Juan Carlos Castillo

University of Chile · Departamento de Sociología

We analyze the effect of information on economic inequality on the justification of wage inequality. Using a survey experiment in a sample of the metropolitan area of Santiago de Chile (n=732), we seek to replicate the results of Kris-Stella Trump (2018) on the justification of wage gaps. The results show that information on real wages does not imp...

The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted social interactions and coexistence around the globe in dimensions that go far beyond health issues. In the case of the Global South, the pandemic has developed along with growing South-South migratory movements, becoming another key factor that might reinforce social conflict in increasingly multicultural areas a...

Perceptions of economic inequality (PEI) play a central role in people’s responses to inequality. We aim to examine the consistency between different PEI measures (income gaps, diagrammatic figures, experienced downward and upward disparities), their relationship with objective inequality, and their association with redistributive preferences. Usin...

This study explores how researchers' analytical choices affect the reliability of scientific findings. Most discussions of reliability problems in science focus on systematic biases. We broaden the lens to emphasize the idiosyncrasy of conscious and unconscious decisions that researchers make during data analysis. We coordinated 161 researchers in...

Meritocracy is understood as a system of distribution based on individual effort and talent. It has been widely questioned for its role in legitimizing social inequalities, given that it would lead to attributing personal success or failure to individual factors over social determinants. This research focuses on how some notions of meritocracy are...

Book chapter to be published in "Social Unrest in Latin America".

In a developing and highly unequal region like Latin America, it is crucial to understand the determinants that affect people's support for redistribution of resources from the state. A series of theories focused on self-interest have continuously established a negative link between people's income and their support for the reduction of inequalitie...

Support for redistribution is crucial for reducing economic inequality. Despite people's desire for reducing extreme inequalities, they still have mixed opinions regarding how to do so. The aim of the article is to examine the underlying latent dimensions of support for redistribution and test its correlates to perceptions of and attitudes toward i...

El interés por el estudio de la cohesión social posee una larga trayectoria tanto académica como también desde el Estado y de organizaciones con interés público. La cohesión social aparece como una aspiración normativa de una sociedad mejor, vinculada a conceptos como lazos sociales de calidad, pertenencia, y confianza en los demás y en el Estado....

Democracy was forged in the furnaces of oppression, whether combatting tyranny or affirming the rights of the individual. As democracy is under threat in many parts of the world, there has never been a more urgent need to understand political thoughts and behaviours. This lucid and accessible book brings together a global group of scholars from psy...

This study analyzes the effect of information about economic inequality on the justification of wage inequality. Using a representative sample of the metropolitan area of Santiago, Chile (n=732), we implemented an experimental survey design to replicate the results reported by Kriss-Stella Trump (2017) for the context of Sweden and the United State...

La opinión pública y las preferencias redistributivas de los ciudadanos han ganado una renovada atención en el estudio de reformas institucionales. Ellas aparecen como un termométro social que indica la temperatura de la sociedad respecto de la temática de la desigualdad y la demanda ciudadana por bienestar (Soroka & Wlezien, 2009). Junto a ello, l...

Economic and social inequalities have generated growing concerns and crises across contemporary societies. One of the mechanisms proposed by social sciences to explain the persistence of inequality is the belief in meritocracy, which would legitimize economic disparities based on differences in effort and talent. Despite its wide use as a concept,...

Perceptions of economic inequality have become a topic of growing interest in research from different social science disciplines. This article presents an up-to-date literature review of studies on this topic, stressing aspects related to its conceptualisation and measurement, as well as psychosocial, socioeconomic and contextual factors associated...

Large-scale international studies focus most of their efforts on measuring knowledge as academic achievement. For this reason, more attitudinal instruments, such as questionnaires for students, teachers, and principals, are left in an instead auxiliary role. In the case of the International Civic and Citizenship Education Study (ICCS) 2009, in addi...

The paper reports findings from a crowdsourced replication. Eighty-four replicator teams attempted to verify results reported in an original study by running the same models with the same data. The replication involved an experimental condition. A “transparent” group received the original study and code, and an “opaque” group received the same unde...

Findings from 162 researchers in 73 teams testing the same hypothesis with the same data reveal a universe of unique analytical possibilities leading to a broad range of results and conclusions. Surprisingly, the outcome variance mostly cannot be explained by variations in researchers’ modeling decisions or prior beliefs. Each of the 1,261 test mod...

El estudio de las atribuciones de pobreza y riqueza ha tenido un rol central en la literatura sobre la justificación de las desigualdades sociales. La investigación en esta área ha explorado en qué medida se usan razones individualistas versus estructuralistas para explicar por qué ciertas personas logran posiciones más precarias o aventajadas que...

We analyze economic elites’ perceptions and beliefs about meritocracy from a moral economy perspective. A moral economy perspective considers how norms and beliefs structure socioeconomic practices through the constitution and expression of what is considered acceptable, proper, and legitimate. Our study explores how economic elites make sense of t...

Although the idea of meritocracy is widely present in social research, few studies analyze and discuss this concept. This research note shows the results from a first stage of a wider research project on meritocracy and distributive preferences in Chile, which is based on 9 interviews with social science scholars whose research is related to these...

In this article, we explore the associations of people’s valuations of universal healthcare with risk exposure and humanitarianism across diverse institutional contexts. We argue that both micro-level factors increase the valuations. Furthermore, interactions between material interests and humanitarians are expected. This work also hypothesizes tha...

Large scale international studies focus a great deal on measuring knowledge as academic achievement, leaving sidelined the study of students, parents and teachers’ attitudes. In the case of the International Civic and Citizenship Education Study (ICCS 2009), along with civic knowledge there are a series of relevant instruments for measuring citizen...

La idea de meritocracia está relacionada con la distribución de bienes y beneficios basada en el talento y esfuerzo individual, constituyendo un principio que legitima la distribución desigual de los recursos en sociedades modernas. Pese a las constantes referencias a la meritocracia en la investigación de desigualdad y estratificación social en so...

Steffen Mau, académico de la Humbold University de Berlín, en conversación con Juan Carlos Castillo (COES - Universidad de Chile) y Raimundo Frei (PNUD- ICSO UDP) durante la Conferencia COES 2018: Concentraciones.

In an era of mass migration, social scientists, populist parties and social movements raise concerns over the future of immigration-destination societies. What impacts does this have on policy and social solidarity? Comparative cross-national research, relying mostly on secondary data, has findings in different directions. There is a threat of sele...

Interest in understanding how civic engagement emerges has been fueled by worries about the decline of youth participation in conventional political activities. Acknowledging the developmental nature of civic engagement, this study analyzes involvement in civic activities during early adolescence. We used latent class analysis to identify patterns...

The theory of attributions has long been used to study people's explanations for the origin of poverty. Nevertheless, research on the perceived causes of wealth has thus far been sidelined and isolated from the study of poverty attributions. This article focuses on the relationship between poverty and wealth attributions from a latent variable meas...

Objective This study analyzes which characteristics of pension recipients are taken into account when evaluating the fairness of pensions. Furthermore, it identifies some respondents’ characteristics and preferences that could be related to the justice evaluation of different pension amounts. Methods A factorial survey was designed to simultaneous...

When asked whether the government should take money from the rich and give to the poor, most Latin American individuals answer affirmatively. Therefore, countries in the region have been portrayed as welfare supporters. Although the political economy literature has largely addressed the determinants behind these preferences, little has been said re...

The theory of attributions has a long tradition in studying explanations for the origin of poverty. Nevertheless, research regarding the perceived causes of wealth has been so far sidelined and not related to the study of poverty attributions. This paper focuses on the relationship between poverty and wealth attributions from a latent variable meas...

The idea of meritocracy is related to the distribution of goods and rewards based on individual talent and effort, being a principle that legitimizes the unequal distribution of resources in modern societies. Despite the constant references to meritocracy in inequality and stratification research, there are still few conceptual and empirical attemp...

SocArxiv Preprint: https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/qkpu4/ The idea of meritocracy is related to the distribution of goods and rewards based on individual talent and effort, being a principle that legitimizes the unequal distribution of resources in modern societies. Despite the constant references to meritocracy in inequality and stratification...

Lack of tolerance toward traditionally disadvantaged groups, such as immigrants, ethnic minorities and women, represents a growing challenge to contemporary democracies. Assuming that attitudes toward such social groups are at least partly learned during the political socialization of school-age children, this chapter explores individual difference...

Based on the conceptualization of democratic principles in the International Civic and Citizenship Education Study (ICCS) 2009, particularly attitudes concerning equal rights for disadvantaged groups, such as immigrants, ethnic groups and women, this chapter evaluates the extent to which the scales measuring attitudes toward gender equality, equal...

Objectives: To evaluate the relationship between income and egalitarian values and attitudes towards healthcare policy. Study design: Cross-sectional and cross-national study. Methods: Data for 29 countries from the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) 2011 were used. The dependent variables are a general attitude towards government in...

Este artículo estudia los aprendizajes y desafíos que se desprenden de la investigación empírica sobre élites en Chile en las últimas dos décadas, con énfasis en la élite económica. Utilizando doce entrevistas semiestructuradas a expertos que han investigado a este grupo en Chile y una operacionalización específica para diferenciar los criterios y...

A growing body of literature from different disciplines addresses concepts and measurement of citizenship. The present paper seeks to contribute to this field by examining the issue of youth citizenship from a comparative international perspective and proposing a simplified conceptual model that can be operationalized. This model includes a communi...

Political trust – of citizens in government, parliament or political parties – has been centre stage in political science for more than half a century, reflecting ongoing concerns about the legitimacy of representative democracy. This Handbook offers the first truly global perspective on political trust and integrates the conceptual, theoretical, m...

Though the concept of social justice is widely used in the social sciences, we know little about the amount of income inequality that is perceived as just and why perceptions vary across social contexts. In this paper, we argue the ways people define the causes of poverty are related to how they perceive and justify existing income inequality. We e...

Curricular guidelines have become progressively relevant for educating future active citizens. In such a context, it becomes crucial to explore the relationship between the curricular guidelines and how citizenship education is currently acquired by students in Latin American countries. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to comparatively evaluate...

Political participation has frequently been associated with individual resources; that is, individuals with higher incomes, higher educational levels and more time tend to participate in the political process to a greater extent than other individuals do. The present study suggests that in addition to resources, an individual's beliefs about econom...

What elements are taken into account at the moment of evaluating a pension as just or not? Research in distributive justice has dealt with the evaluation of situations and rewards for a long time, ranging from theories of relative deprivation and equity to studies about justice evaluation functions and legitimacy. What is known so far is that distr...

El Centro de Estudios de Conflicto y Cohesión Social (COES) lanzó ayer el segundo módulo de su encuesta nacional, la primera en conflicto y cohesión en Chile. En esta ocasión, los investigadores del Centro Juan Carlos Castillo, Daniel Hojman y Emmanuelle Barozet presentaron los datos de este segundo módulo que entre otros temas incluyó cuál es la p...

In the wake of rising levels of income inequality during the past two decades, widespread concerns emerged about the social and political consequences of the widening gap between the poor and the rich that can be observed in many established democracies. Several empirical studies substantiate the link between macro-level income inequality and polit...

Empirical evidence has consistently shown that political participation is positively related with socioeconomic background. Furthermore, recent research suggests that children who come from low status families are already less willing to get politically involved. The present paper aims to analyze the possible impact that schools can have in mitigat...

Aunque son motivo de discusión en todas las épocas, con distintos significados y usos, los impuestos han adquirido en los últimos años una relevancia especial, en tanto dimensión central desde la cual abordar asuntos como el financiamiento del gasto social, el rol de Estado en la provisión de bienes y servicios y las formas de concretar las diferen...

Durante el año 2011, Chile fue lugar de una serie de manifestaciones estudiantiles que demandaban mayor equidad en el acceso a la educación superior. La alta aprobación ciudadana de estas demandas (llegando a un 89%) parece sugerir la existencia de un gran consenso acerca de la debilidad del modelo educacional que existe en Chile, el que no cumplir...

A series of studies consistently show that socioeconomic status is related to higher rates of electoral participation. Such association implies a transmission of economic inequality into political inequality, threatening ideals of equality and even the legitimacy of the political system. Nevertheless, there are several elements that could affect th...

To what extent does social origin impact the disposition of students toward becoming politically involved in their future adult life? Using Chilean data from Civic Education Study, 1999 (N = 5688), and International Civic and Citizenship Education Study, 2009 (N = 5192), the present research analyzes, on the one hand, the impact of socioeconomic va...

What are the key contents related to democratic life in the curricula of civic and citizenship education in Latin American countries? What values and dimensions are most emphasized? This paper summarizes the results of a comparative analysis of civic/citizenship curricula for primary and secondary education in six countries of the region that parti...

El trabajo considera los currículos de seis países latinoamericanos – Colombia, Chile, Guatemala, México, Paraguay y República Dominicana –, que a fines de la década pasada convinieron en ser parte del proyecto Sistema Regional de Evaluación y Desarrollo de Competencias Ciudadanas (SREDECC). Con el apoyo del Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo, SRED...

The current research explores six hypotheses derived from the well-known procedural justice-based model of legitimacy in two different religious groups in Israel, and adds to the model the effect of religiosity on the perceived legitimacy of rules and institutions of social control. Our results, based on data from a representative sample of 1,216 I...

Although most empirical research on political trust has focused on the so called developed world, previous scholarly work regarding this topic within Latin American countries has provided some interesting insights. Most notably, Latin American societies show lower levels of political trust when compared to other regions of the world (Catterberg and...

¿Importa conocer lo que las personas piensan respecto de la distribución de ingresos en una sociedad? Una primera respuesta a esta pregunta proviene del ámbito de las políticas públicas, donde se asume que en un sistema democrático el apoyo ciudadano es fundamental para otorgar una base de legitimidad al accionar político. En esta línea, Liebig y M...

Resumen: Chile es uno de los países con mayor concentración del ingreso a nivel mun-dial. Dada la relación entre alta desigualdad económica y patrones de estratificación social, en tal contexto se esperaría una alta dispersión de las percepciones respecto del propio estatus o estatus social subjetivo. Sin embargo, la evidencia internacional señala...

Las creencias respecto de cómo deberían distribuirse los bienes y recursos en la sociedad constituyen un elemento central de la identificación con partidos políticos. En este sentido, sería esperable que las preferencias por un rol más o menos activo del Estado en la redistribución se relacionara con distintas identificaciones partidarias y con el...

Beliefs about how goods and resources should be distributed in society constitute a central element in the identification with political parties. In this sense, the preference for a more or less active role of the state in redistribution is expected to be related with different party identifications and with the left-right continuum. The present ar...

The objective of this paper is to study the legitimacy of earnings inequality in contexts with different economic inequality levels. The question guiding the research is: How do high levels of income inequality in a society influence the legitimacy of earnings inequality? Such question requires on the one hand tackling the concept of legitimacy – c...

Empirical research in civic and political participation has consistently shown that higher levels of civic knowledge and higher participation levels are characteristic of those with higher socio-economic status and formal education. Socio-economic status differences among citizens are accentuated in societies with high inequality as the Latin Ameri...

During the year 2011, Chile has been site of several student´s demonstrations claiming for more equity in the access to the higher education. These claims have as background several studies that characterize the Chilean educational system as one of the most economically segregated at world level (OECD, 2010). The high support to the protests by the...

En el discurso público comúnmente se asume que Chile es un país solidario, un supuesto que se confunde con la ideade una cierta homogeneidad en lo que respecta a valores solidarios y conductas de ayuda en el país. El presente trabajo apunta acuestionar esta idea de homogeneidad respecto de solidaridad, proponiendo que las conductas solidarias se re...

En el discurso público comúnmente se asume que Chile es un país solidario, un supuesto que se confunde con la idea de una cierta homogeneidad en lo que respecta a valores solidarios y conductas de ayuda en el país. El presente trabajo apunta a cuestionar esta idea de homogeneidad respecto de solidaridad, proponiendo que las conductas solidarias se...

Even though a series of perceived inequality indicators have been used in survey research, to date there is no research comparing these indicators. Using data from the 2009 Chilean ISSP national representative survey (N = 1,505), this research compared 3 measures of inequality perception and analyzed the influence of status, political position and...

Solidarity, understood as a social and communicative operationdestined to maintain people’s cohesion in the context of modern society, evidencesthe permanence of a stratified social order that produces exclusion from certainsocial rights. This article attempts to further discuss this definition by offering anempirical and multidimensional analysis...

Chile is one of the few Latin American countries that has participated in the inequality module of the International Social Survey Program (ISSP) in 1999 and in 2009, allowing time comparisons in attitudes towards inequality in one of the countries with the highest income inequality throughout the world. This paper focuses on the cross-sectional co...