The white native speaker and inequality regimes in the private English language school

Private English language schools market the language as a tool that helps one connect with others from different cultures. Despite their promotion of English aiding in intercultural communication, these institutions may believe that only the white native speaker is the ideal teacher of the language. This valuing of the white native speaker can consequently act as an organisational inequality regime that marginalises nonwhite teachers. Using qualitative interviews with 10 nonwhite instructors working in schools in Toronto, Canada, this article investigates the ways in which these teachers experience the inequality regime of the white native speaker at work. The findings indicate that the teachers experience this inequality regime as a series of microaggressions that involve space, competence and customer desire. The article concludes with suggestions to dismantle inequality regimes in private institutions.     

Socioeconomic status and the dynamics of preferences for income inequality in the United States, 1978–2016

Although considerable evidence indicates that public preferences for income inequality and redistribution vary across socioeconomic groups (i.e., occupation and income), much less is known about the temporal dynamics of these preferences. The purpose of this study is (a) to examine whether the attitudinal distance between managerial/professional workers and unskilled manual workers has changed (converged or diverged) over time and to (b) explore the reasons for and implications of the dynamics of preferences in the past several decades. Using data from the General Social Survey 1978–2016 (23 time‐points; N = 27,211), this study finds that the influence of occupational class has lost some of its significance in shaping public preferences for income inequality and that the declining effect of occupation can be explained in part by the attitudinal convergence between better‐ and less‐educated citizens. Findings suggest that proequality coalitions across educational boundaries play a remedial role in bridging the occupational divide over government redistribution in the United States.     

中国快递业发展的区域不平衡性测度研究

选取大陆31个省份2007—2014年样本数据,分别测算三区域、八区域分组下快递业发展的不平衡性及极化趋势。研究结果表明:中国快递业发展存在较强的区域不平衡性,且这种不平衡性还呈现不断加大趋势;东中西快递业发展不平衡性明显,总体呈现东部强中西部弱的特点,基尼系数分解结果显示,东中西组间差异为不平衡性贡献了70%以上的份额,同时东部和西部地区内部也存在相当程度的不平衡性;八区域不平衡性也非常明显,总体呈现沿海强内陆弱、东强西弱、南强北弱的基本格局,组间差异贡献了88%左右的份额,就区域内而言,南部沿海和西北地区不平衡性较强,东部沿海、长江中游及东北地区则较为平衡;三区域及八区域分组下快递业不平衡发展均呈现出不断增强的极化趋势。     

地方财政收入的空间非均衡、收敛性与极化研究

利用1994—2012年的中国省际经济数据,对地方财政收入的空间非均衡特征、收敛性与极化进行实证研究,结果表明:地方财政收入具有显著的空间非均衡特征;地方财政收入空间分布的总体差距呈现缩小趋势,其中地区间差距是地方财政收入差距的主要来源;考虑空间相关性前,地方财政收入增长存在绝对β收敛和条件β收敛;考虑空间相关性后,地方财政收入增长的绝对β收敛速度大大上升,条件β收敛速度大大下降;地方财政收入空间极化程度呈现先上升后下降的趋势。     

Leadership selection: Can changing the default break the glass ceiling?

Leadership selection often requires candidates to actively choose to express their interest. Using a series of incentivized experiments with more than 1000 participants, we compare such an Opt-in mechanism with an Opt-out mechanism where everyone qualified for the position is in the candidate pool by default, but individuals can choose to opt out of the selection process. The results reveal a gender gap in participation decisions under the Opt-in mechanism. The gender gap exists even when individuals know they are the top performers, suggesting helping women improve their performance may not necessarily reduce gender gaps. Importantly, women are more likely to participate under the Opt-out mechanism and gender gaps in leadership selection are reduced.     

Characterizations based on Rényi entropy of order statistics and record values

Two different distributions may have equal Rényi entropy; thus a distribution cannot be identified by its Rényi entropy. In this paper, we explore properties of the Rényi entropy of order statistics. Several characterizations are established based on the Rényi entropy of order statistics and record values. These include characterizations of a distribution on the basis of the differences between Rényi entropies of sequences of order statistics and the parent distribution.     

中国收入分配不平等对经济增长影响的研究

文章利用中国30个省、直辖市、自治区1981-2005年的面板数据,运用面板数据模型分析中国收入分配不平等对经济增长的影响,结果表明中国短期内城乡收入差距有利于经济增长。     

Gender in Academic Career Tracks: The Case of Korean Biochemists

How important is academic performance in obtaining a tenure‐track position in academic science? I use data on Korean biochemists and analyze them from both institutionalist and gender perspectives. In so doing, I illustrate the ways academic performance and gender interact with one another to maintain a gender barrier for Ph.D.s entering an academic career. The main findings are as follows. First, academic productivity did influence the job market outcomes, but the male scientists benefited from publications in both SCI and non‐SCI journals, whereas the female scientists benefited only from those in SCI journals. I also found a positive effect of overseas doctoral training only for the female scientists. Such analysis suggests that women as a minority in academic science are pressured to prove their legitimacy through more rigorous criteria of academic performance. Thus, ostensibly gender‐neutral rules of academic performance can be applied in such a way as to maintain gender inequality.     

Approximating moments of continuous functions of random variables using Bernstein polynomials

Bernstein polynomials have many interesting properties. In statistics, they were mainly used to estimate density functions and regression relationships. The main objective of this paper is to promote further use of Bernstein polynomials in statistics. This includes (1) providing a high-level approximation of the moments of a continuous function $g\left(X\right)$ of a random variable $X$, and (2) proving Jensen’s inequality concerning a convex function without requiring second differentiability of the function. The approximation in (1) is demonstrated to be quite superior to the delta method, which is used to approximate the variance of $g\left(X\right)$ with the added assumption of differentiability of the function. Two numerical examples are given to illustrate the application of the proposed methodology in (1).     

‘Leave no one behind’ and the challenge of intersectionality: Christian Aid's experience of working with single and Dalit women in India

The principle of ‘leaving no one behind’ is strongly emerging as a defining aspect of the new development framework under negotiation in 2015. This stems from an acknowledgement of the failure of the Millennium Development Goals in securing benefits for the most marginalised groups, those suffering from economic deprivation and discrimination as a result of intersecting inequalities. As the new development framework takes shape, national-level experiences of tackling intersecting inequalities can provide lessons on the shifts required in policy and practice to address the specific needs of women experiencing deprivation, violence, and discrimination because of their gender and other identities. This case study illustrates lessons learnt from Christian Aid's programmatic experience in several states of India in support of Dalit women and single women as they individually and collectively struggle to gain dignity and realise their rights.