The recent protests over the economic crisis gained wider attention with the Occupy Wall Street movement and sparked similar actions across the globe over the weekend. Besides a critique of the financial institutions and the banking sector, the demonstrations are also an expression of the uncertain living conditions that many people feel exposed to in an economically bleak time. They are also a reflection of the growing gaps within the societies of the wealthier world, where the poorest and richest parts of the society increasingly drift apart. This is a trend that the protesters see as unfair and problematic.
Fair Play is a new book which “brings together a selection of highly influential writings [that] look at inequality and social justice, why they matter and what they are. […] ‘Fair Play’ provides evidence that Britain is becoming more politically, socially and economically divided whilst coming together in terms of educational outcomes and reduced segregation by ethnicity” (see more information on the book website).
Of the 52 chapters written by Danny Dorling, two have been co-authored by me: The first is a discussion of the influence of inequality on the educational mobility within the two very different school systems of England and Germany (chapter 20: Educational mobility in England and Germany). This graph taken from the book gives an overview of the prevailing differences not only between the two, but also other selected countries that indicate a correlating trend between a wealth divide within a country and the ability to overcome educational hurdles:

Social Mobility and Income Inequality

The second contribution focuses on the creation of the gridded world population cartogram (chapter 51: Remapping the world’s population: visualizing data using cartograms). It explains the basic principles for the creation of gridded cartograms and discusses the differences to other cartograms and other map projections. The following maps are taken from this chapter:

From top to bottom:Worldmapper Population cartogram, Gridded World Population Cartogram, Gridded Population Cartogram of the US mainland

The book features a multitude of other figures, all of which can also be viewed online in the image gallery of the book’s website. Fair Play by Danny Dorling is published by the Policy Press and is available e.g. at Amazon.

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