychology. We define social capital as any feature of a social relationship that, directly or indirectly, confers reproductive benefits to a participant in that relationship. This definition grounds the construct of social capital in human nature by providing a basis for inferring the underlying motivations that humans may have in common, rather than leaving the matter of what humans use capital for unspoken. Discussions and empirical reviews are presented on the innateness of human sociability, sex differences in sociability, and psychological mechanisms that mediate sociability .     

Academic Undermatch: How General and Specific Cultural Capital Structure Inequality

Recent literature has added another dimension to the well‐documented patterns of social class inequality in education: academic undermatch. Undermatch (which occurs when students attend institutions of lower selectivity than they are academically qualified to attend) is both widespread and unequal, with students from less advantaged families more likely to undermatch. Although proliferating, the research on undermatch has focused primarily on documenting the extent of, and less on exploring the mechanisms underlying, undermatch. Moreover, this literature has developed largely independent of the sociological research on cultural capital. Therefore, when scholars consider underlying mechanisms, they often focus narrowly on college‐specific information, without considering the broader cultural context in which students are embedded. Drawing on the literature on undermatch, as well as the sociological research on cultural capital, I differentiate between general and specific cultural capital. Moreover, instead of simply estimating whether students undermatch or not, I consider different types of undermatch. Results from the Educational Longitudinal Survey reveal that the effects of cultural capital are indeed heterogeneous, both with respect to its relationship to undermatch and its contribution to social class inequality. Findings have important implications for understanding undermatch and the role of cultural capital in reducing and reproducing social inequality.     

Life Course Social Science Perspectives on the GLBT Family

Abstract

The life course perspective in the social sciences focuses on the place of generation-cohorts in understanding social life. Emphasizing shared understanding of self and society among a group of persons born in some adjacent birth years (often a decade) and the impact of the experience of certain events (a reminiscence bump) taking place across the early adult years, this approach to the study of social life and social change emphasizes social timing and role changes in understanding the course of life. The life course perspective is used in this discussion in understanding sexual minority families including both families in which an offspring self-defines as GLBT across the years of young adulthood, and families in which a parent self-identifies as GLBT, and which includes offspring of one or both partners. Issues in family formation and morale of family members are explored from this life course perspective emphasizing time, social change and the role of the state as factors influencing sexual minority families.     

From Social Capital to Inequality: Migrant Networks in Different Stages of Labor Incorporation

How does social capital vary in the distinct stages (prehiring, hiring, and posthiring) of labor incorporation? Based on interviews with 71 Latino migrant workers engaged in residential construction in Las Vegas, Nevada, and 30 transnational migrants who returned to Mexico after working in the United States, I examined two primary issues: first, the structural labor mechanisms that create hyperexploitation, and second, how, in turn, such processes shape social capital. I discovered, at the prehiring phase, social networks connected to subcontractors and those who attempt to form a labor crew function as social capital, despite what may appear to be bonded labor. At the hiring stage, social capital continues to play a role, yet posthiring labor structures create hyperexploitation and immigrants experience inequality in social capital. In such contexts, undocumented Latinos are unable to retain their social capital as U.S. labor structures such as subcontracting and piece‐rate compensation lead to the subjugation of workers, who can become “ghost workers” and bonded laborers. I conclude that in the posthiring stage, such labor structures create what Lin (2000, 2001) refers to as capital deficit and return deficit in social capital that greatly limit the economic incorporation of Latino immigrants.     

Information and Communication Technology Use and Social Connectedness over the Life Course

Technological innovation and adoption is, at root, a social process that unfolds over time. In this review, we connect ideas from life course and technology studies to examine social connectedness among youth, working age, and older adults. We argue that a sensitivity to key life course themes – especially timing and transitions, linked lives, and social and historical context – in studies examining the implications of technological innovation and social connectedness will generate deeper understanding of the role that technology use plays in shaping social life.     

Social Inequality and Interaction

This paper looks at the effects of social inequality on where we live, who we associate with and who we choose (and hang on to) as our friends and partners. We may feel that we freely choose our friends or lovers, but our most personal and intimate choices are constrained by patterns of social similarity and 'differential association'. The pattern of 'homophily' (the principle that we are more likely to associate with people who are socially similar to ourselves) has a major impact on social networks creating 'social interaction distance' between unequals. There is a social sorting process in the way we form social ties, so that the people we interact with tend to be similar to ourselves in education, social class, race/ethnicity, religion and attitudes. This has major consequences for our routes through life and worldviews, and for how inequality is reproduced.     

Urban Nightlife,Social Capital,and the Public Life of Cities1

Sociologists and urban scholars emphasize how nightlife establishments contribute to the social capital and public life of cities. In the interests of tempering this line of argument, I suggest three generalizable empirical findings that provide grounds for skepticism on this score: (1) the racial and class barriers to participation imposed by urban nightlife enterprises; (2) the normalization of gender differences and the routine harassment of women within such scenes; and (3) the lack of inclusiveness surrounding local nightlife in urban neighborhood communities. These findings suggest that nightlife scenes may function more efficiently as generators of bonding rather than bridging social capital.     

社会排斥视角下流浪儿童的生命历程

本文以某流浪儿童工读学校为个案研究,运用质性研究方法,立足于社会排斥的理论视角,初步分析了问题流浪儿童从家童、街童到工读生转变的生命历程,诠释了问题流浪儿童形成的过程实质是不断遭受社会排斥的过程。     

摇滚青年的精英化趋向:文化资本、学业素养与生活习惯

随着时代的发展,摇滚乐已渐渐褪去其反叛性的亚文化的衣钵,大学生摇滚乐迷渐渐凸显出其精英化特质,形成了其独特的青年文化圈。对9所不同类别高校大学生的调查发现,了解喜爱摇滚乐的大学生群体在家庭文化资本、学业成就、学业努力程度、音乐素养、生活习惯等方面与喜欢其他几类音乐风格大学生存在异同。相对于喜爱流行乐和民谣乐的大学生群体,喜爱摇滚乐的大学生在家庭文化资本、学业成就和音乐素养等方面都表现出明显优势。同时,喜爱摇滚乐的大学生与喜爱古典乐的大学生群体表现出了较强的同质性。     

Understanding Social Inequality in the Kidney Transplantation System

The degree of racial inequality in transplantation outcomes is large and surprising in light of the commitment of the administrative institutions to maximizing allocative justice and to providing universal health coverage for those with kidney failure. This article adopts a sociological perspective which situates transplant candidates as participants in an allocative system with clearly defined distributive rules, while recognizing the permeation of other social institutions into this system. Taken together, the medical literature on social disparities in kidney transplantation and the social science literature on relevant processes suggest that social inequalities in kidney transplantation are produced through a combination of preexisting differences in traits made salient for inequality by the rules of the allocation system and group differences in the tendency to maximize their advantages within that system.     

Inequality Regimes and Men's Positions in Social Work

The aim of this article is to contribute to the exploration of men's positions in professions numerically dominated by women through an in depth analysis of the gendering practices in groups of social workers. The empirical material consists of interviews with three work groups in Sweden, each with one man and several women as members. The analysis focuses upon gendering practices in the interview setting. It shows how the positions occupied by the men in the sample confirm or undermine constructions of masculinity as dominance. Furthermore, it is argued that to fully understand men's positions in these groups the analysis needs take other forms of inequality into account in addition to gender. It is shown that in the empirical cases under scrutiny men's positions are shaped by regimes of inequality where age and gender relations, as well as notions of professional experience, are interconnected.     

Accessing Higher Education: The Influence of Cultural and Social Capital on University Choice

Over recent years, sociologists of education have paid increasing attention to the higher education sector. They have highlighted the ways in which, despite the significant expansion in the number of university places available in many countries across the world, access to and choices about higher education continue to be strongly influenced by social class. This article provides an overview of recent literature in this field and explores how scholars have tended to explain this influence by drawing on Pierre Bourdieu's concepts of habitus and cultural and social capital.     

Cultural Resources and Mobilization of Social Capital: The Case of Finding a Job

By combining the latest knowledge from cultural sociology and social network theories, a hypothesis is posed regarding the association between cultural consumption and social capital mobilization. On the classic example of looking for work, an assumption was made that persons who prefer or engage in a larger number of cultural forms (the so-called omnivores) have greater chances to find work through social contacts than through any other methods or may count on social support when looking for job, and this relationship is stronger for non-family than for family ties. These arguments are tested with the use of survey data collected in Poland in 2017 on a locally representative sample of adult residents aged 18–75. The results support the hypotheses and additionally show that people with different cultural profiles differ in their capacity to access and mobilize social resources. While participation in both highbrow and popular culture is efficacious, not all forms of the popular one are positively related to social resources. The article is closed with some concluding remarks, limitations of the study, and guidelines for future research.     

劳动力市场中的社会资本与市场化

社会资本与市场化的关系是:对于市场化而言,社会资本是一种有益的非市场力量,还是市场力量的另外一种形式?从文献中可以看到,社会资本与市场化均属不易被操作化的变量,因此围绕二者关系的实证研究结果也各有不同。本文对2009年中国八城市"社会网络与职业经历"大型问卷调查数据的分析结果显示,市场化的不同测量对社会资本与市场化关系的判定影响很大;但是三种不同的测量仍然产生了一个一致性结果,即市场化进程在提升了社会资本的"认可度"的同时降低了社会资本的"含金量"。     

The Impact of Economic Shocks on Quality of Life and Social Capital in Small Towns*

Abstract Economic shocks are sudden events causing a significant impact on the local economy. Disaster community literature predicts that community outcomes from shocks will depend on the kind of shock. Consensus crisis shocks will be followed by increases in social capital and quality of life. Corrosive community shocks will result in declines in these factors. Using longitudinal data from small towns, we find that shocks are not associated with declines in quality of life or social capital, however, certain kinds of shocks are followed by increases. The strength of shocks and the net cumulative effects of multiple shocks are related to social capital and quality of life. This analysis advances conceptualizations by unpacking shock events and suggesting that strength and effect of multiple shocks are as important as shock type.     

Accidental Inequality: How Religious Youth Socialization Reproduces Social Inequality

How and why does religious socialization contribute to the reproduction of social inequality? An in-depth case study of religious youth programming provides an empirical investigation of the way that a primary institution that many youth encounter may serve to legitimate the broader field of social stratification. Despite the apparent lack of direct interest of religious congregations in maintaining a system of religious youth group from which some participating youth can benefit more than others, a neo-institutional analysis reveals systematic tendencies toward reproducing stratification. Mimetic isomorphism to schools is one explanation for the socially stratified patterns in religious youth programming.