Teresa León, Vicente Liern and Blanca Pérez-Gladish
In recent years there has been a significant acceleration in the market growth of social impact investing. Policy makers, regulatory bodies and national decision-makers should…
Abstract
Purpose
In recent years there has been a significant acceleration in the market growth of social impact investing. Policy makers, regulatory bodies and national decision-makers should base their decision-making processes on multiple criteria. These criteria are, by nature, imprecise, ambiguous and uncertain. The purpose of this paper is to provide decision-makers with a mathematical tool which aids them in their decision-making processes identifying the degree of appropriateness of less developed countries in terms of potential success of investment in vaccination campaigns.
Design/methodology/approach
In this work, the authors have developed a decision-making tool within the framework of multiple criteria decision making and Fuzzy Logic, which aims to aid decision-makers for vaccinations campaigns in less developed countries. In particular, the authors have proposed a Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution-based method which is able to work in fuzzy environment in order to assess and rank countries based on their fuzzy degree of appropriateness for impact investing in vaccines.
Findings
The impact investing market provides capital from private sources to address many pressing global challenges such as access to basic services as health. Governments have, therefore, an essential role in supporting the development of this market by improving the risk/return profile of investments through access to credit facilities, tax credits or subsidies or defining the regulation of the supply of investments, provision of technical assistance to investing private companies and co-financing. The proposed framework permits funding decision making taking into account the degree of preparedness and adequacy for impact investing in vaccines of the selected countries.
Research limitations/implications
Impact investing can play a key role in the reduction of immunization gap offering suitable strategies for both, governments and private investors for the achievement of United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). However, in order to make good financial decisions managers should take into account not only health, income, education and other social criteria but also the degree of basic preparedness of the countries in order to ensure the success of the immunization campaigns which means taking into account availability of basic infrastructures, access to electricity, political stability among other criteria.
Practical implications
However, in order to make good financial decisions managers should take into account not only health, income, education and other social criteria but also the degree of basic preparedness of the countries in order to ensure the success of the immunization campaigns which means taking into account availability of basic infrastructures, access to electricity, political stability among other criteria.
Originality/value
The proposed model will allow public and private decision makers to make better investment decisions in terms of effectiveness as the provided ranking of countries candidates for the investments is more realistic and takes into account more decision dimensions.
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José Baltazar García Horta and María Teresa Guerra Ramos
This chapter presents an analysis of gender equity messages in textbooks and official educational documents in Mexico. For that purpose, critical pedagogy, understood as a…
Abstract
This chapter presents an analysis of gender equity messages in textbooks and official educational documents in Mexico. For that purpose, critical pedagogy, understood as a framework to dissect power dynamics and gender relations in educational settings, is employed. From the point of view of critical pedagogy, stereotypes and imbalances of power are learned through everyday discourses and narratives and have been shaped by a long history of dominance and suppression; they are part of a system erected precisely to exercise control and limit possibilities particularly of those groups in the margins of society: poor, women, addicts, indigenous peoples, etc. Schools are regarded as spaces where inclusiveness is encouraged but also places where the reproduction of the status quo also occurs; in that sense, schools reflect whatever occurs in society at large, not only the positive cases but the bleak instances as well. Our main intention was to identify and examine books and documents on educational policy, guidelines, contents, or learning outcomes, which have been expressed to promote gender equity and respect for diversity. The idea is to identify whether the content that promotes equity is being communicated or if, on the contrary, gender stereotypes continue to be reinforced, the theme is avoided, or it is not considered relevant. We identified texts (activities and instructions) and images embodying messages connected to gender equity, or inequities, and even discourses that, proactively or by omission, perpetuate the transmission of gender stereotypes. The textbooks of Civic and Ethical Education of the final three grades of primary education are analyzed. A perusal of legal documents and official textbooks suggests that mixed messages that include both explicit statements of equity between binary gender options and implicit messages of superiority and authority attributed to men are somehow transmitted. In particular, the iconography let through implicit messages, probably unintentional but nonetheless powerful, in conveying stereotypes and imbalances of power.
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Dolores Romero López and José Luis Bueren Gómez-Acebo
Studies of Spanish literature during the late nineteenth century and the first one-third of the twentieth century are evolving from research on canonical writers to the study of…
Abstract
Purpose
Studies of Spanish literature during the late nineteenth century and the first one-third of the twentieth century are evolving from research on canonical writers to the study of “odd and forgotten” authors, themes and genres during what is now called the Other Silver Age. This paper aims to focus on the work undertaken in the field of literary translation by the women writers of this period.
Design/methodology/approach
Mnemosyne is an open-access digital library that allows data modeling for specific collections (women translators, science fiction, etc.) in support of research and teaching on Silver Age Spain. The first version of the library is stored on the server at the Universidad Complutense Library, and it is linked to the collections of the digital library HathiTrust and Biblioteca Nacional de España. Behind the scenes of Mnemosyne’s public presence online, the project is developing with the aid of the tool Clavy which is a rich internet application that is able to import, preserve and edit information from big data collections of digital objects so as to build bridges between institutional and digital repositories and create collections of enriched digital content. See:http://repositorios.fdi.ucm.es/mnemosine/queesmnemosine.php
Findings
The Collection Women Translators in Spain (1868-1936) inside Mnemosyne selects, categorizes and makes visible in digital format women translators and literary translations that belong to a forgotten repertoire to allow the historical review of the period. The digital collection of Spanish Women Translators pretends to be a field of international experimentation for the creation of interoperable semantic networks through which a large group of scholars could generate innovative research and theoretical reading models for literary texts. See:http://repositorios.fdi.ucm.es/mnemosine/colecciones.php
Research limitations/implications
Clavy also provides a basic system of data visualization, edition and navigation. There are plans to integrate @Note, a collaborative annotation application, into Clavy. These two computational tools were developed by the software languages research group ILSA[1] at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid.
Practical implications
Its been followed NEWW Women Writers’ categories concerning biographical categories as successful standard for ensuring interoperability in the near future: children, marital status, social class, religion, profession and other activities, financial aspects, memberships. See:http://repositorios.fdi.ucm.es/mnemosine/ver_documento.php?documento=208369
Social implications
These women also showed their interest in the writings of contemporary women by translating their works into Spanish or glossing foreign ideas about how the modern woman should be, think or behave. This digital collection shows the first steps of the intellectual women in the South of Europe.
Originality/value
To incorporate specially tailored metadata for the women translators’ collection into Mnemosyne, it will be necessary to use of Clavy’s extensibility to account for the particularities of the women translators’ collection. This is where prior knowledge of this literature’s historical and cultural context proves indispensable. In particular, the specific metadata model for the women translators’ collection incorporates elements that reflect the literary, historical and cultural characteristics of the collections.
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Jucelia Appio Frizon, Teresa Eugénio and Nelson Natalino Frizon
This study aims to examine the mediating role of students’ knowledge of sustainable development (SD) in the relationship between green campus initiatives by higher education…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to examine the mediating role of students’ knowledge of sustainable development (SD) in the relationship between green campus initiatives by higher education institutions (HEIs) and student proactivity.
Design/methodology/approach
The research, with a quantitative approach, was carried out with students linked to HEIs belonging to the Sustainable Campus Network – Portugal (RCS-PT).
Findings
It was concluded that communications of HEI SD initiatives, green campus operations and approach to SD in the classroom have a positive and significant effect on students’ proactivity toward SD. It was also concluded that SD-oriented student knowledge is a mediator in these relationships.
Research limitations/implications
An underlying argument is that students with SD-oriented knowledge engage in proactive behaviors, taking the best HEI initiatives as a precedent among students of the HEIs belonging to the RCS-PT.
Practical implications
HEI initiatives can be drivers for proactive student behaviors regarding SD. Thus, this study brings guidance to university leaders and other stakeholders. The findings can also be useful for those involved in planning SD-oriented actions in HEIs.
Social implications
Strengthen the role of higher education as co-creators of change by promoting the principles of SD in future professionals. Education is a strong instrument for behavioral change, so HEIs play a fundamental role here having a direct impact on society.
Originality/value
This research sought to expand the dialogue about SD in HEIs, especially in achieving sustainable development goals, intertwined with the idea of participation and engagement of students.
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This chapter analyzes the role of grassroots organizations as natural helping systems for women’s empowerment in the rural areas of central Mexico. For almost three decades…
Abstract
This chapter analyzes the role of grassroots organizations as natural helping systems for women’s empowerment in the rural areas of central Mexico. For almost three decades, productive projects have been the preferred strategy by the Mexican government in order to alleviate extreme poverty and promote women’s empowerment. Even if the impact of productive projects on women’s empowerment has been limited, grassroots organizations are created in order to have access to financial resources that have promoted the collective dimension of women’s empowerment. Through semi-structured interviews and participatory observation, this study retrieves the experience of women’s leadership, frustrated by changing public policy, local corruption, and political use of the social policy. In those difficult circumstances, grassroots organizations are fundamental tools for women’s well-being as they promote a specific understanding of empowerment, where family, community, and relatedness are values more important than competition and individualistic achievements.
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Teresa Sosa, Allison H. Hall and Brian Collins
This study aims to focus on the regulation of emotions in critical literacy, its resulting racial oppression and students’ response to emotional control. The authors examine a…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to focus on the regulation of emotions in critical literacy, its resulting racial oppression and students’ response to emotional control. The authors examine a student discussion of a poem, looking specifically at the affective responses of students’ interactions as these open possibilities for identifying ways that students confront, resist and subvert emotional control. This research question asks how students resisted limited forms of emotion and enabled opportunities for varied affective forms of engagement.
Design/methodology/approach
In this analysis, the authors explored both emotions and discourse (broadly defined as languages, actions, embodied acts, etc.) as they construct the flow of activity in this discussion. The authors also looked at past familiar practices that make the present one recognizable and meaningful.
Findings
The findings indicate black students resisted emotion rules by discussing racism, a highly taboo subject in schools. Students also rallied against an interpretation that felt as a distraction, an attempt to negate or shut down the naming and sensing of racism in the poem and in the classroom. Despite the constant regulation of emotions before, during and after the discussion, black youth firmly indicated their right to judge the interpretation that the poem had nothing to do with racism as inadequate and steeped in whiteness.
Originality/value
In schools, critical literacy often fails to attend to how emotions are managed and reflect racial control and dominance. For critical literacy as an anti-oppressive pedagogy to confront the oppressive status quo of schools, it must no longer remain silent or leave unquestioned rules of emotional dispositions that target marginalized students.
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Rebecca Gasior Altman is a graduate student in the Department of Sociology at Brown University. Her focus is on medical sociology, environmental sociology, organizational theory…
Abstract
Rebecca Gasior Altman is a graduate student in the Department of Sociology at Brown University. Her focus is on medical sociology, environmental sociology, organizational theory, and social movement theory. Her current research projects analyze narratives about community toxics activism, environmental advocacy support organizations, and medical waste.Phil Brown is Professor of Sociology and Environmental Studies at Brown University. He is currently examining disputes over environmental factors in asthma, breast cancer, and Gulf War-related illnesses, as well as toxics reduction and precautionary principle approaches that can help avoid toxic exposures. He is the author of No Safe Place: Toxic Waste, Leukemia, and Community Action (Phil Brown & Edwin Mikkelsen), co-editor of a collection, Illness and the Environment: A Reader in Contested Medicine, and editor of Perspectives in Medical Sociology.Daniel M. Cress is Associate Professor of Sociology in the Department of Behavioral and Social Sciences at Western State College of Colorado. His research and teaching interests include social movements – particularly among poor and marginalized groups, environmental sociology, and globalization. His published work has focused on protest activity by homeless people.Jennifer Earl is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her research areas include social movements and the sociology of law, with research emphases on the social control of protest, social movement outcomes, Internet contention, and legal change. Her published work has appeared in a number of journals, including the American Sociological Review, Sociological Theory, and the Journal of Historical Sociology.Myra Marx Ferree is professor of Sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her work on social movements has focused on women’s mobilizations and organizations in Germany, the U.S., and transnationally, most recently looking at interactions between American and Russian feminists (Signs, 2001), German and American abortion discourses and the definition of radicalism (AJS, 2003), and the European Women’s Lobby in relation to transnational women’s organizations on the web (Social Politics, 2004).Joshua Gamson is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of San Francisco. He is author of Freaks Talk Back: Tabloid Talk Shows and Sexual Nonconformity (Chicago, 1998), Claims to Fame: Celebrity in Contemporary America (California, 1994), and numerous articles on social movements, gay and lesbian politics, popular culture and media. He is currently working on a biography of the disco star Sylvester.Teresa Ghilarducci is Associate Professor of Economics and Director of the Higgins Labor Research Center at the University of Notre Dame. She is author of Labor’s Capital: The Economics and Politics of Private Pensions (MIT Press) and Portable Pension Plans for Casual Labor Markets: Lessons from the Operating Engineers Central Pension Fund (with Garth Mangum, Jeffrey S. Petersen & Peter Philips). She is a former Board of Trustees member of the Indiana Public Employees Retirement Fund, a former advisory board member for the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, and a Fellow of the National Academy of Social Insurance.Brian Mayer is a doctoral student in the Sociology Department at Brown University. His interests include environmental and medical sociology, as well as science and technology studies. His recent projects include an investigation of the growth of the precautionary principle as a new paradigm among environmental organizations and a study of social movements addressing environmental health issues.Sabrina McCormick is a doctoral student in the Department of Sociology at Brown University. She is a Henry Luce Foundation Fellow through the Watson Institute of International Studies. Her main interests are environmental sociology, medical sociology, and the politics of development. As a Luce Fellow, she is engaged in comparing environmentally-based movements in the U.S. and Brazil. Additional special interests include the social contestation of environmental illness, the insertion of lay knowledge into expert systems, and the role of social movements in these struggles. She has recent publications by Ms. Magazine and The National Women’s Health Network related to these areas.Rachel Morello-Frosch is an assistant professor at the Center for Environmental Studies and the Department of Community Health, School of Medicine at Brown University. As an environmental health scientist and epidemiologist, her research examines race and class determinants of the distribution of health risks associated with air pollution among diverse communities in the United States. Her current work focuses on: comparative risk assessment and environmental justice, developing models for community-based environmental health research, children’s environmental health, and the intersection between economic restructuring and environmental health. Her work has appeared in Environmental Health Perspectives, Risk Analysis, International Journal of Health Services, Urban Affairs Review, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences, and Environment and Planning C. She also sits on the scientific advisory board of Breast Cancer Action in San Francisco.Daniel J. Myers is Associate Professor, Chair of Sociology, and Fellow of the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame. He has published work on collective violence, racial conflict, formal models of collective action, urban poverty, and the diffusion of social behavior in the American Sociological Review, American Journal of Sociology, Journal of Conflict Resolution, and Mobilization. He is also author of Toward a More Perfect Union: The Governance of Metropolitan America and The Future of Urban Poverty (both with Ralph Conant), and Social Psychology (5th edition) with Andy Michener and John Delamater. He is currently conducting a National Science Foundation-funded project examining the structural conditions, diffusion patterns, and media coverage related to U.S. racial rioting in the 1960s.Sharon Erickson Nepstad is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Duquesne University and the author of Convictions of the Soul: Religion, Culture, and Agency in the Central America Solidarity Movement (Oxford University Press, 2004).Francesca Polletta is Associate Professor of Sociology at Columbia University. She is the author of Freedom Is an Endless Meeting: Democracy in American Social Movements (University of Chicago, 2002) and editor, with Jeff Goodwin and James M. Jasper, of Passionate Politics: Emotions and Social Movements (University of Chicago, 2001). She has published articles on culture, collective identity, emotions, law, and narrative in social movements, and on the civil rights, women’s liberation, new left, and contemporary anti-corporate globalization movements.Nicole C. Raeburn is Assistant Professor and Chair of Sociology at the University of San Francisco. She is the author of the book, Changing Corporate America from Inside Out: Lesbian and Gay Workplace Rights (University of Minnesota Press, 2004). Her new research project compares the adoption of gay-inclusive workplace policies in the corporate, educational, and government sectors.Leila J. Rupp is Professor and Chair of Women’s Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. A historian by training, her teaching and research focus on sexuality and women’s movements. She is coauthor with Verta Taylor of Drag Queens at the 801 Cabaret (2003) and Survival in the Doldrums: The American Women’s Rights Movement, 1945 to the 1960s (1987) and author of A Desired Past: A Short History of Same-Sex Sexuality in America (1999), Worlds of Women: The Making of an International Women’s Movement (1997), and Mobilizing Women for War: German and American Propaganda, 1939–1945 (1978). She is also editor of the Journal of Women’s History.David A. Snow is Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Irvine. He taught previously at the universities of Arizona and Texas. He has authored numerous articles and chapters on homelessness, collective action and social movements, religious conversion, self and identity, framing processes, symbolic interactionism, and qualitative field methods; and has authored a number of books as well, including Down on Their Luck: A Study of Homeless Street People (with Leon Anderson), Shakubuku: A Study of the Nichiren Shoshu Buddhist Movement in America, 1960–1975, and The Blackwell Companion to Social Movements (edited with Sarah Soule & Hanspeter Kriesi). His most current research project involves an NSF-funded interdisciplinary, comparative study of homelessness in four global cities (Los Angeles, Paris, São Paulo, and Tokyo).Sarah A. Soule is an Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Arizona. Her research examines U.S. state policy change and diffusion and the role social movements have on these processes. Current projects include the NSF-funded “Dynamics and Diffusion of Collective Protest in the U.S.” from which data for this paper come; an analysis of state-level contraception and abortion laws; an analysis of state ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment; and an analysis of state-level same-sex marriage bans. She has recently completed an edited volume, The Blackwell Companion to Social Movements, with David Snow and Hanspeter Kreisi.Verta A. Taylor is Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She is coauthor with Leila J. Rupp of Drag Queens at the 801 Cabaret (University of Chicago Press) and Survival in the Doldrums : The American Women’s Rights Movement, 1945 to the 1960s (Oxford University Press); co-editor with Laurel Richardson and Nancy Whittier of Feminist Frontiers VI (McGraw-Hill); and author of Rock-a-by Baby: Feminism, Self-Help and Postpartum Depression (Routledge). Her articles on the women’s movement, the gay and lesbian movement, and social movement theory have appeared in journals, such as The American Sociological Review, Signs, Social Problems, Mobilization, Gender & Society, Qualitative Sociology, Journal of Women’s History, and Journal of Homosexuality.Nella Van Dyke is currently an Assistant Professor in the Sociology Department at Washington State University. Her research focuses on the dynamics of student protest, social movement coalitions, hate crimes, and the factors influencing right-wing mobilization. Her recent publications include articles in Social Problems and Research in Political Sociology. She is currently conducting research on the AFL-CIO’s Union Summer student internship program and its influence on student protest, how the tactics of protest change over time, and how movement opponents influence the collective identity of gay and lesbian movement organizations.Stephen Zavestoski is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of San Francisco. His current research examines the role of science in disputes over the environmental causes of unexplained illnesses, the use of the Internet as a tool for enhancing public participation in federal environmental rulemaking, and citizen responses to community contamination. His work appears in journals such as Science, Technology & Human Values, Journal of Health and Social Behavior, Sociology of Health and Illness, and in the book Sustainable Consumption: Conceptual Issues and Policy Problems.
Silvia Albareda-Tiana, Gabriel Fernandez-Borsot, Jasmina Berbegal-Mirabent, Elisa Regadera González, Marta Mas-Machuca, Mariona Graell, Alba Manresa, Mónica Fernández-Morilla, M. Teresa Fuertes-Camacho, Andreu Gutiérrez-Sierra and Josep M. Guardiola
This study aims to assess the effectiveness of active teaching methodologies, namely, problem-oriented learning and the case method, to develop sustainability competencies. It…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to assess the effectiveness of active teaching methodologies, namely, problem-oriented learning and the case method, to develop sustainability competencies. It also analyses the advantages and challenges for teachers when implementing the sustainable development goals (SDGs) in eight undergraduate and postgraduate degrees within the framework of a cross-departmental collaboration.
Design/methodology/approach
A mixed research methodology was used: a quantitative study to assess the levels of acquisition of sustainability and research competencies and the potential correlation between them, as well as a mixed study of the advantages and challenges for the teachers participating in the cross-departmental initiative. Curriculum content linked to the SDGs was worked on. Active teaching methodologies and a competency assessment rubric were used as curriculum implementation strategies in the eight courses involved.
Findings
Active teaching methodologies are suitable to implement the SDGs in university teaching and to develop both sustainability and research competencies. A synergic effect is observed between them. Coordinated work between teachers of different subjects in several degrees contributes to developing a culture of sustainability at the university.
Research limitations/implications
Although the collaboration between teachers from different disciplines was successful, this study did not promote interdisciplinary projects among students from different degrees. This promises to be highly valuable for future research.
Practical implications
Students can become present and future leaders in achieving the SDGs. This approach can be replicated in other educational institutions.
Social implications
This study bridges the gap between theoretical recommendations and the practical implementation of the SDGs in undergraduate and postgraduate degrees.
Originality/value
Coordinated work between teachers of different subjects in different degrees contributes to the development of a culture of sustainability at the university.