Rapid Societal Change Research Articles

Resourcing a sustainable future

We must resource present and future generations sustainably. But how? Jen Roberts and Anthea Lacchia report on an international summer school that is building a global community to bridge disciplines and sectors, and tackle sustainable resource extraction Roberts, J. & Lacchia, A., Resourcing a sustainable future. Geoscientist 29 (6), 24-25, 2019 https://doi.org/10.1144/geosci2019-046; Download the pdf here Immense and rapid societal and technical changes are necessary to achieve a low-carbon future. Globally, most nations have committed to meeting the goals outlined in the United Nations Paris Agreement, but the changes in technologies anticipated to achieve these goals, and the minerals and metals that are used in their manufacture, place new and unprecedented pressure on Earth’s resources. This is on top of changing needs due to global population growth, rising standards of living, and potentially large shifts in the distribution of populations owing to the climate crisis. Left, Six ReSToRE participants from all over the world. From left to right: (back row) Emilio Castillo (from Chile), Halleluya Ekandjo (from Namibia), Muhammad Tahir (from Afghanistan), Geertje Schuitema (Director of ReSToRE); (front row) Laura Berdi (from Hungary), Josphat Nguu (from Kenya) and Sarah Caven (from Northern Ireland) Determining how we will resource present and future generations in a sustainable way is a complex and global endeavour of rising importance. The inaugural Researching Social Theories, Resources, and Environment (ReSToRE) International Summer School (https://www.icrag-centre.org/restore/) brought together a group of 42 early-career geologists and social scientists from 28 nationalities (of which 19 are developing countries) to tackle the question of how society should meet the challenge of providing water, energy and mineral resources in a sustainable way. Participants concluded that inclusive, collaborative problem-solving that embraces different perspectives is essential in addressing such complex and thorny topics; the circular economy, which is inherently multidisciplinary and collaborative, is key to sustainable resourcing; and the way forward requires the combined efforts of those working across the natural and social sciences, in academia, industry and in government. Course vision Hosted by the Irish Centre for Research in Applied Geosciences (iCRAG), the summer school took place in University College Dublin, Ireland, in July 2019. Director of iCRAG, Murray Hitzman, said:

Changing Family Dynamics and In-Work Benefits

Internationally, in-work benefits (IWBs) are widely adopted as a measure to assist parents transitioning to work and to ‘make work pay’ for low-income families. The family income supplement (FIS) is an Irish IWB, introduced at a time of rapid societal change. This article shows how changing family dynamics, and a shift in policy focus towards a ‘work-first’ approach, challenged the original values underlying FIS. We discuss FIS in the context of changes to family life and social policy. We then outline the results of ten interviews with experts using three themes: work-first approach, child poverty and encouraging care. Our analysis shows that policymakers faced new challenges to provide an income support for children while also promoting full-time labour participation. FIS continues to support working families, but in a manner that creates contradictions for the contemporary ‘work-first’ approach. It is necessary to re-examine FIS in relation to its wider policy context and to address requirements for caring.

Lean thinking in leisure: continuously improving event volunteering and management

ABSTRACTThe events industry is facing rapid societal change. Issues such as professionalization of the industry, competing funding streams, a crowded market, and decreasing access to volunteer labour are creating an environment of need for solutions. This paper proposes the application of lean thinking as a platform for simplification and continuous improvement in the event industry as a case example of potential broader relevance to the leisure industry. It scopes the event industry context, discusses the concept of lean, and proposes the testing of lean as a philosophy and methodology to assist event organizers and their volunteers navigate the changing event industry context. This paper also examines the potential benefits of lean to time poor volunteers to maximize the value of their participation.

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.

Advancing the social psychology of rapid societal change.

In this introduction to the special section on rapid societal change, we highlight the challenges posed by rapid societal changes for social psychology and introduce the seven papers brought together in this special section. Rapid societal changes are qualitative transformations within a society that alter the prevailing societal state. Recent such changes include the election of right-wing populist governments, the Arab Spring revolutions, and devastating civil wars in the Middle East. Conceptually, such events require consideration of how societal-level events relate to more proximal psychological processes to bring about the often abrupt, non-linear (as opposed to incremental and linear) nature of rapid societal change. They also require empirical approaches that allow such qualitative transformations to be captured and studied. This is true both in terms of directly addressing rapidly unfolding societal events in research, and in terms of how rapid, discontinuous change can be analysed. The papers in the special section help to address these issues through introducing novel theoretical and methodological approaches to studying rapid societal change, offering multiple perspectives on how macro-level changes can both create, and be created by, micro-level social psychological phenomena.

The triple-filter bubble: Using agent-based modelling to test a meta-theoretical framework for the emergence of filter bubbles and echo chambers.

Filter bubbles and echo chambers have both been linked recently by commentators to rapid societal changes such as Brexit and the polarization of the US American society in the course of Donald Trump's election campaign. We hypothesize that information filtering processes take place on the individual, the social, and the technological levels (triple‐filter‐bubble framework). We constructed an agent‐based modelling (ABM) and analysed twelve different information filtering scenarios to answer the question under which circumstances social media and recommender algorithms contribute to fragmentation of modern society into distinct echo chambers. Simulations show that, even without any social or technological filters, echo chambers emerge as a consequence of cognitive mechanisms, such as confirmation bias, under conditions of central information propagation through channels reaching a large part of the population. When social and technological filtering mechanisms are added to the model, polarization of society into even more distinct and less interconnected echo chambers is observed. Merits and limits of the theoretical framework, and more generally of studying complex social phenomena using ABM, are discussed. Directions for future research such as ways of comparing our simulations with actual empirical data and possible measures against societal fragmentation on the three different levels are suggested.

A Brief History of Milk Hygiene and Its Impact on Infant Mortality from 1875 to 1925 and Implications for Today: A Review

The objective of this review is to provide an integrated historical account of the complex, often convoluted events impacting milk hygiene and its resultant effect on infant mortality from 1875 to 1925. Heat pasteurization of cow's milk is necessary for rendering this important nutrient source safe for humans-particularly infants. Developed by Louis Pasteur in 1864, pasteurization evolved from the commercially important parboiling of wine and beer when the Industrial Revolution was effecting rapid societal change in Western societies. In European and American societies of the early and mid-19th century, infant mortality rates were 30- to 60-fold higher than the current rates of five or six deaths per 1,000 live births per year. With proof of the germ theory of disease came convincing evidence of the role of microbes in the transmission of infections, which led to the discovery that microbial pathogens were transmissible via milk. Diseases caused by milkborne pathogens include human and bovine tuberculosis, brucellosis, salmonellosis, streptococcal infections, diphtheria, and "summer diarrhea." With pasteurization of milk, infectious diseases with their high infant mortality rates decreased by only half by the early 20th century, despite concurrent medical and dairy hygiene advances. To further mitigate unacceptably high infant mortality rates, social support providers-including public health nurses and midwives-encouraged breastfeeding, especially among socioeconomically disadvantaged mothers. Improvements in pulsating vacuum milking machines also favorably impacted food safety by providing a clean, enclosed environment. Currently, bottle feeding still competes with breastfeeding as the preferred method, and the sale of raw, unpasteurized milk remains a contentious issue. Informed and responsible food safety professionals, physicians, and public health officials currently view breastfeeding as the preferred feeding method and milk pasteurization as the safer and more prudent alternative.

Postpartum Maternal Health at a Time of Rapid Societal Change in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

Background. Abu Dhabi has undergone a rapid transition from a subsistence economy to a wealthy modern state over the last 50 years. This paper presents an insight into the health status of Emirati mothers during this transition through a prospective longitudinal study of mothers who gave birth in a government maternity hospital in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi.Methods. 125 women were interviewed within the first week after birth, as part of a larger study encompassing a wide range of cultural, social, and behavioural aspects of health. They were then re-interviewed at three, six and 15 months postpartum. A food frequency questionnaire was also administered to the mothers at birth. Data were analysed using univariate statistics.Results. Over 70% of the mothers had BMI in the overweight and obese categories, and approximately half of the women were dissatisfied with their weight. Contributing factors were likely to be diets high in fats and sugar, low levels of exercise and women’s limited involvement in household food purchasing and preparation. Iron deficiency anaemia, diabetes, asthma and fertility problems were found to be the most common concerns amongst the participants prior to conception. Anaemia rates were high during pregnancy, with 35% having haemoglobin < 11 g/dL, and were positively associated with parity. Belief in traditional and herbal medicines was strong, with 43% of women using a variety of remedies during pregnancy.Conclusions. Policies and support mechanisms to encourage women to make better dietary choices and to provide more opportunities for exercising are required to improve the health of mothers in the UAE. The development of good quality health care has resulted in the better maternal health outcomes, although traditional practices in relation to herbal medicines are still common.

A comparison of the problem-solving strategies between high school engineering and science students in integrated STEM education

우리 사회가 빠르게 발달함에 따라 통합적 문제 해결 능력을 갖춘 인재의 중요성이 커지고 있다. 이러한 사회의 요구를 뒷받침하기 위해 STEM/STEAM 교육이 등장하여 학생들의 통합적 문제해결 능력을 향상시키는데 기여하고 있다. 하지만 STEM/STEAM 수업에서 각 교과의 특성은 학생들은 사고 과정에 영향을 미치고, 교과 고유의 사고 과정은 문제 해결 과정에서 다른 특성을 보인다. 특히 연구자는 공학과 과학의 문제해결 접근법의 차이를 규명하기 위해 고등학교 공학(기술)과 과학 수업에서 각각 3명의 학생들을 대상으로 사례 연구를 실시했다. 이 연구에서 공학과 과학 교과 학생들은 STEM/STEAM 수업의 도입 부분을 함께 수강한 후에 모형 제작에서는 공학 학생들이 주도를 하고 과학 학생들은 피드백을 주는 활동을 실시했다. 연구자는 이 중에 6명의 학생들을 대상으로 수업내용과 유사한 공학 문제를 제시한 후 문제해결 과정을 분석했다. 문제 해결 과정은 소리내어 말하기 (think-aloud) 기법을 통해 음성과 영상이 비디오로 녹화되었다. 연구자는 학생들의 문제해결 전략을 분석하기 위해 Halfin이 제시한 7가지 인지전략을 이용했다. 연구 결과에서 공학 학생들은 다양한 문제해결 전략을 사용하려는 특성을 보였고, 과학 학생들은 해결 중심적인 몇 가지 인지전략에 집중적으로 사용했다. 또한 공학 학생들은 문제와 해결책 사이에서 순환적인 인지사용을 보인 반면, 과학 학생들은 디자인이나 모델링과 같은 몇 가지 전략을 집중적으로 사용한 것으로 드러났다. 또한 해결책의 비교에서는 과학 학생들은 창의적인 아이디어를 제시했지만 구체적인 실현 계획을 제시하지 못하였고, 공학 학생들은 혁신적인 아이디어 보다는 구체성과 현실적인 문제 등을 고려한 해결책을 제시했다. 연구자는 과학과 공학의 실천 방법이 학생들의 인지에 영향을 미친다는 것을 확인했으며, STEM/STEAM 수업을 실시할 때 학생들의 문제 해결 전략의 이해를 바탕으로 효과적인 지도 방법을 마련해야 한다는 것을 제언하였다.Given our rapid societal change, the ability to solve problems using interdisciplinary knowledge and skills is becoming increasingly important. To support these educational needs, many international countries have adopted STEM/STEAM education as a core learning platform. However, the fundamental differences of problem-solving strategies within the STEM/STEAM disciplines influence students’ cognitive structures and problem-solving strategies. To investigate the various problem-solving strategies used by science and engineering (technology) students, the researcher recruited six high school students, three from engineering courses and three from science courses. The participant students were taught a STEM/STEAM unit, but the engineering group had only participated in the physical modeling process. After completing the STEM/STEAM lessons, the two groups were given a design task with a structure similar to the integrated lessons. To assess the mental strategies of students, the researcher used the Concurrent-Think Aloud protocol and the seven of Halfin’s codes. The results showed that the engineering students tended to use a variety of problem-solving strategies, while the science students concentrated on solution-oriented strategies. The researcher also confirmed that the engineering students showed various design iterations by revisiting the problem identification process throughout the design process. However, the science students tended to show a limited number of iterations. The design outcomes also showed that the science students yielded many innovative design ideas but failed to provide details for their design solutions. When instructing STEM/STEAM lessons, educators need to utilize authentic instructional strategies to improve students’ integrative problem-solving abilities.

“She is very illusive”: Substance abuse, gender roles and motherhood among the teenage girls of the Sioux Lookout Zone, 1969-1996

From 1969 to 1996, the Indigenous teenage girls of the Sioux Lookout Zone of Northern Ontario grew up surrounded by poverty and rapid societal change. Substance abuse, vandalism, and suicide rates were rising, and families and health care providers were worried about the health of adolescents in their communities.1-3 This paper examines the instances teenage girls were mentioned in the collection of documents about the Sioux Lookout Zone Hospital at the University of Toronto Archives in order to analyze the challenges that these girls faced in gender role negotiations, substance abuse, and teen motherhood.

Observations on the health of infants at a time of rapid societal change: a longitudinal study from birth to fifteen months in Abu Dhabi

BackgroundRapid economic and cultural transition in the United Arab Emirates has been accompanied by a rise in chronic disease. Early childhood is known to affect health outcomes in adulthood. This prospective longitudinal study examined the general health of Emirati infants born in a government maternity hospital in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi in October 2002.MethodsOne hundred twenty-five women, who had recently given birth, were interviewed as part of a larger study encompassing a wide range of cultural, social, and behavioural aspects of health. They were then re-interviewed at three (n = 94), six (n = 59) and 15 months postpartum (n = 52). Data are presented using univariate statistics.ResultsIn this study seven infants (6%) were born prematurely and four infants (3%) were classified as small for gestational age, while 11 (9%) of the infants weighed less than 2500 g. Low birth weight infants (LBW) were significantly more likely to require treatment in the neonatal intensive care unit (OR = 30.83, p = 0.00). Iron supplementation during pregnancy was associated with fewer underweight infants (OR = 3.92, p = 0.042). No associations were found between infant birth weight and maternal age, age at marriage, consanguinity, education level, current maternal employment, parity, pre-existing anaemia or anaemia in pregnancy, diabetes, folic acid intake, multivitamin intake or infant gender.Maternally-reported infant health issues, vaccination, medication, breast-feeding and infant nutrition, and use of secure car seats are also reported.ConclusionsThe health of infants at birth in this UAE sample showed improvements compared to previous studies. The proportion of LBW infants is decreasing and continuing improvements in health care in the UAE are having a positive impact on infant health.

Incubating Leaders in Maine

For a sparsely populated state, Maine has produced an extraordinary number of national, bipartisan leaders. What has made Maine an incubator for such leadership? Alexis de Tocqueville, the author of Democracy in America, provides useful insights into Maine’s culture as a breeding ground for its leadership. But rapid societal changes sweeping the country and the world—particularly globalization, urbanization, and the digitization of the economy—will inevitably alter Maine’s culture. This paper explores steps Maine might take to develop leaders in this new environment by preserving its past strengths and adjusting to these new challenges. Maine could overcome its north/south divide and play a role in developing leaders who would bring polarized sectors of the country together.

Turkish family life: A study of family leisure, family functioning, and family satisfaction

ABSTRACTThe purpose of this study was to examine the contribution of family leisure involvement and family leisure satisfaction to the explanation of variance in family functioning and satisfaction with family life among Turkish families using the core and balance framework. The sample (n = 509) consisted of families (parents and youth ages 11–16 years) from Izmir, Turkey. Findings indicate significant positive relationships between family leisure variables and all family functioning and satisfaction variables from both the parent and youth perspectives. These findings are similar to those from family samples in other Western/industrialized countries, emphasizing the significant role of family leisure regardless of country, language, and cultural change. Further, findings identified differences in relationships between parent and youth perspectives and were discussed within the cultural context of Turkey's rapid social and societal change. Implications and recommendations for Turkish families and future family leisure research are discussed.

Hybridization of performance venues

It should come as no surprise that the future of the performance space is wedded to changing demographics and increasingly pluralistic artist expression. New models are needed to survive the rapid societal change—socially, culturally, and economically. While multi-purpose functionality has long since become the norm for both civic and community arts venues, we are now seeing the advent of hybrid civic facilities—venues that serve other forms of public gathering to complement arts programming. This proposition entails rethinking performance venue typologies at a fundamental level to ensure a sustainable future. From the multiple perspectives of a diverse panel of industry experts, this session will explore the underlying factors that shape current and future venue trends, including capacity to serve a wide range of artistic content as well as other civic and community programming. The following project case studies will be examined as reference points to the discussion: The Tobin Center for the Performing Arts, San Antonio Federal Way Performing Arts and Event Center, Federal Way, Washington Octave 9 (experimental performance venue under development for the Seattle Symphony Orchestra) Audience engagement and spirited dialogue around this topic is encouraged and expected!

Call for submissions: British Journal of Social Psychology special section on Understanding rapid societal change: Emerging perspectives and methods

Call for submissions: <i>British Journal of Social Psychology</i> special section on Understanding rapid societal change: Emerging perspectives and methods

Conspiracy theories as part of history: The role of societal crisis situations.

In the present contribution, we examine the link between societal crisis situations and belief in conspiracy theories. Contrary to common assumptions, belief in conspiracy theories has been prevalent throughout human history. We first illustrate historical incidents suggesting that societal crisis situations—defined as impactful and rapid societal change that calls established power structures, norms of conduct, or even the existence of specific people or groups into question—have stimulated belief in conspiracy theories. We then review the psychological literature to explain why this is the case. Evidence suggests that the aversive feelings that people experience when in crisis—fear, uncertainty, and the feeling of being out of control—stimulate a motivation to make sense of the situation, increasing the likelihood of perceiving conspiracies in social situations. We then explain that after being formed, conspiracy theories can become historical narratives that may spread through cultural transmission. We conclude that conspiracy theories originate particularly in crisis situations and may form the basis for how people subsequently remember and mentally represent a historical event.

Phenomenon of Trust in Educational Policy

Trust is the essence of all social relations in our lives. It unites our societies, joins or destroys governments, businesses and other social structures. Trust is the necessary element for people to rely on the structures implementing changes. In post-communist societies the level of trust is lower than in Western democracies. It is determined not only by diminished sources of trust during the totalitarian regimes but by rapid societal changes and the lack of new stable fundaments for trust. Distrust is not the opposite of trust but rather a rational state of mind in certain contexts and situations. Disbalance between trust and distrust in education is represented by inadequate mechanisms of inspection or control and the lack of trust in professionals. After the II World War the Western countries tried different ways to reform education called by A. Hargreaves and D. Shirley (2012) First, Second and Third way. This typology shows how political ideologies influence the development of public education. As for the trust, neoliberal approach in education created an extremely distrustful environment for educational professionals.&#x0D; Neoliberal reforms replaced liberal or social democratic approaches which are characterized by much bigger trust in professionals, as well as less tiresome mechanisms of accountability. In comparison to Western democracies, Lithuanian society and public education experienced an especially rapid and contradictory ideological, social and political transformation related to the creation of an independent state, the rapid overhaul of the national political structure along with global influence. Speaking of the three different ways of reform, it appears that Lithuanian education reform is meandering down all the different ways at once but is most likely stuck between the First – Innovations and Inconsistency – and the Second – Standardization and Markets – Ways. It is reflected by wandering between the sociodemocratic principles of education for all” and neoliberal approaches packed into the rhetoric’s of New Public Management. Due to the contradictive trajectories of educational change, practitioners are becoming “objects” of political requirements losing their authentic professional life. The quality of education in every country depends on the amount of professional capital: professionals, who implement their moral purpose in trusting environment and strengthening the social capital of the country. The further development of education in Lithuania should address the enrichment of professional capital.

Influence of Cultural Meaning System and Socioeconomic Change on Indecisiveness in Three Cultures

Psychologists have debated two external factors that influence human behaviors: current socioeconomic changes and historically shared cultural meaning systems. By conducting triangular comparisons among Hong Kong Chinese, mainland Chinese, and European Canadians, the current study examined whether these two factors differentially influence people’s indecisiveness. We found that (a) Hong Kong Chinese participants’ level of indecisiveness was highest, and there were no differences between the two other groups; (b) dialectical beliefs facilitated participants’ indecisiveness whereas optimism toward the future attenuated it across cultures and both factors explained cultural variations in indecisiveness; and (c) different from European Canadians’ optimism, optimism about the future promoted by perception of current rapid societal change made mainland Chinese more decisive. The importance of within-region analyses to disentangle varying factors in decision-making processes is discussed.

Nurses, Healthy Women and Preventive Gynecological Examinations--Vlora City Scenario, Albania.

Nurses play an important role in preventive medicine because they represent the largest sector of health professionals. This role is very crucial in developing countries, which are going through rapid societal and economic changes, associated with a rising burden of cancers due to different risk factors. The current study aimed to compare health awareness between nurses and healthy women regarding preventive gynecological examinations and to answer the question - can nurses make a difference in women's health? This cross sectional research included a total of 150 women, 70 nurses and 80 healthy women, randomly selected. Data were collected in 2014 in Vlora city through a self-administered questionnaire that assessed different variables about preventive gynecological examinations. Cervical screening rates were 20.3% and 41.8%, respectively, for nurses and healthy women, despite the former having a statistical significant greater knowledge of risk factors and symptoms. Even if the health awareness of nurse participants can be considered good, they need themselves to increase participation rates in cervical screening if they are to provide role models for health education/promotion addressing misconceptions and barriers.

Culturally competent evidence-based behavioral health services for the transgender community: Progress and challenges.

The presence of individuals who identify as transgender has emerged into public awareness in the United States in recent years. Celebrities who publicly transition have expanded the national conversation about gender variation beyond gender and women's studies classrooms and certain specialty health and mental health services. This increased public visibility has been accompanied by increased visibility in the mental health literature, including the publishing of competencies or guidelines for working with clients who identify as transgender by various professional organizations. However, rapid societal changes and increased understanding of the experience of being transgender in our society means literature can rapidly become dated. This commentary identifies key points that will move forward professional competency, both of the field and of individual practitioners, in the provision of psychological services. Topics discussed include (1) how mental health has contributed to trans stigma, (2) why more than good intentions are needed, (3) a research agenda for the development of high-quality evidence-based behavioral health care for the trans community, and (4) clinician recommendations. (PsycINFO Database Record