Middle-Class Political Activism and Middle-Class Advantage in Relation to Public Services: A Realist Synthesis of the Evidence Base
Middle-Class Political Activism and Middle-Class Advantage in Relation to Public Services: A Realist Synthesis of the Evidence Base
复制标题
中产阶级的政治行动主义和中产阶级在公共服务方面的优势：证据基础的现实综合
DOI：
10.1111/j.1467-9515.2012.00866.x
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发表时间：
2013
影响因子：
3.2
通讯作者：
A. Hastings
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
P. Matthews;A. Hastings
自20世纪60年代末以来，社会政策学术一直关注资源或利益在社会不同阶层之间的分配。本文对一种可能产生不平等的机制--中产阶级服务用户的激进主义--使他们能够获得不成比例的资源份额的文献进行了回顾。这项研究使用了现实主义综合的方法，汇集了英国、美国和斯堪的纳维亚国家过去30年的证据。其目的是构建一种“中间理论”，以理解中产阶级服务用户的集体和个人活动如何以及在何种背景下可能产生不公平的资源分配或配给决定，从而使中产阶级服务用户不成比例地受益。这篇文章指出了四种因果关系理论，它们细微差别地认为，正是中产阶级的“尖肘”赋予了这一群体优势。它展示了优势是如何通过服务用户、提供商以及更广泛的政策和社会背景之间的相互作用而产生的。
Since the late 1960s social policy scholarship has been concerned with the distribution of the resources or benefits across social gradients. This article presents a review of the literature on one mechanism by which inequity might be produced – activism by middle-class service-users enabling them to capture a disproportionate share of resources. The review used the methodology of realist synthesis to bring together evidence from the UK, the USA and Scandinavian countries over the past 30 years. The aim was to construct a ‘middle-theory’ to understand how and in which contexts collective and individual activity by middle-class service-users might produce inequitable resource allocation or rationing decisions that disproportionately benefit middle-class service-users. The article identifies four causal theories which nuance the view that it is the ‘sharp elbows’ of the middle-classes which confer advantage on this group. It shows how advantage accrues via the interplay between service-users, providers and the broader policy and social context.