Local Social Context Research Articles

How early childhood services address health inequalities and child wellbeing in France

Abstract Early childhood (0-6 years old) is a key period when talking about health inequalities (HI) and child wellbeing. Over the past decades, research has shown the importance of early investment. In France, early childhood is a period covered by different public policies and different stakeholders from different sectors, i.e. health, education, childcare facilities, social affairs, recreational activities, etc. Both coverage of 0-6 years and intersectorality, are rarely connected in the literature. Based on Bronfenbrenner ecological approach, the Récits project aims to better understand how issues related to HI and child wellbeing are addressed at a local level within local policies as well as by professionals from the different sectors. It also aims to better understand the relations established by families with those professionals. Two French départements are studied: Allier (03) and Ille-et-Vilaine (35); both are characterised by social and spatial HI. Within these departments, two local authorities were selected as case studies for in depth analysis: secondary analysis of social and health indicators are carried out and qualitative data are gathered through the collection of institutional documents, observations and interviews with local decision-makers, professionals and families. First results, focusing on local public policies and how they are implemented by local stakeholders, highlight the diversity of the strategies developed according to the local social context and to the sector. Partnership between the different sectors is valued in policies however the way they work varied, notably, depending on the history of the collaboration. By clarifying the issues related to the articulation between public policies, local interventions and individual and collective practices of early childhood professionals, this research will contribute to improve and develop strategies to reduce HI and support children and families with respect to their expectations. Key messages Thanks to its ecological and intersectoral approach, this project will highlight how early childhood services may contribute to tackle health inequalities and to improve child WB. Addressing the complexity of the interactions between public policies, professionals and families will lead to a better understanding of the current challenges crossing the field of early childhood.

SOCIAL PATTERNS OF SMOKING AND ALCOHOL DRINKING AMONG YOUNG PEOPLE IN MOLDOVA

This paper explores the incidence and individual determinants of smoking and alcohol drinking with a high prevalence among young people in Moldova. It goes beyond epidemiological approach and descriptive analysis and provides a sociological explanation for these risk-taking behaviours by linking them to local social context in which young people inhabit. The study is based on secondary data analysis of National Youth Survey of Moldova among 14-29 aged population (1112 respondents) carried out in 2016, commissioned by the EU-OECD Youth nclusion project and Ministry of Education, Culture and Research of the Republic of Moldova. Data were processed in SPSS. Multivariate analysis, adjusting for demographic co-variates was performed using logistic regression. The results of this study show that rates of male smoking and alcohol drinking are high, while rates in women are far lower. According to multivariate data analysis, gender and age are strong individual determinants for both health-risk practices. As well, another important predictor for these behaviors is young people’s educational level – those with lower education level were particularly likely to smoke and drink alcohol. The study revealed also a strong interrelation between these health-risk practices. In paper is argued that high prevalence of smoking and drinking in male may reflect a normative structure for male socializing. Taking into consideration that strongest predictor variable overall is male gender, and strong relationship between heavy drinking and smoking, these behavioral factors might be responsible for the increasing in premature deaths among males in middle ag

SOCIAL PATTERNS OF SMOKING AND ALCOHOL DRINKING AMONG YOUNG PEOPLE IN MOLDOVA

a high prevalence among young people in Moldova. It goes beyond epidemiological approach and descriptive analysis and provides a sociological explanation for these risk-taking behaviours by linking them to local social context in which young people inhabit. The study is based on secondary data analysis of National Youth Survey of Moldova among 14-29 aged population (1112 respondents) carried out in 2016, commissioned by the EU-OECD Youth inclusion project and Ministry of Education, Culture and Research of the Republic of Moldova. Data were processed in SPSS. Multivariate analysis, adjusting for demographic co-variates was performed using logistic regression. The results of this study show that rates of male smoking and alcohol drinking are high, while rates in women are far lower. According to multivariate data analysis, gender and age are strong individual determinants for both health-risk practices. As well, another important predictor for these behaviors is young people’s educational level – those with lower education level were particularly likely to smoke and drink alcohol. The study revealed also a strong interrelation between these health-risk practices. In paper is argued that high prevalence of smoking and drinking in male may reflect a normative structure for male socializing. Taking into consideration that strongest predictor variable overall is male gender, and strong relationship between heavy drinking and smoking, these behavioral factors might be responsible for the increasing in premature deaths among males in middle age.

SOCIAL PATTERNS OF SMOKING AND ALCOHOL DRINKING AMONG YOUNG PEOPLE IN MOLDOVA

This paper explores the incidence and individual determinants of smoking and alcohol drinking with a high prevalence among young people in Moldova. It goes beyond epidemiological approach and descriptive analysis and provides a sociological explanation for these risk-taking behaviours by linking them to local social context in which young people inhabit. The study is based on secondary data analysis of National Youth Survey of Moldova among 14-29 aged population (1112 respondents) carried out in 2016, commissioned by the EU-OECD Youth nclusion project and Ministry of Education, Culture and Research of the Republic of Moldova. Data were processed in SPSS. Multivariate analysis, adjusting for demographic co-variates was performed using logistic regression. The results of this study show that rates of male smoking and alcohol drinking are high, while rates in women are far lower. According to multivariate data analysis, gender and age are strong individual determinants for both health-risk practices. As well, another important predictor for these behaviors is young people’s educational level – those with lower education level were particularly likely to smoke and drink alcohol. The study revealed also a strong interrelation between these health-risk practices. In paper is argued that high prevalence of smoking and drinking in male may reflect a normative structure for male socializing. Taking into consideration that strongest predictor variable overall is male gender, and strong relationship between heavy drinking and smoking, these behavioral factors might be responsible for the increasing in premature deaths among males in middle ag

Games with names

Abstract This paper discusses deliberate changes surrounding the practice of naming (people and objects). I first present a discussion of naming and healing, and then turn to the act of naming as an active agent for language change in the context of praise names and names that are used as comments on social change. There are particularly rich areas where the deliberate, creative change of language is strikingly visible, namely in tourism. The analysis of both the deliberate linguistic manipulations and the rationalization of these is informed by African philosophy and local metalinguistic discourse, as part of a project often referred to as the ‘Southern Theory’. I consider the philosophical and theoretical concepts of language and language change that stem from Kenyan and Tanzanian intellectuals and experts who are interested in emic approaches and local epistemologies, emphasizing cultural and social contexts of doing things with words. Intentional language change is seen in this contribution as complex and performative, and is analyzed as the result of individual agency as well as a community’s agreement over what might be done with words.

Customary Marine Tenure in Palau: Social Function and Implications for Fishery Policy

This research examines the form, social function, and policy implications of customary marine tenure (CMT) in Ngarchelong, a rural and fishery-dependent state in the Republic of Palau. Using ethnography, we find that CMT in Ngarchelong persists in a state of legal pluralism, expanding the normative space for asserting and contesting fishing privileges. Flexible administration of CMT provides benefits to the resident community, including material support from nonresidents and the strengthening of social bonds and networks. A fishery permit system under consideration would redefine fishery access as a privilege granted by government, thereby potentially impacting the social benefits supported by the community’s administration of CMT. With applications beyond Palau, we discuss an alternative management approach that could better harmonize fishery policy with local social context, thereby preserving the social functions of contemporary CMT.

Colonial modernity shaping the pipe dream: a historical account of advent of the modern water supply system in Trivandrum

The history of introduction of a “gravitation” water supply system in Trivandrum illustrates how a distinct colonial engineering ethos, amidst the prevailing state of affairs in the Travancore princely state, shaped critical decisions including coverage area, service level, and disposition of engineers towards traditional water bodies. The paper argues that the attempt to replicate an integrated hydrological system of the type adopted in London or Paris contained in itself a germ of failure from a financial standpoint. In addition to correspondence between engineers and administrators, the paper relies on the proposals submitted by colonial engineers to the Government of Travancore between 1882 and 1923 to illustrate the process of conception and introduction of the modern water supply system in Trivandrum. The continued focus on replicating this ideal, without any meaningful engagement with the local social and environmental context, partially explains the prevailing inequitable access to service provision and the acute public financial constraints faced by India’s small and medium towns.

Factors affecting tobacco smoking in Ethiopia: evidence from the demographic and health surveys

BackgroundTobacco smoking is growing at an alarming rate in the developing world and sub-Saharan Africa. Although Ethiopia has a relatively low rate in the region, it is not immune to the tobacco epidemic. The government of Ethiopia passed an anti-tobacco bill in 2015 that includes measures governing tobacco consumption, advertising, packaging, and labeling. To effectively address the challenge of tobacco control, the government should consider a number of aspects of tobacco production and consumption, such as local production in rural areas, as well as the complementarity nature of tobacco and khat use.MethodsUsing the World Bank’s Demographic and Health Surveys (2011 and 2016), this paper analyzes the key determinants of tobacco smoking in Ethiopia, emphasizing possible differences in various social contexts, across regions. More specifically, we assess the association between khat use and tobacco smoking while controlling for various observed individual-level, household-level, and community-level covariates. Using GPS data, we are able to capture the neighboring effects of smoking behavior in community clusters bordering other administrative regions as well as differences in smoking patterns between lowland and highland residents. We utilize a multilevel modeling framework and use a two-stage residual inclusion estimation method that accounts for the endogeneity of khat and tobacco use.ResultsThe results suggest that chewing khat and geographic regions are statistically significant determinants of tobacco smoking even after controlling for various socioeconomic and demographic factors. Altitude information analysis suggests that people living in lowlands are more likely to smoke compared to those living in highland areas. Additional analysis including interactions between regions and khat use indicate wide inter-regional variations in tobacco smoking by khat users. We also extend our analysis by interacting khat use with religious adherence. Results indicate a wide variation in tobacco smoking by khat chewers across different religious groups.ConclusionsTo effectively control tobacco smoking of the diverse communities in Ethiopia, policymakers should consider a multi-pronged policy approach that combines various policy tools that account for regional variation, the local social contexts, as well as the complementary nature of smoking and khat chewing practices.

Misdirection in the margins of malaria elimination methods

ABSTRACTThis paper proposes the term misdirection as a process by which attention is diverted from certain scientific approaches in the malaria elimination paradigm to justify specific methodological, scientific and political decisions. Misdirection, as it applies in magic, creates a sort of tunnel vision in which attention is diverted away from any action occurring outside the frame of the current paradigm. A crucial component of this misdirection process is the global standardization of intervention methodologies operating independent of local social contexts and the perceived impossibility to ‘localize’ such interventions. This conviction requires – and is simultaneously supported by- the production of decontextualized evidence through the application of methodologies aiming at generalizability, in detriment of social context and variability. This process produces pseudo measurements and conclusions that are at the same time real in their adherence to paradigmatically valid methodologies and fake as they either remain empty of empirical significance or whose validity cannot be assessed as we have lost sight of the (local, social, cultural) variation it has decided to ignore. Using the example of research on the effectiveness of bed nets and topical repellents as malaria prevention tools and their expected use within the current paradigm of malaria elimination, we show how the inherent ambiguity of the pseudo allows consequent misdirection processes.

Avoiding the “F” word: feminist geography in Iran

Little attention has been given to how feminist geography is defined, applied, and taught in non-Anglophone countries, especially in Muslim majority societies where Women’s Rights are quite different from the western world. The case of Iran among other Middle Eastern countries becomes even more isolated due to the several political, linguistic, and cultural limitations opposed on Iranian academics and international collaborations after the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Women make half of Iran’s 80 million population, 63% of university graduates, almost half of informal workers, 30% of Iranian professors, 13% of high level management position holders, and under 5% of the Islamic Majlis (Iran’s Parliament). However, feminist geography, the sub-discipline that has been traditionally dedicated to the inclusion of gender as an analytical lens within Geography, is not a recognized field at any departments in Iran. This essay aims to present the current status of feminist geographic research and teaching at selected Iranian Universities. My goal is to offer a better understanding of how the local social and political context affect what constitute feminist geographic work and how geographers navigate the political and hierarchal university systems to engage in gender studies. Through informal interviews via emails and Skype with several Iranian geographers, I illustrate why Iranian geographers often avoid using “feminist” terminology in recognizing their work, even though their work is feminist.

Exploring the Influence of Local Social Context on Strategies for Achieving Fire Adapted Communities

There is a growing recognition that the social diversity of communities at risk from wildland fire may necessitate divergent combinations of policies, programs and incentives that allow diverse populations to promote fire adapted communities (FACs). However, there have been few coordinated research efforts to explore the perceived utility and effectiveness of various options for FACs among residents, professionals, and local officials in disparate communities with different social contexts. The research presented here attempts to systematically explore the combination of local social factors that influence support for coordinated wildfire risk management across locations. We conducted 19 interactive focus groups across five communities spanning five Western U.S. states using a mixed-method design that allowed for the collection of quantitative and qualitative data. Results indicate a number of significant differences in effectiveness ratings for adaptation approaches across communities, including requirement of vegetation mitigations on private properties, fostering Firewise communities, and zoning efforts in fire-prone areas. We used qualitative data to help explain the differences between communities as a function of unique local social context operating in each location. We also compare our results with existing frameworks promoting community “archetypes” to evaluate their continued use in wildfire management planning or response.

\u201cYou can\u2019t chain a dog to a porch\u201d: a multisite qualitative analysis of youth narratives of parental approaches to substance use

BackgroundReducing harms of youth substance use is a global priority, with parents identified as a key target for efforts to mitigate these harms. Much of the research informing parental responses to youth substance use are grounded in abstinence and critiqued as ineffective and unresponsive to youth contexts. Parental provision of substances, particularly alcohol, is a widely used approach, which some parents adopt in an attempt to minimize substance use harms; however, research indicates that this practice may actually increase harms. There is an absence of research exploring youth perspectives on parental approaches to substance use or the approaches youth find helpful in minimizing substance use-related harms.MethodsThis paper draws on interviews with youth aged 13–18 (N = 89) conducted within the Researching Adolescent Distress and Resilience (RADAR) study in three communities in British Columbia, Canada. An ethnographic approach was used to explore youth perspectives on mental health and substance use within intersecting family, social, and community contexts. This analysis drew on interview data relating to youth perspectives on parental approaches to substance use. A multisite qualitative analysis (MSQA) was conducted to examine themes within each research site and between all three sites to understand how youth perceive and respond to parental approaches to substance use in different risk environment contexts.ResultsWithin each site, youths’ experiences of and perspectives on substance use were shaped by their parents’ approaches, which were in turn situated within local social, geographic, and economic community contexts. Youth descriptions of parental approaches varied by site, though across all sites, youth articulated that the most effective approaches were those that resonated with the realities of their lives. Zero-tolerance approaches were identified as unhelpful and unresponsive, while approaches that were aligned with harm reduction principles were viewed as relevant and supportive.ConclusionsYouth perspectives illustrate that parental approaches to substance use that are grounded in harm reduction principles resonate with young people’s actual experiences and can support the minimization of harms associated with substance use. Evidence-based guidance is needed that supports parents and young people in adopting more contextually responsive harm reduction approaches to youth substance use.

Improve the Performance of Advice Systems Based on Cooperative Liquidation Using Trust Relationships

Recommender systems are one of the recent inventions to deal with information overload problem and provide users with personalized recommendations that may be of their interests. Collaborative filtering is the most popular and widely used technique to build recommender systems and has been successfully employed in many applications. However, collaborative filtering suffers from several inherent issues that affect the recommendation accuracy such as: data sparsity and cold start problems caused by the lack of user ratings, so the recommendation results are often unsatisfactory. To address these problems, we propose a recommendation method called “MFGLT” that enhance the recommendation accuracy of collaborative filtering method using trust-based social networks by leveraging different user's situations (as a trustor and as a trustee) in these networks to model user preferences. Specifically, we propose model-based method that uses matrix factorization technique and exploit both local social context represented by modeling explicit user interactions and implicit user interactions with other users, and also the global social context represented by the user reputation in the whole social network for making recommendations. Experimental results based on real-world dataset demonstrate that our approach gives better performance than the other trust-aware recommendation approaches, in terms of prediction accuracy.

The Devil Is in the Details: Implications of Samuel Bowles’s The Moral Economy for Economics and Policy Research

All economists should buy and read The Moral Economy by Samuel Bowles. The book challenges basic premises of economic theory and questions policies based on monetary incentives. Incentives not only crowd out intrinsic motivations, they erode the ethical and moral codes necessary for the workings of markets. Bowles boldly suggests that successful policies must combine incentives and moral messages, exploiting complementarities between the two. This essay argues that to achieve this objective, economists must study the local institutions and social context and engage untraditional data to uncover the interplay of incentives and identity. ( JEL A11, A13, D04, D83, E60, Z13)

CARGOISM AND SCIENTIFIC JUSTIFICATION IN THE SEARCH FOR EXTRATERRESTRIAL INTELLIGENCE

AbstractThis article compares justifications of the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) presented by scientists with ideational constructs associated with cargo cults in Melanesia. In focusing on similarities between cargoism and SETI, I argue that, understood in terms of cultural practice, aspects of the science of SETI have significant similarities to the religious elements that characterize cargoism. Through a focus on the construction of meanings, I consider how SETI and cargoism use similar signification systems to communicate meaning related to local social contexts and I draw a parallel with the religious and meaning structure of cargoism to show that SETI and cargoism employ similar strategies to justify beliefs. As a result, in some ways SETI represents a scientific framework that inhabits cultural and epistemological space that overlaps with religious space.

Aging and the End Times: Evangelical Eschatology and Experiences of Elderhood in the United States and South Africa

Recent trends in aging studies and popular U.S. discourse reformulate elderhood as a valuable, not necessarily negative, experience, and these new models of aging have extended to a consideration of religious practices that can make old age particularly meaningful. Among evangelical Christians, a shared cosmological (and specifically eschatological) narrative structure provides solace and semiotic coherence in the face of challenges characteristic of the “third” and “fourth age.” What remains less clear is the interplay between transnational religious forces like evangelical ideology and local social contexts in which they are enacted, a process illuminated only through cross-cultural comparison. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Kentucky and in South Africa, I argue that rather than viewing evangelical rhetoric as narrowly determinative, anthropologists ought to broaden common understandings of Christians’ end-times ideology as something that may, contingent on socio-historical context, alternatively help older congregants cope with the physical effects of aging or allow for reconciliation amid rapid societal change. U.S. evangelical churches often address existential concerns faced by a growing population of elders while downplaying the significance of race, yet white South African Christians employ a similar religious cosmology to place their actions during the apartheid era in a symbolically legible narrative. Both settings indicate the malleability of evangelical ideas to foreground certain concerns while erasing others, challenging assumptions about the uniform effects of global evangelicalism.

Why do women leave surgical training? A qualitative and feminist study

Women are under-represented in surgery and leave training in higher proportions than men. Studies in this area are without a feminist lens and predominantly use quantitative methods not well suited to the complexity of the problem. In this qualitative study, a researcher interviewed women who had chosen to leave surgical training. Women were recruited using a purposive snowball strategy through the routine communications of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons and Royal Australasian College of Surgeons Trainee Association over a 3-week period, and were interviewed over the following 4 months in the past 4 years in person or by telephone. More specific details are available on request from the authors. Supported by male and female co-researchers, and in dialogue with study participants, she then coded the findings and defined themes. An explanatory model was developed by integrating findings with different theories and previous literature. The research team developed three aspects of the model into a visual analogue. 12 women participated in the study, with all Australian states and territories, and New Zealand, as well as five medical specialty streams, represented. The time spent in training ranged from 6 months to 4 years, and all participants, except two, had trained in both metropolitan and rural locations. The findings confirmed factors identified in earlier reports as reasons women leave surgical training, and contributed six new factors: unavailability of leave, a distinction between valid and invalid reasons for leave, poor mental health, absence of interactions with the women in surgery section of their professional body and other supports, fear of repercussion, and lack of pathways for independent and specific support. The relationships between factors was complex and sometimes paradoxical. The visual analogue is a tower of blocks, with each block representing a factor that contributed to the decision to leave surgical training, and with the toppling of the tower representing the choice to leave. The visual analogue indicates that effective action requires attention to the contributory factors, the small actions that can topple the tower, and the contexts in which the blocks are stacked. Women might be best helped by interventions that are alert to the possibility of unplanned negative effects, do not unduly focus on gender, and address multiple factors. This should inform interventions in surgical training, with attention to local social context, health-care setting, and training programme structure. Royal Australasian College of Surgeons Ian and Ruth Gough Surgical Education Scholarship.

The body language of place: A new method for mapping intergenerational “geographies of embodiment” in place-health research

Research on place and health has grown rapidly in recent years, including examining the physiological embodiment of place-based exposures. While this research continues to improve understanding of why place matters, there is particular need for work capable of revealing: 1) which places matter, i.e. spatially-specific notions of “place”); 2) how these places matter—processes and mechanisms of the physiological embodiment of place; and 3) potential intergenerational and life stage differences in place-embodiment experiences/perceptions. The research presented here seeks to make contributions in each of these areas through developing the “geographies of embodiment” concept. Drawing from a multi-method intergenerational community-based participatory research project examining place and health, the research presented here specifically highlights X-Ray Mapping as a new methodology to elucidate subjective notions of place-embodiment within place-health research. Participants were recruited as parent-child dyads and trained in four participatory research methods, including X-Ray Mapping. Participants used X-Ray Mapping and a multimedia-enabled web-based mapping platform to map their “geographies of embodiment”. X-Ray Mapping results revealed that 49% of youth place-embodiment locations were spatially outside of their residential census tract—with 75% of positive place-embodiment locations outside, and 66% of negative place-embodiment locations inside. Overall, 67% of youth and adult positive place-embodiment locations were outside of their residential census tract. Through mapping “geographies of embodiment” via participatory methods like X-Ray Mapping, we can gain greater insight into what is embodied (i.e. specific experiences/exposures), and where (i.e. spatially-specific). These gains could improve development of quantitative place-health metrics and enhance efforts to uncover/intervene on the “pathways of embodiment”—specifically, those elements of local social, political, economic, and environmental contexts that constitute expressions of social inequality.

Synergies on the coast: Challenges facing shellfish aquaculture development on the central and north coast of British Columbia

The rise in global demand for seafood has led many people to view shellfish aquaculture as an economically and ecologically viable source of seafood. However, interactions with the environment, existing industry, and societal values must be considered to ensure sustainability of this industry. Shellfish aquaculture in British Columbia (BC), Canada, showcases many of these issues. This review explores key socio-economic and ecological considerations for future growth of shellfish aquaculture on the central and north coast of BC, with implications for the continuing global expansion of the industry. Interactions among shellfish aquaculture, coastal groups, existing industries, and First Nations, as well as considerations under changing oceanic conditions are investigated. Expansion of shellfish aquaculture on the central and north coast of BC will need to be socially, environmentally, and economically sustainable. The results of this review strongly indicate that shellfish aquaculture should be incorporated in marine planning initiatives and developed in consideration of local ecological, environmental, economic, and social context.

Regional features of migrants’ treatment (the case of the Tomsk and Vladimir Regions)

This article presents a comparative analysis of attitudes toward ethnic migrants in two Russian regions: the Tomsk and Vladimir Regions. Its relevance is associated with a high migration influx of foreign citizens into various Russian regions. According to the UN data (2015), our country is the third in the world in terms of the migrants’ influx. Moreover, there is no reliable and comparable sociological information both about the attitude of the local population to them and about the factors that determine it. Against the backdrop of a growing trend of interethnic tension in relations with migrants, the results of such studies acquire important social and political significance. This article relies on the results of representative questionnaires of the population of the Tomsk (in 2014, 563 respondents) and Vladimir Regions (2015, 500) using the general methodology. In the process of research, groups with different levels of tolerance towards migrants were identified in the “host community”. Subsequently, different groups of tolerance of the population were compared in these two regions. The findings show that the attitude towards migrants in the regions can vary even under similar economic conditions and within the framework of a uniform political situation. Significant differences were found in the size of groups that showed varying degrees of tolerance towards migrants. While in the Tomsk Region, the half of the sample can be attributed to the group of the tolerant people, in the Vladimir Region, their percentage is equal to the xenophobes’. The structure of attitudes towards migrants presents particular interest: for the Tomsk Region, the difference between educational and labor migrants is more significant. The obtained results actualize the issue of factors differentiating attitudes towards migrants in different regions of one country. Based on the results obtained, the authors propose a hypothesis that the specificity of the local urban social and cultural context can occupy an important place among these factors. Therefore, in Tomsk (an educational center), there is an obviously higher level of tolerance towards migrants. The authors speak for additional studies using qualitative methods to test their hypothesis.