Congratulations to Grace Cheong and Jiaxuan Li, who have been awarded prizes for their performance in the MPhil in Sociology and Demography.
Grace won the A.H. Halsey Prize for ‘Best Thesis', while Jiaxuan won the Prize for 'Best Overall Performance'.
Focusing on educational disparities in patterns of health, Grace's thesis used data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe between 2004-2022 to model the longitudinal self-rated health trajectories of older adults in Europe.
She found higher levels of education to be associated with higher probabilities of membership to trajectories with higher baselines of health. Looking at welfare regimes, she found that trajectory memberships were most favourable for the Social Democratic regime, followed by the Conservative, Southern European and lastly, the Eastern European regime.
While the influence of higher education varied across regimes, a definitive ranking of the extent of educational disparities across regimes could not be established.
Grace is keen to continue pursuing research, and said:
It is a great honour to receive this prize and I am deeply grateful to the faculty at the Sociology Department for the opportunities that have allowed me to grow as a researcher and further nurture my intellectual curiosity.
Meanwhile, Jiaxuan's research uses computational methods to understand social stratification and mobility.
In particular, he investigates the role of asset inequality in shaping broader patterns of social hierarchy, and how asset inequality is reproduced or even intensified through individuals’ seemingly self-directed market behaviours, which are in fact structured by their objective social conditions.
Methodologically, Jiaxuan utilises machine learning models to enhance causal inference, and draws on digital trace data to explore dimensions of social inequality that are often beyond the reach of traditional survey-based research.
Jiaxuan is currently working at Yuwa Population Research, an NGO dedicated to fertility and demographic studies. In the future, he aims to further explore contemporary Chinese social phenomena through the combined lens of computational methods and sociological theory.
Jiaxuan said:
I have always seen sociology as a form of embodied struggle – a way to strike at the illusions that shape our world. This prize is both an encouragement and a reminder to keep fighting with clarity and conviction.
Offering advice to future students, he added:
Science should always be self-referential. The community of “sociologists” can – and should – become a legitimate object of sociological inquiry.
Reflecting on our own academic practice and the power relations embedded within it is not a digression from science, but a crucial step toward transforming sociological knowledge into a deeper understanding of our own existence.
Halsey Prizes have been awarded since the Department of Sociology was formed in 1999. Professor Albert Henry Halsey was a central figure in the sociology of education. He joined the University of Oxford as a Fellow at Nuffield College in 1962, and remained a part of the Oxford community for over 50 years.
Focusing on the topics of inequality, social mobility and education, Professor Halsey's impact on the study of sociology and social policy was felt across the University and the academic world.
