The Sociology Seminar: Thursdays

Time: 12:00 am – 13:15 pm
Date: 21th of June 2018
Place: Room 3105, ENSAE.
Dingeman WIERTZ (University of Oxford) – “Civic Inequalities across the United States: Civic Deserts, Civic Hotspots, and Their Persistence over Time“
 
Abstract :
Local areas vary significantly in their civic traditions (e.g., prevalence of volunteering, density of non-profit organizations), with potential implications for the well-being of communities as well as their residents. Against this background, and focusing on the United States since the turn of the century, our study addresses two related questions. First, we assess whether gaps in volunteering across states and metropolitan areas are closing or widening over time, finding in fact a remarkable degree of stability in these spatial disparities. Second, we examine how this stability can be explained, by zooming in on the individual-level volunteering dynamics that underlie the observed area-level variation. In particular, we test the role of network mechanisms whereby “civic-rich” areas get richer and “civic-poor” areas get poorer, as well as various forces that may weaken such diverging trends. While our analyses can partially explain the observed durability of civic disparities across local areas, we highlight further steps that may yield enriched insights.
Organizers :
Marine HADDAD, Nicolas ROBETTE, Sander WAGNER (Laboratoire de sociologie quantitative – CREST)
Sponsors :
CREST