Download or read book Equal Opportunity in an Unequal Society written by Eran Fish and published by . This book was released on 2023 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Many share the view that even though gross inequalities of wealth are something to worry about, it makes a difference whether or not they are accompanied by substantive equality of opportunity. If people or their children are able to climb up and down the economic hierarchy, inequality is no longer deemed so objectionable. In this chapter I examine the soundness of this common view. I argue that against the backdrop of acute economic inequality, equal opportunity and mobility might be less morally significant than we often assume.
Download or read book Equality of Opportunity written by John E. Roemer and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2009-07-01 with total page 130 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: John Roemer points out that there are two views of equality of opportunity that are widely held today. The first, which he calls the nondiscrimination principle, states that in the competition for positions in society, individuals should be judged only on attributes relevant to the performance of the duties of the position in question. Attributes such as race or sex should not be taken into account. The second states that society should do what it can to level the playing field among persons who compete for positions, especially during their formative years, so that all those who have the relevant potential attributes can be considered. Common to both positions is that at some point the principle of equal opportunity holds individuals accountable for achievements of particular objectives, whether they be education, employment, health, or income. Roemer argues that there is consequently a "before" and an "after" in the notion of equality of opportunity: before the competition starts, opportunities must be equalized, by social intervention if need be; but after it begins, individuals are on their own. The different views of equal opportunity should be judged according to where they place the starting gate which separates "before" from "after." Roemer works out in a precise way how to determine the location of the starting gate in the different views.
Download or read book How to Make Opportunity Equal written by Paul Gomberg and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2008-04-15 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This critical examination of racial equality takes a new approach to breaking down racial barriers by proposing a system of equal opportunity through shared labor and contributive justice. Focuses on how race and class inevitably structure vastly unequal life prospects Shows how human society can be organized in a way that does not socialize children for lives of routine labour Looks towards contribution, not distribution, as a way to promote racial equality Argues that by sharing routine and complex labor, social relationships would be transformed, eliminating competition for limited opportunities to develop and contribute abilities A discussion board for ideas and comments relating to the book can be found at: http://howtomakeopportunityequal.blogspot.com/
Download or read book Inequality of Opportunity Inequality of Income and Economic Growth written by Mr.Shekhar Aiyar and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2019-02-15 with total page 23 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We posit that the relationship between income inequality and economic growth is mediated by the level of equality of opportunity, which we identify with intergenerational mobility. In economies characterized by intergenerational rigidities, an increase in income inequality has persistent effects—for example by hindering human capital accumulation— thereby retarding future growth disproportionately. We use several recently developed internationally comparable measures of intergenerational mobility to confirm that the negative impact of income inequality on growth is higher the lower is intergenerational mobility. Our results suggest that omitting intergenerational mobility leads to misspecification, shedding light on why the empirical literature on income inequality and growth has been so inconclusive.
Download or read book Communities in Action written by National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2017-04-27 with total page 583 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the United States, some populations suffer from far greater disparities in health than others. Those disparities are caused not only by fundamental differences in health status across segments of the population, but also because of inequities in factors that impact health status, so-called determinants of health. Only part of an individual's health status depends on his or her behavior and choice; community-wide problems like poverty, unemployment, poor education, inadequate housing, poor public transportation, interpersonal violence, and decaying neighborhoods also contribute to health inequities, as well as the historic and ongoing interplay of structures, policies, and norms that shape lives. When these factors are not optimal in a community, it does not mean they are intractable: such inequities can be mitigated by social policies that can shape health in powerful ways. Communities in Action: Pathways to Health Equity seeks to delineate the causes of and the solutions to health inequities in the United States. This report focuses on what communities can do to promote health equity, what actions are needed by the many and varied stakeholders that are part of communities or support them, as well as the root causes and structural barriers that need to be overcome.
Download or read book Equal Opportunity Theory written by Dennis E. Mithaug and published by SAGE Publications. This book was released on 1996-05-21 with total page 285 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Equal Opportunity Theory is a clear and comprehensive examination of the idea of self determination: both the right to self-determination as well as its expression in our society. Author Dennis E. Mithaug examines society′s collective responsibility for assuring fair prospects of self-determination for all people. This inclusive volume also describes how social policies derived from the theory of equal opportunity actually impact those with the least likely prospects for self-determination throughout their lives--the poor, the disabled, and people of color. Author Dennis E. Mithaug first presents the logical, philosophical, and psychological basis for equal opportunity theory and then presents its social and judicial background. From this foundation he shows how the optimal prospects principle derived from the theory decreases the discrepancy between the right and the experience of self-determination for children and adults with significant physical, mental, social, and economic disadvantages. Although the main thrust is theoretical, evidence in support of the theory is based upon a combination of empirical, historical, and logical sources. Addressing one of the hottest current topics in American society and public policy today, Equal Opportunity Theory′s timeliness will make it of great interest to students and professionals in the fields of sociology, psychology, and political science. "In Equal Opportunity Theory, Dennis E. Mithaug writes about the discrepancy between the right to self-determination and the expression of that right, a problem that is salient to most Americans with disabilities and others who are less well situated in our society. This discrepancy manifests itself in what may be the most ′handicapping′ aspect of having a disability, being poor, or being a member of a minority group that experiences frequent discrimination--the lack of control over one′s life. Equal Opportunity Theory provides a thoughtful, interdisciplinary treatment of the complex issues related to this problem. The book provides an important differentiation of the impact of individual capacity and opportunity theory as a means to resolve the discrepancy between the right to and experience of self-determination for individuals whose personal, social, and economic circumstances are beyond their control. It also provides a valuable contribution to the debate concerning how best to empower and enable all individuals to live self-determined lives." --Michael L. Wehmeyer, The Arc National Headquarters
Download or read book Equality of Opportunity written by David Davenport and published by Hoover Press. This book was released on 2023-06-01 with total page 169 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For over one hundred years, Americans have debated what equality of opportunity means and the role of government in ensuring it. Are we born with equality of opportunity, and must we thus preserve our innate legal and political freedoms? Or must it be created through laws and policies that smooth out social or economic inequalities? David Davenport and Gordon Lloyd trace the debate as it has evolved from America's founding into the twentieth century, when the question took on greater prominence. The authors use original sources and historical reinterpretations to revisit three great debates and their implications for the discussions today. First, they imagine the Founders, especially James Madison, arguing the case against the Progressives, particularly Woodrow Wilson. Next are two conspicuous public dialogues: Herbert Hoover and Franklin Delano Roosevelt's debate around the latter's New Deal; and Ronald Reagan's response to Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society and War on Poverty. The conservative-progressive divide in this discussion has persisted, setting the stage for understanding the differing views about equality of opportunity today. The historical debates offer illuminating background for the question: Where do we go from here?
Download or read book The Role of Education In Fighting Inequality written by Counsel Mayabi and published by GRIN Verlag. This book was released on 2015-02-17 with total page 21 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Seminar paper from the year 2014 in the subject Sociology - Knowledge and Information, University of Nairobi (Law), course: Social Foundations of Law, language: English, abstract: The presence of unequal opportunities and incentives for varied social statuses in a community or a state sums up my definition, which is open to debate, of inequality. These include the unequal distribution of resources and the distribution that is based on already established patterns that have been socially defined. In this context, there are categories of people in a given society and resources are distributed based on the category into which the people fall. Because of the inequalities in the society, the people at the upper classes would be always ahead of those in the lower-class. Those at the lower-class will therefore find it hard to abridge the wide gap between the classes. Some have said that education is the only way up the social ladder. A few however, refute the claim that no one needs to be educated to avoid poverty. That is education is no guaranteed solution for the inequalities They say, we cannot run to education as the only solution to poverty. Going to institutions of higher learning to find a way out of poverty or social problems should be out of anyone’s mind (Marsh, p12). However, such mentality is not in its entirety justifiable as the power of education cannot be underestimated. Education may not be the only way out, but at least it has a bearing on the overall call for equality. Having said this, my paper finds out and its main purpose is to provide a justification that education may be in one way or another, a way out of inequality and poverty as would be argued in the rest part of this paper.
Download or read book Inequality of Opportunity written by Juan Gabriel Rodríguez and published by Emerald Group Publishing. This book was released on 2011-10-12 with total page 259 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Eight papers, both theoretical and applied, on the concept of equality of opportunity which says that a society should guarantee its members equal access to advantage regardless of their circumstances, while holding them responsible for turning that access into actual advantage by the application of effort.
Download or read book Creating an Opportunity Society written by Ron Haskins and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2009-10-01 with total page 367 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Americans believe economic opportunity is as fundamental a right as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. More concerned about a level playing field for all, they worry less about the growing income and wealth disparity in our country. Creating an Opportunity Society examines economic opportunity in the United States and explores how to create more of it, particularly for those on the bottom rungs of the economic ladder. Ron Haskins and Isabel Sawhill propose a concrete agenda for increasing opportunity that is cost effective, consistent with American values, and focuses on improving the lives of the young and the disadvantaged. They emphasize individual responsibility as an indispensable basis for successful policies and programs. The authors recommend a three-pronged approach to create more opportunity in America: • Increase education for children and youth at the preschool, K–12, and postsecondary levels • Encourage and support work among adults • Reduce the number of out-of-wedlock births while increasing the share of children reared by their married parents With concern for the federal deficit in mind, Haskins and Sawhill argue for reallocating existing resources, especially from the affluent elderly to disadvantaged children and their families. The authors are optimistic that a judicious use of the nation's resources can level the playing field and produce more opportunity for all. Creating an Opportunity Society offers the most complete summary available of the facts and the factors that contribute to economic opportunity. It looks at the poor, the middle class, and the rich, providing deep background data on how each group has fared in recent decades. Unfortunately, only the rich have made substantial progress, making this book a timely guide forward for anyone interested in what we can do as a society to improve the prospects for our less-advantaged families and fellow citizens.
Download or read book Rawls s Egalitarianism written by Alexander Kaufman and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-06-14 with total page 285 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A new analysis of John Rawls's theory of distributive justice, focusing on the ways his ideas have both influenced and been misinterpreted by the current egalitarian literature.
Download or read book Unequal Schools Unequal Chances written by Fernando Reimers and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2000 with total page 488 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The contributors to this volume discuss current policies and issues in Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, and the United States, as they explore the nature of the relationship among education, poverty, and inequality. The book provides evidence linking school participation, the quality of education for poor children in the Americas, and the impact of education policies to promote social justice.
Download or read book The Society of Equals written by Pierre Rosanvallon and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2013-11-04 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since the 1980s, society’s wealthiest members have claimed an ever-expanding share of income and property. It has been a true counterrevolution, says Pierre Rosanvallon—the end of the age of growing equality launched by the American and French revolutions. And just as significant as the social and economic factors driving this contemporary inequality has been a loss of faith in the ideal of equality itself. An ambitious transatlantic history of the struggles that, for two centuries, put political and economic equality at their heart, The Society of Equals calls for a new philosophy of social relations to reenergize egalitarian politics. For eighteenth-century revolutionaries, equality meant understanding human beings as fundamentally alike and then creating universal political and economic rights. Rosanvallon sees the roots of today’s crisis in the period 1830–1900, when industrialized capitalism threatened to quash these aspirations. By the early twentieth century, progressive forces had begun to rectify some imbalances of the Gilded Age, and the modern welfare state gradually emerged from Depression-era reforms. But new economic shocks in the 1970s began a slide toward inequality that has only gained momentum in the decades since. There is no returning to the days of the redistributive welfare state, Rosanvallon says. Rather than resort to outdated notions of social solidarity, we must instead revitalize the idea of equality according to principles of singularity, reciprocity, and communality that more accurately reflect today’s realities.
Download or read book Pursuing Equal Opportunities written by Lesley A. Jacobs and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2004 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book offers original and innovative contributions to the debate about equality of opportunity. The first part sets out a theory of equality of opportunity that presents equal opportunities as a normative device for the regulation of competition for scarce resources. The second part shifts the focus to the consideration of the practical application by courts or legislatures or public policy makers of policies for addressing racial, class or gender injustices. The author examines standardized tests, affirmative action, workfare, universal health-care, comparable worth, and the economic consequences of divorce.
Download or read book The Undeserving Rich written by Leslie McCall and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2013-03-29 with total page 319 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It is widely assumed that Americans care little about income inequality, believe opportunities abound, admire the rich, and dislike redistributive policies. Leslie McCall contends that such assumptions are based on both incomplete survey data and economic conditions of the past and not present. In fact, Americans have desired less inequality for decades, and McCall's book explains why. Americans become most concerned about inequality in times of inequitable growth, when they view the rich as prospering while opportunities for good jobs, fair pay and high quality education are restricted for everyone else. As a result, they favor policies to expand opportunity and redistribute earnings in the workplace, reducing inequality in the market rather than redistributing income after the fact with tax and spending policies. This book resolves the paradox of how Americans can express little enthusiasm for welfare state policies and still yearn for a more equitable society, and forwards a new model of preferences about income inequality rooted in labor market opportunities rather than welfare state policies.
Download or read book The Promise of Adolescence written by National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2019-07-26 with total page 493 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Adolescenceâ€"beginning with the onset of puberty and ending in the mid-20sâ€"is a critical period of development during which key areas of the brain mature and develop. These changes in brain structure, function, and connectivity mark adolescence as a period of opportunity to discover new vistas, to form relationships with peers and adults, and to explore one's developing identity. It is also a period of resilience that can ameliorate childhood setbacks and set the stage for a thriving trajectory over the life course. Because adolescents comprise nearly one-fourth of the entire U.S. population, the nation needs policies and practices that will better leverage these developmental opportunities to harness the promise of adolescenceâ€"rather than focusing myopically on containing its risks. This report examines the neurobiological and socio-behavioral science of adolescent development and outlines how this knowledge can be applied, both to promote adolescent well-being, resilience, and development, and to rectify structural barriers and inequalities in opportunity, enabling all adolescents to flourish.
Download or read book Educational Equality written by Harry Brighouse and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2010-03-18 with total page 157 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Educational Equality and the New Selective Schooling by Harry Brighouse was initially published by the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain in 2000. In this new edition, Brighouse has updated his argument, Kenneth R Howe and James Tooley have contributed counter-arguments and Graham Haydon has provided an introduction and afterword drawing the debates together. The issues debated in this new edition of Educational Equality include: What is Educational Equality? Why Does Educational Equality Matter? Is Educational Equality Possible? Educational Equality raises issues which will be of interest to all involved in educational equality, including teachers, policy makers and educationalists.
