Hi all! This week we’re discussing the following readings:

1. Banerjee, Abhijit and Esther Duflo. 2012. “Chapter 4 – Top of the Class” In: Poor Economics : A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty. New York, UNITED STATES: Public Affairs.
2. Buchmann, Claudia. Hannum, Emily. 2001. “Education and stratification in developing countries a review of Theories and Research..” Annual Review of Sociology. 27: 77-102

Before reading today’s post I want you to watch the TED talk below. The research we have studied and discussed post-midterm have all been focused on what Tom Weisner (from the video below) calls W.E.I.R.D societies. This week we start to look at the other rest of the 85% of the World in what relates to education and development.

Both readings for this week talk about conditional cash transfers. So, before going any further you should understand what these are, and what usually gives them their conditional character.

Carefully go over my PowerPoint presentation with voiceover where I explain important ideas and concepts covered in the readings. (To listen to the voiceover you need to go to presentation mode)

Watch 2019’s economic Nobel Prize winner, Esther Duflo, discuss Randomized Control Trials’ and how these social experiments have informed recent efforts to fight poverty around the world.

On the link below you can find Duflo’s and Banerjee’s Slides for chapter 4. Have a look at it, it’s a great summary of the main issues discussed in the book chapter.

https://web.archive.org/web/20170713213006/http://www.pooreconomics.com/chapters/4-top-class/teaching-and-resources

Duflo’s MIT courses are available online (and I believe for free, if you don’t request a certificate). You can find the list here: https://economics.mit.edu/faculty/eduflo/courses

Lecture Posts Questions:

On the comments section below, address the following questions (answers should be at least 100 words in length and posted by Sunday – This is how participation points are assessed (worth 30% of your final grade!) Please save your comments in a safe document before attempting to post it.

1. From my PowerPoint presentation, what still isn’t very clear? Any questions, thoughts or comments you would like to share?
2. From the readings are all concepts clear?
3. Summarize the main takeaways from the videos.
4. Do you have any other questions from anything we studied in our course throughout the semester? Or is there a thought or comment you would like to share with the rest of class for our last Lecture Post?

Hi all! This week we’re discussing the following readings:

1. Gerber, Theodore, and Sin Yi Cheung. 2008. “Horizontal Stratification in Postsecondary Education: Forms, Explanations, and Implications.” Annual Review of Sociology 34:299–318.
2. Torche, Florencia. 2011. “Is a College Degree Still the Great Equalizer? Intergenerational Mobility across Levels of Schooling in the United States” American Journal of Sociology 117(3): 763-807.

Carefully go over my PowerPoint presentation with voiceover where I explain important ideas and concepts covered in the readings. (To listen to the voiceover you need to go to presentation mode)

Now watch the video below where Florencia Torche herself talks about her paper.

Lecture Posts Questions:

On the comments section below, address the following questions (answers should be at least 100 words in length and posted by Sunday – This is how participation points are assessed (worth 30% of your final grade!) Please save your comments in a safe document before attempting to post it.

1. From my PowerPoint presentation, what still isn’t very clear? Any questions, thoughts or comments you would like to share?
2. From the readings are all concepts clear?
3. Summarize the main takeaways from the video.
4. What is your opinion, why do graduates of higher ranking-institutions on average have higher subsequent earnings than graduates from lower-ranking institutions? Is it a function of:

• Human Capital
• Signal Effects
• Social Capital
• Selection Effect

Or Maybe it’s a combination of these factors? Or maybe something else?

5. From Torche’s paper, what do you think might explain this “U-shaped” pattern of parental influence that she finds (The intergenerational association is strongest among those with less than a college degree; it substantially weakens among college graduates and then regains strength among advanced-degree holders) ?

Hi all! This week we’re discussing the following readings:

1. Raftery, Adrian E., and Michael Hout. 1993. “Maximally Maintained Inequality: Educational Stratification in Ireland.” Sociology of Education, 66, 1: 41-62.
2. Lucas, Samuel. 2001. “Effectively Maintained Inequality: Education Transitions, Track Mobility, and Social Background Effects.” American Journal of Sociology 106:1642-90.

Carefully go over my PowerPoint presentation with voiceover where I explain important ideas and concepts covered in the readings. (To listen to the voiceover you need to go to presentation mode)

Watch Michael Hout (one of the author’s of the author’s of the MMI paper) talk about the slowdown in Higher Education.

Lecture Posts Questions:

On the comments section below, address the following questions (answers should be at least 100 words in length and posted by Sunday – This is how participation points are assessed (worth 30% of your final grade!) Please save your comments in a safe document before attempting to post it.

1. From my PowerPoint presentation, what still isn’t very clear? Any questions, thoughts or comments you would like to share?
2. From the Raftery and Hout (1993) reading are all concepts and ideas clear?
3. From the Lucas (2001) reading are all concepts and ideas clear?
4. Summarize the main takeaways from the video.

Hi all! This week we’re discussing the following readings:

1. Annette Lareau.. 2002. “Invisible Inequality: Social Class and Childrearing in Black Families and White Families.” American Sociological Review 67:747-76.
2. Calarco, Jessica McCrory. 2014 “Coached for the Classroom: Parents’ Cultural Transmission and Children’s Reproduction of Educational Inequalities.” American Sociological Review 79(5): 1015–37.

Carefully go over my PowerPoint presentation with voiceover where I explain important ideas and concepts covered in the readings. (To listen to the voiceover you need to go to presentation mode)

Watch the short video below where Lareau herself summarizes her research and here she also mentions what happened to the 12 kids she observed a decade later. Where did they end up? Let’s see…

Lecture Posts Questions:

On the comments section below, address the following questions (answers should be at least 100 words in length and posted by Sunday – This is how participation points are assessed (worth 30% of your final grade!) Please save your comments in a safe document before attempting to post it.

1. From my PowerPoint presentation, what still isn’t very clear? Any questions, thoughts or comments you would like to share?
2. From the readings are all concepts and ideas clear?
3. Summarize the main takeaways from the video.
4. Answer the question I asked in the PowerPoint presentation: “If the poor and working-class families’ resources were transformed overnight so that they equaled those of the middle-class families, would their cultural logic of childrearing shift as well? Or, do you think, are there cultural attitudes and beliefs that are substantially independent of economic and social resources that are influencing parents’ practices here?”
5. Think of the situation that we are currently living, where abruptly billions of children and teenagers are being homeschooled. How do you think social economic inequalities will play into this? How will different childrearing practices impact the experiences of these children during these unusual times? Do you think these will have long-lasting consequences?

Hi all! This week we’re discussing the following readings:

1. Heckman, James J. 2008. “Schools, Skills, and Synapses.” Economic Inquiry. 46 (3): 289–324.
2. Marteleto, Leticia.J. & Dondero, Molly. 2016. “Racial Inequality in Education in Brazil: A Twins Fixed-Effects Approach” Demography 73(4): 1185–1205.

This week we are discussing how inequalities can be shaped at early childhood. We also discuss sibling differences in adult success to understand how inequalities exist not only between families, but also within the same family environment.

Before going over my PowerPoint presentation, watch the videos below:

Watch the very short video below where Nobel Prize Laureate, James Heckman, and author of the required reading for this week, explains how investing in the early years of disadvantaged children’s lives is both fair and efficient.

The second paper we’re discussing this week, looks at differences in educational attainment for twin siblings where one is labelled as black and the other white in Brazil. How can twin siblings (non-identical) be labelled differently by race? Race is a socially constructed category, as such different societies will use different classifications schemes. In order to illustrate this and to understand a bit about racial inequality in Brazil, watch the videos below before moving on to the slide presentation.

Now, you can go to my PowerPoint presentation with voiceover where I explain important ideas and concepts covered in the readings. (To listen to the voiceover you need to go to presentation mode)

Finally, watch the Ted Talk below where Dalton Conley explores what we need to succeed and what assembly is required in order to do well in school or the workplace. He discusses his research that focuses on the factors that allow some people to succeed while others, perhaps even in the same family, fail.

Lecture Posts Questions:

On the comments section below, address the following questions (answers should be at least 100 words in length and posted by Sunday – This is how participation points are assessed (worth 30% of your final grade!) Please save your comments in a safe document before attempting to post it.

1. From the PowerPoint presentation is everything clear?
2. From the Heckman reading are all concepts clear? Do you have any questions?
3. From the Marteleto and Dondero (2016) reading are all concepts clear? Do you have any questions?
4. Summarize the main takeaways from the videos. Do you have any questions?
5. So, what is your opinion? How much does nature or nurture matter in shaping life chances and outcomes? Do you think parents invest equally in their children (and should they)? What can we learn from analyzing differences in siblings? Methodologically why do we care about sibling comparisons?

Hi all! This week we’re discussing the following readings:

1. Downey, Douglas B. and Dennis J. Condron. 2016. “Fifty Years since the Coleman Report: Rethinking the Relationship between Schools and Inequality.” Sociology of Education 89(3):207–20.
2. Hanushek, Eric A. 2016. What Matters for Achievement: Updating Coleman on the Influence of Families and Schools. Education Next: 22 – 30.

Carefully go over my PowerPoint presentation with voiceover where I explain important ideas and concepts covered in the readings. (To listen to the voiceover you need to go to presentation mode)

Watch the video below (only 5min), where the author of the report in our reading list for this week (Eric A. Hanushek) discusses the influence of the Coleman Report on its 50th anniversary.

The video below very nicely summarizes the main theme of our lecture this week.

After watching all of the videos, what is your opinion? Are you more of an optimist and fully believe in the transformative power of schools or are you ready to blast Pink-Floyd on repeat and declare that you don’t need no education? (If you didn’t get the last reference, watch the videoclip at the end of the post)

Lecture Posts Questions:

On the comments section below, address the following questions (answers should be at least 100 words in length and posted by Sunday – This is how participation points are assessed (worth 30% of your final grade!) Please save your comments in a safe document before attempting to post it.

1. I asked you all some questions throughout the PowerPoint presentation. What are your thoughts on these?
2. From the readings are all concepts and ideas clear?
3. Summarize the main takeaways from the videos.
4. In your opinion do schools reproduce, exacerbate or compensate inequalities? Why?

Hi all! This week we’re discussing the following readings:

1. Bourdieu, Pierre. 1986. “The forms of capital. In J. Richardson (Ed.) Handbook of Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education.” (New York, Greenwood), 241-258.
2. Coleman, James. 1988. “Social Capital and the Creation of Human Capital” American Journal of Sociology. 94: 95-120.

Carefully go over my PowerPoint presentation with voiceover where I explain important ideas and concepts covered in the readings. (To listen to the voiceover you need to go to presentation mode)

Below we have the first scene from the movie The Godfather. Watch it and think about what forms of capital you can identify here:

Lecture Posts Questions:

On the comments section below, address the following questions (answers should be at least 100 words in length and posted by Sunday – This is how participation points are assessed (worth 30% of your final grade!) Please save your comments in a safe document before attempting to post it.

1. From my PowerPoint presentation, what still isn’t very clear? Any questions, thoughts or comments you would like to share?
2. From the readings are all concepts, measurements and ideas clear?
3. Explain what form(s) of capital you can identify in the scene from The Godfather?
4. How do you think differences in the forms of capital (human, cultural, economic and social) (re)produce  inequalities in society, even in a scenario of an expanding educational system? In other words, if more people are going to college and getting degrees than before, why does inequality persist?

Hi all! This week we’re discussing the following reading:

1. Narayan, Ambar, Roy Van der Weide, et al. 2018. “Fair Progress? Economic Mobility across Generations around the World.” Washington, DC: World Bank (Overview: pages 1 – 43)

Carefully go over my PowerPoint presentation with voiceover where I explain important ideas and concepts covered in the readings. (To listen to the voiceover you need to go to presentation mode)

Watch the video below where Professor Raj Chetty explores current trends in social mobility:

Finally, watch the crash course video below that summarizes various important issues discussed in the PowerPoint presentation (but with much better graphics!)

Here are a few links that I mentioned in the PowerPoint presentation that you might find interesting to explore further:

• The interactive chart for Global Income can be found at the end of this page (you can select specific countries of interest and see how they compare to other countries): https://income-inequality.info
• In this site you can find more of Raj Chetty’s research and reports on socioeconomic opportunities: https://opportunityinsights.org/
• Miles Corak’s website is also a great source of information on social mobility research. Specifically HERE you can read more on the Canadian vs American dream
• HERE is the interactive chart and complete analysis from the New York Times on race and social mobility.

Lecture Posts Questions:

On the comments section below, address the following questions (answers should be at least 100 words in length and posted by Sunday – This is how participation points are assessed (worth 30% of your final grade!) Please save your comments in a safe document before attempting to post it.

1. From my PowerPoint presentation, what still isn’t very clear? Any questions, thoughts or comments you would like to share?
2. From the Fair Progress reading are all concepts, measurements and ideas clear?
3. Summarize the main conclusions from the Raj Chetty video. Do you have any questions?
4. Summarize the main takeaways from the crash course video. Are all concepts clear?

Hi all! This week we’re discussing the following readings:

1. Chabbott, Colette. Ramirez, Francisco O. 2006. “Chapter 7 – Development and Education.” In:  Sociology of Education at the Threshold of the Twenty-first Century, edited by Maureen T. Hallinan. 163 – 188
2. World Development Report 2018: Learning to Realize Education’s Promise Published: October 2017. Washington, DC: World Bank (Chapter 1: Schooling, learning, and the promise of education: Pages: 37 – 54)

Carefully go over my PowerPoint presentation with voiceover where I explain important ideas and concepts covered in the readings. (To listen to the voiceover you need to go to presentation mode)

Watch the video below that explores “the history of education as a social institution, with a specific focus on how the US organizes its educational system.”

Lecture Posts Questions:

On the comments section below, address the following questions (answers should be at least 100 words in length and posted by Sunday – This is how participation points are assessed (worth 30% of your final grade!) Please save your comments in a safe document before attempting to post it.

1. From my PowerPoint presentation, what still isn’t very clear? Any questions, thoughts or comments you would like to share?
2. From the Chabbott and Ramirez (2006) reading do you have any questions or comments?
3. From the World Development Report 2018 do you have any questions or comments?
4. Summarize the main takeaways from the video.

Hi all!

This week we’re discussing these two readings:

1. Sen, Amartya. 1999. “Development as Freedom.” Oxford University Press: New York (Introduction and Chapter 1)
2. Aber, J. Lawrence, Bennett, Neil G. Conley, Dalton C. Li, Jiali. 1997. The Effects of Poverty on Child Health and Development. Annual Review of Public Health. 18(1): 463-483

Carefully go over my PowerPoint presentation with voiceover where I explain important ideas and concepts covered in the readings. (To listen to the voiceover you need to go to presentation mode)

Watch this interview with Amartya Sen where he discusses the main ideas in the book:

Finally, watch the two videos below to think about the definitions of poverty in different societies:

Lecture Posts Questions:

On the comments section below, address the following questions (answers should be at least 100 words in length and posted by Sunday – This is how participation points are assessed (worth 30% of your final grade!) Please save your comments in a safe document before attempting to post it.

1. From my PowerPoint presentation, what isn’t clear? Any thoughts or comments you would like to share?
2. From the reading, what is not clear? Any thoughts or comments you would like to share?
3. Summarize the main takeaways from Sen’s interview? What are your thoughts on the issues discussed?
4. Based on the two videos on child poverty, how is poverty different in the two societies shown? How do you think that this will impact individual and social development differently in both countries?