Normative approaches to justice in physical education for pupils with physical disabilities – dilemmas of recognition and redistribution

Seeking social justice in education for pupils with disabilities creates certain dilemmas. A ‘school for all’ means that educators are faced with the dilemma whereby the notion of ‘disability’ is perceived as ought not to matter but where in actual fact it seems to matter very much! This article explores ways out of this general educational dilemma using the context of physical education (PE) for pupils with physical disabilities within the compulsory school as an example. Justice theories of resource distribution and cultural recognition affect educational outcomes, where the demand is for justice and equity. Fraser’s notion of ‘social status’, together with a pluralistic approach to identities where personal experiences are given a place, is used to suggest a solution to the dilemma. It is concluded that a redistribution of economic resources and social recognition is necessary if social justice within PE is to become a reality.     

Not all luck is created equal: Sources of income inequality and willingness to redistribute

Despite steadily rising inequality in the US over the last few decades, demand for increasing tax rates and redistribution has not increased. A growing literature argues that one reason for this is that people might perceive inequality to be fair. This literature has documented that Americans tend to perceive economic inequality stemming from merit as being fair and inequality stemming from luck as unfair. However, “lucky breaks” in the real world do not necessarily come from a lottery or random chance but from the actions of the government favoring a “lucky” few. People might be more willing to redistribute if it compensates those negatively affected by government action. Using an online experiment we show that luck stemming from the action of a government-like actor influences individuals’ desire to redistribute earnings making them more likely to favor redistribution than in instances where inequality is caused by merit or by random luck.     

Democracy's Dilemma: Explaining Racial Inequality in Egalitarian Societies

While contemporary criticisms of Gunnar Myrdal's liberal reformism provide an important perspective on racial ideology (G. Myrdal (1944) An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Democracy. New York: Harper & Row), most people miss Myrdal's most provocative point. Rather than assuming that egalitarianism could only oppose racial inequality, Myrdal argued that commitment to egalitarianism led Euro-Americans to avoid the dilemma presented by racial inequality in an egalitarian society. Rather than predicting the disappearance of racism, this analysis can be used to predict an increasing demand for racism in the wake of de jure attempts to eliminate racial inequality.     

The Consequences of Interpersonal Rewards

Many interpersonal processes impact social inequality, with social status and rewards playing a key role in its creation and form. In everyday interaction, people are defined not only by their categorical and/or achieved statuses, such as their gender and educational backgrounds, but also by their awards and possessions. These distinctions work together to create an understanding of who people are, what kinds of behaviors can be expected of them, how valuable their contributions should be, and the like. These expectations undergird individuals' shared and accepted social reality, with many using status and reward distinctions as shorthand for assessments of competence and worth. Questions therefore arise as to how individuals are affected by the configuration of valuable resources in their environment, namely how rewards are normatively distributed between and within social groups. Can rewards create new status groups? Can the perpetuation of inequalities based on status distinctions be impeded through the use of reward‐based interventions? I discuss the extant literature related to these topics and call for future research to more fully explore how rewards are implicated in processes of social inequality.     

SOURCES OF EARNINGS INEQUALITY IN THE BLACK AND WHITE FEMALE LABOR FORCES

Earnings inequality trends and their sources from 1975 to 1986 are evaluated for two historically subordinate working groups—black and white women—using Current Population Survey data. The dual nature of women's employment, improved earnings opportunities, and continuing segregation into low-paying positions create conditions under which earnings inequality in these two groups is expected to increase. Two sources of changing inequality levels are examined to determine which better explains inequality trends: the redistribution of women across labor market positions, which should have occurred due to industrial restructuring; and changes in the rates of earnings returns to labor market positions. For both groups, changes in returns better explain positive inequality trends in the 1980s, although black women's earnings are somewhat more influenced than whites' by their redistribution across labor market positions.     

The Obligation to Volunteer as Fair Reciprocity? Welfare Recipients’ Perceptions of Giving Back to Society

Dutch citizens on welfare have to volunteer at Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) in return for their benefits. Through applying the ‘worlds of justification’ of Boltanski and Thévenot, this article aims to provide a better theoretical and empirical understanding of social justice of policies that obligate welfare clients to participate in CSOs. The analysis of 51 in-depth interviews with Dutch welfare recipients shows that respondents perceive these policies partly but not unilaterally as unfair. If respondents perceive welfare as ‘free money’ and if they are convinced that civic behavior demands interventions against free riding on welfare resources, ‘mandatory volunteering’ is considered as fair. Our main contribution is to the theoretical debate on recognition and redistribution by showing empirically how ‘othering’ plays an important role in determining when mandatory volunteering becomes a matter of redistribution or recognition.

     

Formal adult education and socioeconomic inequality: Second chances or Matthew Effects?

In countries around the world, population aging, technological change, and labor market transformations are leading to an increasing incidence of mismatch between the skills and credentials held by workers and those required by their jobs. This is leading large numbers of people to return to schooling to enhance their prospects in the workplace. Access to adult education is highly stratified, and the returns to educational re-entry vary across social categories. This state-of-the-art paper focuses on two aspects. First, it examines the degree to which adult education (specifically, degree-bearing education) most benefits the less advantaged and thus mitigates socioeconomic inequality (second chance effects). Second, it addresses the degree to which the benefits of adult education go primarily to those who are already advantaged (Matthew Effects). Our review adopts the perspective of the socioeconomic life course and is explicitly cross-nationally comparative.     

Inequality,ethnic diversity,and redistribution

Seminal political economy models from Meltzer and Richard, among others, theorize that, in democracies, more inequality should lead to more redistribution. Most country-level empirical studies find weak support for this prediction. This paper makes two contributions to this debate. First, I identify some of the key shortcomings of previous tests and provide a new empirical analysis that corrects for these limitations. Using a dataset covering 89 developed and developing democracies, I find that inequality is associated with more redistribution. Second, I show that inequality’s effect on redistribution is weaker in democracies in which the poor – defined as the people with income below the median – are divided along ethnic lines than in those in which they are ethnically unified. Taken together, these results suggest that although economic inequality increases redistribution, the magnitude of the relationship is conditional on how inequality interacts with other social cleavages, such as ethnicity.     

The Collaboration as Empowerment Claim: The Case of Visual Social Research

This article uses the case of visually based collaborative social science research to explore the problem of inequality between researchers and research subjects in social science research. This dilemma is ever present for social scientists researching topics where the research subject represents a group experiencing social exclusion. The paper uses the claim of those social scientists that argue that collaboration between researchers and research subjects can diminish the inequality problem by empowering research subjects. Through this interrogation of the “collaboration as empowerment claim,” as an ideal type construction the paper argues that (i) it pays insufficient attention to the knowledge frameworks and incentive structures around which research projects are carried out and disseminated, (ii) it does not interrogate the fact that the claim of empowerment as outcome is made by those in the researcher role, and (iii) it does not explicitly document the research subject's own assessment of a collaboration/empowerment link. The paper moves beyond the insights drawn from the visual case to point to their implications for other areas in which collaboration research is claimed as a means to empower research subjects and by implication to diminish researcher/research subject inequalities.     

Alternative strategies for redistribution in urban renewal

The theme of this congress is the redistribution of available resources to improve urban living conditions for the underprivileged and so provide more equal opportunities in urban life. In the past, much of the resources for redistribution were made available through growth in the economy. Currently, however strong the policies, this kind of redistribution has become more difficult as the developed world has moved from economic growth to economic stagnation, resulting in fewer resources available in the public or private sectors for redistribution. These difficulties are exacerbated when particular countries adopt vigorous restrictions of the money supply, monetarism, to pursue economic goals, such as combatting inflation, which of itself damps down rather than stimulates growth.How then is the redistribution of resources to be pursued in order to advance urban living conditions for the underprivileged? The answer to this question starts from the recognition of the obvious: that distribution of product (from any activity) is a consequence not only of “how much’ but also of how the resources for the activity are in fact employed. Using a national contractor with mobile labour for new house building will result in a different distribution from using local people with local materials.Similarly, there are many different approaches to tackling urban and community renewal, as is clear from a review of practice around the world since World War I. This paper will be looking for a pattern in the variety of approaches, and for a possible trend in the changes that have taken place in such approaches over the past 30 years.These changes have been put into a sharp focus in one small country (Israel) through the national programme of Project Renewal, which has been described in another paper in this congress.¹ Here it will be argued that the Israeli programme had telescoped into 3 years a sequence of change which has been evolving for the past 30 years in USA, the UK and other countries in Europe.This paper will indicate one approach which seems to be emerging from that process of change and which was employed in the town of Ashkelon in Israel. It is based on the better utilisation at the local level for the underprivileged of such resources that are available. Better utilisation is not regarded simply as deriving from a more efficient use of such resources through the use of economic calculus by central administration but rather through the involvement of the local community and individuals in a similar process to that which takes place where adaptation and mobility are self-generated.That is not to say that government resources become altogether unnecessary. But, instead of using them to top up the ever present shortfalls, they are used as a catalyst to introduce regeneration.Thus we believe a more effective redistribution of benefits can be achieved even with a lesser allocation of resources, provided they are properly used.But the approach in Ashkelon of itself is not the important question for this Conference. It is rather: has the approach a more general application, as a way of tackling renewal and a strategy for redistribution?My conclusion on this question is presented in the second part of the paper which provides a tentative overview of what has been happening in urban renewal since World War II in Europe and the USA. There I show the changing focus of renewal by reference to five strands which are found to a greater or lesser extent in any renewal programme: the physical, social and economic content of the programme, and the political and public participation driving forces behind them. From this tentative overview come two tentative conclusions: that the varying approaches in Israel to renewal in the past 3 years have reflected the variety in approaches over the past 30 years in the USA and UK, and that the trend in these approaches does encourage the notion that the Ashkelon approach has wider relevance as a model for regeneration strategies.The review of changing approaches to renewal suggests that regeneration is not simply a response to the current economic situation in the western world, but a culmination of a long standing trend, and one that should be used even at times of economic prosperity.     

Relationship goals of middle-aged,young-old,and old-old internet daters: An analysis of online personal ads

Purpose of the studyResearch on courtship patterns and romantic relationship in later life has not kept pace with the burgeoning number of older adults interested in dating.Design and methodsWe conducted content analyses of themes arising from 450 personal ads written by middle-aged (40–54), young-old (60–74), and old-old (75 +) participants.ResultsSignificant differences between the young-old and the middle-aged were few; those between the young-old and old-old were numerous. Compared to the old-old, the young-old and middle-aged were more likely to mention adventure, romance, sexual interests, and seeking a soul mate and less likely to mention health.ImplicationsThis study increases our understanding of relationship goals in later life and highlights the error of treating all older adults as a homogeneous group. Practice and policy can benefit from more nuanced distinctions between age groups and an enhanced recognition of the vibrant emotional, romantic, and sexual lives of older adults.     

The Search for Religious Beliefs In Sufferings

Suffering is a negative word personally.People avoid agony while they look for happiness.Nevertheless,miseries cannot vanish thoroughly as we are alive in the world.Sufferings bring us direct trauma in terms of mind and body.This is a dilemma humankind experience since immemorial.Therefore,we seek relief from spiritual aspect.There are two kind of religious beliefs I would like to explain,that are Christianity and Buddhism.     

Solutions out of context: Examining the transfer of business concepts to nonprofit organizations

Small nonprofit organizations face a dilemma when applying management theories and techniques developed for large, private businesses. Research evidence suggests both benefits and problems associated with application of these techniques. To avoid potential problems, nonprofit managers commonly limit the selection and transfer of business techniques to those that solve specific problems or appear consistent with nonprofit orientations. One consequence is that business solutions often create unintended negative outcomes that are due to contextual differences between the two types of organizations. One possible solution to this dilemma is adoption of bundles, or configurations, of practices that introduce important contextual checks and balances along with the specific tools and techniques. We explore this option through a critical, participatory ethnographic analysis of a small nonprofit service organization.     

TAX POLICY AND INCOME INEQUALITY IN THE UNITED STATES, 1979–2007

This paper assesses the effects of U.S. tax policy reforms on inequality over around three decades, from 1979 to 2007. It applies a new method for decomposing changes in government redistribution into (1) a direct policy effect resulting from policy changes and (2) the effects of changing market incomes. Over the period as a whole, the tax policy changes increased income inequality by pushing up the income share of high‐income earners (the top 20%). (JEL H23, H31, H53, P16)     

Saving the Savior

This article begins with an autobiographical reflection about what sociology has meant to me as an Iranian intellectual. Sociology has enabled me to think critically about my country's politics and culture, appreciating its strengths without overlooking its unjust and injurious aspects. That experience shapes my answer to the question “Saving Sociology?” If there is anything in sociology that I would like to save–in both senses “to keep” and “to rescue”—it is sociology as a critical, reflective discipline, a discipline that not only studies society but also contributes to its change. As the contemporary world moves toward a “global” society, we are increasingly facing the dilemmas of multiculturalism. Sociologists often investigate other societies or (like myself) look back at their own from a spatial and cultural distance. This situation has created a dilemma for many scholars: Should we criticize problems stemming from “indigenous” beliefs and practices of other societies? Cultural relativism argues that different cultures provide indigenous answers to their social problems that should be judged in their own context. While this approach correctly encourages us to avoid ethnocentrism, it has led to inaction towards the suffering of oppressed groups. Reflecting on the relativist approach to sexual dominance, I question some cultural relativist assumptions. Discussing how “indigenous” responses to male domination in many cases disguise and protect that domination, I will challenge the “localist” approach of relativism and argue for a universalist approach.     

Getting Serious About Inequality

Sociologists have spent a great deal of energy studying social inequality, but in this presentation I suggest that we need to refocus our efforts a bit. I examine four popular myths among the general public, and among some in sociology, regarding the drivers of extreme inequality: (1) that most inequality is generated by race and gender, (2) that most inequality is driven by educational inequality, (3) that most inequality is driven by differences in family structure, and (4) that most inequality results from face‐to‐face interactions. I provide preliminary evidence that our explanations need some work. That work involves recognizing that most inequality is generated within demographic groups and that this inequality is growing rapidly. It also involves recognizing that there are few ways to incorporate underrepresented groups into the mainstream of a social and economic system where extreme inequality is getting worse and substantial percentages of the population face economic stagnation and downward mobility. The conclusion represents a call to focus on the most important group gap—the widening gap between the wealthy and the poor—and the mechanisms through which most people gain access to economic goods, services, and social respect—jobs and money.     

Empirics of the median voter: democracy, redistribution and the role of the middle class

This paper improves the empirical investigation on the effectiveness of the median voter theorem. Using high quality data, it is possible to directly observe individual net cash transfers in several countries and to investigate the effects of taxes and transfers on different social classes and in aggregate. This allows testing of both the “redistribution hypothesis” (more inequality leads to more redistribution in aggregate) and the “median voter hypothesis” (the middle class plays a special role in policy making). Results suggest acceptance of the former and reject on, or at least questioning, of the latter. Not only the gains from redistribution are negligible for the middle class, but also the link between income and redistribution is also lower for it than for any other class of income. Moreover, the strength of the median voter seems to fall over time. Finally, the amount of redistribution targeted to the middle class is lower in more asymmetric societies, a result that contrasts strongly with the median voter theorem.     

Inheritance,poverty, and disability

Inheritance is a significant means of transferring wealth from one generation to the next, and therefore increasingly attracts attention from researchers and policy-makers working on intergenerational and multidimensional poverty. However, until now disabled persons have been overlooked in these discussions. This oversight is particularly unfortunate because, as a group, the estimated one billion people with disabilities (some 15% of the world’s population) are among the poorest and most marginalized of the global population. Over the past decade, a small but growing literature has examined the recursive connections between poverty and disability throughout the developing world. In this paper, we argue that disabled individuals are routinely denied inheritance rights in many low-income and middle-income countries, and that this is a significant and largely unrecognized contributor to their indigence. The denial of inheritance is both a social justice issue and a practice that can no longer be overlooked if disabled persons are to be brought into the development mainstream.