Societies, Volume 12, Issue 3 (June 2022) – 24 articles

Due to an array of individual, institutional and structural factors, several constraints hinder the access of migrant youth to education, training and employment in Catalonia. In this article, we explore the conditions in which young migrants access the education and training system in Catalonia (Spain). Drawing on the theory of opportunity structures, we highlight three constraints that narrow their education and training opportunities. Our approach runs away from individualistic explanations of success or failure. The research draws on 5 focus groups and 10 in-depth interviews with young migrants who were participating in a training scheme in 2019 and 2020. Our results point out three types of conditioning factors that constrain opportunities and sometimes become unsurmountable barriers. Firstly, their migrant status narrows their opportunities for education, training and employment. Secondly, current administrative procedures eventually disrupt the ways in which certain young newcomers follow the mainstream education and training pathways. Finally, certain circumstances have inflicted socio-emotional wounds on young newcomers, not only because they have left their country and suffered from socio-economic deprivation, but also because they have been compelled to suddenly adjust their expectations. Full article

Alienation between farmers and citizens has increased amid complex developments of agriculture’s intensification, urbanization processes, demographic change, and specialization in food supply chains in developed countries. Traditional public relations instruments have failed to generate societal acceptance of today’s intensive agricultural practices. At the same time, the agricultural sector feels alienated from societal value changes. Other controversial contexts showed that open face-to-face encounters at eye level hold the potential to promote mutual understanding and acceptance. The study aims to analyze how speed-dating conversations between farmers and citizens, considering participants’ characteristics, impact different outcome variables. 24 farmers and 22 citizens specifically recruited for participation in the speed-dating were organized to have short conversations of 10–15 min in different farmer-citizen-constellations. Each conversation had a specific overall agricultural topic including animal welfare, agricultural technology, environmental protection, agricultural policy, and esteem for food. Four months after, different outcomes were measured in a follow-up survey. For 84 person-constellations complete dyadic data were available to be analyzed by hierarchical regression analyses. Participants were mostly satisfied with the dialogue format and gained new factual and personal information. Results indicate stronger impacts of socio-demographic characteristics and personality traits than characteristics of the conversations themselves. Constellations with male citizens, female farmers, more educated farmers, extroverted participants, emotionally stable farmers, and more open participants tended to have higher dyadic outcome variable values. The results call for a re-design of farmer-citizen dialogue formats to facilitate more direct interpersonal communication. Full article

One means of reducing violence against people experiencing domestic abuse is to improve the pathway which they use to access help from the police and other services. In this paper we report and reflect on a project which contributes to violence reduction via a participatory approach to service improvement, focusing on this pathway. We describe the four phases of an innovative experience-based co-design (EBCD) project, which involved collaborating with domestic abuse survivors as well as members of the police and domestic abuse organizations. We report on indicators of the acceptability and feasibility of EBCD in this context. We also reflect upon the potential of the EBCD approach for involving communities in collaborating with services to reduce domestic abuse. We discuss the conceptual and methodological implications with regard to adopting participatory and inclusive approaches in contexts where power-sharing may be difficult. We argue that EBCD has considerable potential for use in this setting and we identify several areas where insights from this project could be used to improve the future viability of any such initiatives. Full article

The Health in All Policies (HiAP) approach has emerged as a central strategy for promoting health at local, regional, and state levels in different countries. Representing a complex and complicated strategy, evaluations of HIAP at the local level are scarce, and scholars call for more knowledge and critical discussions regarding how to evaluate at this level. In this conceptual paper, I discuss how summative and formative evaluation approaches might supplement each other when evaluating HiAP at the local level. First, I discuss the possibilities of using summative and formative evaluation of HiAP. Further, I discuss how formative-dialogue research might represent possibilities for evaluation by combining the two approaches. Finally, I ask if there has been a shift in the Norwegian evaluation discourse, from the promotion of summative evaluation alone to a combination of both summative and formative methods. Full article

An earthquake of magnitude 7.8 M_W and 6.8 M_W struck Nepal on 25 April and 12 May, 2015, respectively, which caused massive damage. In such crises, understanding the water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) situation is of paramount importance. Therefore, we aimed to assess the WASH situation and its impact on health, particularly in the Sindhupalchowk district. A questionnaire survey and microbial analysis of water samples were conducted. Descriptive statistics and parametric and non-parametric statistical tests were employed. The results revealed that 97.1% of water samples from the source during the pre-monsoon season and 98.5% during the monsoon season had fecal contamination. Similarly, 92.8% of water samples during the pre-monsoon season and 96.7% during the monsoon season at point of use (PoU) had fecal contamination. Furthermore, water consumption was comparatively less during the pre-monsoon season. The increase in water consumption improved hygiene behavior and lowered the prevalence of waterborne diseases. Similarly, less water consumption affected water handling behavior; for example, the cleaning interval of storage vessels was less frequent. An increase in cleaning interval resulted in fecal contamination of water at PoU. The findings of this study can be useful in the review of existing WASH policy and plans and integration with the disaster management plan for disaster risk reduction. Full article

This study concerns young people who have experienced war, taken shelter in Sweden, and been placed in institutions. The purpose of the study is to identify and analyze power relations that contribute to the shaping of young people’s identities and repertoires of action via stigmatizations and social comparisons with different reference groups. The study’s empirical material includes qualitatively oriented interviews with six young people from Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan who have experienced war, followed by placement in institutional care in Sweden. Analytical findings with the following themes are presented: (1) concrete—physical exercise of power, (2) blackmail as an exercise of power, and (3) anonymous—bureaucratized exercise of power. The study demonstrates that narratives about war, escaping war, and postwar life in Sweden, constructing and reconstructing an image of a series of interactive rituals that are both influenced by and influence the power dynamic between the actors. This relationship, in turn, creates and recreates an interplay among the stigmatizing experiences of the youths, their social comparisons, and definitions of inequality. Full article

In many countries, data collection on sexual violence incidents is not integrated into the healthcare system, which makes it difficult to establish the nature of sexual offences in this country. This contributes to widespread societal denial about the realities of sexual violence cases and the collective oppression of survivors and their families. Capturing detailed information about incidents (e.g., characteristics of perpetrators, where it happened, victims, and the offence) can dispel myths about sexual violence and aid in crime prevention and interventions. This article examines how information about sexual violence incidents—in particular, offences committed against children in Kenya—is gathered from two different data sources: the Violence Against Children Survey (VACS) and data collected by the Wangu Kanja Foundation (WKF), a survivor-led Kenyan NGO that assists sexual violence survivors in attaining vital services and justice. These two surveys provide the most comprehensive information about sexual and gender-based violence. The analysis indicates that, while the VACS provides information about the prevalence of sexual violence, it provides less detailed information about the nature of violence (e.g., characteristics of perpetrators, victims, and the offence) compared with the WKF dataset. We critically reflect on how validity and informativeness can be maximised in future surveys to better understand the nature of sexual violence, as well as other forms of gender-based violence, and aid in prevention and response interventions/programming. Full article

This study aimed to investigate how family structure varies and identify its time trends in European and North American countries using data from seven surveys conducted between 1994 and 2018 according to the Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) study. The current family structure in 44 countries was described and time trend analysis of 28 countries was performed. Adolescents were asked whom they lived with in their home to describe family structures. Family structures showed distinct patterns and dynamics between countries. In 2018, in all countries, 73% of adolescents lived with both their mother and father; 14% and 5% of adolescents lived in a single-parent family and stepfamily, respectively; and around 9% of adolescents lived in another family type. In the period 1994–2018, the proportion of young people living in intact families decreased from 79.6% to 70.0%, on average about 10 percentage points. There were no significant changes in the prevalence of single-parent families and stepfamilies, but a significant increase in the number of adolescents living without either parent was revealed. The findings have implications for cross-national adjustment of adolescent health, well-being, and behaviours, and for critical analysis of socioeconomic family resources. Full article

Healthcare policy reform is evident when considering the past, present and future of long-term care (LTC) in Canada. Some of the most pressing issues facing the LTC sector include the changing demographic composition in Canadian LTC homes, minimal consideration for the role of intersectionality in LTC data collection and analysis, and the expanding need to engage diverse participants and knowledge users. Using the Transtheoretical Model of Change (TTMC) as a framework, we consider opportunities to address intersectionality in LTC research. Engaging diverse knowledge users in LTC (e.g., unpaid caregivers, paid care staff), community (e.g., advocacy groups, service providers) and policy decision-makers (e.g., provincial government) is crucial. Empowering individuals to participate, modifying environments to support engagement, and facilitating ongoing partnerships with knowledge users are critical aspects of change efforts. Addressing structural barriers (e.g., accessibility, capacity, jurisdictional policies, and mandates) to research in LTC is also essential. The TTMC offers a framework for planning and enacting individual, organizational, and system-level changes for the future of LTC. Full article

This paper examines the orientations to the future of young people living in low-income families in the U.K. and Portugal following the 2008 Global Financial Crisis and the contexts in which they are socially reproduced. It is based on data from comparative research on families and food poverty, funded by the European Research Council. The study focused on parents and young people aged 11–16 living in low-income families in three European countries (the U.K., Portugal and Norway); only the U.K. and Portuguese data were analysed here. Given the study was concerned with the consequences of low income for food insecurity, we primarily sought to understand how young people manage in the present; however, the project also affords a theoretical and methodological opportunity to explore young people’s thoughts about the future as they begin to transition to adulthood. We found that, when asked about the future, young people responded in different ways: some said they did not think about the future; others mentioned their dreams, but considered them unrealisable. while others expressed hopes that were more concrete and achievable. Precarity constrained the control that young people and their families exercised over their lives. We argue that young people’s aspirations and time horizons are framed in relation to the present and the temporalities of the life course, the public discourses to which they are subjected and the limited access of their families to resources provided by the labour market and the state. Full article

Almost all academic literature about the causes and consequences of fairness of elections and referenda is based on retrospective evaluations. One of the strongest findings of such studies is that nonvoting is higher among citizens who retrospectively perceived an election as unfair. However, on logical grounds, it is impossible to attribute lower rates of voting to retrospectively perceived unfairness because at the time of the vote citizens can only rely on their prospective expectations of fairness. Moreover, it is well documented that retrospective evaluations are strongly influenced by the outcome of the election which is, at the time of voting, still unknown. In view of the dearth of earlier studies on prospective views of electoral fairness, this article presents the first major exploratory analyses of determinants and consequences of prospective expectations of electoral fairness. Using data from Britain about expectations of fairness of three general elections and two referenda in the period between 2014 and 2019, it shows that the public hold mixed views about the fairness they expect to find when voting. The article demonstrates that these prospective fairness beliefs are sometimes noticeably different to retrospective beliefs in terms of their predictors. Moreover, in sharp contrast to literature based on retrospective evaluations, this article also finds that prospective evaluations do not importantly affect the decision to vote. These findings have important implications for how we understand and evaluate the inclusiveness of elections. Full article

The life course in general, and the educational trajectories of young people in particular, comprise a high degree of complexity as they take place in iterative, recursive and interactive negotiation processes in which numerous actors, institutions and discourses are involved. In this paper, an attempt is made to combine two conceptual discussions—Life Course and Governance—bringing them to bear on the examination of how Lifelong Learning (LLL) policies have been used to govern young people’s life courses. The paper synthesizes different discussions of the complex relations among governance, discourses and structures of opportunity that impact the governing of the life course and particularly educational trajectories. It suggests that the combination of life course research and a governance perspective enables analyzing the governance of educational trajectories along discursive, institutional and relational dimensions of opportunity structures. Considering these various dimensions, the paper argues, allows us to attend to the social interactions, decision-making processes and processing mechanisms that precede and/or underlie educational processes and thus favor or complicate them. The contribution also critically discusses the implications of a governance perspective on life courses and closes with a discussion of the multidimensional and multilevel challenge of governing life course by means of LLL policies. Full article

The structural risk perspective conceptualizes the causes of inequities in child protection system contact as unequal exposure to the structural causes of child abuse risk, combined with biases in the responses of child welfare workers and reporters. This conceptual article proposes a third mechanism of inequity: instrumental biases. It is proposed that instrumental biases operate as a third group of mechanisms that inequitably increase the involvement of some groups and not others. Instrumental biases operate through institutional structures, interpretive concepts and risk proxies that affect how risk is coded and becomes attached to particular people. Against the background of the notify-investigate model that creates poor conditions for decision making, and shapes institutional structures, instrumental biases include the miscalibration of the demand and supply of services (an institutional cause); family-specific surveillance bias and a reliance on prior case histories (a risk proxy cause); widening legal definitions of serious harm (an interpretive concept cause); and complex responses to intimate partner violence that minimize theories of IPV and the social context it occurs within (concept and risk proxy causes). It is argued that within the decision-making context of the child protection system, how services are structured and risk becomes codified has disproportionate impacts on some communities compared to others. Examples from Aotearoa New Zealand, with reference to Māori and people living in high-deprivation areas, are used to illustrate these concepts. Full article

Introduction: The rapid global spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has made COVID-19 one of the biggest pandemics of all time, with several devastating public health challenges. In this study, we investigated the knowledge towards COVID-19 best practices in the north of Portugal. Methods: A descriptive cross-sectional study was performed with a convenience sample of the population of northern Portugal to assess their knowledge about COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2 and measures to prevent and mitigate pandemics. An online validated questionnaire was completed by 411 participants, from September to October 2020. Results: The overall correct knowledge was 81.3%, which indicates a good knowledge by the northern Portuguese respondents about COVID-19. The correct answer score differed considerably between men and women, being significantly higher among the latter (12.28 ± 1.22; p = 0.011). Moreover, the highest knowledge was observed in participants who attended high school or above (12.27 ± 1.21; p < 0.000). Conclusion: This study contributes to the analysis of COVID-19 knowledge by the northern Portuguese population, emphasizes the crucial role of health education in the control and mitigation of the COVID-19 pandemic, and provides field-based evidence to prevent the next pandemic event. Full article

Since the turn of the millennium, human resource transformation (HRT) has emerged as a popular management concept among organizations and consultants around the world. HRT has been presented as a recipe for how to transform the traditional personnel function and make personnel and HR work in more business-oriented, cost-effective, and value-creating ways. Through a comparative study of the actors that make up the so-called “management fashion arena” around HRT in the Scandinavian countries (Norway, Sweden, and Denmark), the study provides insight into how the national actors influence and shape the diffusion of popular management concepts. The study shows that there are both similarities and differences between how the supply side is configured in the three countries. For example, large consulting firms have played an influential role in all three countries, while the influence of actors such as business schools and professional organizations varies considerably between the countries. The findings also suggest that there are powerful alliances between actors involved in the diffusion of HRT. Overall, the study sheds light on the global diffusion and “travel” of a predominantly North American-based HR concept and its reception in Scandinavia. Full article

Health professionals play an essential role in the protection and promotion of health rights without distinction of sex, sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, ethnicity/race, nationality and migration status, age, functional diversity, or any other individual and/or cultural positions. With the growing diversity of patient populations, health professionals must be able to identify and be responsive to individual and cultural diversity, ensuring equity in access to high-quality individually-centered care. For this, it is fundamental to promote training in cultural competence, understood as responsivity and the ability to work the valorization of multiple and intersectional identities throughout life. The paper aims to describe the experience of the implementation of the program “Health in Equality”, aimed at training the primary healthcare workforce in Portugal, which was based on Sue and Sue’s (2008) three-dimensional model of multicultural skills, which champions cultural best practices in an intersectional perspective. Based on the trainees’ and trainers’ evaluation of four completed editions developed online between March and July 2021, this study discusses ways to improve the impact of the training program and amplify the number of leaders and role models for other health care providers towards culturally competent healthcare systems and organizations. Full article

The racial identity literature has operationalized identity formation as progressive stage models, usually triggered by the experience of a negative race-based event. With the advent of new genealogical technology, it is imperative to include experiences that participants elect to experience (i.e., self-initiated or agentic encounter events). By using this perspective, identity processes become fluid and more expansive. In the context of this study, genetic ancestry tests are operationalized as a self-initiated encounter event. Participants (n = 8) were enrolled in an arts-in-education program that uses theater to explore Black Americans’ identities and family histories. This study used theater performance and modified life narrative interviews to understand how participation informed understandings of the self and others. Subsequent interviews highlighted how participants internalized the genetic test results and their participation within the group. Results indicated that, while participants were deeply invested in learning more about their ancestral roots, there were concerns related to the test results and their meaning for individuals. This study highlights that for the Black diaspora, identity is informed by ancestry and family history, as well as by interactions with created community members. Overall, this study opens the possibility for deeper exploration of racial identity formation within critical social psychology. Full article

In this article, I address the issues of obstetric violence and racism in the Portuguese setting of obstetric care. Based on data collected through interviews and participatory artistic creation, I analyze the perception of three Afro-Brazilian migrants about their perinatal experiences of obstetric care in the Portuguese public sector between 2013 and 2019. These women’s experiences have much in common with experiences of obstetric violence as narrated by Portuguese, non-racialized women. Despite this, certain aspects of their experience are related to their particular identification as Brazilian, migrant, and Black, such as xenophobic discrimination and their placement in systems of stratified reproduction, including a supposed tendency for birth by caesarean section, as well as self-policing behaviors because of the stereotype of Brazilian women as flirty. I consider a range of manifestations of obstetric violence and racism, from more overt forms to more covert ones, to analyze how, in a country where racism and obstetric violence are only slowly beginning to be recognized as the norm, multiple discriminations intersect and have an impact on the experiences of women of their bodies in pregnancy, birth, and postpartum, including breastfeeding. Full article

Spatial mobility is considered a valuable resource for social mobility. Yet, we still have an insufficient understanding of the extent to which and under what conditions geographical movement across national borders represents an asset for social advancement. Addressing this research gap, we offer a theoretical contribution to the fields of transnationalism, migration/mobility, and social geography. We focus on 86 cross-border migrant entrepreneurs who live in Barcelona (Spain), Cúcuta (Colombia), and Zurich (Switzerland), and combine geographical and mental maps, biographical interviews, ethnographic observations, and participatory Minga workshops. Our results show significant inequality in opportunity among the studied entrepreneurs and reveal different geographies of risk and uncertainty for their cross-border mobilities. We theoretically propose that the ability to use spatial mobility as a resource for social mobility depends largely on three intersecting factors: the entrepreneur’s social position, his or her location in geographical space, and his or her strategies. Moreover, we have formulated the concept of spatial mobility capital to define the necessary conditions for spatial mobility to become a valuable resource for social advancement: individuals must be in control of their spatial mobilities, such mobilities need to match their socio-economic needs and personal aspirations, and they must be able to move safely. Full article

In the field of education for sustainability, there is a call to consider diverse livelihoods and world views beyond dominant anthropocentric, scientific, and ‘Western’ ways of understanding and living. For scholars and educators trained in ‘Western’ culture, this is complicated by how this dominant culture is infused in all our ways of thinking and being. This paper explores the authors’ journey to unsettle their ‘Western’ thinking through analysis of reflexive field notes taken during field research. Data is shared from the author’s doctoral study of Campesino-a-Campesino (CaC) as an anti-racist pedagogy. The paper tells a story of the unsettling of the author’s assumptions about research, race, development, and education prompted by field experiences and guided by critical educational ethnography. An interdisciplinary approach to analysis is used including scholars in critical race theory, TribalCrit, Indigenous education, decolonization theory, and post-development theory. Conclusions illuminate researcher reflexivity, understanding critical context, learning the history of research, and shifting which scholars are considered in the analysis as crucial in the process of decolonizing the study of anti-racist pedagogies for sustainability. Full article

In Sweden, local municipalities, working in collaboration with the police, are assigned an important role in community-based crime prevention and the promotion of safer neighbourhoods/cities. The strategies adopted are supposed to be informed by the policies of national advisory bodies, which emphasize surveying the current situation, problem analyses, systematic planning of interventions and evaluation of efforts. This paper reports on a three-year research project that studied local crime prevention/safer community practices in four so-called ‘particularly vulnerable areas’ (PVAs) using meeting observations and stakeholder interviews. The analysis shows that when constructing intervention strategies, the actors involved had to navigate between different organizational logics and found it difficult to demarcate a suitable object for joint efforts. When they were able to find an object to be targeted, such as youth at risk of drug abuse or low-level criminality, they could rely on a collective mindset, but they struggled in situations where a joint effort was not possible, such as when dealing with the risk of aggravated violence or when the operations got close to more organized crime—both elements that form part of the definition of PVAs. This failure may partly be explained by competing logics dominated by idiosyncratic action in line with bureaucratic rules and routines. This finding raises questions about a putative but non-articulated limit to crime prevention and whether a predetermined approach aligns with the prescribed sequence of survey, analysis, intervention planning and evaluation when faced with more brutish violence. Full article

Social connectedness and engagement are particularly important among groups who are at risk of experiencing social isolation, such as immigrant older adults. The objective of our study was to understand the social relationships of aging Muslim Lebanese immigrants living in Canada by exploring their lives in their ethnic and wider communities. This study used a life course perspective and adopted a constructivist narrative inquiry to understand the diverse lived experiences of four older adults who immigrated to Canada during early adulthood. Participants engaged in a narrative interview and follow-up session in which they storied their lived experiences. Findings describe one core theme, cultivating social relationships through family, friends, and community interdependence, and three related sub-themes: (1) navigating and creating family interdependence and planting new roots; (2) family interdependence in later life: the important role of grandchildren; and (3) cultivating ethnic and local interdependence to support aging in place. The participants’ stories provided an understanding of how culture, religion, aging, family, and immigration experiences interrelated throughout their life course and shaped their social relationships during later life. This study sheds new insight on the importance of culturally tailored activities and awareness about the social needs of immigrant older adults. Full article

Younger disabled adults in long-term care, particularly those with physical disabilities and chronic illnesses, receive care that does not fit their needs. This article looks at whether a Foucauldian genealogical approach would enhance a study that focuses on the societal values that have allowed this situation to persist. It looks at the historical and cultural contingencies of genealogy, and its ability to explore the complex power relations at play, in normalization and biopower. It concludes that there is a place for this approach–one that can be adapted from the 1970s approach of Foucault to fit power dynamics and positioning in care in the 2020s. Full article

The colonization of Indigenous Peoples in Alaska was based on racism and founded the current systemic racism, discrimination, and marginalization they experience today. Land stewardship was in the hands of Indigenous Peoples, and through colonization their land and rights to steward that land were taken away. This paper is based on a participatory research project conducted in partnership with the Ninilchik Village Tribe (NVT) in Alaska utilizing ethnographic futures research scenario storytelling through Indigenous methodologies. Scenario interviews with community members explored land-based understandings of Indigenous sustainability and the roles that subsistence, food security, and food sovereignty have in maintaining sustainability and cultural continuity for children in the future. Due to state and federal land and water management practices, Alaska Natives are limited in their abilities to practice subsistence and steward their lands. An anti-racist approach to decolonizing land management and ownership is key to Alaska Natives regaining control of their subsistence rights for food security and cultural continuity for future generations. This paper speaks to policy makers, explaining the current racist and colonial situation and suggests an antiracist and decolonizing path forward through respecting Tribal sovereignty, prioritizing Indigenous-led stewardship, and giving land back to the Alaska Native Tribal Nations. Full article