Understanding Inequalities

世界各国政府越来越意识到不平等造成的社会和经济问题。不仅仅是收入不平等引起了人们的关注，不平等的不同方面——在健康、教育、就业和犯罪方面——如何结合起来使特定群体变得贫困，并加深了社会的分裂。就某些类型的不平等而言，苏格兰的表现比可比国家更糟糕，尤其是在自杀、凶杀、过度拥挤和贫困儿童方面。因此，苏格兰政府启动了一项国家战略，以创建一个“更公平的苏格兰”。然而，要使这一倡议取得成功，就需要有确凿的证据，而这些证据是基于对不平等的不同层面如何随着时间的推移而相互作用和变化的充分了解。我们在这个项目中的目标是通过在如何理解不平等的多维性质方面取得世界领先的进展，在苏格兰证据库的质量和有用性方面实现一个阶段性的改变。我们与地方和国家层面的政策制定者紧密合作，旨在支持、指导和告知政府政策，以期真正减少社会不平等。我们的项目被称为AMMISS：分析苏格兰社会的多维度和多尺度不平等。它代表了一个雄心勃勃和创新的研究计划，将以比以前更深入和更联合的方式探索苏格兰社会中社会不平等的原因和后果。它是“多维的”，因为我们将探讨多种形式的不平等（例如，健康状况不佳、教育成就低、容易犯罪、无法进入劳动力市场、社会流动性差）。通过前沿分析，我们将帮助决策者了解这些不同的维度是如何相互作用影响生活机会的。它是“多尺度”的，因为从单一的地理或社会单位层面来看不平等，可能会导致对不平等的扭曲理解。因此，了解不平等如何在空间（如社区和城市）和社会（如个人和家庭）的不同层面上产生影响尤为重要。我们的新方法将使我们能够以一种真正联合的方式分析多维度和多尺度不平等的原因和影响，充分利用苏格兰世界级的行政和调查数据。联合国维和行动有两个主要主题。首先，我们将探索社区对人们如何体验不平等的影响方式，以及苏格兰城市贫困模式的变化如何影响这些体验；例如，通过影响进入劳动力市场和暴露于犯罪。我们还将研究不断变化的种族混合如何影响教育成就和受害经历。其次，我们将调查不平等如何影响个人的一生；例如，童年早期的经历如何影响以后生活中经历的社会不平等。我们还将探讨为什么一些“高风险”人群和社区对社会不平等保持“弹性”，并在逆境中取得积极成果。为了理解如此广泛的问题，我们汇集了一群来自不同研究领域的国际知名专家。这将使我们能够开展解决不平等问题所需的创新和有见地的研究。与苏格兰各地的一系列组织密切合作，包括中央和地方政府以及慈善机构，将为创新提供许多机会，并确保我们的工作对实现更公平的社会相关和有用。我们的目标是帮助那些有影响力的人实现真正的变革。通过使苏格兰成为不平等研究的典范，我们的工作有可能影响和激励政策，以减少世界各地的社会不平等。

Governments across the world have become increasingly aware of the social and economic problems caused by inequality. It's not just income inequality that is cause for concern but how different aspects of inequality-in health, education, employment and crime-combine to impoverish particular groups, and deepen divisions in society. For certain types of inequality, Scotland fares worse than comparable countries, particularly with respect to suicide, homicide, overcrowding and children living in poverty. As a result, the Scottish Government has launched a national strategy to create a 'Fairer Scotland'. For this initiative to be successful, however, it needs to have solid evidence which is based on a well-informed understanding of how the different dimensions of inequality interact and change over time. Our goal in this project is to achieve a step change in the quality and usefulness of the evidence base in Scotland by developing world-leading advances in how the multi-dimensional nature of inequality is understood. Working closely with policy makers at local and national level, we aim to support, guide and inform government policies with a view to achieving a genuine reduction in social inequalities. Our project is called AMMISS: Analysing Multi-Dimensional and Multi-Scale Inequalities in Scottish Society. It represents an ambitious and innovative research programme that will explore the causes and consequences of social inequalities in Scottish society in a much deeper and more joined-up way than has been achieved before. It is 'multi-dimensional' because we will explore multiple forms of inequality (e.g. poor health, low educational achievement, exposure to crime, failure to access the labour market, poor social mobility). Developing cutting-edge analysis we shall help policy makers understand how these different dimensions interact to affect life chances. It is 'multi-scale' because looking at inequality for a single level of geography or social unit can lead to a distorted understanding of inequality. So it is particularly important that we understand how inequalities impact at different levels both spatially (e.g. communities and cities) and socially (e.g. individuals and families). Our novel approach will allow us to analyse the causes and effects of multi-dimensional and multi-scale inequalities in a truly joined-up way, taking full advantage of Scotland's world-class administrative and survey data.AMMISS has two main themes. First, we will explore the way in which the neighbourhoods impact on how people experience inequalities and how changing patterns of poverty in Scottish cities impact on those experiences; for example, by affecting access to the labour market and exposure to crime. We will also examine how changing ethnic mix affects educational achievement and experiences of victimisation. Second, we will investigate how inequality impacts individuals over the course of their lives; for example, how experiences in early childhood affect social inequalities experienced later in life. We will also explore why some 'high risk' people and neighbourhoods remain 'resilient' to social inequalities, achieving positive outcomes against the odds. To make sense of such a broad range of issues we have brought together an impressive group of internationally recognised experts from various different areas of research. This will allow us to develop the innovative and insightful research needed to tackle inequality. Working closely with a range of organisations across Scotland, including central and local government and charities, will provide many opportunities for innovation and ensure that our work is relevant and useful for achieving a fairer society. Our ambition is to help those in positions of influence achieve real change. By making Scotland an exemplar for inequalities research, our work has the potential to influence and inspire policies to reduce social inequality around the world.