Defining Social Cohesion

1. Education, Equality and Social Cohesion: Presentation for IP 15 Sep 2006Andy Green Institute of educationLondon University

2. Defining Social Cohesion • Social cohesion is a term widely used but rarely defined. To most people it probably signifies, at the minimum, a relatively harmonious society characterised by low rates of crime and high levels of civic co-operation and trust. Whether it should also mean a society of high tolerance towards others, including other cultures and religions, is not so clear to many people, including those who would see cultural homogeneity as a precondition for trust and co-operation • . Whether, in addition, such a society needs to be relatively equal, in terms of incomes and opportunities, is also debated.

3. Defining Social Cohesion • fuzzy concept – includes: • shared norms and values • shared identity and belonging • continuity and stability • risk sharing • equitable distribution • strong civil society

4. According to Jane Jensen: ‘The term social cohesion is used to describe a process more than a condition or end state … it is seen as involving a sense of commitment, and a desire or capacity to live together in harmony.’ (1998, p.1) For Jensen this does not necessarily involve widely shared values, since too much ‘bonding’ and value conformity can lead to stagnation and closed communities. But it does rely on the legitimacy of democratic institutions, on effective institutional mechanisms for intermediating conflict, and on active civic participation. For

5. Judith Maxwell, on the other hand, ‘social cohesion involves building shared values and communities of interpretation, reducing disparities in wealth and income, and generally enabling people to have a sense that they are engaged in a common enterprise, facing shared challenges, and that they are members of the same community.’ (1986, p. 3)

6. Defining Social Cohesion • Liberal tradition emphasises strong civil society, opportunity and individual rights • Conservative tradition emphasis tradition, the stable, ‘organic’ social order (social hierarchy), strong national identity • Social democratic tradition emphasises role of state and (welfare) institutions in underpinning social solidarity • Social Conflict/emancipatory models – solidaristic subordinated groups contest power relations to redress inequalities and promote long-term cohesion

7. Education, Citizenship and Social Cohesion in Historical Perspective Concern with education effects on citizenship and social cohesion has long history: • origins of mass education in Europe lie in process of state formation • forming citizens • establishing national languages • moulding national identity • Education as Socialisation

8. Normative Term? It is used as such in Policy Discourse but not all forms of social Cohesion are necessarily desirable depending on your point of view: • Banfield – ‘amoral familiarism’ • Mancur Olson – ‘schlerotic socieites ‘ • Paternalistic statism – S’pore Better use the term analytically: ‘Regimes of Social Cohesion

9. Baron Dubin, writing in Prussia in 1826: ‘Practically all modern nations are now awake to the fact that education is the most potent means of development of the essentials of nationality.’ (quoted in Fuller and Robinson 1992, p.52) Emile Durkheim : ‘Society can only exist if there exists among its members a sufficient degree of homogeneity. Education perpetuates and reinforces this homogeneity by fixing in the child, from the beginning, the essential similarities that collective life demands.’ (Durkheim 1992, p.51)

10. Post WW2 Major Powers wary of using education for nation building New states still do In developed countries education for citizenship formation increasingly replaced by education for skills formation (human capital arguments since 1960s. Recently – in face of globalisation and social fragmentation citizen education making a come back – but in a new form.

11. Social Capital Theory Notion of Social Capital first developed by Piere Bourdieu James Coleman examined effects of social capital on education. Coleman defines social capital in term of bounded local communities Economists take up social capital theory as extension of rational choice theory and classical economic paradigms into the social domain.

12. Robert Putnam and Social CapitalPutnam defines SC as: ‘features of social life – networks, norms and trust – that enable to participants to act together more effectively to pursue shared objectives’‘Other things being equal people who trust their fellow citizens volunteer more often, contribute more readily to charity, participate more often in politics and community organizations, serve more readily on juries, give blood more frequently, comply more fully with their tax obligations, are more tolerant of minority views, and display many other forms of civic virtue’ Extensive data on SC indicators and trends showing that SC capital has been in sharp decline in the USA since the 1960s

13. Education effects on Social CapitalEducation, says Putnam, has a powerful effect on SC being strongest predictor of membership, trusting and political participation, regardless of age, gender, race and class.‘Highly Educated people are more likely to be joiners and trusters, partly because they are better off financially, but mostly because of their skills, resources, and inclinations that were imparted to them at home and at school.’

14. Putnam’s Paradoxes • SC accumulates very slowly, yet in precipitous decline in USA • Education is powerful generator of social capital yet SC is in decline in US despite rising levels of education • Putnam’s explanation in terms of generational effects has no societal analysis • Association is key to SC and the USA has highest levels in the world, yet the USA is hardly a cohesive society

15. The Problem of AssociationAssociation is the key to social capital for Putnam yet association does not necessarily generate social cohesion at the societal level – depends on the type of associationNarrowly self-interested or exclusive associations can breed trust internally but distrust outside.In practise Putnam’s quantitative analysis doesn’t distinguish between ‘bonding’ and ‘bridging’ forms of social capitalPutnam finds that gross levels of association are in decline, but other analysts argue that encompassing association is declining; single-function/issue association is increasing – Francis Fukuyama: ‘Moral miniaturization’.

16. The Limits of Individual level Analysis • Relevant only to communities • Doesn’t address inter-community relations • No societal analysis • No analysis of power relations, institutions and state. • Approach limited by narrow methodological individualism

17. A Comparative Societal Approach • Analyses society level factors including institutions and cultures • Addresses inter-community relations as well as in-group bonding • Analyses factors invisible at individual level ie distributional characteristics • Sees all relations as context-bound – ie specific to places and times • Uses appropriate indicators

18. Appropriate Societal IndicatorsPutnam argues that joining, engagement, trust and civic cooperation all correlate at the individual level, and thus form a single property – Social CapitalHowever, the aggregates of these do not co-vary nationally – high trust countries do not necessarily have high levels of association;Countries with high levels of association like the USA do not have high levels of trust.

20. Relationships between SC aggregatesTrust in others, trust in institutions and crime co-vary across countries (with civic cooperation according to Knack and Keefer)No relation between association and trust

21. Education and Social Cohesion Measures Using IALS test score aggregates for each country we find: • No significant correlations between national skills levels and social cohesion measures • Societal cultural and institutional characteristics may outweigh learning effects

22. Education Effects Hypothesis Gross levels of Education are not main cause of cross-national levels of social cohesion National variations in social cohesion affected by: • Forms of socialization achieved by education • Distribution of learning outcomes (skills) via income distribution

23. Learning effects on social cohesion Labour market structures: Union density and compass Reach of collective agreements Minimum wage Income dispersal Dispersal of outcomes Social Cohesion Trust Civic cooperation Learning Socialization

26. Skills Distribution and Social Cohesion • Levels of inequality in skills distribution in each country are measured from IALS literacy scores data using test scores ratios. • Educational inequality strongly correlates with general trust (r=-.592, p=.020) • No significant correlation with association

27. Education and Income equality Using test score ratios for educational inequality and Gini coefficients for income inequality, we find: • Strong correlation between levels of educational inequality and income inequality across countries (r=.650, p=.009)

28. Income Inequality and Social CohesionHigher levels of income inequality are associated with lower levels of social cohesion in terms of lower levels of general trust (r=-.547, p=.035), higher actual violent crime (r=.640, p=.010) and higher perceived risk of crime (r=.636, p=.020)

29. Income inequality and association • Higher levels of income inequality are associated with higher levels of associational membership in an extended sample of countries (r=.527, p=.010) • These correlations remain significant when “controls” for GNP / capita are introduced

30. Source Andy Green, John Preston and Germ Janmaat, Education, Equality and Social Cohesion, Palgrave, Basingstoke, 2006.