Transcript Slide 1

Lifelong Learning, Equality and Social
Cohesion
Presentation at
LLAKES Conference on ‘Lifelong Learning, Crisis and Social Change’
Senate House, London, 18th and 19th October 2012
Andy Green
Director of ESRC-LLAKES Centre
Structure of Presentation
1. Social benefits of education at different levels
to individuals
to communities (social capital)
to society (social cohesion)
2. Pathways for social effects of learning
3. The problem of educational inequality
4. Regimes of Social Cohesion, the Crisis and Education
• What holds different societies together?
• Recent trends and vulnerabilities in each regime
Individual Level Effects
Studies for various countries demonstrate that more educated
people tend to show higher levels of :
•
•
•
•
Social and political trust
Civic and political engagement
Democratic values
Tolerance
and lower levels of violent crime.
(Nie et al., 1996; Stubager, 2008; Hagendoorn, 1999; Emler and Frazer, 1999;
Putnam, 2000). (Nie et al., 1996; Stubager, 2008; Hagendoorn, 1999; Emler and Frazer,
1999; Putnam, 2000; McMahon, 1999).
Some Findings from Analyses of UK
Longitudinal Data
(Feinstein et al., 2003).
Compared with those educated to level 2 graduates are:
• 70-80% more likely to report excellent health
• 55% less likely to suffer depression (males)
• 3.5 times more likely to be a member of a voluntary association
(Males: F= 2.5 x)
• 30% and 40% more likely to hold positive attitudes to race and
gender equality
• 50% more likely to vote.
Education and Social Capital:
Benefits to Communities
Education is also found to contribute to the social capital of groups and
communities where SC is defined as ‘features of social life – networks,
norms and trust – that enable to participants to act together more
effectively to pursue shared objectives’ (Putnam, 2006).
Putnam (2000) finds that more educed people are more likely to join
Associations’ make charitable donations and be politically engaged.
Repeated interactions in groups increases levels of trust and tolerance.
- Individuals thus benefit from enhanced networks
- Neighbourhoods benefits from more co-operation and cohesion etc
Education and Social Cohesion
Social capital amongst individuals, families and local communities is not
the same thing as social cohesion at the country level.
Intra-group bonding does not always translate into inter-group harmony.
A country can have high levels of social capital in particular communities
but not be at all socially cohesive (eg Northern Ireland would be a good
example : see Schuller, Field et al, 2000).
It follows that:
Individual social benefits through increased learning do not necessarily
translate into societal effects or coincide with increased social cohesion.
LLAKES Research on Macro-Social Benefits
In our early research (Green, Preston and Janmaat, 2006) we found that
relationships pertaining at the individual level in some countries
disappear in macro-level, cross-country analysis.
• Social capital theorists argue that trust, civic engagement and
tolerance go together at the individual level. However, they don’t covary across countries.
• Education enhances trust, tolerance and associational activity among
individuals (in some countries). However, we found no relation across
countries between adult skills and levels of trust, civic engagement
and tolerance.
The Paradox of Levels
There are a number of reasons for this.
• The individual level effects are ‘relative’ or ‘positional’ ie one
person’s social gain through improved learning outcomes will
be another’s loss through relatively diminished skills.
• Other determininng factors at the national level overwhelm
the statistical relation between education and social outcomes.
• Contexts: effects at the societal level are often indirect - ie
they work through other factors which differ between
societies.
LLAKES Research on LLL Social
Benefits
• Uses mixed method multi-level approaches to
understand relationships at different levels
• Draws on a range of different disciplines to
understand the different mediating national contexts
(labour market organisation; welfare systems etc)
• Examines both direct and indirect effects
Direct Effects Mediated by Contexts
Education can have direct effects on social
outcomes, it is argued, through raising cognitive
abilities and through socialisation into particular
sets of values and identities.
However, many of the direct effects are highly
influenced by (national) contexts.
Tolerance
Research for a number of countries shows that more educated people are more
tolerant (eg Putnam, 2000). It is argued that education can develop both cognitive
resources and values which protect against racial prejudice (Hagendorn, 1999).
However, there is no clear-cut relationship across countries between levels of education
and tolerance (Green, Preston and Janmaat, 2006) because other contexts, like the
political climate, vary and mediate the relationships.
Halman’s analysis (1994) of Eurobaromter data suggest that levels of tolerance in EU
countries vary according to the actual and perceived proportion of immigrants.
Jasinska-Kania analysis of EVS data (1999) shows that the impact of education on
racial tolerance is greater in countries with higher levels of immigrants (perhaps
because there are more circumstantially-driven racist attitudes that can be countered by
education).
Contextual Effects on Civic Participation
Various studies (eg Emler and Fraser, 1999) have shown a strong relationship at
the individual level between civic knowledge and civic activity. However, this
relationship does not necessarily hold at a national level.
The IEA Civic Education study of 14-year olds in 28 countries (Torney-Purta et al,
2001) found that levels of civic knowledge were relatively high in Finland, Norway,
Poland, Slovak Republic and Czech Republic. The context of the political changes
occurring in the transition countries no doubt contributed in the case of CEE countries.
Nordic countries scored low in support for different forms of political participation and
the Czech Republic low in support for non-conventional forms of civic engagement.
The Slovak Republic scored in high civic knowledge, but low in support for rights for
women and ethnic minorities (like Bulgaria, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania).
Contextual Effects on Education and Crime
McMahon (1999) used time lagged analysis of data for 78 countries (1956- 1995) and
found that rising rates of secondary education were associated with decreasing levels of
violent crime. Other contextual Factors are also important, however.
Junger-Tas (2000) finds that in countries such as England and Germany father absence
was associated with higher delinquency, but not on Nordic countries.
This is possibly due to different welfare arrangements between countries whereby single parent
families receive more support in Nordic states.
Similarly, whereas there was a relation between large peer groups and delinquency in
some countries, this was not the case in southern Europe where, arguably, these are
more common.
Positional Effects of Education on Political Engagement
Robert Nie et al. (2006), using OLS regression analysis on US time
series data, find that education has some absolute effects on political
engagement but the relative or ‘positional’ effects are stronger.
More educated people have more opportunity to achieve ‘network
centrality’ giving access to politicians, thus giving individuals an
incentive to participate. However, network centrality is a ‘zero-sum’
property - the gains for one individual will entail losses for others.
Thus while average education levels may be getting higher in North
America this does not necessarily lead to higher level of political
engagement.
Learning effects on social capital (joining, volunteering and engagement)
Status
Network centrality
Learning
Joining
volunteering
civic engagement
Cognitive resources
(knowledge, skills etc)
Adapted from R. Nie
Which Effects are Absolute rather than Positional?
If individual social effects from learning are ‘absolute’ they are likely to
aggregate into societal effects. If the are ‘relative’ or ‘positional’ they
may not do so.
Recent research shows positional effects for a range of social outcomes.
• voter turnout (Burden, 2009; Tenn, 2007)
• political sophistication (Highton, 2009)
• democratic citizenship (Persson and Oscarsson, 2010).
Indirect Effects
Much of the influence that education has on social
outcomes is indirect – it works through something else.
LLAKES research suggests that often the most
powerful effects on social cohesion are distributional –
they depend on how the distribution of skills affects
the distribution of incomes and social status.
What matters most for social cohesion is less how much
education a country has, but how it is spread around.
Correlations between Adult Skills
Distribution and Trust
We measured skills inequality using IALS crosscountry data on adult numerical skills, using the
‘test score ratio method’
Trust in other people is based on World Values
Survey Data.
70
NW
60
DEN
NL
SW
CAN
50
General Trust
FIN
IRL
D
40
AU
SZ
US
PO
30
UK
B
POR
20
10
0
1
1.1
1.2
1.3
Education Inequality
1.4
1.5
1.6
1.60
1.50
USA
POR
Income inequality
1.40
CAN
1.30
PO
SZ
IRL
B
AU
FIN
1.20
NW
UK
NL
SW
DEN
D
1.10
1.00
20.00
25.00
30.00
35.00
Test score ratio
40.00
45.00
Inequality and Trust
Countries with more equal skills distributions have higher levels of trust.
This probably works partly through the effects of skills distribution on
income distribution, but the correlation exists independently of income
distribution. If the relationship is causal , it probably works both ways.
• Greater inequality of skills and incomes produces stress through
creating high-stakes competition which reduces the capacity to trust in
others.
• Inequalities in levels of education and skill increases CULTURAL
DISTANCE between individuals and groups and makes trusting more
difficult.
Over Time Analysis
Using time series data on education inequality, income inequality
and social cohesion measures over time (1960-1990) for
industrialised countries.
• Measure of educational inequality: Education Gini based
computed from data on highest level of education
• Measure of unrest comprising riots, strikes and
demonstrations.
• Measure of civil liberties based on freedom house scale.
6
4
2
0
-2
0
.2
.4
edgini
.6
.8
Relationships
• Education inequality highly correlated with unrest
but the relationship is non-linear. As education
inequality rises ‘unrest‘ first drops slightly and
then rises sharply.
• Educational inequality is generally negatively
related to civil liberties but the relationship is
again non-linear. As education inequalities rise,
civil liberties first decline, then rise and then drop
sharply.
Education Systems Properties and Civic Competences
Janmaat’s multi-level analysis of Cived data explored the effect of different
system and classroom characteristics on Civic competences.
Compared with comprehensive systems, selective education systems have:
• higher levels of social segregation across classrooms;
• greater disparities in civic knowledge and skills;
• larger peer effects on civic knowledge and skills - meaning that the latter are
strongly affected by the social backgrounds and achievement levels of other
students in the class.
(Janmaat , 2011).
Classroom Diversity and Values
Students who spend longer in mixed-ability classes are more likely to
share basic values in areas such as tolerance and patriotism, regardless of
their social own ethnic group (Janmaat & Mons 2011).
Ethnic diversity in the classroom seems to promote tolerance in some
countries, but not in all.
In Germany and Sweden, native majority students tend to be more
tolerant when in ethnically diverse classrooms.
In England, no such relationship was found. Furthermore, in English
classrooms white students were less tolerant the better their minority
ethnic peers performed in terms of civic knowledge and skills. This may
again be related status and competition anxiety.
Macro Social Benefits Less Likely in Unequal
Education Systems
LLL seems to be more successful in promoting social
cohesion in countries with more equal educational
outcomes.
• Nordic and East Asian countries tend to have
relatively equal outcomes
• ‘Liberal’ and ‘Social market’ countries tend to have
rather unequal outcomes.
Total Variance in Scores By Country Group: PISA 2000, 2009
Score Point Difference Associated with One Unit on ESCS - Social
Gradient
50
48.5
46.2
44.83
40
35.5
34.6
30
31.75
20
10
0
US, UK
Anglo
Germanic
E. Asia
Nordic
S.Europe
Score Point Difference Associeted with a One Point Increase in Student Background (ESCS) 2009
44.6
43.85
45
40.33
40
36
35
34.6
31.25
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
Liberal
Social Market
Southern Europe
Eastern Europe
East Asia
Nordic
Percentage of Variation in Performance between Schools Explained by
School ESCS - 2009
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Liberal
Social Market
Southern Europe
Eastern Europe
East Asia
Nordic
Adult Learning Not Mitigating Skills
Inequalities in UK
• In Britain the well educated participate 1.6 times as
much as the average person and the poorly educated
participate only 0.3 times as much.
• In Canada, Denmark, Finland, Germany, the
Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and the United States,
the participation rates of both the high and low
education groups are closer to the national mean
(OECD, 2005 based on LFS data).
• In Britain the unemployed and inactive participate less
than the national average.
• In Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway,
Portugal, Spain and Sweden the unemployed have
higher participation rates than the employed.
Below Level 3
Level 3
Level 4 and above
Population aged 25-29 by Highest Qualification Attained
100.0
80.0
65.8
60.0
59.5
55.0
50.2
37.6
40.0
20.0
44.6 46.5
34.8
28.0
17
19.3
14.9
12.2
5.7
8.9
0.0
UK (1998)
Germany (1997) Singapore (1998)
Korea (1998)
Japan (1997)
Regimes of Social Cohesion
Historical and contemporary evidence suggests
that countries ‘hold together’ in different ways.
• Different historical traditions of thought on social
cohesion in different parts of the world.
• Different institutional arrangements support social
cohesion.
Liberal Discourses
Liberal discourses tend to play down:
• The role of the state (in welfare and redistribution)
• Equality
• Shared values and identities (other than ‘core values’)
Emphasise importance of:
• Active civil society – at local level
• Opportunity and individual liberty (‘core values’)
• Tolerance
Republican Discourses
Republican discourses emphasise the state rather than civil society.
The state is seen to underpin social cohesion through:
•
•
•
•
Providing welfare and social protection
Redistribution
Supervising conflict-mediating social partnership institutions
Promoting shared values and common national identity.
Different currents in republican thought variously stress equality of
opportunity or equality of outcomes as important pre-conditions for
social cohesion, but their role in social cohesion is often largely
symbolic.
Social Democratic Discourse
The social democratic discourse follows the republican discourse
in most of its essentials, except that here the stress on equality is
more profound.
• Like republican theory social democratic theory emphasises
both the role of the state and that of autonomous but statesanctioned national civil society organisations
• Equality is seen as pre-condition of social solidarity.
• Common identity is highly valued.
Recent Research
Our recent research in LLAKES uses a wide range of
measures to test whether these different regimes
can be identified in contemporary societies.
The data:
• Data on social attitudes from international surveys
(such as WVS and ISSP)
• International administrative data
Component
Tradition/regime
Inequality
Social Democratic (-)
Wage
regulation
Liberal (+)
Social Democratic (+)
Social Market (+)
Indicator(s)
Indicators based on administrative data
Gini coefficient on household income


Union coverage
Centralization of wage bargaining
Liberal (-)
Employment
protection
State
involvement
Welfare state
Ethno-racial
diversity
Crime /
disorder
Liberal (-)
Employment protection legislation 1998
Social market (+)
Liberal (-);
Public employment as percentage of total employment 2000
Social democratic (+);
Social market (+);
Liberal (-);
Public social expenditure as percentage of GDP 2000
Social democratic (+)
Liberal (+)
Proportion of the population born abroad 2000
East-Asian (-)
Liberal (+)
East Asian (-)


Homicide rate
Violent crime 2000
Measures based on survey data
Social trust
Social democratic (+)
Percentage saying most people can be trusted
Social Market (-)
Value diversity
East Asian (+)
Social market (-)
Composite indicator representing the dispersion of opinions
East Asian (-)
Liberal (+)
Active civic participation Liberal (+)
East Asian (-)
Passive participation in
Social market (+)
nationwide organizations
Social democratic (+)
Freedom vs equality
East Asian (-)
Liberal (+);
Number of different voluntary organizations worked for
Number of different organizations belonging to
Freedom or equality more important; percentage preferring freedom
Social market (-);
Merit vs equality
Social democratic (-)
Liberal (+);
Pay according to performance
Social market (+);
Ethnocultural versus
civic identities
Social democratic (-)
Romantic conservative (+); East Asian (+); Strength of cultural relative to political conceptions of national identity
Liberal (-)
Ethnic tolerance
Liberal (+); Romantic conservative (-);
East Asian (-)


Social hierarchy
East Asian (+);
Percentage saying one should always love and respect one’s parents
Gender equality
Social market (+)
East Asian (-)
Percentage disagreeing that in times of scarcity men have more right to a job than women
Social market (-)
Social democratic (+)
Xenophobia index; average (inverse indicator)
Percentage not mentioning minding foreigners as neighbours
Results
The statistical analysis uses :
•
•
•
•
Correlations and scatter plots
Cluster analysis
Factor Analysis
Composite indicators and indexes.
Different regimes of social cohesion can be readily identified.
On all the tests countries and their social cohesion
characteristics cluster very much as the theory would
suggest.
Rank order of countries on the four indexes
Liberal
Country
CAN
GB
IRE
GER
NL
AU
DEN
SP
ITA
POR
FRA
FIN
SWE
B
Social Democratic
Social Market
East Asian
Score
Country
Score
Country
Score
Country
Score
16.81
SWE
15.90
AU
5.59
KOR
11.66
9.24
4.43
-.14
-.74
-1.93
-2.05
-2.13
-2.27
-2.49
-2.86
-3.96
-4.48
-5.49
-6.08
DEN
NL
FIN
B
AU
GER
IRE
SP
GB
FRA
CAN
ITA
10.76
8.15
7.42
3.11
.81
.28
.19
-.42
-.80
-1.10
-2.62
-2.92
-3.26
-5.39
POR
GER
FRA
ITA
B
SWE
FIN
NL
SP
DEN
IRE
GB
CAN
3.12
3.05
2.27
1.82
.83
.45
-.37
-.59
-1.74
-2.84
-3.14
-5.54
-6.76
-11.33
JAP
CZE
POL
ITA
SP
POR
SLV
GER
AU
IRE
FRA
FIN
GB
NL
B
DEN
CAN
SWE
9.10
3.37
2.65
2.34
2.02
1.97
1.21
-.12
-.52
-.89
-1.35
-2.00
-2.03
-2.49
-3.40
-3.69
-4.23
-7.24
-8.13
POR
Trends
Trends in Social Trust
55
50
45
40
Liberal
Social Market
Southern European
35
East Asian
30
25
20
1981
1990
2000
2005
Trends in Political Trust
65
60
55
50
45
Social Democratic
Southern European
Social Market
40
Liberal
35
30
25
20
1981
1990
2000
2005
Current Vulnerabilities in Each Regime
Each regime of social cohesion is currently vulnerable at
the points most essential to its model.
• The Republican Regime has traditionally relied on widely shared
common values. This is increasingly challenged by cultural
diversity.
• The Social Democratic Regime relies heavily on its universalist
welfare state. This is challenged by globalisation and immigration.
• The Liberal Regime relies on opportunity and the belief in
meritocratic rewards to hold the together. This is challenged by
rising inequality and declining social mobility (in UK and the US)
particularly.
UK: The Atrophy of Core Beliefs in
Meritocracy
Traditionally people in Britain are relatively tolerant of
inequality. But there is a large and probably growing gap
between people’s high expectations of meritocracy and
what they perceive to be the case.
Like people in Nordic Countries people are much more
likely than in most countries to say that effort
rather than need should determine pay.
But they are much less likely to perceive that
opportunities are in fact equal.
Country
Australia
Hard work / Country
children to
provide for *
(ISSP 2009)
56.4
Greece
Large income dofferences acceptable to reward talents
and effort (ESS 2008)
74.7
New Zealand
54.7
Denmark
66.7
Norway
51.6
Great Britain
63.9
Sweden
47.4
Germany
60.1
Great Britain
47.0
Netherlands
57.7
Finland
44.2
Switzerland
56.4
USA
44.2
Belgium
55.8
Japan
39.8
Cyprus
55.2
Iceland
Portugal
South Korea
39.2
35.4
30.3
Israel
Spain
Norway
54.5
52.9
52.6
Slovenia
28.7
France
51.5
Denmark
28.2
Sweden
49.0
Austria
22.9
Portugal
48.9
Switzerland
21.9
Slovenia
36.6
France
19.9
Finland
27.5
Belgium
Spain
Germany
19.4
16.2
10.8
Israel
5.7
Country
Only the rich can afford the cost of
attending university (ISSP 2009)
Country
People have the same
chances to enter university,
regardless of their gender,
ethnicity or social
background (ISSP 2009)
Disagree
Norway
85.6
Germany
44.3
Denmark
83.9
France
41.6
Finland
80.9
Portugal
38.8
Iceland
73.9
Spain
29.1
New Zealand
66.6
Great Britain
28.6
Spain
66.5
Austria
26.8
Austria
66.4
Australia
25.2
Sweden
64.7
South Korea
23.3
Switzerland
64.6
USA
23.3
USA
61.4
Belgium
22
Belgium
52.4
Denmark
21.2
Australia
51.1
New Zealand
19.2
Cyprus
49.3
Japan
18.9
Great Britain
48.3
Israel
18.7
Germany
47.5
Switzerland
18.2
47
Iceland
17.6
Portugal
39.9
Finland
17.2
Israel
39.4
Sweden
14.8
South Korea
27.2
Cyprus
13.6
France
25.9
Norway
10.6
Japan
Conclusion
Precipitous declines in trust and faith in opportunities and
meritocratic rewards are the biggest threat to social
cohesion in the UK.
Education can play a major role in equalising
opportunities and counteracting the erosion of core beliefs
which hold society together. But at the moment it is not
doing this .
Policy needs to concern itself not only with raising average
levels of skills but equally with how lifelong learning systems
spread skills around.
References
Green, Preston and Janmaat (2006) ‘Education,
Equality and Social Cohesion’, Palgrave.
Green and Janmaat (2011) ‘Regimes of Social
Cohesion: Societies and the Crisis of
Globalisation’, Palgrave.
Llakes.org