Title: Vernon Gayle Professor of Sociology School of Applied Social Science University of Stirling
1Vernon GayleProfessor of Sociology School of
Applied Social ScienceUniversity of Stirling
- - A summary of your academic history and
foundations - - Where you would like to take your research in
future - - How you will build your research within the
context of St Andrews - vernon.gayle_at_stir.ac.uk
- www.staff.stir.ac.uk/vernon.gayle/
- www.dass.stir.ac.uk/staff/showstaff.php?id28
2Summary of Academic History and Foundations
- Sociologist by training
- In an Applied Social Science Department since
1994 - Working alongside non-survey based researchers
- Inter and multidisciplinary researcher
- Geographers, economists, statisticians, computer
scientists, health - Research based on detailed empirical analyses
- Large-scale social surveys (especially
longitudinal data) - Multivariate statistical analysis
- Emphasis on advanced techniques
3Ongoing Collaborations with St Andrews
- Secondment to the Longitudinal Studies Centre
Scotland (2003-6) - Galvanise the already successful set of
collaborative arrangements and rapidly make
substantial progress - Boyle, Graham, Feng, Feijten and Flowerdew
- Work in longitudinal data, migration, fertility
and family life - 5 ESRC funded awards (research and knowledge
exchange) 6 publications 13 conference
presentations 4 research reports 6 ESRC funded
consultancies
4Longitudinal Data
- Longitudinal data are not a panacea
- For many analyses cross-sectional data are
suitable - Most analyses can be improved when longitudinal
data are incorporated - I argue that some research questions require
longitudinal data - Flows into and out of poverty
- The effects of family migration on womans
subsequent employment activities - Evaluating policy interventions
- Investigating individual development
5Moving to St Andrews
- Developing spatial elements in my work
- Intellectual ambition is to develop suitable
collaborations with social geographers in order
to provide more comprehensive analyses of both
the temporal and the spatial elements of
contemporary social life
6Some Current Research Areas
- Sociological / Educational research in social
stratification - youth transitions, education, occupations
- Research in human geography
- family migration, ESRC Centre for Population
Change - Methodology
- better communicating results, quasi-variance,
missing data methods
7Some Other Current Research Areas
- Modelling ordinal panel data
- Gayle (1996) ESRC NCRM attitudinal data bi and
tri variate outcome random effects models
(correlated error structures) - Data management
- ESRC NCeSS Node managing, enabling survey data
constructing measures grid technology digital
social research - Knowledge transfer/capacity building
- ESRC RM Programme, RDI Phase 1 2, ESRC AQMeN
training researchers building capacity
statistical modelling longitudinal data
analysis ONS Scottish Gov Local Authorities
8Parental Occupations and Filial Attainment
- Extended analyses of the Youth Cohort Study of
England and Wales - Overall trend
- Increasing proportions getting 5GCSEs (A-C)
- Increasing mean number of A-C grade GCSEs
- Increasing mean GCSE points score
- Gender
- Female pupils outperforming male pupils
- Ethnicity
- Some groups doing better than white pupils (e.g.
Indians) - Other groups doing worse (e.g. blacks)
- Parental Occupation
- Observable gradient
- Lower levels of GCSE attainment from those pupils
with less occupationally advantaged parents - Sensitivity analysis of 9 popular occupational
measures (Adj. R2 .15 through to .20)
9Exploring parental influences at occupational
unit group (OUG) levelNational Statistics
Socio-economic Classification (NS-SEC)
- NS-SEC No. of SOC90 Occupations
- 1.1 Large Employers and higher managers 10
- 1.2 Higher professional occupations 38
- 2 Lower managerial and professional
occupations 78 - 3 Intermediate occupations 42
- 5 Lower supervisory and technical
occupations 41 - 6 Semi-routine occupations 88
- 7 Routine occupations 74
- Total 371
- Employees
- Possible interesting variations within NS-SEC
categories?
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11YCS Data
Secondary Teachers Publicans
Count 1320 222
5 A-C 78 25
Mean No. A-C 7.00 2.80
Mean GCSE Score 49.05 29.64
McKnight and Elias (1998) 371 Database
Secondary Teachers Publicans
Male Earnings Band 450-500 250-300
Female Earnings Band 350-400 150-200
Male Graduates in Occupation 85 4
Female Graduates in Occupation 71 1
Regrettably the micro-data used to construct the
371 database is no longer available! Working to
reconstruct this information from summary 371
database files Working to construct similar
measures from the Labour Force Survey
12Microclass Analysis
- There might be extra insights somewhere between
big class categories and individual
occupations? - Exciting debate emerging
- Punch up between heavyweights
- For microclasses Grusky, Weeden and Jonsson
- Against Goldthorpe and Erikson
- Jonsson et al 2009 AJS Grusky and Weeden (2005,
2006) - Between 8 categories and 371 unorganised
occupational unit groups, could there be 80-120
microclasses defined by their professional
cultures and practices?
13Microclass Analysis
- Microclass regime The microclass approach
shares with the big-class model the presumption
that contemporary labor markets are balkanized
into discrete categories, but such balkanization
is assumed to take principally the form of
institutionalized occupations (e.g., doctor,
plumber, postal clerk) rather than
institutionalized big classes (e.g., routine
nonmanuals, proprietors) - (Jonsson et al 2009 pp.982-983)
14Microclass Reproduction
- Mechanisms of Intergenerational Reproduction
- (Jonsson et al 2009 Table 1 p.986)
- Human capital
- Occupation-specific skills (e.g. carpentry)
- Cultural capital
- Occupation-specific cultures and tastes
- (e.g. aspirations, medicine, help with UCAS
application) - Social networks
- Occupation-specific networks
- (e.g. doing the knowledge, job interviews,
internships) - Economic resources
- Fixed resources (e.g. farms, market stalls,
business in general)
15Microclass Analysis
- The initial appeal is the prospect of clearer
resolution regarding - Occupation-Specific Human Capital
- Occupation-Specific Cultural Capital
- Other Occupation-Specific Mechanisms
- First attempt (that we are aware of) to construct
a British microclass scheme - Example (from Gayle and Lambert 2011)
http//www.staff.stir.ac.uk/vernon.gayle/documents
/gayle_lambert_rc28_v1.pdf
16- Examples of the Composition of Microclasses
- Health Professionals Health Semi-Professionals
- 220 Medical practitioners 222 Ophthalmic
opticians - 221 Pharmacists / pharmacologists 340 Nurses
- 223 Dental practitioners 341 Midwives
- 224 Veterinarians 342 Medical radiographers
- 343 Physiotherapists
- Workers in religion 344 Chiropodists
- 292 Clergy 345 Dispensing opticians
- 347 Occupational and speech therapists
- Elementary and Secondary teachers 348
Environmental health officers - 233 Secondary school teachers 349 Other health
associated professionals - 234 Primary school teachers
- 235 Special education
- 239 Other teaching (e.g. dance)
-
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19Microclass Analysis
Least Squares Dummy Variable Models GCSE Score
No. Units Adjusted R2
NS-SEC (8 category) 8 .19
SOC 90 units 369 .22
ISCO 88 102 .21
Microclass units 81 .21
Controls CohortGenderEthnicity n55120
20Microclass Analysis
- First attempt to construct a British microclass
scheme - Extra explanatory power (for GCSE attainment)
questionable - The initial appeal was the prospect of clearer
resolution regarding - Occupation-specific human and cultural capital
and occupation specific mechanisms - Family migration and microclasses / beyond big
classes - Mobility / immobility of microclasses
- Trailing spouses
- License to practice
- Geographical distribution of microclasses
- Unemployment at microclass level
21Human Geography (Family Migration)
Boyle, P., Kulu, H., Cooke, T., Gayle, V. and
Mulder, C. (2008) The Effects of Moving on
Union Dissolution, Demography, 45(1), pp.
209-22.
Boyle, P., Feng, Z. and Gayle, V. (2009) A New
Look at Family Migration and Womens Employment
Status, Journal of Marriage and Family, 71, pp.
417-431.
Gayle, V., Boyle, P., Flowerdew, R. and Cullis,
A. (2008) Exploring the relationship between
family migration and social stratification
through the investigation of womens labour
market experiences in contemporary Britain,
International Journal of Sociology and Social
Policy (Special Issue), 28 (7/8), pp. 293-30.
22Family Migration
- ESRC Centre for Population Change
- Collaboration with Elspeth Graham and Marina
Shapira (GROS) - Greatly extends our previous BHPS based research
- Huge data preparation exercise
- Data in an advanced state of readiness
- Combining detailed migration information with
fertility, partnership, employment and
occupational data - Paper accepted Understanding Society / BHPS
Conference July 2011
23Family Migration
- Colleagues MRC/CSO Social and Public Health
Sciences Unit, Glasgow - The relationship between childhood residential
mobility and health in the UK is not well
established - Research elsewhere suggests that frequent
childhood moves may be associated with poorer
health outcomes and behaviours - Comparison of people in the West of Scotland who
were residentially stable in childhood with those
who had moved in terms of a range of health
measure (West of Scotland Twenty-07 Study)
24Family Migration
- Submitted to Journal of Epidemiology and
Community Health - In a nutshell
- Risk of poor health was elevated in adolescence
and adulthood with increased residential mobility
in childhood, after adjusting for
socio-demographic characteristics and school
moves - Childhood mobility associated with
- overall subjective health
- psychological distress
- health behaviours
- but not physical health (medical data)
25Methodology
- Missing data (item non-response) enduring survey
problem - Practical issue - Youth Cohort Study young
people being asked about their parents
occupations - In the 1990s cohorts approximately 12 of pupils
with missing parental occupation data - Nobel et al (2008) testing pupils with the YCS
question and checking with parental interview
data - 60 of young people correctly reported parents
occupations at 4 digit Occupational Unit Group
(e.g. 2111 Chemist) - Disappointingly only 74 managed it at the 1
digit level either they know exactly or they
dont know at all - Nobel et al (2008) report no significant social
class pattern (using NS-SEC)!
26Missing Data Multiple Imputation
- Can we get further using some of the recent
insights from the missing data and multiple
imputation literature? - Carpenter Bartlett (LSHTM), Goldstein (Bristol)
- Multiple imputed datasets (creation and analysis)
- Creating imputations by chained equations (ice)
in Stata (n64K not 55K) - Results are promising
- Important first step, our focus was missingness
on parental social class, but original models
were underestimating ethnicity effects - Richer (congenial) models for imputation
- Breakthrough is fitting survey weighted models
for imputation - Compared results with other estimation techniques
(e.g. Realcom) - We are looking into a generalisation to
multilevel framework - Application to spatially clustered data!
27Understanding youth transitions in the context of
contemporary home and family life
Possible UKHLS (BHPS) data sources
28How I will build my research in the St Andrews
context
- Developing spatial elements within my work
- Intellectual ambition for more comprehensive
analyses of both the temporal and the spatial
elements of contemporary social life - What do I bring?
- Enthusiasm, commitment, energy
- Methodological skills
- Sociological insights
- Inter and multidisciplinary researcher expertise
29Research and Teaching
- Research led teaching
- Research intensive university
- UG teaching is extremely important (growing
postgraduates) - Methodological teaching
- Substantive teaching researching with large-scale
datasets - Research supervision
- Locate within Population, Health and Welfare
Group - Continuing to work within the ESRC Centre for
Population Change - Migration work
30Developing the Longitudinal Studies Centre
Scotland
- Maintaining continuity and recognising
opportunities - Flagship product Scottish Longitudinal Study
- Synergies with e-Social Science, data linkage,
ADLS, secure data etc. - Always room for methodological work (missing
data) - Generating research income
- ESRC application YCS / BHPS Youth latent
variables - Top secret GTC/Scot Gov Teachers Panel Study
(occupation and geography) - Youth transitions contemporary home and family
life (ESRC application) - Growing unregulated markets
- Enhanced knowledge exchange and capacity building
- Training in survey data analysis longitudinal
methods data management - Current ESRC Researcher Development Initiative
call
31Developing the Longitudinal Studies Centre
Scotland
- An increasingly devolved political climate?
- Scottish data analytical expertise
- Scottish data housing
- The Scottish Essex?
- Institute of Social and Economic Research,
University of Essex - UK Longitudinal Studies Centre
- MISOC Research Centre on Micro-social Change
- UK Data Archive