Cross-national Comparative Research Research Articles

Uncovering the landscape of cross-national UK education research: an exploratory review

ABSTRACT Background Internationally, research comparing education systems across countries and jurisdictions is valuable and can elicit nuanced insights into how particular systems operate. This paper’s interest lies in considering the scope and content of research comparing education systems across the four UK nations (England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales). Purpose This study sought to determine the coverage of UK cross-national comparative education research (‘home international’ research) between 2000 and 2022. We chose this time period as 1999 marks the devolution of education policy to each UK nation. We aimed to investigate what educational issues had been discussed in the literature and identify any gaps in the content covered by the research. Method An exploratory, high-level review of ‘home international’ education research was conducted, based on the review of abstracts. We searched several research databases using a variety of keyword combinations to identify relevant literature published since 2000. Our search identified 53 studies that met our selection criteria. Using a meta-synthesis approach, we coded the content of each abstract to build a picture of the range and thematic coverage of research involving comparisons between at least two of the four UK nations. Findings The analysis of abstracts identified that, over the last two decades, UK ‘home international’ research has tended to include comparisons of all four nations, coverage of multiple educational phases and a focus on national education policy reviews. Furthermore, we pinpointed a number of gaps in coverage that might not have been anticipated (e.g. relatively little cross-national research focusing on assessment). Conclusion This high-level review uncovers the landscape of recent ‘home international’ research, allowing us to view issues that are driving the cross-national research agenda in the UK and recognise implications relevant to education systems that may resonate with jurisdictions beyond these four UK nations.

Unpacking participation in healthcare governance: Lessons from two local health councils in Brazil and Spain.

This paper describes and compares the integration of cross-sector actors' participation into the governance of two local health councils, one located in Salvador de Bahia (Brazil) and the other in the Canary Islands (Spain). Based on the cross-national comparative research conducted as part of a doctoral thesis, a qualitative design based on secondary data analysis was proposed on the three stages of the organisational integration process of participation. We used information from individual semi-structured interviews (n=70), situational observation, focus groups, literature review, and field notes to understand participatory processes of networking between multiple cross-sector actors and to show how such processes might be associated with innovative practices. For these innovations to be successfully implemented, stakeholders need to acquire adequate competencies in cross-sector collaboration, enabling them to learn about new organisational practices and to adapt the network of actors to the often unpredictable influences of contextual factors.

Social Media as Commodifier or Homogenizer? Journalists’ Social Media Use in Individualistic and Collectivist Cultures and Its Implications for Epistemologies of News Production

This study seeks to address two research needs in journalism studies. First, there is a need for research that situates political reporters’ social media engagement as part of a broader investigation into journalistic epistemology, or what it means for these reporters to produce and validate information as authorized “knowers.” Second, there is a need for cross-national comparative research that looks beyond Western contexts alone and does so using the strengths of qualitative research methods. This study thus explores the use of social media by political reporters in the United States and South Korea. Through interviews with 35 journalists, we show that social media practices create a different sense of knowing, which operates according to a work atmosphere that is culturally conditioned. We find that U.S. journalism’s emphasis on exclusivity and individuality motivates reporters to orient social media use around producing unique news that no other reporter knows. Such emphasis on distinctiveness opens the door for honing their personal branding skills, ultimately leading to a self-commodification strategy. By contrast, in South Korea, with its long tradition of a collectivist-oriented Confucian culture, reporters treat social media as a more communal digital workspace that distributes news sources and information in an equitable manner.

Potential of Sense of Place in Cultural Heritage Conservation: A Systematic Review

Sense of place is a fundamental aspect of cultural heritage conservation and management, as it plays an important role in understanding the connection between individuals and the places they inhabit. This study aims to provide heritage managers and scholars with up-to-date insights into the importance of a sense of place in maintaining cultural heritage. The main objectives of this research are to explore whether a sense of place’s role in cultural heritage research has been adequately investigated and to assess the sense of place potential in cultural heritage conservation. We conducted a systematic literature review of 42 articles to achieve these goals. Through thematic analysis, this study reveals a sense of place’s impact on various aspects of cultural heritage conservation. From the results, six prominent themes emerged, highlighting that a sense of place is a key determinant in the effectiveness of cultural heritage management initiatives. Based on these findings, authors advocate for enhanced collaboration between the government and local communities, acknowledging the importance of heritage tourism and reinforcing policies for cultural heritage conservation to bolster the sense of place. In future research, examining a sense of place can expand to interdisciplinary intersections, quantitative studies, cross-national comparative research, and the exploration of the role of technology in augmenting both the sense of place and cultural heritage conservation.

1.L. Workshop: The social dimension of health literacy: empirical research and new insights

Abstract Background The social dimension of health literacy, also referred to as social health literacy or distributed health literacy, is meaningful and captures important aspects of the concept that areavailable within the social environment of people. While many studies in the realm of public health research, both qualitative and quantitative, rather focus the individual context of health literacy, research on the inherent social aspects of health literacy and how social environments and structures impact health literacy are scarce. However, in the recent years the body of empirical health literacy research that particularly looks at the social level and considers the social environment in which people live is growing and helps us to conceptualise health literacy as a resource that exists at a community as well as at an individual level. Studies focusing the social dimension of health literacy are based on sociological theories and socio-ecological concepts. In this new realm of empirical research, new approaches have emerged. Among which are, e.g., the analysis of social practices of health literacy, consideration of social networks and how they shape health literacy and health care interaction, the investigation of how health literacy is distributed within the social environment, how conditions within settings enable or impede that people use health literacy to make healthy decisions, and how this can facilitate an understanding of the wider determinants of health and agency for change across communities. These new approaches are deeply rooted in the fact that health literacy is always socially embedded. In daily life, the ability to make good health decisions, manage health information appropriately, or communicate effectively are influenced by one's social network. Objectives The purpose of this workshop is to focus on research on ‘social health literacy’. In the first part we will present and discuss insights from 4 projects that focus on the social aspect of health literacy. (i) The first presentation will introduce new findings in critical health literacy, which enables individuals and communities to reflect on the wider determinants of health. (ii) The second presentation will focus on key insights from a regional effort to build a health literacy community through social networks. (iii) The third presentation will focus on health literacy practices in a social online environment. (iv) The final presentation will illuminate medication safety through a social determinants of health and health literacy. Each project will be given 12 minutes (8 mins presentation & 4 mins for Q&A). The participants in turn will learn about recent results they can use in public health research, practice and policy. The second part of the workshop is dedicated to discuss best practices regarding cross-national comparative research in the field of social health literacy and vision future project opportunities. Key messages • The social dimension of health literacy have emerged in the past years and illuminates how social networks, environments and settings influence how and if people achieve their health goals. • This workshop will encourage and support research on health literacy in a social context, both for individual and in social networks of organizations, aiming at targeted approaches and heath equity.

A Twitter-Based Comparative Analysis of Emotions and Sentiments of Arab and Hispanic Football Fans

Twitter is one of the best online platforms for social interaction, introducing unique means of story-telling through tweets and enabling multiple approaches to the analysis of their content. This study was motivated by the increasing practice of incorporating Twitter into cultural studies and the research gap in Twitter-based cultural studies between emerging nations. This research aims to examine the emotional and sentimental cultural traits of Arabic and Hispanic viewers of a specific football match, as shown through their tweets, regardless of their distinct languages, to determine whether cultural diversity can be noticed in online interaction. Hundreds of tweets from both communities were translated into English as an intermediate language and then evaluated and contrasted using machine learning (ML) models. According to the research, Arabs are more collectivistic (as opposed to individualistic) and, as a result, exhibit less emotional arousal than Hispanics, which was partially supported by the collected Twitter data. This demonstrates how Twitter could play a key part in cultural research, and, therefore, this study contributes to cross-national comparative cultural research. We demonstrate that our method can also be used to evaluate the quality of machine translation based on how effectively it captures the emotions and sentiments of original languages.

Sociological Imaginations for Anti-Racist Futures: An Interview with Dr Prudence Carter

In this interview, Dr Prudence Carter, 2021–2022 President-Elect of the American Sociological Association, discusses how sociology can contribute to anti-racist futures across national contexts. Her insights point to the need for greater self-awareness in sociology regarding race and racism, for clarification of our aims and for better articulation and translation of popularized theoretical concepts, such as structural racism, to the general public. To achieve radical inclusion in the future, she highlights the importance of engaging in public and policy sociology, by explaining and substantiating policies and practices derived from our research. She also underscores the significance and value of comparative cross-national and multidisciplinary collaborative research. Most importantly, she brings to the fore the necessity of imagining new epistemological and methodological approaches to study the conditions that will enable our societies to attain equitable and anti-racist futures. Fundamentally, this involves extending our sociological imaginations.

PLATFORM POWER AND EXPERIENCES FROM THE MARGIN: ADOLESCENTS’ ONLINE VULNERABILITY AND MENTAL HEALTH

Internet and social media use can be both beneficial and harmful for vulnerable youth, offering support and increased self-knowledge, but also exposure to adverse content. Research on the critical question of what makes a difference between the digital pathways to wellbeing or harm is minimal. However, there is some indication that how adolescents engage with the internet and its particular digital affordances makes a difference to their wellbeing outcomes. In this paper, we offer insights into the role of different dimensions of digital engagement in aiding or worsening internet-related mental health difficulties. We report on findings from cross-national comparative qualitative research with 62 adolescents aged 12 to 22 years old from Norway and the UK who experience internet-related mental health difficulties. Findings show that young people actively engage with the digital world both by utilising its affordances but also shaping its parameters, sometimes going against the grain of what was envisioned by design. The adolescents we spoke to were generally skilled internet users, but sophisticated skills do not necessarily make for better mental health and wellbeing outcomes. Independent of digital skill, affordances may result in even riskier online engagement shaped by the operation of algorithms. At times this can breach young people’s abilities to counteract and cope with detrimental consequences. In many cases, we find that the algorithms are “out of sync” with adolescents’ state of mind and ability to cope, exacerbating their mental health difficulties. We conclude with reflections on the implications for platform design and therapeutic support.

A systematic review of the International School Leadership Development Network, social justice strand research, 2010–2021

This systematic review provides an overview of findings gleaned from the International School Leadership Development Network (ISLDN) cross-comparative research published since 2010. The purpose of this review considers outcomes linked to cross-national context and culture, rather than in-country outcomes linked to local context and respondent differences. The research question which guided this study was: How does ISLDN cross-national comparative research inform us about socially just leadership? All studies, without regard to country or the macro policies under which the schools operated, centered on the importance of the school principal as the impetus for the extent to which social justice was practiced. The principal's innate value system, the influence of the principal's biography, and the fidelity with which the principal implemented policy while meeting the needs of all children carried more weight for social justice than the macro and meso levels.

Who do Europeans want to govern? Exploring the multiple dimensions of citizens’ preferences for political actors in nine European countries

Many studies have tried to identify citizens’ views about which actors should govern and how. These studies have mostly looked at support for citizens or independent experts being given a greater role. Recently, Hibbing, Theiss-Morse, Hibbing and Fortunato have proposed a new battery of 21 survey items capturing the dimensions along which citizens’ preferences for who should govern are organized. Testing their survey instrument among US respondents, they identified seven dimensions. In this study, we replicate their approach across nine European democracies, namely, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Finland, Greece, Ireland and the Netherlands. The replication allows, first, to compare citizens’ preferences for political actors between the US and Europe, and within Europe. Second, it provides suggestions for how Hibbing and colleagues’ battery might be adapted and re-used in other countries, enabling further cross-national comparative research on citizens’ preferences for who should govern.

How Gender Can Travel, or Not, through Children’s Books: A Comparison of Poland and the United States

Previous research, mainly from the US, indicates that children’s literature is a powerful transmitter of gender roles. To better understand how ideas about gender found in children’s books cross national borders, travel within frontiers, and crash against obstacles that block the road to gender equality, this article compares the US and Poland in terms of children’s book publishing and scholarship. Whereas the US children’s book market is obviously larger, Poland’s internal market is large and growing enough to rely on its own, and thus acts as a barricade to repel ‘foreign’ gender norms. In the US, feminism has a strong tradition in children’s literature research; in Poland, by contrast and since 1989, feminism and the study of gender in children’s books have no strong tradition, and for the last eight years the government has openly discouraged progressive norms of gender equality. This article concludes with a call for cross-national comparative research on children’s books to provide insights into the facilitators and barriers to intercultural exchange of gender ideologies and national efforts to promote gender progressive ideals among young readers.

The role of energy balance related behaviors in socioeconomic inequalities in childhood body mass index: A comparative analysis of Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and the United States

Socioeconomic inequalities in childhood Body Mass Index (BMI) are becoming increasingly more pronounced across the world. Although countries differ in the direction and strength of these inequalities, cross-national comparative research on this topic is rare. This paper draws on harmonized longitudinal cohort data from four wealthy countries—Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom (UK), and the United States (US)—to 1) map cross-country differences in the magnitude of socioeconomic inequalities in childhood BMI, and 2) to examine cross-country differences in the role of three energy-balance-related behaviors—physical activity, screen time, and breakfast consumption—in explaining these inequalities. Children were aged 5–7 at our first timepoint and were followed up at age 8–11. We used data from the German National Educational Panel Study, the Dutch Generation R study, the UK Millennium Cohort Study and the US Early Childhood Longitudinal-Kindergarten Study. All countries revealed significant inequalities in childhood BMI. The US stood out in having the largest inequalities. Overall, inequalities between children with low versus medium educated parents were smaller than those between children with high versus medium educated parents. The role of energy-balance-related behaviors in explaining inequalities in BMI was surprisingly consistent. Across countries, physical activity did not, while screen time and breakfast consumption did play a role. The only exception was that breakfast consumption did not play a role in the US. Cross-country differences emerged in the relative contribution of each behavior in explaining inequalities in BMI: Breakfast consumption was most important in the UK, screen time explained most in Germany and the US, and breakfast consumption and screen time were equally important in the Netherlands. Our findings suggest that what constitutes the most effective policy intervention differs across countries and that these should target both children from medium as well as low educated families.

Application of Cross-National Comparative Research Design in Medical and Nursing Education

AbstractIt is impossible to think without making comparisons. In the absence of comparison, all scientific inquiry and investigation is meaningless. Comparison has a significant history in the study of human science, history, and culture. Comparative study in the subject of social theory may be seen since ancient Greek, and this unbroken history was only strengthened as time has elapsed. Comparison research is a process of determining and quantifying correlations between two or more variables by studying various groups that are subjected to various treatments, either by decision or by circumstances. A comparative analysis compares two or more similar groups, individuals, or conditions to arrive at a conclusion. Due to the result of ongoing processes such as the massive expansion in telecommunications, technical breakthroughs, and the inherent amplification of globalization trends, comparative research, particularly cross-national comparison, has received much interest lately. As a result, instances of comparative techniques may be found throughout the modern social sciences, health sciences, and humanities. Researchers have compared cases to each other, use statistical techniques to establish quantitative comparisons, compare cases to theoretically produce results, and compare case values on important factors to actual rates to examine co-variation.

A post-Flexner comparative case study of medical training responses to health system needs in Brazil and Germany.

Health systems need medical professionals who can and will work in outpatient settings, such as general practitioner practices or health centres. However, medical students complete only a small portion of their medical training there. Furthermore, this type of training is sometimes seen as inferior to training in academic medical centres and university hospitals. Hence, the healthcare system’s demand and the execution of medical curricula do not match. Robust concepts for better alignment of both these parts are lacking. This study aims to (1) describe decentral learning environments in the context of traditional medical curricula and (2) derive ideas for implementing such scenarios further in existing curricula in response to particular medicosocietal needs.This study is designed as qualitative cross-national comparative education research. It comprises three steps: first, two author teams consisting of course managers from Brazil and Germany write a report on change management efforts in their respective faculty. Both teams then compare and comment on the other’s report. Emerging similarities and discrepancies are categorised. Third, a cross-national analysis is conducted on the category system.Stakeholders of medical education (medical students, teaching faculty, teachers in decentral learning environments) have differing standards, ideals and goals that are influenced by their own socialisation—prominently, Flexner’s view of university hospital training as optimal training. We reiterate that both central and decentral learning environments provide meaningful complementary learning opportunities. Medical students must be prepared to navigate social aspects of learning and accept responsibility for communities. They are uniquely positioned to serve as visionaries and university ambassadors to communities. As such, they can bridge the gap between university hospitals and decentral learning environments.

Cross-National Perspectives on Health and Well-Being in Later Life

Abstract Cross-national comparisons are increasingly being used to re-evaluate whether our theories of aging are dependent on sociocultural context and to develop new insights into both long-standing and emerging issues in aging. The papers in this symposium use harmonized data from the Gateway to Global Aging to examine a range of topics in aging and provide new insights into key questions in aging research. Liu et al., determine whether social relationships mediate the association between early life adversity and later life health and well-being using longitudinal data from the U.S. and England. Considering multiple domains of the social determinants of health, such as socioeconomic status, social relationships, and health care access, Cho et al. identify which are related to self-rated health in China, Japan, and South Korea. Cheng et al. test the age-as-leveler hypothesis for explaining how socioeconomic differentials in health change in older ages in China and 19 European countries to determine if the protective effect of socioeconomic status on multi-morbidity changes with age. Harmonized data facilitate international comparisons papers, but additional efforts are sometimes needed to calibrate specific measures across international surveys. A major challenge in cross-national aging research, for instance, has been the limited ability to compare cognition across countries. Nichols and colleagues present a novel method for cocalibration of cognitive function across the U.S., England, and India that could be used for additional cross-national comparative research. The papers in this symposium demonstrate both the potential and challenges of cross-national studies of health and well-being among older adults.

Focus Groups as a Questionnaire Pretest for Surveys in Cross-Cultural and Cross-National Comparative Research

As a research method, focus groups have methodological advantages for understanding the views and behavior of group members or for understanding the social system as a whole, since it covers the interaction between people, groups, and the interpersonal environment quite well that widely recognized in the social sciences. These advantages are introduced in the context of mixed-methods, including conducting a survey together with focus groups as a pretest questionnaire in a comparative perspective in cross-national and cross-culture research. Focus groups provide to reach construct equivalence and elaborate an appropriate context-oriented language for questionnaire questions. Using the focus groups in this way can be an effective approach to overcoming the initial limited ability of surveys to valid measure more complex socially constructed concepts, the meaning of which can vary significantly from one group to another, especially from a comparative perspective in cross-national and cross-culture research. Using focus groups, data is collected in a more natural way, that is, more close to the real world, while the generalization is ensured by a detailed description of specific conditions, participants, and research environment. In addition, the discussion group is a miniature thinking society, and unlike dyadic interviews or surveys, focus group discussions give participants the opportunity to express their opinions, discuss their views and opinions with other participants, listen to other peoples opinions, disagree or to develop thoughts by reasoning out loud - this is similar to what happens in real life. This increased awareness about the described advantages of the approach for cross-cultural and cross-national comparative research likely contributes to its more active employ.

Cross-national Analysis of Education and Trust: Context, Comparability, and Causal Mechanisms

Based on existing studies on welfare and education regimes, the paper aims at strengthening the conceptual foundations of comparative research in education and trust by identifying relevant system-level characteristics, deriving analytical dimensions as a framework for cross-national comparison, and exploring how these dimensions might be linked to trust. The paper thus provides a better basis for dealing with context as well as its role in causal explanations and case selection in cross-national comparative research on trust in education.

Conceptualizing cross-country analyses of family firms: A systematic review and future research agenda

The national context in which family firms operate influences their behavior and firm-related outcomes. Especially how and why family businesses differ across contexts has therefore received growing interest. Yet, the insights on family businesses across countries remain fragmented and lack integration, especially regarding how the cross-country context is operationalized. Building on comparative cross-national research, this review aims to bridge the disciplines of international business and family business. I analyze the current field of cross-country family business research building on a systematic literature review of 105 peer-reviewed studies in the period 2000–2020 with the goal to collect and structure the current body of knowledge and build a future research agenda. The findings highlight different approaches that family business research utilizes to operationalize “cross-country” elements, outlining how research applies direct comparisons between countries and comparisons based upon theoretical perspectives. Building upon this conceptualization of cross-country operationalizations, the study provides several new avenues for future research.

Pushing beyond boundaries as a pre-tenure rural sociologist who is not from around here

In her 2020 Agriculture, Food and Human Values Society (AFHVS) presidential address, Molly Anderson outlined three ways to push beyond boundaries imposed on us and by us to work towards addressing global food system and societal problems. In this response essay, I draw on my experiences and my perspectives as a pre-tenure rural sociologist who is not from around here to highlight how I attempt to push beyond boundaries in my own work and to discuss challenges associated with the feasibility of some of Molly’s call. I also build on Molly’s call for boundary work including a broadening of international collaborations through increased engagement in cross-national comparative research, pivoting from interacting with global social movements to interacting with key stakeholders, and deepening of anti-discrimination work through the use of an intersectionality lens. Arguing that Molly’s call for action is bold but needed, I close my essay with a set of questions that I hope can contribute to larger discussions on how we can help one another push beyond boundaries to work towards more fair and sustainable food systems.

Conceptualizing and Measuring Political Inequality in a Cross-National Perspective

Abstract It is widely believed that economic inequality significantly affects political inequality, and vice versa. However, there has been a lack of empirical evidence about this relationship, particularly, in cross-national comparative research. This is largely because cross-national measures of political inequality are underdeveloped. To fill this gap, this study introduces a new way of conceptualizing and measuring political inequality and constructs the Political Inequality Index (PII), which is mainly based on objective indicators. Additionally, the Political Power Inequality Index (PPII) based on subjective indicators is presented as an alternative measure. This research then explores the features of these measures and investigates the impact of economic inequality on political inequality with the measures. The dynamic panel data analysis controlling for endogeneity provides little evidence that income inequality has a significant effect on political inequality, however.