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The Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD), used widely in England, is an important tool for social need and inequality identification. It summarises deprivation across seven dimensions (income, employment, health, education, housing and services, environment, and crime) to measure an area's multidimensional deprivation. The IMD aggregates the dimensions that are differentially weighted using expert judgement. In this paper, we test how close these weights are to society's preferences about the relative importance of each dimension to overall deprivation. There is not agreement in the literature on how to do this. This paper, therefore, develops and compares three empirical methods for estimating preference-based weights. We find the weights are similar across the methods, and between our empirical methods and the current IMD, but our findings suggest a change to two of the weights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper offers to substantiate a claim about the so-called Meritocratic Conception of how educational opportunities ought to be distributed. Such a conception holds an individual's prospects for educational achievement may be a function of that individual's talent or effort levels but should not be influenced by their social class background. The paper highlights the internal tension in the Meritocratic Conception between on the one hand a prohibition on the influence of social class on educational opportunities and on the other a permission to allow unequal educational opportunities on the basis of talent and effort. This tension obtains because individuals' talent and effort are themselves subject to influence by social class. The paper makes a positive case for an interpretation of the Meritocratic Conception that resolves this tension in favour of an egalitarian version, such that social class represents an objectionable determinant of unequal educational prospects even when its influence is mediated through the cultivation of talent and effort. This argument is further supported through an explanation that the character of social class as a systemic social source of the structure of individuals' opportunities makes it an objectionable influence on educational opportunities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Data published by the United Kingdom's Ministry for Justice clearly shows that, compared to persons who were White, members of racial minorities in England, particularly Blacks, were far more likely to be stopped and searched by the police. The question is whether such racial disparity in stops and searches could be justified by racial disparities in offending? Or whether the disparity in stop and searches exceeded the disparity in offending? This paper proposes a method for measuring the amount of excess in racial disparity in police stop and searches. Using the most recently published Ministry of Justice data (for 2007/08) for Police Areas in England and Wales it concludes that while in several Areas there was no excess to racial disparity in police stop and searches, there was, on the basis of the methodology proposed in the paper, evidence of such excess in some Police Areas of England and Wales. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes and analyses the work of a large scale improvement project in England in order to find more effective ways of fostering equity within education systems. The project involved an approach based on an analysis of local context, and used processes of networking and collaboration in order to make better use of available expertise. Reflecting on the impact and difficulties involved in using such an approach, the paper draws out lessons that may be relevant to other contexts. Consideration is also given to the implications for policy makers, practitioners and community stakeholders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The challenge for the twenty-first century for oral health is to reduce the social inequality observed in populations. This challenge has been made explicit by the Department of Health (DH) in England. Turning rhetoric into reality is difficult for all concerned whatever field or profession. A cohesive model that embraces philosophical ideals can help individuals achieve change as it provides structure on which to develop ideas. This paper describes a model of care in general dental practice that fits the requirements of the DoH in addressing social inequalities, in the context of developing general dental services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is well known that children of immigrants experience inequality. Less is known about how inequalities compare across multiple life domains and multiple generations. We conduct a case study of England and Wales, focussing on children of Caribbean immigrants (the 'Windrush generation'). We use large-scale census data to compare inequalities across five domains of life—education, employment, occupation, housing, and health—separately for women and men across three distinct generations: the one-point-five generation, second-generation, and two-point-five generation. The children of the Windrush generation experience social inequality in all life domains, relative to comparable groups of the White British population, although there is considerable variation according to sex and generation. Men of all generations are uniformly disadvantaged; children of the Windrush are more disadvantaged if they belong to the two-point-five generation. Inequality is pervasive, persistent, and strongly indicative of segmented adaptation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The relative prevalence of common mental health problems among different ethnic groups in Britain is one of the least researched topics in health variations research. We calculate and compare income-related inequalities in common mental disorders among ethnic groups in Britain. Method: Data from a nationally representative survey of ethnic minorities (the EMPIRIC survey) were used to calculate concentration index values to indicate the extent of income-related inequalities within and across ethnic groups. Results: Looking at income-related inequalities in common mental disorders within each of the ethnic groups, it was found that the burden of these disorders were greater for the lower income groups among the Irish, White and African Caribbean communities. Within-group inequality was less clearly defined for each of the three Asian communities: Indian, Bangladeshi and Pakistani. However, when the data were pooled and individuals were assigned income ranks in the pooled set (not within their own ethnic group), the relative position of those in lower income groups among the different groups was striking. The poor among the Bangladeshi, Pakistani and the African Caribbean groups clearly suffered both from low income and a greater burden of mental health morbidity than the other three groups. The effect of lower income is thus worse for the mental health of populations if they are African Caribbean, Pakistani or Bangladeshi than if they are White, Irish or Indian. Conclusion: Inequality in mental health morbidity between and within ethnic groups is at least partly linked to income, and thus to employment and education. Tackling disadvantage and discrimination in these areas could help to tackle the challenge of mental ill-health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much of the excitement generated in Britain since 2007 by the York Archaeological Trust's excavations of the city's Hungate neighborhood, which Benjamin Seebohm Rowntree characterized as a 'slum' in his pioneering poverty survey of 1901, derives from the unexpected volume and variety of material evidence uncovered about life in a poor community within a modern industrial city. Such material evidence and its often uncertain relationships to other historical data can enhance analysis by complicating understanding of the past, rather than echoing conventional wisdom. Findings from Hungate can thus contribute to nuanced understandings of urban social disadvantage not only at the neighborhood level in this one particular British city, but at the larger scales of analysis that encompass the growth of cities and interacting urban regions in Britain and around the world during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. These understandings have contemporary relevance for a world in which over half of humanity now lives in urban areas, as misconceptions about 'slums' continue to undermine efforts to reduce urban inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The policy of the Federal Bureau of Prisons in the United States is to show equal respect for all religious faiths, but the Prison Service Chaplaincy of England and Wales employs only Christian chaplains and is effectively controlled by the “established” Church of England. Recent empirical research shows that prisoners who belong to minority faith communities and new religious movements in England and Wales do not enjoy equality of opportunity to practice their religion. For example, their religious and spiritual needs are met by volunteer Visiting Ministers, who in turn must rely on full-time Christian chaplains to facilitate their access to prisoners, meeting rooms, and religious artifacts. This dependency gives rise to feelings of resentment, unjust discrimination, and marginalization among members of minority faith communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]