Course 2014-2015
"Intervención penal frente a los delitos de odio y discriminación. La perspectiva especializada de la Fiscalía"
Presenter: D. Miguel Angel Aguilar, Fiscal Coordinador del Servicio de Delitos de Odio y Discriminación de la Fiscalía Provincial de Barcelona
Date: 21/05/15
"Social origins and overeducation among Spanish graduates: Is the access to the service class meritocratic?"
Presenter: Carlos J. Gil Hernández. Universitat Pompeu Fabra. Postgraduate Student
Date: 29/01/15
Abstract
One of the most relevant changes shaping the setting of industrialized societies is the steep process of educational expansion. Nevertheless, nowadays having a university degree could not be enough to access to the highest echelons of the social structure. Spain is one of the countries that exhibits the highest rate of overeducation, as well as a significant decrease in the economic returns to higher education (Barone and Ortiz, 2011; Felgueroso et al., 2010; García Montalvo, 2009; OECD, 2009). The share of the service class, which we link to qualified jobs, in Spain has experienced considerable enlargement across successive cohorts of the Spanish labour force, but this growth seems not enough given the as well high and increasing share of workers attaining a university degree.
Among the cohort born between 1948 and 1954 (aged 52-58 in 2006), just 15% were university-educated, while for the cohort born between 1969 and 1975 (aged 31-37 in 2006) this figure almost doubled, reaching 28% (CIS, 2006). As Bernardi (2012:7) suggested, in Spain, "educational expansion has grown at a faster rate than the creation of highly qualified jobs in the labour market." This scenario could end up in ascriptive factors playing a crucial role in social selection processes in the transition from university to work. Employers have to deal with many applicants for limited job offers, hence, if they consider ascriptive factors as valuable, social background could make a difference (Goldthorpe, Jackson and Mills, 2005).
This work analyses the impact of social background on the probability of being overeducated among a cohort of Spanish graduates, who were born in the 1970's and graduated in 1999/2000, by using the 2005 REFLEX survey. Three indicators related to social origins have been used: cultural (fathers' education), social (usefulness of the individual social network in directly obtaining work) and economic capital (fathers' occupation). The study of this association is an adequate strategy to test one of the pillars of the modernization theory, which claims that modern societies are characterized by the evolution from adscription to achievement (Bell, 1972; Hout, 1988; Treiman, 1970). The results reveal that, even controlling for occupational experience, field of study and level of merit (grade), both cultural and social capital exert a significant effect on the risk of overeducation in Spain, but not so economic capital. Through the Karlson-Holm-Breen decomposition method (Breen et al., 2013; Triventi, 2013), we conclude that the direct effect of social origins on being overeducated is not significantly mediated by the indirect effect between social origins, field of study and overeducation. That is, there is not an association between social origins and field of study by which the children of more disadvantaged backgrounds study tracks with greater risk of overeducation.
For further information, please have a look at the following presentation:
Overeducation presentation by Carlos J. Gil Hernández
"Unequal Inequalities. The stratification of care among the ageing Europeans"
Presenter: Marco Albertini, Dipartimento di Scienze Politiche e Sociali. Alma Mater Studiorum - Università di Bologna
Date: 20/01/15
Abstract
In the last decades the aging process has been increasingly shaping European societies, and longterm care (LTC) has become one of the main "new" social risks that welfare systems have to face (Taylor-Gooby, 2004). Of course becoming elderly and frail is not something "new", however some of the characteristics of the phenomenon make it particularly challenging for the equilibriums that are at the basis of the welfare state and the European social model (Herlofston & Hagestad, 2011).
Firstly, the extent and pace of the phenomenon is unprecedented: individuals aged 65 years and more represented just 12.8% of the EU-27 population in the mid 1980s, but in 2012 their quota had grown to more than 18% of the population. Furthermore, in the same period, the quota of individuals aged 80 years and more has almost doubled i.e. increasing from 2.6 to 5.1%. Secondly, although the increase in the older population has not always (and everywhere) translated into a corresponding and timely increase in the number of individuals with disabilities, there are no signs of a compression of morbidity (Lafortune & Balestat, 2007; OECD, 2011; Crimmins & BeltránSánchez, 2011). Finally, the process of population ageing and the rise in care needs of the elderly take place at the same at time when there are a decreasing availability of unpaid care givers - due both to decreasing fertility and increasing female labour market participation - and growing pressure on the financial sustainability of public welfare and constraints to the expansion of public welfare provision (Bettio, Simonazzi & Villa, 2006).
Faced with this challenge the European welfare systems have undergone major reforms of their LTC systems. On one hand, investments in this type of policies have increased. On the other hand governments have been trying to contain the ever growing LTC expenditure (Ranci & Pavolini, 2013). The practical and organisational conditions of care provision have become less expensive in many European countries through the weakening of the professional quality of LTC, and the partial.
Does information matter? The effects of an educational guidance program for high-school seniors on beliefs on the value of Higher Education and on enrollment plans
Presenter: Carlo Barone, Prof. Agregado de la Universidad de Trento
Date: 21/10/14
Abstract
This work analyzes the role of information barriers as a mechanism of educational inequality. More specifically, we consider misperceptions of the value of Higher Education (HE), that is of its costs, economic benefits and chances of success. Using the model of heuristics & biases developed by Kahneman and Twersky, we argue that such misperceptions are widespread and differentially distributed by social origins. We test our hypotheses by means of a randomized experiment nested in a longitudinal survey. The experiment involves 9400 high school seniors from 62 schools located in four Italian provinces (Milan, Vicenza, Bologna, Salerno). 31 schools were randomly assigned to an educational guidance program that provided information on the value of HE. The program was structured as three two-hours meetings held by professional educators. Information given to the students was specifically targeted to their specific geographical region, their upper secondary track and their individual profiles. Materials were presented in an intuitive and interactive way.
The experiment is nested in a longitudinal survey, consisting of four waves. Wave 1 took place before the treatment at the beginning of this school year (October 2013): all seniors from treated and control schools were interviewed thorough a paper-and-pencil questionnaire administered at school. We collected detailed data about students' beliefs on costs, benefits and chances of success of the investment in HE. The treatment took place between October 2013 and March 2014. The second wave is currently being fielded in May 2014 through a CATI survey. The third and the fourth wave will explore the actual outcomes of students in HE. Thanks to this evaluation design we can use a longitudinal analysis of waves 1 and 2 to estimate the effects of the treatment by comparing treated and control students on three main outcomes: updated beliefs on the value of HE, intention to enroll in HE, and preferred field of study. Our results from wave 1 indicate that students' expectations about costs, benefits and risks of failure are highly overestimated on average and that students from more educated families are more optimistic about the value of HE.