Social Geography Research Articles

Singapore’s Little Vietnam as a heterosexual quarter within the hierarchical ordering of space

ABSTRACT The aim of this paper is to look at the social and cultural geography of Joo Chiat Road, aka Little Vietnam, in postcolonial Singapore and assess its effectiveness as a subaltern cultural space. In one way, it is low in the hierarchical ordering of space, as a long cross street between two popular shopping areas at each end. Joo Chiat Road might be perceived as an urban village, with its upper-middle-class residential streets on either side suffering a disconnect with the large number of Vietnamese hostess pubs and cafes on the road itself. It may be seen as a “heterosexual quarter,” but of a type where the lifestyle proclivities of the hostess pub participants are seen as marking them out as a strange and deviant “species,” which must be kept behind closed doors. In the case of the hostesses, they are also marked out as different on the grounds of race/ethnicity.

ФОРМУВАННЯ КЛЮЧОВОЇ КОМПЕТЕНТНОСТІ «ПІДПРИЄМЛИВІСТЬ ТА ФІНАНСОВА ГРАМОТНІСТЬ» В ОСВІТНЬОМУ ПРОЦЕСІ З ГЕОГРАФІЇ

The article is devoted to the problem of forming the key competence “entrepreneurship and financial literacy” by means of the school geography course in basic school. The authors analyze the sequence of implementation of this key competence in the educational process and the transformation of the category wording in domestic legislative and regulatory documents. The importance of the theoretical discourse on the content of the concept of “entrepreneurial competence” and the consideration of studies of the phenomenon in the social, psychological, pedagogical and content aspects is emphasized. The authors substantiate that in order to form entrepreneurial competence and financial literacy, it is important to clarify the peculiarities of the structure of this competence and determine the characteristics of the structural components. Based on the achievements of domestic and foreign scholars, the author's vision of the structure of entrepreneurship and financial literacy competence is proposed; the motivational, personal, cognitive and activity components are distinguished. In view of the problem under study, the characteristics of each structural component in the context of the content of the school geography course are proposed. The article analyzes the potential of the content of geography curricula/model programs in basic school as a theoretical basis for the formation of the key competence “entrepreneurship and financial literacy”. Particular attention is paid to the courses of economic and social geography in the 9th grade. Emphasis is placed on the importance of ensuring the integration of geography and economics content in the educational process to promote understanding of economic processes, forming students' readiness for entrepreneurship, developing critical thinking, responsibility and initiative. The authors draw attention to the changes in the methodology of competency-based teaching of geography and the importance of introducing methods that will help motivate students to succeed, willingness to act at risk, the ability to solve actual problems using practical tasks and situations, the ability to build interpersonal relationships, and responsibility for the implementation of a common cause.

ТРАНСФОРМАЦІЯ СТРУКТУРИ І ЗМІСТУ КУРСУ ГЕОГРАФІЇ ВОСЬМОГО КЛАСУ ДЛЯ ЗАКЛАДІВ ЗАГАЛЬНОЇ СЕРЕДНЬОЇ ОСВІТИ

The article is focused on the analysis of the structure and content of Geography study in the 8th grades of general secondary educational institutions based on the model curriculum, developed by the team under the supervision of S. P. Zapototskyi. According to it, the content block related to the study of the population was removed from the 8th and instead transferred to the 9th grade course. Thus, the content of the course “Geography” in the 8th grade will encompass the following 4 chapters: Chapter I “Cartographic image of Ukraine”, Chapter II “Nature of Ukraine”, Chapter III “Natural Resource Management” and Chapter IV “Space – Territory – State”. Instead of the topic “Ukrainian and World Population” in the 8th grade, the inclusion of which in this course at one time was an unsuccessful experiment, two Chapters were introduced under the names “Natural Resource Management” and “Space – Territory – State”. Chapter “Natural Resource Management” logically completes the study of the nature of our state from the standpoint of the resource approach and perspectives of nature use, and “Space – Territory – State” is a kind of a transitional link to the study of Ukrainian and world social geography in the 9th grade. However, a more detailed analysis of the content of the topics included in the geography course covered in the 8th grade according to the model program offered by S. P. Zapototskyi and others, prompts to draw attention to some debatable issues and to offer author’s vision of improving the content of the educational discipline. The main suggestions concern the preservation of a typical physical and geographical approach to the study of the nature of Ukraine in Chapter II, In topic 1. of section IV. "Ukrainian state" a very important aspect of consideration is the affirmation of the idea that Ukraine is the inheritor of the state tradition of the Slavic tribe of the Ants. Another strength of the program is the project activity to establish the features of the formation of capable territorial communities formed after the decentralization reform. The main narrative to be relayed by topic 2 "Ukraine's place on the political map of the world" is that Ukraine is a sovereign European state, a candidate country for EU membership, which has to defend its independence from Russian aggression in a fair armed struggle. and some clarification of the content in Chapter III “Natural Resource Management”.

'Better than Google': Information Activism for LGBTQ+ Young Adults in a Rural Community

For young lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer people, and those belonging to other marginalized sexual and gender identities (LGBTQ+), accessing information to develop one's identity and community is essential. Yet information and resource access is a particularly complex process for LGBTQ+ youth living in rural areas and small towns without dense, visible LGBTQ+ networks. While efforts to remove LGBTQ+ resources and demonize LGBTQ+ people intensify, this study asks a group of young LGBTQ+ adults living in and around a college town in the rural Midwestern United States to document their experiences with navigating information landscapes in low-resource settings. Despite the remarkable everyday creativity required to craft their information practices, participants' current efforts produce several vulnerabilities that make local queer information networks precarious and often inaccessible. We lay out several patterns in this data, including experiences of both connectedness and disconnectedness, the role of organizations in information sharing, and the existence of both active and passive information search. Building on prior research that found increasing demand for multi-modal access to relevant information that is digitally enabled, but deeply embedded in localized social geography and LGBTQ+ community, we use this data and complementary interviews to identify problem areas and potential interventions to strengthen rural LGBTQ+ young people's information access. In response to the informational needs and desires of LGBTQ+ youth in this community, we propose a series of imaginative designs. These speculative artifacts are embedded in local communities to strengthen grassroots webs of knowledge. We focus on contributing solutions that fall under three problem areas in participants' information ecosystem: increasing information stumbling, building expert capacity and support, and bridging the disconnected to the connected. We propose speculative conceptual designs that address core challenges in LGBTQ+ information networks, working in the tradition of ''information activism'' to create and maintain access to otherwise precarious and ephemeral resources and spark social change.

Exploring Urban Socio-Spatial Disparities in Liverpool, Manchester, and Newcastle upon Tyne Metropolitan Areas

In recent decades, rising social disparities in European cities have structured new forms of urban inequalities. Employing an innovative analysis approach based on statistical, geographical, and spatial methods, this paper aims to explore the social geography of population groups in Liverpool, Manchester, and Newcastle upon Tyne by examining how the spatial distribution of socio-economic groups intersects with urban settlements of the resident foreign population. The study addresses methodological challenges in segregation measurement while shedding light on existing spatial patterns of vulnerable groups and emerging trajectories of residential segregation at the metropolitan scale, utilising the most recent UK Census data.

Mail art methods and the social and cultural geographies of families affected by rare disease

ABSTRACT Building on geographic scholarship around disability and drawing on a programme of arts-based research, we bring attention to the social and cultural geographies of families affected by rare disease. Seeking creative methodological opportunities, we invited families to send us postcards as a means of sharing experiences and reflections. We contextualize the emergence of the postcard as a modality of communication, situating our work within a wider epistolary and artistic tradition, before examining the opportunities postcarding might produce for geographic and broader qualitative research, noting the forms conduciveness to multimodality and recent calls for more engagement with the medium. We detail our own practices of participatory postcarding and the questions, challenges, and hopes such raised. Analysing the postcards received, we discuss how such helps understand the shifting social and cultural geographies of rare disease, reflecting on themes of (in)accessibility and exclusion, changing domestic geographies, and the importance of, and challenges associated with, family-based identities and communities in the context of rare disease. Such highlights opportunities for disability geography to engage in cross-cutting conversations and agenda-building with the nascent area of family geographies, along with further geographic inquiry into the spaces and worlds of rare disease.

Literary form and historicised relationality: theorising the city as text in Teju Cole’s novels

ABSTRACT This essay explores the representation and theorisation of the city in Teju Cole’s novels – Every Day Is for the Thief (2007), Open City (2011), and Tremor (2023). It argues that Cole’s writing articulates a new grammar of city-ness premised on historicised relationality and comparative thinking, thus challenging paradigms of urban representation that universalise the Western city. In particular, I propose that Cole’s novels offer a rewriting of Lagos and New York as specifically textual constructions, in which histories of modernity and colonisation get crystallised into their social geographies and cultural infrastructures. By close reading these texts and by drawing from the insights of postcolonial and literary urban studies, I analyse the formal devices – from variations in perspective to restricted focalisation – that Cole employs to textualise the city and its political histories. Through form, Cole’s novels raise crucial questions, both ethical and narrative, about representability, language, and historical violence in urban settings.

Las Polémicas de la Relación Espacio Social y su Influencia en la Forma Urbana en Ciudades Contemporáneas

This essay explores the polemics of the concept “social spatial.” Four main axes of thought can be distinguished: social space as the material environment of social groups; social space as a relational establishment of positions; social space as a dialectical approach to the society-space relationship; and, finally, the threads of constructivism that question the opposition of society and space from a post-structural perspective. This essay attempts to situate these four perspectives within the literature that pays attention to social theory, social geography, urban studies and their implications for the spatial professions of urban planning, urban design, architecture and civil engineering. These four perspectives of social space are complementary from a theoretical point of view. Its application in social research often occurs simultaneously within and among different disciplines, depending largely on the object of analysis, and how geography is defined. I argue that these four theoretical perspectives define geography differently as either functional space, central places, territoriality, or lived places. Moreover, these perspectives and their respective definitions of geography influence practice and professional policy that affect urban form. This essay pays attention to the link between knowledge and practice that have created contemporary socio-spatial environments.

Walking and mapping methodologies: creative explorations of people’s relationships with space

This discussion note reflects on the experiences of collaborating to produce a hybrid workshop on walking and mapping methodologies (author 1 & author 2, 2023) building on research, scholarship and teaching in this area that we, the authors, have been undertaking over the past decade. The workshop explored how walking and mapping might be used in educational settings, in particular multilingual and transnational environments in higher education institutions. It brought together multidisciplinary perspectives on ‘space’, drawing on creative inquiry and applied linguistics, linguistic landscapes, and social geography. Our workshop was aimed at anyone with interests in creative approaches to research, particularly those engaged with participants’ lives and interactions within, across, and through space; and we intended to examine the challenges and opportunities of these approaches, including applications in their own research, scholarship and teaching. Here we outline the processes and thinking behind them, in the form of a two-part dialogue. We raise questions for researchers and educators about boundaries between research, teaching and scholarship, in addition to how walking and mapping methodologies might be critically engaged with in higher education.

From Bk To The Uk: Exploring The Social Geographies Of Place-based Fitness Communities

From Bk To The Uk: Exploring The Social Geographies Of Place-based Fitness Communities

Impact of Social Vulnerability, Race, and Urbanicity on Early Nutritional Outcomes in Patients With Cleft Palate.

Patients with cleft palate experience early feeding difficulties, resulting in increased hospital utilization due to poor nutritional status. Sociodemographic factors may impact access and outcomes for cleft patients. This study investigates the association of social vulnerability, race, and urbanicity on birth encounter metrics and failure to thrive (FTT) rates for patients with cleft palate. Retrospective data from 2013 to 2023 was queried from Cosmos, a national deidentified database from Epic electronic health record. Birth metrics, the prevalence of FTT, and MyChart activation rates were compared across sociodemographic cohorts based on (1) social vulnerability index (SVI) quartiles, (2) patient race, and (3) USDA Rural-Urban Commuting Area (RUCA) codes using χ2 or Fisher exact tests. There were 92,437 patients diagnosed with cleft palate. Birth weight was lower in socially vulnerable and Black patients (SVI 75%: 101.50±1.57oz; SVI 25%: 106.40±1.85oz; Black: 95.3±2.63oz; White: 104.90±1.02oz; Other: 104.80±2.09oz), and length of stay was longer (SVI 75%: 21±2.39d; SVI 25%: 15±2.18d; Black: 22±4d). FTT related admissions increased with SVI quartile (Q25: 0.19%; Q25-50; 0.29%, Q50-75: 0.34%; Q75: 0.47%; P<0.001). An opposite trend was observed for MyChart activation rates (P<0.001). High SVI and Black patients are susceptible to unfavorable nutritional outcomes. Access disparities, such as direct-to-provider communication systems (ie, MyChart), may contribute. Awareness of social identities, geography, and community may assist in providing individualized care in early life.

Answering new urban questions: Using eXplainable AI-driven analysis to identify determinants of Airbnb price in Dublin

This paper presents a novel approach for leveraging an eXplainable artificial intelligence approach to examine the price determinants of Airbnb in Dublin, Ireland, mainly focusing on urban characteristics. We employ an interpretable machine learning (ML) approach on publicly accessible Airbnb data to identify optimal Airbnb rental features, predict price trends, and understand Airbnb’s growth in Dublin. Our analysis also integrates features from three main categories: physical geography (e.g., elevation), social geography (e.g., Electoral Division), and infrastructure & economic geography based on housing/rental market theories (e.g., distance from the city centre). This integration of geographical attributes with ML algorithms provides localised insights into Airbnb pricing dynamics, addressing gaps in previous research that often overlooked the impact of geographical features on price prediction. By applying the TreeSHAP utility (tree-based attribute for SHapley Additive exPlanations), we establish the significant role of these geographical features in predicting Airbnb rental prices, thereby reinforcing theories like Alonso’s Bid-Rent Theory. We further validate the robustness of our models through testing procedures. Our study offers considerable value to urban planners, policymakers, urban researchers, and market stakeholders, deepening the understanding of Airbnb’s impact on urban landscapes and contributing to the broader discourse on the Sharing Economy.

Whose sidewalk is it? Street vendors and the battle for San Diego’s foodscape

ABSTRACT Urban governments have become increasingly involved in gastrodevelopment, managing and monitoring foodscapes to stimulate growth. In that context, sidewalk vendors’ access to urban space has been fiercely debated in many cities. Stressing their informality, some argue that vendors activate public space, provide valuable services, and encourage entrepreneurship, while others emphasize the threats they pose to public safety, health, and competing businesses. This paper examines the motives behind San Diego’s restrictive sidewalk vending ordinance and assesses its impact on different types of vendors and neighborhoods across the city. Using mixed methods, including analyses of city records, census and online data, stakeholder interviews, and a 2022 survey of sidewalk and food truck vendors, we map the social geographies of street vending in San Diego and analyze their unevenness in the context of neoliberal urbanism, manifested in state-sanctioned gentrification, gastrodevelopment, increased policing of public space, and racial exclusion. Our findings show that instead of improving community food security and supporting immigrant microentrepreneurs, San Diego’s sidewalk vending ordinance privileges the demands of affluent and primarily white residents, resulting in an uneven street foodscape in which vending is mostly prohibited in exclusive areas, heavily managed in gentrifying areas, and merely tolerated in low-income areas.

Children in the Archive: Migration and School Life in Turn-of-the-Century Egypt

What happens when we approach children and youth as the producers of their own history? This article foregrounds the concrete traces left by children and young students in the historian’s archive in order to offer an exploratory investigation of how they participated in the multifaceted history of transnational and internal migration in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Egypt. I focus on children and young individuals who, on the one hand, belonged to migrant communities in Egypt and, on the other hand, produced narratives which spoke to the experience of transnational and internal migration. By examining school exams, letters, and petitions produced by pupils between the 1880s and the 1920s, I reconstruct how younger members of society engaged with various forms of parental, communal, and state authority and support as they moved across different social, legal, and spatial geographies.

Interest and motivation of disadvantaged students toward online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic in Nepal

Online learning and teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic had mixed impacts on students’ accessibility and performance. It benefited the concerned stakeholders, including management, teachers, and the students, to retain in the system, but it reinforced pre-existing discrimination among students from various disadvantaged groups. Studies reveal that the online learning system created an environment that facilitated students’ motive and interest in learning who disengaged themselves from classrooms due to various socioeconomic reasons during the pandemic. The present study explored students’ experience and perception of online learning in Nepal and analyzed the predictors of their interest in participating in the new learning environments. More specifically, it studied how the online modes of learning were associated with the interests of disadvantaged higher education students in their academic pursuits during the COVID-19 pandemic and how online learning impacted the pre-existing discrimination among them. The study generated concepts and variables drawing from the technology acceptance model (TAM) and a review of existing literature. A survey among 324 higher education students and a follow-up interview among nine selected respondents were conducted in Nepal between April and June 2021. The sample represented students from all social classes, genders, financial status, and geographies. Using a logistic regression model of the survey data and thematic analysis of interviews, this study found that compared to others, students from disadvantaged groups were significantly motivated by the online learning system. Their perception of online learning was positive despite the shortcomings of the system, such as the lack of internet infrastructure and the continuous flow of electricity. Students’ motivation toward the online learning system was triggered by their perception, which helped them to retain and continue in the higher education system. Based on the findings, this study concludes that in a developing country like Nepal, where students face social, economic, and geographical challenges in accessing higher education, the online learning system could be an effective alternative to traditional face-to-face learning to minimize pre-existing discrimination.

On teaching Holocaust geographies: supporting inquiry into space, persecution and civic action

PurposeIn this article, the authors – a social studies methods professor and geography research associate – make the case for considering the integration of Holocaust geographies into the middle and secondary curriculum, potential challenges that teachers may have in teaching Holocaust geographies are addressed.Design/methodology/approachUsing an experience in delivering professional development on Holocaust geographies to teachers to frame the discourse within the article, the authors contend that a study of Holocaust geographies tests geography as a discipline, addresses current problems and supports student inquiry. Therefore, the inclusion of the Holocaust in the geography curriculum is both needed and valuable.FindingsExamining the Holocaust spatially using geographical skills moves students away from the potential limits of studying the Holocaust temporally using only historical skills. Thus, the distance between past and present, although not ignored, is narrowed through the inquiry into spatial patterns and characteristics, providing the potential to bring greater focus on present-day antisemitism, persecution, genocide and authoritarianism.Originality/valueEducators are encouraged to take up work that intersects the civic goals of both geography and Holocaust education, yet literature on these intersections is sparse. We call upon Holocaust education and geography education organizations to develop and provide support for teachers around Holocaust geographies.

Education inequalities

Abstract Education is one of the most important predictors of people's life chances, shaping outcomes like work and pay, health, and wealth. Explaining inequalities in educational outcomes, as well as how wider outcomes vary by education levels, is therefore essential to understanding lifetime inequalities. In this article, we document the changing—and unchanging—nature of educational inequalities in England and their implications for other aspects of social inequalities. We review the evidence on the returns to different types and levels of qualifications; analyse the extent to which the current education system mitigates or perpetuates other dimensions of inequalities, including social background, gender, ethnicity, and geography; and investigate the drivers of educational inequalities during schooling and beyond. Finally, we draw the policy implications of our analysis and set out principles for building a more equal education system.

Landscapes of Unique Vernacular Communities: Changing Social Geography and Cultural Practices of the Kodagu Community, Karnataka, India

Landscapes of Unique Vernacular Communities: Changing Social Geography and Cultural Practices of the Kodagu Community, Karnataka, India

A Collective Action Formation to Address Mental, Emotional, and Behavioral Health in Schools: The District 87 Wellness Collaborative

The District 87 Wellness Collaborative is a multi-dimensional, interprofessional initiative in the Midwest region of the United States that was co-designed to facilitate collaboration, civic engagement, and partnerships among university scholar-practitioners, community agencies, and school administrators and personnel. The primary aims of the Wellness Collaborative are to develop, enhance, and extend school initiatives that address mental, emotional, and behavioral health outcomes of school-age children, their families, and the education workforce. The Wellness Collaborative is composed of disciplinary expertise in kinesiology, school counseling and psychology, social work, nursing, geography, and community health. Broader campus and community partners include specialists from civic and community engagement offices, extension services, and healthcare providers. This ecologically framed initiative supports strategic and system-level change within the district (system) and individual schools (sub-systems). It addresses complex school-level organizational factors (i.e., environment, norms, organizational culture, incentives, etc.) that influence wellness behaviors that affect school and physical education workforce professionals.

Re-Think Migration in Africa: The Current Geopolitical Challenges of Migration

This study is part of the field of political and social geography and African studies. Its aim is to address the current geopolitical issues (migration policies, migration systems and dynamics, forms of otherness, clandestine migration and different routes, the role of borders in migration as a geostrategic tool) of migration in Africa. To bring scientific rigor and clarity to our study, we draw on both methodical approaches from social and political geography, life stories, ethnographic observation and various documentary sources. Reflection on the current migratory situation in Africa leads us to discuss the impact of the colonial era on the continent through colonial economies centered essentially on the exploitation of African natural resources such as minerals, rubber and cotton. This reality has engendered, on the one hand, an African migratory system represented by the migration of labor from rural regions to economic centers, creating demographic and economic imbalances within African countries; and on the other hand, a migratory system between colonizing countries and colonized countries. It's true that Africa is a continent of glaring disparities. It's a multi-ethnic, plural space that conceals flagrant socio-spatial inequalities, which are becoming increasingly acute. This area of the world becomes a space of paradoxes par excellence, insofar as wealth and poverty are intertwined. As a result, the spatial injustice between North and South generates a great deal of frustration among Africans, and has an impact on the construction of a hopeful migration project. Moving elsewhere offers would-be migrants the right to dream, rebuild their lives and shape their values. This ultimate goal is made possible by cosmopolitanism and the desire to discover a different culture. In the current context, Morocco is becoming a new frontier for Europe. Its geographical and geostrategic position makes it both a place of transit and residence. Indeed, moving there or leaving generates new urban dynamics in Moroccan cities, creating new forms of otherness between migrants and locals. Such mobility generates ephemeral, relocated territorialities that shape the urban landscape of African cities, in this case Moroccan cities. Migration is a highly complex phenomenon, involving individuals and their societal lives on the one hand, and states and their integration policies on the other. Indeed, dealing with the issue of migration in its political, economic, social, cultural and diplomatic dimensions is a necessity, and raises a legitimate question: how can we think about the geopolitical stakes of migration in Africa? To answer this major question, we propose a two-point plan. The first section will address current migration dynamics in Africa. The second deals with migration policies in Africa and future challenges in Africa and in third section, we will look at the future challenges of migration in Africa.