A tale of two logics: social reproduction and mobilisation in university access in Quebec, 1945–2000

The research on educational lag in Upper Secondary Education Institutions in Ixtapaluca, Chalco, and Valle de Chalco examines the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on academic quality. A decrease in COMIPEMS scores and lower academic performance in high school was observed, mainly affecting the 2019–2022 and 2020–2023 cohorts. The interruption of in-person classes and limited access to technology led to increased dropout rates and reduced graduation efficiency. Students with low COMIPEMS scores exhibited lower academic achievement and higher dropout rates. The 2019–2022 cohort averaged 51.7 points on COMIPEMS and a final GPA of 7.44 in high school—the lowest recorded among all cohorts. Additionally, 52.58% of the 2020–2023 cohort had no recorded COMIPEMS score, suggesting admissions through alternative routes or failures in the selection process. ECOEMS, which will replace COMIPEMS starting in 2025, aims to promote greater equity in access to upper secondary education, yet it presents challenges in maintaining educational quality. It is imperative to strengthen remedial programs, enhance teacher training, and ensure equitable access to learning tools to reduce the educational lag.

IntroductionMeasuring inequality in access to safe drinking-water and sanitation is proposed as a component of international monitoring following the expiry of the Millennium Development Goals. This study aims to evaluate the utility of census data in measuring geographic inequality in access to drinking-water and sanitation.MethodsSpatially referenced census data were acquired for Colombia, South Africa, Egypt, and Uganda, whilst non-spatially referenced census data were acquired for Kenya. Four variants of the dissimilarity index were used to estimate geographic inequality in access to both services using large and small area units in each country through a cross-sectional, ecological study.ResultsInequality was greatest for piped water in South Africa in 2001 (based on 53 areas (N) with a median population (MP) of 657,015; D = 0.5599) and lowest for access to an improved water source in Uganda in2008 (N = 56; MP = 419,399; D = 0.2801). For sanitation, inequality was greatest for those lacking any facility in Kenya in 2009 (N = 158; MP = 216,992; D = 0.6981), and lowest for access to an improved facility in Uganda in 2002 (N = 56; MP = 341,954; D = 0.3403). Although dissimilarity index values were greater for smaller areal units, when study countries were ranked in terms of inequality, these ranks remained unaffected by the choice of large or small areal units. International comparability was limited due to definitional and temporal differences between censuses.ConclusionsThis five-country study suggests that patterns of inequality for broad regional units do often reflect inequality in service access at a more local scale. This implies household surveys designed to estimate province-level service coverage can provide valuable insights into geographic inequality at lower levels. In comparison with household surveys, censuses facilitate inequality assessment at different spatial scales, but pose challenges in harmonising water and sanitation typologies across countries.

List of Authors. Acknowledgements. General Introduction D. Courgeau. 1. Opposition between holism and individualism. 2. How are the two approaches linked? 3. A plurality of aggregation levels and a plurality of time scales. 4. Towards a recomposition and a multilevel analysis. 5. Outline of this volume. 1: Multilevel modelling of educational data H. Goldstein. 1. Fundamentals: units and levels. 2. The basic multilevel model. 3. Cross-classified models. 4. The multiple membership model. 5. Types of responses. 6. Final thoughts about new insights. 2: From the macro-micro opposition to multilevel analysis in demography D. Courgeau. 1. Introduction. 2. The aggregate period approach. 3. Cohort analysis. 4. Event history analysis. 5. Contextual and multilevel analysis. 6. Conclusion. 3: Potentialities and limitations of multilevel analysis in public health and epidemiology A.V. Diez-Roux. 1. Introduction. 2. The presence of multiple levels: conceptual and methodological implications. 3. Multilevel analysis. 4. Multilevel analysis in public health and epidemiology. 5. Challenges raised by the use of multilevel analysis in epidemiology. 6. Limitations and complementary approaches. 4: Exploring small area population structures with census data M. Tranmer, D. Steel, E. Fieldhouse. 1. Introduction. 2. Theconcept of multilevel models for geographically based data. 3. Census data availability. 4. Some previous examples of multilevel modelling with census data. 5. Estimating and explaining population structure with census data. 6. Investigating small area variations using SAR with recently added area classifications. 7. Further topics. 8. Conclusion. 5: Organisational levels and time scales in economics B. Walliser. 1. Introduction. 2. Frozen time. 3. Spread out time. 4. Sequential time. 5. Adaptive time. 6. Individualism versus holism. 7. Economic epistemological positions. 8. Micro and macro-analysis. 9. From theoretical to empirical analysis. 6: Causal analysis, systems analysis, and multilevel analysis: philosophy and epistemology R. Franck. 1. Introduction. Object of this chapter. 2. The causal principle. 3. Multicausal models. 4. The Stoic principle of causality. 5. Non-causal determinations. 6. The notion of reciprocal action. 7. The nature of levels. 8. Factors and systems. 9. A social philosophy. General Conclusion D. Courgeau. 1. Experimental versus non-experimental approach. 2. Probability: objectivist, subjectivist and logicist approach. 3. A better definition of levels and a better interconnection between them. 4. Towards a fuller theory. Subject index. Author index.

From Intention to Action: Operationalizing AGA Diversity Policy to Combat Racism and Health Disparities in Gastroenterology

Who were these bike lanes built for? Social-spatial inequities in Vancouver's bikeways, 2001–2016

O presente artigo aborda o tema da colaboração docente no âmbito das reformas e políticas educativas atuais. Ele se apóia em resultados de uma pesquisa sobre as práticas colaborativas de um grupo de docentes no contexto de implantação do programa do ensino secundário quebequense. Ele busca pôr em evidência as práticas, as motivações e os fatores que contribuem para a colaboração entre os docentes, assim como os desafios por eles encontrados no seu cotidiano de trabalho. Ele sugere que, mesmo sendo vista favoravelmente, a colaboração não se integra facilmente às práticas docentes, ainda mais no contexto atual em que se impõe uma maior regulação do trabalho no seio da organização escolar. Finalmente, à luz de seus resultados, ele aponta algumas tensões e questionamentos que parecem constituir promissoras pistas de reflexão sobre o assunto.

Neoliberal austerity has hit hard for people of colour and women living in deprived urban spaces, where we observe unprecedented levels of inequality in access to care and food. In this context, volunteer and community services (VCSs) have become fundamental to compensating for the lack of urban public services that support human needs. This article deploys a social reproduction framework to analyse the andro-white marketization of VCSs occurring in the care and food solidarity practices in London. By unpacking this multidimensional process through a combination of material and methods, it untangles the racialised, class and gendered forms of material exploitation and cultural domination exercised on and through VCSs circuits operating in marginal communities. Along these lines, it reflects on the transformational limits of the neoliberal care system in supporting the social reproduction of unequal cities.

A ride for whom: Has cycling network expansion reduced inequities in accessibility in Montreal, Canada?

An unresolved question arising from human evolutionary research relates to the function of the postreproductive period in human females. If menopause is not merely an artifact resulting from the benefits of civilization, there must be an adaptive mechanism favoring the offspring of women who continue to thrive well past the time of their last ovulation. The "grandmother hypothesis" was developed on the basis of the original suggestion by Williams (1957 Evolution 11:32-39) that "stopping early" would benefit already-born children. This idea, combined with the concepts of kin selection (Hamilton 1964 J Theor Biol 7:1-52) and parental investment (Trivers 1972 Sexual Selection and the Descent of Man, Chicago: Aldine, p. 136-179), was expanded to suggest that postreproductive women (in contrast to males) contribute to their inclusive fitness by extending support to their grandchildren. We used discrete time event history analysis (Allison [1984] Event History Analysis, Newbury Park: Sage; Allison [1995] Survival Analysis, Cary, NC: SAS Institute) and logistic regression on data provided in population registers (Shūmon Aratame Chō, or SAC) from a village in central Japan, covering the period from 1671-1871, in a preliminary investigation of the effects of household grandparental presence on the probability of a child's death. We found that after accounting for the presence of other household members, the only grandparent whose presence exerted a consistent negative effect on the likelihood of a child's death was the mother's mother. Due to the small sample size of households that contained maternal grandmothers, these results failed to achieve statistical significance. Their importance, however, is in what they suggest about future research, i.e., census data from preindustrial societies can provide a basis for testing evolutionary proposals, including the "grandmother hypothesis."

Increasing the participation of students who study science and mathematics curricula is a priority in many countries, but between-school inequalities in the offerings of these subjects is not well understood. We examine stratified opportunities to learn science and math subjects in upper secondary schools in Australia, as a case study for examining how educational marketization reduces access to curricular subjects in comprehensive secondary education systems. Using census data from one state, we found biology and chemistry are offered in most schools, but substantial inequalities exist in access to physics and especially advanced mathematics. School size, socioeconomic composition, sector and location predict whether a school offers advanced mathematics. The findings suggest that inequalities in access to science and mathematics curricula are patterned by social background and that these inequalities are linked with educational marketization.

Geographical access to termination of pregnancy services in New Zealand

The presence of diverse religions in Western pluralistic societies raises the following question: how can religion be taught while respecting the different religions and cultures represented in the school environment and in society? Since 2008, the province of Quebec has addressed this issue by suggesting a new type of non-denominational religious teaching: a cultural approach to religion in the “Ethics and Religious Culture” (ERC) program (Mels 2008. Ethique et culture religieuse [Online]. Quebec: Ministere de l’education du loisir et du sport). In this article, we will explore the basic components of this cultural approach to religion and thereby grasp its uniqueness. This analysis will offer a new and contextualized perspective of the issue of non-denominational religious teaching in the Western world. In order to understand the issues of this specific educational context, we will first take a brief look at the history of the ERC program, showing how the secularization of the Quebec education system gradually gave birth to a non-denominational cultural religious curriculum for the entire academic path of Quebec students. Next, we will analyze the cultural challenges of the program; its place in the Quebec education program, the student’s vision, the teacher’s role and the concept of being cultural mediators, and the professional stance of impartiality, as well as program goals and skills. We will focus particularly on the skill described as “demonstrate an understanding of religion,” since it is at the heart of cultural religious teaching in the program. Therefore, we will examine in detail the program components, its concepts of religion and religious expression, its themes, the time dedicated to studying religious heritage, and the time allotted for each religion.

Utilization, costs, and outcomes for patients receiving publicly funded hemodialysis in India

This study critically examines the evolving migration patterns and associated demographic changes in Sri Lanka from the mid-1970s to the present, situating migration within broader political, economic, and social transformations. Drawing on census data, labour force surveys, remittance matrices, and district-level case studies, the analysis highlights how internal and international migration interact to reshape population structures, labour markets, and household dynamics. While existing scholarship has predominantly focused on labour migration and remittance flows, this study advances a more integrated perspective by examining education-related mobility, entrepreneurship, return migration, and their cumulative demographic impacts. Findings reveal that internal rural-urban migration often precedes international migration, creating layered mobility trajectories that challenge conventional analytical distinctions. Migration has contributed simultaneously to economic resilience, through remittances, skills acquisition, and transnational networks, and to structural vulnerabilities, including population ageing, labour shortages, altered gender roles, and caregiving deficits in origin communities. The demographic transition underway in Sri Lanka, marked by declining fertility and rising dependency ratios, is further intensified by the selective out-migration of working-age adults. Urbanisation pressures, housing shortages, and regional imbalances underscore the uneven spatial consequences of migration. The study argues that migration should be understood not merely as an economic coping strategy but as a structural force shaping long-term demographic resilience and social reproduction. A policy-relevant contribution of this research lies in its call for integrated migration governance that aligns labour markets, social protection, urban planning, and human-capital development to mitigate demographic risks while harnessing the developmental potential of mobility.

Cross-border migration leads to a diversification of societies, which is reflected in the education system, where classrooms are composed of students with heterogeneous cultural, linguistic, socio-economic characteristics. However, this diversity is only to a limited extent reflected in the teacher population, even though teachers from different backgrounds can bring specific intercultural competencies, have more positive attitudes toward multicultural heterogeneity and act as role models. To facilitate the diversification of the teaching profession, it is imperative that the cohorts of students entering teacher education programs represent the diversity of societies, however studies have shown students with migration backgrounds or from families with lower socio-economic status are underrepresented in such programs. This study considered the demographic constellation of applicants for admission into the teacher education program in Luxembourg (2015–2019) and investigated to what extent the admission process (dis)advantages certain groups. Results revealed that although applicants come from diverse backgrounds, proficiency in the country’s native languages poses a disadvantage for students with migration backgrounds. In addition, applicants coming from more privileged families stand a better chance of being admitted. Results are interpreted within the framework of social mobility and social reproduction. Implications for the admission to the teachers’ education program are discussed.