The shifting focus and assumptions in disparity research

This paper discusses shifts in research on disparity throughout judicial trajectories of ethnic minorities and immigrants (both disparity through prosecutorial power and judicial disparity). After a brief overall overview with attention to turns in the definition of disparity, target groups and levels of analysis, we particularly focus on the underlying ontological assumptions about agency of decision makers as individual reflexive actors versus the structuralist vision, that have been going back and forth between these two extremes of a continuum for several decades and whereby different scholars have attempted to integrate the seemingly contradictory visions. This contribution attempts to make these assumptions - particularly in European disparity research explicit, to discuss their impact and to identify the shifts of the past three decades.

ISBN:9788469545201

Jaar van publicatie:2012

Toegankelijkheid:Closed