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Implicit Terror: A Natural Experiment on How Terror Attacks Affect Implicit Bias

By on April 9, 2024 in Articles

Filip Olsson

Sociological Science April 9, 2024
10.15195/v11.a14

Abstract

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Sociology has recently seen a surge of interest in implicit culture, which refers to knowledge, habits, and feelings that are largely automatic and habitual. In this article, I argue that certain expressions of implicit culture may be more contextual and malleable than previously thought. The argument is illustrated by showing how terror attacks in France affect implicit bias toward Arab Muslims. By analyzing the longevity and specificity of this effect, I also detail when and why implicit bias might change. The article consists of two studies. Study 1 shows that the attacks significantly increased implicit bias in France (n = 449), whereas Study 2 shows that the attacks had a similar effect globally (n = 25795). There was no corresponding effect on explicit bias in either study. I discuss the implications of the findings for research on terror attacks, implicit bias, and implicit culture.
Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Filip Olsson: Department of Sociology, Stockholm University
E-mail: filip.olsson@sociology.su.se

Acknowledgements: I am thankful to Magnus Bygren, Moa Bursell, and Daniel Ritter for insightful comments and suggestions.

Supplemental Material

Replication Package: All data used are publicly available at https://osf.io/y9hiq/ and https://osf.io/kaqi5/. A replication package with R code is available at https://osf.io/j5wxu/

  • Citation: Olsson, Filip. 2024. “Implicit Terror: A Natural Experiment on How Terror Attacks Affect Implicit Bias.” Sociological Science 11: 379-412.
  • Received: January 17, 2024
  • Accepted: March 6, 2024
  • Editors: Arnout van de Rijt, Stephen Vaisey
  • DOI: 10.15195/v11.a14


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Educational Tracking and the Polygenic Prediction of Education

By on March 18, 2024 in Articles

Hannu Lahtinen, Pekka Martikainen, Kaarina Korhonen, Tim Morris, Mikko Myrskylä

Sociological Science March 18, 2024
10.15195/v11.a8

Abstract

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Educational systems that separate students into curriculum tracks later may place less emphasis on socioeconomic family background and allow individuals’ personal skills and interests more time to manifest. We tested whether postponing tracking from age 11 to 16 results in stronger genetic prediction of education across a population, exploiting the natural experiment of the Finnish comprehensive school reform between 1972 and 1977. The association between polygenic score of education and achieved education strengthened after the reform by one-third among men and those from low-educated families. We observed no evidence for reform effect among women or those from high-educated families. The first cohort experiencing the new system had the strongest increases. From the perspective of genetic prediction, the school reform promoted equality of opportunity and optimal allocation of human capital. The results also suggest that turbulent circumstances, including puberty or ongoing restructuring of institutional practices, may strengthen genetic associations in education.
Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Hannu Lahtinen: Population Research Unit, University of Helsinki; Max Planck – University of Helsinki Center for Social Inequalities in Population Health, Helsinki, Finland
E-mail: hannu.lahtinen@helsinki.fi

Pekka Martikainen: Population Research Unit, University of Helsinki; Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany; Max Planck – University of Helsinki Center for Social Inequalities in Population Health, Helsinki, Finland
E-mail: pekka.martikainen@helsinki.fi

Kaarina Korhonen: Population Research Unit, University of Helsinki; Max Planck – University of Helsinki Center for Social Inequalities in Population Health, Helsinki, Finland
E-mail: kaarina.korhonen@helsinki.fi

Tim Morris: Centre for Longitudinal Studies, Social Research Institute, University College London
E-mail: t.t.morris@ucl.ac.uk

Mikko Myrskylä: Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany; University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland; Max Planck – University of Helsinki Center for Social Inequalities in Population Health, Rostock, Germany and Helsinki, Finland
E-mail: myrskyla@demogr.mpg.de

Acknowledgements: Special thanks for Aysu Okbay for providing education GWAS summary results excluding overlapping samples. We also thank the Finnish National Agency for Education for providing municipal-specific school-reform implementation years. The genetic samples used for the research were obtained from the THL Biobank (study number: THLBB2020_8), and we thank all study participants for their generous participation in the THL Biobank.

Supplemental Material

Replication Package: Instructions for data access and code to reproduce the analysis can be found at https://github.com/halahti/SocSci23

  • Citation: Lahtinen, Hannu, Pekka Martikainen, Kaarina Korhonen, Tim Morris, and Mikko Myrskylä. 2024. “Educational tracking and the polygenic prediction of education.” Sociological Science 11: 186-213.
  • Received: September 19, 2023
  • Accepted: October 31, 2023
  • Editors: Arnout van de Rijt, Nan Dirk de Graaf
  • DOI: 10.15195/v11.a8


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Does Schooling Affect Socioeconomic Inequalities in Educational Attainment? Evidence from a Natural Experiment in Germany

By on November 20, 2023 in Articles

Michael Grätz

Sociological Science November 20, 2023
10.15195/v10.a31

Abstract

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Critical theories of education and the dynamics of skill formation model predict that the education system reproduces socioeconomic inequalities in educational attainment. Previous empirical studies comparing changes in socioeconomic inequalities in academic performance over the summer to changes in these inequalities during the school year have argued, however, that schooling reduces inequalities in educational performance. The present study highlights the question of whether schooling affects socioeconomic inequalities in educational attainment by analyzing a natural experiment that induces exogenous variation in the length of schooling and allowed me to investigate the causal, long-term effects of the length of schooling on inequalities in educational attainment. Some German states moved the school start from spring to summer in 1966/1967 and introduced two short school years, each of which was three months shorter than a regular school year. I use variation in the short school years across cohorts and states to estimate the causal effects of the length of schooling on socioeconomic inequalities in educational attainment based on two German panel surveys. Less schooling due to the short school years did not affect inequalities in educational attainment. This finding runs counter to the results from the summer learning literature and to the predictions of the dynamics of skill formation model and critical theories of education. I conclude by discussing the implications of this finding for our understanding of socioeconomic inequalities in educational attainment.
Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Michael Grätz: Swiss Centre for Expertise in Life Course Research LIVES, University of Lausanne, Swedish Institute for Social Research SOFI, Stockholm University
E-mail: michael.gratz@unil.ch

Acknowledgements: This work was supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) under grant agreements PZ00P1_180128 and TMSGI1_211627 and by the Forskningsrådet om Hälsa, Arbetsliv och Välfärd (Forte) under grant agreement 2016-0709. Earlier versions of this study were presented at the University of Berne, the University of Antwerp, the Annual Conference of the European Consortium for Sociological Research, and the conference of the Akademie für Soziologie in 2021 as well as the Research Committee 28 of the International Sociological Association conference in London in 2022. I thank these participants as well as my colleagues at the University of Lausanne and Stockholm University for their comments and suggestions. I am particularly grateful for detailed suggestions from Andreas Diemer, Jörg Dollmann, Chaïm LaRoi, and Richard Nennstiel. This paper uses data from the National Educational Panel Study (NEPS): Starting Cohort Adults doi:10.5157/NEPS:SC6:11.1.0). From 2008 to 2013, NEPS data were collected as part of the Framework Program for the Promotion of Empirical Educational Research funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). As of 2014, NEPS has been carried out by the Leibniz Institute for Educational Trajectories (LIfBi) at the University of Bamberg in cooperation with a nationwide network. The SOEP data were collected by the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW).

Supplemental Material

  • Citation: Grätz, Michael. 2023. “Does Schooling Affect Socioeconomic Inequalities in Educational Attainment? Evidence from a Natural Experiment in Germany.” Sociological Science 10: 880–902.
  • Received: May 20, 2023
  • Accepted: September 10, 2023
  • Editors: Arnout van de Rijt, Jeremy Freese
  • DOI: 10.15195/v10.a31


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