Melanie Lindsay Straiton, Anne Reneflot and Esperanza Diaz
High socioeconomic status (SES) is associated with better health and lower use of health care services in the general population. Among immigrants, the relationship appears less…
Abstract
Purpose
High socioeconomic status (SES) is associated with better health and lower use of health care services in the general population. Among immigrants, the relationship appears less consistent. The purpose of this paper is to determine if the relationship between income level (a proxy for SES) and use of primary health care services for mental health problems differs for natives and five immigrant groups in Norway. It also explores the moderating effect of length of stay (LoS) among immigrants.
Design/methodology/approach
Using data from two registers with national-level coverage, logistic regression analyses with interactions were carried out to determine the association between income level and having used primary health care services for mental health problems.
Findings
For Norwegian men and women there was a clear negative relationship between income and service use. Interaction analyses suggested that the relationship differed for all immigrant groups compared with Norwegians. When stratifying by LoS, income was not associated with service use among recently arrived immigrants but was negatively associated among immigrants staying more than two years (with the exception of Pakistani and Iraqi women).
Research limitations/implications
Country of origin and LoS should be considered when applying measures of SES in immigrant health research.
Social implications
There may be an initial transition period for recently arrived immigrants where competing factors mask the association between SES and service use.
Originality/value
This study benefits from nationwide coverage, eliminating self-selection biases. It demonstrates the complexity of the relationship between SES and health care use.
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The Revolution is 50, Raúl has succeeded Fidel, and many dissidents who participated in the 2002 Varela Project initiative are in jail. What hope for “cambio” (change) in Cuba…
Abstract
The Revolution is 50, Raúl has succeeded Fidel, and many dissidents who participated in the 2002 Varela Project initiative are in jail. What hope for “cambio” (change) in Cuba? Legal dissent – constitutional proposals, a legislative agenda, and grassroots civil rights organizing – may be the key. The Movimiento Cristiano Liberación (MCL), led by the Nobel Peace Prize-nominated Oswaldo Payá, presents the strongest challenge to the power of Cuba's 50-year-old Revolutionary government. This dissident group is at the heart of the development of the 2002 Varela Project and forms the core of the leaders arrested in the 2003 Cuban Spring crackdown. This paper traces the history of MCL's “legal dissent” strategy, from the evolution of the Varela Project to their development of an entire legislative agenda, crafted with nation-wide grassroots participation over the last six years since the crackdown. Using data from international NGO surveys conducted within Cuba, we analyze the strengths and weaknesses of the MCL's proposal vis-à-vis the political and economic concerns and interests of the broader population. Cuba's government seeks to consolidate its rule through its institutions, specifically, through the Cuban Communist Party. It remains to be seen whether the MCL's legal dissent strategy can successfully mobilize a broad segment of the Cuban population, and channel the political aspirations of reformers whose interests are not served under one-party rule.
Kathryn M. Hudson and John S. Henderson
Relationships between long-distance exchange, especially of luxury goods, and the centralization of political power represent a fundamental dimension of political and economic…
Abstract
Purpose
Relationships between long-distance exchange, especially of luxury goods, and the centralization of political power represent a fundamental dimension of political and economic organization. Precolumbian American societies, outside familiar European contexts that have shaped analytical perspectives, provide a broadened comparative field with the potential for more nuanced analysis.
Methodology/approach
Analysis focuses on four cases that vary in political centralization, institutional complexity, and geographic scale: Ulúa societies without political centralization; small Maya states; Aztec; and Inka empires. Emphasis on relationships between principals and agents highlights the potential of social practices to perform the functions often associated with state institutions
Findings
In the Ulúa region, commerce flourished in the absence of states and their concomitants. The very wealth of Ulúa societies and the unusually broad dispersion of prosperity across social segments impeded the development of states by limiting the ability of local lords to intensify their status and convert it to political power. Intensity of market activity and long-distance exchange does not correlate well with the florescence of states. Less centralized and non-centralized political systems may in fact facilitate mercantile activity (or impede it less) in comparison with states.
Originality/value
These cases frame a useful perspective on the organizational configuration of long-distance trade. Informal social mechanisms and practices can be an alternative to state institutions in structuring complex economic relations. The implications for understanding trajectories of societal change are clear: the development of states and centralized political organization is not a prerequisite for robust long-distance commerce.
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Esperanza García-Uceda, Josefina L. Murillo-Luna and Jesús Asín Lafuente
The purpose of this study is to examine the factors that determine the entrepreneurial intention (EI) among Social Work degree students. This study considers the direct influence…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to examine the factors that determine the entrepreneurial intention (EI) among Social Work degree students. This study considers the direct influence of personal traits, demographic characteristics, informal education and entrepreneurship education (EE) and, in addition, the possible moderating effect of EE on the other factors.
Design/methodology/approach
A sample of 139 undergraduate students registered in the Social Work degree offered by the University of Zaragoza (Spain) is analyzed, by using a longitudinal system based on questionnaires that were passed at two different times – before and after receiving the EE. Logistic regression models are built and estimated according to the explicative variables.
Findings
The results indicate that demographic factors, personality traits, professional experience and EE are significant factors in fostering social entrepreneurship among Social Work students. Additionally, EE has a moderating effect on the other variables, but only partially and not always positive.
Practical implications
The entrepreneurial initiative of social workers can make a very valuable contribution through the start-up of social enterprises. The findings suggest the convenience of promoting EE in the Social Work degree, with teaching contents and methodologies adapted to social entrepreneurship. Nevertheless, the interaction of educational methodologies with the other determinants does not always have a positive impact on EI.
Originality/value
This paper investigates EI in the context of undergraduate Social Work students, and this is a novel methodological approach. In addition to the analysis of the direct influence of the determinants of EI, we add the possible moderating effect of EE on the influence of the other explanatory variables.
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William Dextre-Martinez, Rosario Huerta-Soto, Eduardo Rocca-Espinoza, Manuel Chenet-Zuta and Luis Angulo-Cabanillas
The study set out to understand how the regional competitiveness index (RCI) in the department of Ancash related to the human development index (HDI) from 2008 to 2021. For a more…
Abstract
The study set out to understand how the regional competitiveness index (RCI) in the department of Ancash related to the human development index (HDI) from 2008 to 2021. For a more complete understanding of the findings, each component or dimension of the RCI was analyzed. Ancash's HDI and its competitiveness index over a 14-year period were used as the population for this applied, longitudinal, descriptive-correlational study, which was based on secondary data extracted from the “Instituto Nacional de Estadística e Informática” (INEI) and business school of the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú (CENTRUM) statistical databases. Multiple linear regression was used to find the relationship. The research found a strong and positive correlation between regional competitiveness and human development between 2008 and 2021. No correlations were found between the HDI and the health, education, employment, or institutional dimensions of regional competitiveness, but direct and significant correlations were established between the economic environment and the HDI and between the infrastructure dimension and the HDI.
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This study aims to identify the transformations of the residential landscape and trends in the popular real estate market associated with tourist activity in a low-income…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to identify the transformations of the residential landscape and trends in the popular real estate market associated with tourist activity in a low-income neighborhood in Bogotá.
Design/methodology/approach
The methodology was mainly qualitative, although the author analyzed some quantitative data. The author conducted three guided tourist tours in the area and systematically compared photographs taken in 2022 with satellite images in 2019 before starting the tourist activity. To analyze the real estate market, the author uses data on housing offers for sale and rent. Finally, the author conducted semi-structured interviews with tour guides, residents and other key actors in the sector.
Findings
This study identified some dynamics of change in the real estate market, particularly associated with an increase in housing sales and rental prices, as well as a possible effect on the increase of new informal growth processes. The author found a growing transformation of the urban and residential landscape associated with the painting of facades by the local administration and mural painting processes by community organizations. There are evident housing investment processes, some associated with verticalization and other use changes for tourism activities. It is necessary to reflect on these processes’ effects on the city’s sociospatial dynamics.
Originality/value
This study makes an empirical contribution to the relationship between residential real estate markets in low-income sectors and tourism activity. Although analyses of community-based tourism in popular areas have been conducted, less is known about the effects on the real estate market and the associated sociospatial transformations.
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– The purpose of this paper is to analyze the circumstances that have conditioned the development of education in Spain from the enlightenment to the present day.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to analyze the circumstances that have conditioned the development of education in Spain from the enlightenment to the present day.
Design/methodology/approach
Multidisciplinary scientific approach that combines the interpretation of the legal texts with the revision of the doctrinal and theoretical contributions made on the issue.
Findings
From the beginning of the nineteenth century, the history of education in Spain has been marked by constant fluctuations between the reactionary instincts, principally maintained by the Catholic Church and the conservative social classes, and the progressive experiments, driven by the enlightened and the liberals first, and the republicans and the socialists later. As a consequence of that, the fight for finishing with illiteracy and guaranteeing universal schooling underwent permanent advances and retreats, preventing from an effective modernization of the Spanish educative system. On the one hand, renewal projects promoted by teachers and pedagogues were inevitably criticized by the ecclesiastical hierarchy, obsessed with the idea of preserving the influence of religion on the schools. On the other hand, successive governments were weak in implementing an educational policy which could place Spain at the level of the other European and occidental nations.
Originality/value
At the dawn of the twenty-first century, although the country has overcome a good part of its centuries-old backwardness, increasing economic difficulties and old ideological splits keep hampering the quality of teaching, gripped by neoliberal policies which undermine the right to education for all. The reading of this paper offers various historical clues to understand this process.