Disadvantaged Contexts Research Articles

Examining the Influence of Pre-HAART Experiences on Older, Self-Identifying Gay Men’s Contemporary Constructions of Quality of Life (QOL)

ABSTRACT Some older gay men (50+) experience diminished quality of life (QOL) due to historical and ongoing discrimination in addition to living through a collective trauma—the pre-HAART era of the HIV/AIDS epidemic—characterized by the absence of treatment and rampant discrimination targeting gay men. A growing body of literature, however, illustrates that older gay men demonstrate remarkable resilience but little is known about how QOL is conceptualized and how these conceptualizations are potentially shaped by pre-HAART experiences. The current study drew on constructivist grounded theory methods to examine how QOL is conceptualized in light of the sociohistorical relevance of pre-HAART. Twenty Canadian based gay men aged 50+ participated in semi-structured interviews via Zoom. Ultimately, QOL is understood as experiencing contentment, which is made possible by the development and implementation of three key processes: (1) developing and cultivating meaningful connections, (2) growing into and embracing identity, and (3) appreciating the capacity to do what brings joy. QOL for this group is greatly informed by a context of disadvantage, and the demonstrated resilience warrants further investigation to meaningfully support the overall well-being of older gay men.

From protected spaces to hybrid spaces: Mobilizing A place-centered enabling approach for justice-sensitive grassroots innovation studies

Sustainability transitions research to date has paid insufficient attention to the intrinsic benefits of grassroots innovations (GIs) in disadvantaged contexts and to issues of structural inequalities, grounded experiences of unsustainability, and place-based politics. This paper takes inspiration from critical transition studies to address these gaps by reconceptualizing grassroots niches as hybrid spaces involving both socio-spatial differentiation and socio-technical reconfigurations linked to capitalist industrialization. It then proposes a place-centered enabling approach to investigate how grassroots actors create, mobilize for, and assign meanings to GIs. Three interrelated analytical foci directing the approach – the development history of the host community, its place-framing, and its place-making politics – are applied to a case study of a community energy project in rural Taiwan. By demonstrating GIs’ potential to empower marginalized communities to pursue their place-based visions for sustainability, this paper adds socio-spatial and structural insights to discussions on the transformative politics of GIs.

Disparities in 30-day readmission rates among Medicare enrollees with dementia.

Readmissions contribute to excessive care costs and burden for people living with dementia. Assessments of racial disparities in readmissions among dementia populations are lacking, and the role of social and geographic risk factors such as individual-level exposure to greater neighborhood disadvantage is poorly understood. We examined the association between race and 30-day readmissions in a nationally representative sample of Black and non-Hispanic White individuals with dementia diagnoses. This retrospective cohort study used 100% Medicare fee-for-service claims from all 2014 hospitalizations nationwide among Medicare enrollees with dementia diagnosis linked to patient, stay, and hospital factors. The sample consisted of 1,523,142 hospital stays among 945,481 beneficiaries. The relationship between all cause 30-day readmissions and the explanatory variable of self-reported race (Black, non-Hispanic White) was examined via generalized estimating equations approach adjusting for patient, stay, and hospital-level characteristics to model 30-day readmission odds. Black Medicare beneficiaries had 37% higher readmission odds compared to White beneficiaries (unadjusted OR 1.37, CI 1.35-1.39). This heightened readmission risk persisted after adjusting for geographic factors (OR 1.33, CI 1.31-1.34), social factors (OR 1.25, CI 1.23-1.27), hospital characteristics (OR 1.24, CI 1.23-1.26), stay-level factors (OR 1.22, CI 1.21-1.24), demographics (OR 1.21, CI 1.19-1.23), and comorbidities (OR 1.16, CI 1.14-1.17), suggesting racially-patterned disparities in care account for a portion of observed differences. Associations varied by individual-level exposure to neighborhood disadvantage such that the protective effect of living in a less disadvantaged neighborhood was associated with reduced readmissions for White but not Black beneficiaries. Conversely, among White beneficiaries, exposure to the most disadvantaged neighborhoods associated with greater readmission rates compared to White beneficiaries residing in less disadvantaged contexts. There are significant racial and geographic disparities in 30-day readmission rates among Medicare beneficiaries with dementia diagnoses. Findings suggest distinct mechanisms underlying observed disparities differentially influence various subpopulations.

Students' educational drive and ethnic capital.

Class has been central to European sociology and especially to sociology of education. Class origins (through one's parents) do indeed largely determine one's educational attainments and through them, with further support from one's class origins, determine one's class destination. And the cycle continues in one's own children. However, class does not affect all ethnic groups in the same manner, given that different groups bring different resources to any given situation, in this case, education, through their ethnic capital. Ethnic capital is the social capital that may be distinctive to a particular ethnic group and so can vary across groups. It can motivate, support and channel the behaviour of members of a group. This article focuses on the ethnic capital of one set of parents and the wider community. It is based on qualitative research undertaken with a small group of British Kashmiris who have been educationally successful. The investigation explored the contribution of their parents and the wider community to their education: how the parents and the wider family communicated their expectations on education and thesupport and encouragement they provided to the young people. The findings showed that in a socioeconomically disadvantaged context the ethnic capital of the parents and the community can be a driving factor in their children's education.

The Impact of Neighborhood Factors on Physical Activity in Older Adults With Visual Impairment

To investigate the associations of neighborhood-level socioeconomic and environmental characteristics with physical activity in persons with glaucoma. Cross-sectional study (N=230). Home addresses were used to extract neighborhood factors (NFs): Area Deprivation Index, crime rate, and the proportion of racial and ethnic minorities, poverty, college graduates, and park area in their census tract. Participants' average number of daily steps and nonsedentary minutes were collected over 7 days using an accelerometer. Visual field (VF) loss was quantified as integrated VF sensitivity. Multivariable negative binomial regression models and additional models with an interaction term evaluated the effect of NF on physical activity and whether these relationships differed by VF loss severity. Participants were on average 70.6 years of age, 51.7% were male, and 27.8% were black. A higher Area Deprivation Index or poverty share was associated with fewer NSM (incidence rate ratio [IRR]=0.96 per 1 Area Deprivation Index decile increment, P=.01; IRR=0.92 per 10% poverty share increment, P=.02), while higher share of college graduates was associated with greater NSM (IRR=1.03 per 10% increment; P=.03). Stronger associations were noted between both high crime rate and poverty share with NSM in individuals with severe VF damage as opposed to no/mild VF damage (IRR=0.44, P=.001; IRR=0.81, P=.02). Select NFs (poverty share and crime rate) may disproportionately affect physical activity in patients with severe VF loss. Interventions to overcome activity limitations within the context of poverty and high socioeconomic disadvantage are important for addressing glaucoma-related disability, particularly in those with severe VF loss.

The Irony of Accountability: How a Performance-Inducing Policy Reduces Motivation to Perform

Although sociological and organizational studies have focused on the influence of quantification on behavior, the author focuses on quantification’s increasingly important consequences on well-being and motivation. Using the case of U.S. education, which has long relied on accountability policies, the author finds that attendance at schools with high-stakes accountability predicted lower student self-efficacy, that is, decreased task motivation and resilience as well as increased fear of failure—salient for low-income, urban, and public schools. These associations, however, did not spill over to social and life satisfaction dimensions of well-being. Taken together, these findings suggest the irony of accountability, where data used to induce performance may unintentionally reduce people’s motivation to perform, particularly consequential in disadvantaged contexts. This article is an attempt to contribute to a broader theorization of quantification, affecting not only external behaviors and organizational structures but also internal personal dispositions. Finally, the article provides implications for the study of well-being, organizations, and education policy.

Further evidence that system justification amongst the disadvantaged is positively related to superordinate group identification

Members of disadvantaged groups sometimes support societal systems that enable the very inequalities that disadvantaged them. Is it possible to explain this puzzling system-justifying orientation in terms of rational group-interested motives, without recourse to a separate system motive? The social identity model of system attitudes (SIMSA) claims that it is. SIMSA proposes that the system justification shown by a disadvantaged group (e.g., African American women) can sometimes support identity needs that are tied to a more inclusive (superordinate) in-group (e.g., Americans). There is already some supportive evidence for this proposition, but it is not yet clear whether: (1) such trends are visible in a wider range of disadvantaged contexts, and (2) this explanation also applies to those who are strongly invested in their subgroup (e.g., feminists). In two waves of a large nationally representative survey from 21 to 23 European states (Ntotal = 84,572) and two controlled experiments (Ntotal = 290 women), we found that: (a) system justification was positively associated with superordinate ingroup identification across multiple cases of disadvantage (Studies 1–3), (b) system justification increased when this inclusive identity was made more salient (Studies 2 & 3), and (c) system justification was visible even amongst feminists when they activated their superordinate (Italian) identity (Study 3).

Policy translations of citizen participation and new public governance: the case of school governing bodies

ABSTRACT This paper considers the policy problematic of state–citizen relationships, reflecting on renewed calls for citizen collaboration and codesign in the provision of public services in ‘new public governance’. Analysing this through recent policy reform in Australian public school governance, we examine how existing policy architectures – in this case school boards/councils – are being rearticulated in relation to such calls. Drawing on in-depth interviews with a range of policy stakeholders, we examine the diverse policy translations of citizen involvement in school governance. Our analysis highlights the contradictions and limitations of a school board/council structure for policy aspirations of citizen collaboration. While stakeholders welcomed school board member (i.e., parent) involvement in governance, this was strongly mediated by distinctions between strategic and operational decision-making, questions about the possibilities for meaningful participation, and tensions surrounding the need for skilled expert board members and community representation – particularly in disadvantaged contexts.

Thermal and Acoustic Characterization of Innovative and Unconventional Panels Made of Reused Materials

Europe calls for a transition to the circular economy model based on recycling, reuse, the proper design of products, and repair. Recycling requires energy and chemical products for waste processing; on the contrary, reusing reduces the impact of transportation and expands the life of materials that cannot be recycled. This article highlights the characteristics of selected end-of-life materials; it aims to raise awareness among manufacturers to consider products’ conscious design to facilitate their reuse in different sectors. Panels 7 cm thick, realized by assembling cardboard packaging, egg boxes, bulk polyester, and felt, have been experimentally tested to understand whether they can be installed indoors to improve thermal and acoustic comfort. The panels’ equivalent thermal conductivity λeq measured through the guarded hot plate method is 0.071 W/mK. Acoustic tests have been performed in a sound transmission room and a reverberation room. The weighted sound reduction index Rw is 19 dB, the weighted sound absorption coefficient αw is 0.30, and the noise reduction coefficient NRC is 0.64. The measured properties have been compared to those of commercial materials, and the results show that the panels have interesting properties from the thermal and acoustic points of view. They could be employed in the building sector and in disadvantaged contexts where low-income people cannot afford commercial insulating materials. Although other factors, such as fire resistance, need to be evaluated, these results show that the proposed approach is feasible.

Childhood neighborhoods and health: Census-based neighborhood measures versus residential lived experiences.

This study examines the impact of neighborhood disadvantage and neighborhood social connectedness during childhood on subsequent health status during early adulthood. We link longitudinal data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics with Census data on children's surrounding neighborhoods. We estimate results with conventional linear regression and novel methods that better adjust for neighborhood selection processes. We find that neighborhood connectedness in childhood is protective against psychological distress in early adulthood, net of selection effects. However, greater connectedness exacerbates the risk of obesity within disadvantaged contexts for Black youth. Our results highlight a potential pathway for improving population health by investing in the social connectedness of neighborhoods alongside reducing structural inequalities.

Concentrated incarceration and the public-housing-to-prison pipeline in New York City neighborhoods

Using public housing developments as a strategic site, our research documents a distinct pathway linking disadvantaged context to incarceration-the public-housing-to-prison pipeline. Focusing on New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) housing developments as a case study, we find that incarceration rates in NYCHA tracts are 4.6 times higher than those in non-NYCHA tracts. More strikingly, 94% of NYCHA tracts report rates above the median value for non-NYCHA tracts. Moreover, 17% of New York State's incarcerated population originated from just 372 NYCHA tracts. Compared with non-NYCHA tracts, NYCHA tracts had higher shares of Black residents and were significantly more disadvantaged. This NYCHA disadvantage in concentrated incarceration is also robust at different spatial scales. Our findings have implications for policies and programs to disrupt community-based pipelines to prison.

Cognitive Intervention Programs in Minors Belonging to Disadvantaged Contexts in Spain: A Systematic Review.

Research studies show a strong influence of socioeconomic status (SES) on human development, and how the exposure to risk contexts in the earliest stages translates into dangers in the cognitive development of children and adolescents. To alleviate these consequences and favour development, different cognitive training programs have contributed to this field by identifying the criteria of efficacy. This systematic review identifies and synthesizes the evidence of cognitive intervention studies implemented with psychosocial risk groups carried out in Spain. The search strategy was adapted to different databases. Only studies published in English or Spanish and developed in Spain that included interventions applied in populations aged 5 to 18 years with a low SES were included. The analysis of the literature showed nine interventions that indicated an improvement in those cognitive functions worked with low SES children. The cognitive domains that most worked were executive functions, followed by social cognition and language. After reviewing the available literature, a clear scarcity of interventions carried out in Spain was observed. Variables such as age, cognitive functions or personal vulnerability were identified as factors to be taken into account in future lines of research due to their influence on minors. These findings indicate the relevance of this review to help decision-making in relation to the actions to be carried out by the competent bodies in Spain.

Neighborhood Social Ties and Informal Social Control: When do Neighbors Call the Police or Directly Intervene?

Social disorganization theory posits that neighborhood social ties facilitate residents’ engagement in distinct forms of informal social control important for crime reduction, including private, parochial, and public controls (Bursik & Grasmik, 1993). Yet research examining how social ties contribute to various forms of informal social control is rare, despite a recent resurgence in efforts to clarify these measures (see Warner, 2014). The present study examines whether neighborhood social ties influence direct informal social control (i.e., residents’ perceptions that their neighbors will stop a crime themselves or will get another neighbor to help) and indirect informal social control (i.e., residents’ perceptions that their neighbors will call the police) within ordinary least squares regression. Findings indicate that previous studies, which have relied on global measures of informal social control, have concealed more nuanced relationships regarding social ties and forms of informal social control. More specifically, neighborhood social ties were positively related to direct informal social control at low levels of disadvantage, but were negatively related to direct informal social control in neighborhoods with high concentrated disadvantage, while social ties were positively related to indirect informal social control regardless of disadvantaged context. Findings point to the importance of including more specific measures of informal social control in current and future residential surveys.

Pockets of Peace: A mixed methods, exploratory study of neighborhoods resilient to juvenile violence.

Social science research has focused on hot spots of adolescent violence in marginalized urban neighborhoods for nearly a century. In contrast, in this study, we explore under-resourced urban areas that do not experience high rates of adolescent violence: "pockets of peace." We use a mixed-method approach to identify the sociodemographic, geographic, and criminological commonalities and differences between pockets of peace and other areas of concentrated disadvantage dealing with high rates of adolescent violence in Indianapolis, IN. More than one out of every ten of Indianapolis' areas of concentrated disadvantage meet the criteria to be labeled "pockets of peace." Quantitative data indicate that these areas have fewer prosocial institutions and experience lower homeownership rates than comparison under-resourced areas, and qualitative data point toward rental stability and residential longevity as potentially salient social factors within these contexts. As an alternative to using statistics to control for the context of structural disadvantage, studying pockets of peace and other "cold-spots" of adolescent violencepresents an opportunity to understand community-level resilience within the real, lived context of structural disadvantage.

The social contexts of educational disadvantage: focus on the neighbourhood

ABSTRACT Educational disadvantage is a multilevel and multifactorial phenomenon, with a myriad of contributing factors having been identified within the social contexts inhabited by the student from a lower socioeconomic status (SES) background. Irish research has accumulated a comprehensive body of empirical evidence on the factors operating within family, school and societal contexts but less attention has been paid to the role that the neighbourhood might have in contributing to the under-achievement of students from lower SES backgrounds. This study employed data from the 9 and 17/18-year-old cohorts of the Growing Up in Ireland survey to explore whether the SES of the neighbourhood within which a student lives makes a significant contribution to the prediction of academic achievement over and above the SES of the family and school. A series of multilevel models demonstrated the additive effects of social contexts on academic achievement in both samples. Each social context provided a unique, statistically significant contribution to the prediction of academic achievement, with smaller contributions made by more distal contexts. These findings support an understanding of educational disadvantage as a phenomenon that is perpetuated within multiple social contexts and suggest that strategies to tackle educational disadvantage should take a pan-contextual perspective.

Validation of the Questionnaire on Reading Preferences and Habits of Primary School Pupils at Risk of Social Exclusion

The acquisition of the habit of reading is a fundamental issue for primary school pupils, as it contributes to the integral education of the person and, in some cases, may be essential for pupils to remain in the educational system and to escape social exclusion. In order to carry out research on reading promotion in socially disadvantaged contexts, it is necessary to have an appropriate instrument for these profiles. The aim of this work was to adapt and validate a questionnaire on reading habits and preferences that is suitable for pupils in the first cycle of primary education who are at risk of social exclusion. To this end, a mixed qualitative and quantitative methodology was used to analyse the content validity and the construct validity, which obtained, as a result, a high correlation between the variables, an appropriate factor analysis, a high overall reliability of the instrument and, in general, an adequate model to correctly explain the data of the proposed structure. We concluded by obtaining a 22-item questionnaire that is divided into five factors and that will be appropriate for determining the reading habits and tastes of disadvantaged pupils, as well as the influence of families and schools in the task of encouraging reading.

The integration of emerging technologies in socioeconomically disadvantaged educational contexts. The view of international experts

AbstractBackgroundThe development of students' digital skills is essential to access the labour market and interact with society, being especially important in disadvantaged socioeconomic contexts affected by the digital divide.ObjectivesThe investigation has two objectives. On the one hand, to study the integration of ICT in disadvantaged contexts and, on the other, to know the critical use that is made of them in schools as a source of educational change.MethodsIn this research, eight international experts in education are interviewed on what they consider to be the best way of implementing new technologies in disadvantaged contexts to achieve educational improvement. A mixed methodology has been used, qualitative through semi‐structured interviews and quantitative through a text mining analysis of the interviews' transcripts with the R programming language.Results and ConclusionsThe results show that the teaching staff is the key element. The curriculum, objectives and school director's help are also highlighted, as well as the collaboration of the students who have to be provided with the necessary digital resources. At the state level, greater funding and support from universities are needed to support research and the quality of teacher training.

Qualitative Methodology Innovation That Promotes Educational Success of Children of Immigrant Families in Disadvantaged Contexts

Most of the qualitative research aimed at diagnosing the educational performance of children of immigrant families in disadvantaged contexts does not address how such research can contribute to social impact. However, some research oriented to social impact has collected evidence of achieving improvement in schools implementing actions to promote educational success. This study is a qualitative meta-analysis of a line of research aimed at social impact to contribute to enhancing the educational success of children of immigrant families. Within the framework of this research line, the analysis focuses on three research projects, from the Spanish Research, Development and Innovation plans. These three research projects have analysed 23 case studies of schools in different disadvantaged contexts of Spain from 2009 to 2017. The main findings show that these research focused on social impact and included in their methodologies a category related to the improvement of educational achievement. Including the category of improvement of educational achievement allows qualitative research to obtain evidence of whether the educational actions implemented in those schools contribute to the educational success of children of immigrant families.

Mathematics Learners’ Perceptions of Emergency Remote Teaching and Learning during the COVID-19 Lockdown in a Disadvantaged Context

The COVID-19 global pandemic’s impact on education will take years to resolve. At this point, it is sensible to ponder the big questions of mathematics teaching and learning in disadvantaged contexts. This descriptive mixed-methods study is focused on the learners’ perceptions of the Emergency Remote Teaching and Learning (ERTL) of mathematics during the COVID-19 lockdown. The study was conducted with 137 learners at public secondary schools in a disadvantaged context in South Africa. Purposive and stratified random sampling techniques were used to select the respondents. The data was collected through a Google-generated semi-structured questionnaire. Content analysis was used to analyse the qualitative data from the open-response items. The quantitative data was analysed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences. The findings were that most learners in resource-constrained contexts neither enjoyed nor benefitted from the ERTL of mathematics and preferred face-to-face classroom interactions with the teachers. Many learners stated that they were used to seeing the teachers’ gestures, body language, and facial expressions. Most learners indicated that it was challenging not to work in groups when solving mathematics problems and that they could not learn mathematics productively at home. Further findings were that the COVID-19 pandemic has negatively impacted learners in disadvantaged contexts since they did not have adequate digital resources and internet connectivity to learn mathematics remotely. The COVID-19 pandemic will end one day. Studying the learners’ perceptions of the ERTL assists in the creation of programmes that can enhance digital mathematics teaching and learning in disadvantaged contexts.

Dialogic literary gatherings in out-of-home care to overcome educational inequalities by improving school academic performance

There is much research revealing the educational inequality that affects children and youth in out-of-home care. Some reasons are the institutionalization impact on cognitive, social, and language development; problems of coexistence, or the low expectations of caregivers about their academic possibilities, leading to high rates of school failure and early school leaving. However, there is a lack of knowledge about which specific actions could reverse these adverse impacts and contribute to overcoming educational inequality in disadvantaged contexts. This paper analyzes a Dialogic Literary Gatherings intervention with 13 adolescents and 7 social workers on a group home for the protection and preparation for independent living of victims of family violence and neglect. Monthly Dialogic Literary Gatherings were developed with teenagers between 15 and 18 years old. Data collection consisted of a focus group of 5 adolescents, 2 in-depth interviews with adolescents and 2 in-depth interviews addressed to social workers. School results before and after the intervention have also been analyzed. The research was developed through the Communicative Methodology, which made it possible to analyze the components of the Dialogic Literary Gatherings that contribute to increase academic achievement in this environment. This approach involves the participants through an egalitarian dialogue that encourages them to promote changes in their environment. Beyond simultaneous improvements in the social and emotional well-being of the participants, our findings suggest improvements in the increase of their academic expectations, which reverse in positive progress of their school academic achievements after the intervention.