Thesis advisor: David L. Blustein / The U.S. has witnessed growing inequality, decreasing wages, and increasing instability in work over the past several decades (Krugman, 2012; Stiglitz, 2015). Moreover, evidence demonstrating work’s impact on well-being is expansive, as is its role in upward mobility and maintaining systemic oppression (Blustein, 2006; 2008; Swanson, 2012). Despite this breadth of research, studies rarely attend to community factors that shape opportunity for accessing work. As such, the present study sought to better understand relationships among individuals’ economic resources and work-related psychological constructs, in conjunction with community economic conditions and access to decent work. The present study utilized latent structural equation modeling to test several hypothesized tenets of the Psychology of Working Theory (Duffy et al., 2016) involving the latent constructs of social class, work volition, decent work and life satisfaction, in a sample of 816 working adults. Modeling contained both a composite decent work (DW) factor and its five discrete components of DW: safe working conditions, adequate compensation, access to healthcare, adequate rest and free time, and a match of organizational and social/family values (Duffy et al., 2017). Moderation analyses relied on matching individual participant data to their county-specific opportunity data, such as poverty, unemployment, and Preschool enrollment rates. Results indicated that social class indirectly predicted DW through work volition and that DW subsequently predicted life satisfaction. When examining distinct DW components in tandem with a global construct, social class predicted the healthcare and rest/time off components of DW, which further attests to the unique variance in these components. Findings underscore the powerful role economic resources play in securing DW and shaping people’s work conditions, in addition to the clear impact of DW on overall well-being. Analyses did not yield significant moderation effects for economic conditions and community opportunity in hypothesized pathways. Implications for research, practice and policy, as well as study limitations are presented. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2021. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Counseling, Developmental and Educational Psychology.

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This essay explores the theme of identity in Kiley Reid’s Such a Fun Age (2019). The study departs from intersectionality (Crenshaw 1989; McCall 2005) and focuses on the concepts of race (Barnshaw 2008; Keaton 2018), social class (Peckham 2010) and privilege (Bhopal 2018), which rest on a common ground of gender. Moreover, these are all elements of a person’s social identity (Eriksen 2014) and will be examined as such. Through the main characters of Emira and Alix, this essay analyzes and compares the construction of the self, how their social identities affect that process of construction, and how they relate to those social identities.

Are elementary public school teachers who have been upwardly mobile occupationally more helpful, as measured by Anderson-Brewer "Dominative-Socially Integrative" observation scheme, to children of lower and upper occupational status families than teachers who have not engaged in upward occupational mobility?

Studying how firms and individuals respond to tax policy changes is key to assess their trade-off between equity and efficiency. Among individuals, taxpayers at the top of the income distribution have received special attention in the Public Economics literature. Progressive tax systems disproportionately rely on high income individuals to raise revenues, making them susceptible to strategies adopted by these taxpayers to reduce their tax liability. In the first two chapters of this dissertation, I provide new empirical evidence on the characteristics of high income individuals that can inform the design of tax policies. Chapter 1, focusing on the UK, shows that migrants have become more prevalent among high income individuals, thus altering the composition of individuals in the top 1 percent. Chapter 2, focusing on Italy, provides evidence of long term persistence in economic status among present-day descendants of noble dynasties. These chapters shed light on the characteristics of high income taxpayers and their path to the top of the distribution in these two countries. Understanding the composition of individuals at the top of the income distribution is key for analyzing their response to tax policies and for informing the trade-off between equity and efficiency. Firms too are a central part of the tax system of developed countries. They remit payment of the vast majority of government revenues, either fulfilling their own tax liabilities or on behalf of third parties. As a result, governments implement enforcement strategies to reduce evasion while minimizing their costs. In Chapter 3, I analyze one of these government interventions aimed at curbing tax evasion of Value Added Tax (VAT) in Italy and I provide evidence on a new margin of response adopted by businesses. As the government shifted the responsibility to remit VAT from the seller to the buyer for a subset of transactions in the economy, it altered the distribution of costs between the two sides of the transaction. I show that smaller firms face the largest increase in costs and, thus, exhibit higher exit rates, leading to higher market concentration. Chapter 1, which is joint work with Arun Advani, Felix Koenig, and Andy Summers, studies the contribution of migrants to the rise in UK top incomes.Using administrative data on the universe of UK taxpayers we show that migrants are over-represented at the top of the income distribution, with migrants twice as prevalent in the top 0.1 percent as anywhere in the bottom 97 percent. These high incomes are predominantly from labor, rather than capital, and migrants are concentrated in only a handful of industries, predominantly finance. Finally, we calculate the contribution of migrants and natives to the observed growth in the UK top 1 percent income share over the past 20 years. We find that almost all (92 percent) of the observed growth can be attributed to migration. Chapter 2 documents that present-day descendants of aristocratic dynasties enjoy high economic status in Italy, several decades or centuries after their ancestors received a title. Over this period of time, Italy experienced wars, annexations, political reforms, and a structural transformation of the economy. Yet, the income distribution of noble taxpayers living in Milan in 2005 is shifted to the right relative to the one of all other taxpayers. On average, noble descendants obtain 41,125 Euros (or 1.77 times) more, controlling for observables. Moreover, aristocrats are three times more likely to be involved in firms, either as shareholders or company officials. Chapter 3 analyzes how firms and markets adapt to a reform of the collection of Value Added Tax (VAT), combining a new administrative dataset on firm-to-firm links from Italy and a quasi-experimental research design. The reform shifted the responsibility to remit payments of VAT from sellers to “trusted" buyers, such as government entities and large firms. I present three main findings. First, firm-to-firm links subject to the new rules are more likely to become inactive after the introduction of the new rules. Second, I find that the reform was costly for the average firm. Firms more exposed to the reform experienced lower sales and higher exit rates, relative to the counterfactual. Third, I document that the burden of the reform was not evenly distributed across firms. Small firms were hit hardest, while large firms did not appear to be negatively affected. As a result, I show that markets more exposed to the reform became more concentrated.

The purpose of this essay is to examine the importance of class in Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre and its impact on how the characters perceive one another. Taking a closer look at the attitude the characters, John Reed, Jane Eyre and Mrs. Reed have towards each other and how the influence of the Victorian society came about. Through a Marxist perspective one can see the similarities between the society that Jane Eyre was written in and the society taking place within the novel. Where the accessibility of money determined what class one belonged to as well as how to behave accordingly by it. By analyzing the members of higher social standing, John and Mrs. Reed, one can see how they conform to the norms of the social class that they belong to which expresses itself in the way they both perceive and treat Jane in the novel. Jane however has an entirely different outlook. As she searches for a class to belong to, she realizes that her background is the main reason for her receiving the treatment that she does from John and Mrs. Reed.

The purpose of this essay is to find out through semiotic analysis and rhetorical tools how the music video “Svartskallar” performed by Swedish artist Stor is being mediated and perceived. The word svartskallar is a Swedish slur and derogatory term used towards immigrants and people of other descent than Scandinavian/Arian. Mostly people with dark attributes, hence the word “blackhead.” The song lyrics poke fun at mundane stereotypes and prejudices that people have towards certain ethnicities, especially minorities that there are a lot of in Sweden. The music video was quite controversial as it depicted a plantation where white people portrayed slaves whilst minorities played the slaveowners. As the video was released it caused a lot of debate online. The analysis has shown that there are many ambiguities in this video that have triggered a lot of reactions. This video has a lot more nuances to it than what is seen at first glance and portrays a lot of subliminal messages. Ultimately there are a lot of more aspects to consider in this debate than solely that of the plot.

Neoliberalism’s free market ideology has not only achieved hegemonic status as the dominant organizing principle of markets and economies the world over, its values and doctrines have also come to shape many other areas of contemporary life. The consequences of this takeover include rising inequality, a social policy shift away from welfare and toward personal responsibility, and the triumph of the economic rationale of profitability in the public sector as well as the private sphere. A growing body of research has studied the ramifications of individual facets of the neoliberal order, especially the expanding gap between the rich and poor, but to date, a more comprehensive understanding of how the underlying ideology molds societies is largely absent from the social psychological literature. This doctoral thesis seeks to take a first step toward closing this gap by identifying and investigating three key areas of interest in the context of neoliberalism’s influence on individual and collective life. Based on previous research and theorizing, it puts forward the idea that the neoliberal reorganization of societies along the principles of individualism, competition, materialism, and privatization has a profound impact on intergroup relations, social connection, and individual well-being. The studies presented here provide evidence that neoliberal ideology and policies erode social cohesion (Manuscript 2) and make people feel lonely and isolated (Manuscript 3). Confirming the importance of social factors in determining health outcomes, these developments are then shown to increase feelings of threat, hopelessness, and unhappiness (Manuscript 2) as well as reduce mental and physical well-being (Manuscript 3). Beyond the individual level, intergroup attitudes, especially with regard to socio-economic status groups, are of particular interest to this research. Its findings demonstrate that despite neoliberalism’s propagation of wealth and success as ultimate aspirations, the perceived breakdown of the social fabric and resulting discontent with neoliberal societies lead to negative perceptions of the elite who are seen as corrupt and immoral (Manuscript 2). They also provide support for the assumption that the belief in merit-based inequality, which is central to the neoliberal doctrine, is reflected in representations of individuals with lower socio-economic status who are assigned personal responsibility for their disadvantaged position and, unlike other underprivileged groups, are seen as lacking in moral deservingness by both conservatives and progressives (Manuscript 1). As a whole, the studies that constitute this thesis project bring together several different lines of research and make headway in developing an integrated perspective on the influence of neoliberal ideology on societies and the experiences and attitudes of the individuals within them.

Social class may impact the ways people are perceived and treated by others. The social class attributions of therapists may influence the manner in which they conceptualize their clients' problems and their relationship with their clients. There is a gap in the literature concerning the link between therapists' social class attributions and their responses toward low socioeconomic status (SES) clients in actual clinical settings, which could impact the therapists' interaction with their clients and the treatment process. The purpose of this qualitative descriptive case study was to examine the links between therapists' social class attributions and their experiences with low SES clients in clinical settings. The rationale for this study was based on treatment exhibited by therapists towards their low SES clients as evidenced by their treatment plans and peer interactions. Guided by attribution theory, research questions inquired into the attributions of 10 purposefully chosen masters- and doctoral-level therapists concerning the issues of social class, their low SES clients, and treatment outcomes for those clients. Interview data were interpreted using a cross-case synthesis technique and content analysis. The participants related to the issue of poverty in the way it impacted them or the way it impacted their clients. Findings could contribute to social change by increasing awareness among therapists concerning the impact of poverty, reducing bias and misconceptions among therapists, improving training of students and therapists, and improving understanding among therapists of the way social class attributions could impact their work with low SES clients.

This essay analyses the life of Joyce, the protagonist in “Somewhere in England”, the fourth section of Crossing the River by Caryl Phillips, using an intersectional feminist perspective. It attempts to show how patriarchy, classism, and racism intersect to shape Joyce’s life and to limit her possibilities. The essay argues that at the beginning, Joyce is too naïve to fully understand the power structures prevailing in her society, and therefore, she is different from those around her. However, she successively experiences not only patriarchal oppression but also class and race oppressions. The result is that Joyce accepts her social position when she understands that it is difficult for an individual woman to challenge the intersected multiple oppressions of the capitalist, supremacist, patriarchal society.