Asta Breinholt
@astabreinholt.bsky.social
240 followers 410 following 14 posts
Sociologist at Roskilde University researching social inequality in education, parenting, and the interplay between genetics and the social environment.
Posts Media Videos Starter Packs
Pinned
astabreinholt.bsky.social
🧪 Advances in genetic research have been skewed towards European ancestry populations 📣The broader call of our new study in LLCS is to eliminate this bias through the collection of large, diverse genotype samples and measuring genotypes with arrays designed for multi-ancestry populations🧪 See here ⤵️
astabreinholt.bsky.social
🧪 Advances in genetic research have been skewed towards European ancestry populations 📣The broader call of our new study in LLCS is to eliminate this bias through the collection of large, diverse genotype samples and measuring genotypes with arrays designed for multi-ancestry populations🧪 See here ⤵️
Reposted by Asta Breinholt
asociologist.bsky.social
Econ's changed a smidge since I was in grad school!

academic.oup.com/qje/article/...
Description of a paper from the Quarterly Journal of Economics, "Exploitation Through Racialization."

Abstract: I develop a model of the social construction of race. Racial categories emerge from labor conflict when elites privilege intrinsically irrelevant traits to divide workers against each other and extract workers’ surplus. I show that elites use color to grant unequal rights and track these rights across generations because it is heritable, observable, and relatively immutable. Depending on the demographic conditions the elites face, the system of racialization manifests either as ancestry-based or color-based categories. This approach to the social construction of race provides a unified explanation of skin-tone inequality, racial homophily in marriage, the social status of mixed-race people, the psychological wage of Jim Crow, and legal restrictions on manumission. I test for historical variations in racial boundaries using census data from the United States and Brazil and for differential patterns of skin-tone inequality between ancestry-based and color-based systems using survey data from across the Americas."
Reposted by Asta Breinholt
fabriberna.bsky.social
While the return of eugenic ideology in “science" and public debate is deeply troubling, I’ve seen no genetic determinism promoted anywhere by sociologists in sociogenomics. On the contrary, there’s a strong awareness of how socially constructed genetically associated traits truly are 2/3
Reposted by Asta Breinholt
gaiaghirardi.bsky.social
New pub (w/ @fabriberna.bsky.social) highlighting how family socioeconomic background plays a key role in shaping genetic associations: advantaged families both compensate for and amplify their children’s genetic propensities for education

doi.org/10.1016/j.ssresearch.2025.103174

👇🧵
fabriberna.bsky.social
Our paper with @gaiaghirardi.bsky.social is now out at SSR!

Have a look if you are interested in social stratification and/or sociogenomics

Below are the main findings and contributions 1/6
doi.org/10.1016/j.ss...
astabreinholt.bsky.social
#anti-stereotyping: I do research of the mean all the time, but let’s not forget that we can never infer from the mean to the individual <3
astabreinholt.bsky.social
Behind every mean is a distribution, and sometimes that distribution looks systematically different for different groups. I find an educational gradient in the variance of parenting. What does the #variance of your favorite outcome by your group-of-interest looks like?
astabreinholt.bsky.social
2nd, getting a good job is a more uncertain outcome with less education, and relying on a less secure, low-income job makes it harder to insulate one's family from the uncertainty of daily life let alone health or unemployment shocks -> more variance in parenting among non-degree holders
astabreinholt.bsky.social
Why? 1st, the selection into education on family-of-origin characteristics and cognitive skills is not deterministic, which makes parents without high school a very heterogeneous group -> more variance in parenting among non-degree holders
astabreinholt.bsky.social
The most heterogeneous group is parents without high school diplomas. Here are the distributions of the HOME cognitive stimulation score at child age 3–4 by mothers’ education, data from #NLSY-CYA
The distribution is most dispersed for mothers without high school diplomas and the least dispersed for mothers with college degrees
astabreinholt.bsky.social
Us college educated folks are so diverse in our cultural practices, right? Not when it comes to the high-stakes cultural practice of social reproduction: #parenting! We parent much more alike than parents with fewer years of #education: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Hidden patterns of inequality: The heterogeneity in parenting within educational groups
When sociology deals with differences within groups of similar socioeconomic status, research and theorizing tend to focus on the heterogeneity among …
www.sciencedirect.com
astabreinholt.bsky.social
This figure should be more informative than the one above : )
astabreinholt.bsky.social
I’m glad you find the ideas so self evident! Now we just need some empirical evidence 💪🏻
Reposted by Asta Breinholt
gaiaghirardi.bsky.social
@astabreinholt.bsky.social just won a grant to advance the sociogenomics field by studying educational inequalities! ✨

Keep an eye on this project in the coming years—it promises to bring exciting outcomes!
astabreinholt.bsky.social
Do genetic effects on education work through social mechanisms? And does the social environment moderate these effects? I’m addressing these RQs with brilliant @gaiaghirardi.bsky.social and @mikkelhoumark.bsky.social in a new project funded by the Independent Research Fund Denmark!
astabreinholt.bsky.social
Do genetic effects on education work through social mechanisms? And does the social environment moderate these effects? I’m addressing these RQs with brilliant @gaiaghirardi.bsky.social and @mikkelhoumark.bsky.social in a new project funded by the Independent Research Fund Denmark!
Reposted by Asta Breinholt
hhsievertsen.bsky.social
Working papers I read - week 45 #econsky

@astabreinholt.bsky.social and coauthors assess whether statistical discrimination can explain the difference between teacher grades and exam grades in 🇩🇰 (see Figure).

They have two approaches..

1/N