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Objective/context: In the camping trip model, Gerald Cohen proposes two principles which would be desirable for socialism: a principle of radical equality of opportunities and community principle. Against this model, the liberal objection condemns its goal monism; the objection about motivations holds that self-interest prevails over practices based on selfless reciprocity; and the anarcho-capitalist objection denounces a fallacious comparison and the idealization of human nature. This article seeks to rebut all three objections, by arguing a) that there is no such goal monism since the principles are not goals and, moreover, they allow much room for self-realization; b) that a self-interested expectation of reciprocity is not a sine qua non precondition to enter the camping-trip and that noninstrumental reciprocity is a device of assurance within the community principle; and c) that the Cohenite model does not presuppose morally perfect persons –since it anticipates regrettable and risky choices–, nor does it commit the fallacy of comparing ideal socialism with real capitalism. Methodology: The argumentation is developed according to the analytic method, in keeping with the standards employed in post-Rawlsian contemporary political theory. Conclusions: The camping-trip model does not fall into goal-monism, nor into a wrong characterization of motivations, nor into the utopianism of conceiving morally perfect subjects. Originality. This defense of the Cohenite model against the three objections reinforces its robustness and permits to understand it as an attempt of reconciling luck egalitarianism with fraternal or relational egalitarianism.

Does social mobility foster political stability? While there is a vibrant literature on the effect of economic inequality on political unrest, the recent literature has remained silent about the effect of social mobility on instability. Yet, inequality and social mobility, although related, are fundamentally distinct, and immobility is likely to be perceived as even more unfair than inequality, meaning that it may generate at least as much grievances. In this article, I argue that social immobility fuels political instability. To test this hypothesis, I develop an indicator of social mobility covering more than 100 countries worldwide. I then conduct the first large-N cross-national test of the effect of social mobility on political instability to date. Consistent with my argument, I find that countries with low social mobility levels are more likely to experience riots, general strikes, antigovernment demonstrations, political assassinations, guerillas, revolutions, and civil wars.

Framed by historical and contemporary discussions, this article reviews the principal foundations of meritocracy and uses the public University of California system as a point of departure for examining the connection between meritocracy and higher education within the context of the United States. Through consideration of four dimensions that inform the concept of meritocracy-merit, distributive justice, equality of opportunity, and social mobility-this review examines the underlying tenets of meritocracy to better understand how higher education functions within it. In The Coming of Post-Industrial Society, Daniel Bell (1973) suggested that higher education would become a \"defensive necessity.\" However, if colleges and universities are to serve as instruments for creating and expanding opportunity, then higher education must be more profound than simply being reduced to \"defensive necessity,\" and it is important for researchers to examine more closely the theoretical concerns of meritocracy and the higher education implications. (HRK / Abstract übernommen).

PurposeThe aims of this study are to identify and analyse prevalent gender roles and the persistence of sexist stereotypes among teachers in training in Spain, to determine the reasons for them and suggest solutions for eradicating sexist prejudices.Design/methodology/approachA gender role questionnaire was administered to 1260 workers from 54 different professions who were enrolled on a postgraduate training course to qualify as secondary education teachers. The instrument contained six variables for both quantitative and qualitative analysis: professional work, family (looking after children), feelings and emotions, household chores, body image and free time.FindingsHousehold chores, looking after children and gender roles linked to body image were those most indicated by both men and women. It is concluded that men participate little in bringing up children and household chores and that women continue to shoulder the responsibility. Both are concerned about their body image, but women have little self-acceptance of and satisfaction with their bodies and a stronger sense of being judged by how they look. Gender stereotypes persist, despite extensive legislation in Spain since 2004.Research limitations/implicationsThe study has limitations deriving from its choice of convenience sampling. Although it includes participants from six Spanish autonomous communities, the number from each region is not very high. Nevertheless, the sample is representative of almost all branches of knowledge (54 professions). Another limitation concerns the images used in the research instrument as a data collection strategy insofar, as they could not be obtained from a data bank specific to the research subject but instead had to be found in databases of general images. It can be inferred that a data collection strategy without any danger of bias would be to encourage each participant to design their own images, reflecting their perceptions and auto-perceptions of gender roles and stereotypes. The fact that there were no pre-existing studies using this type of research instrument in education sciences was a handicap for the investigation. Despite these methodological limitations, the results of the study may serve as a basis for implementing specific future actions originating from any area – but especially from the area of education – aimed at teaching people about equal roles in order to eliminate sexist sterotypes. This research was carried out as part of the Proyecto Diseño y Atención a las Oportunidades de Género en la Educación Superior (Project on Design and Gender Equality of Opportunities in Higher Education) funded by the Vicerrectorado de Cooperación al Desarrollo (Office for University Cooperation for Development) at the University of Alicante (Spain).Practical implicationsSpanish legislation has not been able to promote significant changes in the performance of traditional gender roles or to eliminate sexist stereotypes that perpetuate imbalances between men and women. The ideal and prevalent model of a Spanish woman is still that of a “self-sacrificing mother”, responsible for the household chores and childcare. She must combine this first job with a second profession, and, in addition, she must have a “desirable physical image”. The study puts forward various possible solutions for reducing and/or eradicating sexist attitudes with the participation of different social agents and in particular through education. The investigation could be of use when carrying out specific cross-sectional interventions on the subject of gender equality with students on postgraduate teacher training courses, for the purposes of encouraging the elimination of stereotypes and strengthening the capacity for critical judgement, positive self-concept and self-esteem.Originality/valueThe study may be useful for carrying out specific and transversal university training interventions in postgraduate teacher training on gender equality aimed at promoting the elimination of stereotypes, the strengthening of critical judgement capacity, positive self-concept and self-esteem.

This paper presents a model considering intergenerational occupational mobility as the joint outcome of three main determinants: income incentives, equality of opportunity and changes in the composition of occupations. The model, rationalising the use of transition matrices to measure occupational mobility, allows for identifying asymmetric mobility patterns and constructing a specific mobility index for each determinant. The empirical application of our model to Italy suggests that intergenerational mobility increased from the cohort of children born in the period 1940-1951 to the one born in the period 1952-1965, then to remain at the same level for the cohort of children born in the period 1966-1977. This steady mobility, however, hides i) lower structural mobility, caused by a declining trend in the composition of occupations in favour of upper-middle classes; ii) less upward mobility for those whose fathers were in the lower class; and iii) higher downward mobility from upper-middle classes, both caused by a decrease in the income incentives. Equality of opportunity is low and constant for those born after 1951.

Equality of opportunity is about leveling the playing field so that circumstances such as gender, ethnicity, place of birth, or family background do not influence a person's life chances. Success in life should depend on people's choices, effort and talents, not to their circumstances at birth. 'Measuring Inequality of Opportunities in Latin America and the Caribbean' introduces new methods for measuring inequality of opportunities and makes an assessment of its evolution in Latin America over a decade. An innovative Human Opportunity Index and other parametric and non-parametric techniques are presented for quantifying inequality based on circumstances exogenous to individual efforts. These methods are applied to gauge inequality of opportunities in access to basic services for children, learning achievement for youth, and income and consumption for adults.

New technological advances and globalization have undoubtedly given rise to new forms of learning. Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), which are a kind of evolution on e-learning, have the endorsement of prestigious universities around the world, and are transforming the traditional teaching–learning process. In Ecuador, these online courses are based on the Basic General Education system and are neither popular among students nor widely used by teachers in their teaching method, thus, this teaching system is not considered as an official qualification. The inclusion of this tool in the Ecuadorian educational system as a learning resource would expand access to equal opportunities to students and teachers from all over the country. Therefore, our proposal is to use the MOOCs as a source with all the instructional contents of the subject and as classwork based on the flipped-classroom method. In this way, such resources can be an aid to traditional high school classes, and the average grade achieved by students through this platform, as well as the student’s participation, may be part of the formal evaluation system in any institution. With the purpose of measuring the level of confidence in online education and the usage of MOOCs as a tool for teachers’ work, a descriptive and analytical approach has been taken in this study. A quantitative survey was administered to 696 Basic General Education teachers who took used this type of course. The results of this investigation show that 93.9% of the teachers trust the online education; 89% are ready to use MOOCs as a teaching–learning resource and 79% would use MOOCs as part of the final grade. These data prove that MOOCs could be a complementary tool for Basic General Education in Ecuador, so they could contribute to improve learning outcomes and the development of traditional education.

In the 1840’s, due to Luigi Taparelli and Antonio Rosmini, the term of “social justice” emerged. Since that time, its meaning has developed in many ways. The author, in inevitably approximate analyses, tries to show the specificity of particular types of meanings assigned to the notion of “social justice”. In the literature of the subject, one can find numerous identifications of “social justice”. The article focuses on the identity of this term with the ideas of social equality or solidarity. It also considers aspects of equality applied to opportunities and rights.

'Microclasses', detailed occupational groups, have recently been suggested as being the basis of research in social stratification; occupations represent 'real' social groups in contrast to the purely 'nominal' categories of either 'big class' schemata or socio-economic status scales. The microclass approach in social mobility research has been applied in a recent paper, the authors claiming to show that a strong propensity exists for intergenerational occupational inheritance, and that such inheritance is the dominant factor in social reproduction and limits equality of opportunity. We model a larger version of the same Swedish dataset as used by these authors. We show: (i) that while with many occupational groups a marked degree of intergenerational inheritance occurs among men, such inheritance is far less apparent among women, and, for both men and women, accounts for less than half of the total association in the occupational mobility table; (ii) that the microclass approach does not deal in a theoretically consistent way with the remaining associational underlying patterns of occupational mobility, since appeal is made to the theoretically alien idea of 'socio-economic closeness'; and (iii) that a standard class approach, modified to account for occupational inheritance, can provide a more integrated understanding of patterns of immobility and mobility alike. We also give reasons for doubting whether it will prove possible to establish a theoretically consistent microclass approach to explaining intergenerational mobility propensities. Finally, on the basis of our empirical results and of the relevant philosophical literature, we argue that the microclass approach is unlikely to be helpful in addressing normative questions of equality of opportunity.