Gender, Subjective well-being and capabilities: an application to the Moroccan Youth

Our paper investigates how gender shapes youth's aspirations, subjective well-being and capabilities in Morocco. We compare two different informational basis in analysing gender inequalities: the subjective well-being framework, and the capability approach. To do so we propose to operationalize capabilities through mixed methods (qualitative and quantitative) based on: 1. Qualitative data that we collected in Morocco and 2. An innovative dataset collected by the Office of Economic Cooperation for Mediterranean and Middle East (OCEMO), among 1333 young Moroccan individuals aged 15-35 living in rural and urban areas of the Marrakesh region. Our results suggest that subjective well-being poorly reflects gender inequalities among Moroccan youths, as it does not consider adaptive preferences. Capabilities indicators perform much better as they account for both the capability to choose a lifestyle, and the ability to fulfill one's choice; i.e. spaces of freedom. The paper also reveals the striking significance of adaptive preferences among rural young women; as well as the frustrations among young educated men resulting from an inability to fulfill a chosen lifestyle. Gender justice and capabilities-as the freedom to choose and to turn opportunities into valuable outcome-indeed appear significant in understanding the structural transformations of the Moroccan society

Settlement process of Afghan immigrant women based on cultural perspective in Finland

The study examined the settlement issues of Afghan immigrant women from a cultural perspective in Finland. The study explores the process of Afghan women settlement and focus on the cultural causes, aspects and the issues which make the settlement challenging and difficult for them. It also considers how these women face with these challenges during their settlement. The theoretical frameworks of this study are Frames for understanding settlement process and immigrant settlement experiences. The immigrant’s settlement experiences explain immigrant’s cultural challenges and the coping strategies which they use to deal with the cultural challenges. It also studies the services which immigrants receive during the process of their settlement such as social work services and migrations services during their settlement process which can make the process easier for immigrant women. This study is qualitative research where data was analyzed using content and thematic analysis. The data was collected from interview with six respondents. Participants in the study included six adult Afghans immigrant women who have resided in Finland more than 3 years .They were interviewed separately with open –ended in-depth interviews. The thesis explains the main cultural aspects which bring issues for Afghan women settlement (religion, language, discrimination, family…) and the cultural aspects which immigrants use in order to overcome their challenges (Religion, individual attributes, social support). The analysis of the interviews resulted in three core themes (1) cultural challenges (2) Personal coping strategies (3) Satisfaction level from receiving social services. The central argument of this study is about immigrants who face different challenges as soon as they left their countries. Beside self-awareness and having positive attitudes, immigrants need different kind of support in order to overcome these challenges and reach to a balance in their new lives. There is lack of knowledge about immigrants in between the people of countries which immigrants migrate and even between the service providers. There is a need for more comprehensive and multicultural knowledge about immigrants. People and service providers need to be more educated about immigrants in order to ease the process of their settlement after migration

The unspoken voices of apartheid : confessions of the interregnum

This thesis examines the relationship between silence and confession in Athol Fugard’s Tsotsi, Sindiwe Magona’s Mother to Mother, and J. M. Coetzee’s Disgrace in order to show that the act of confession is often problematic, specifically when some characters choose to remain silent while other characters encourage their speech. The withholding of speech, then, becomes an act of empowerment and a rhetorical endeavor, where silence is more than the absence of speech; it is a way to communicate. Whether silence is to bring about a specific purpose, or is enforced because a character does not understand his or her situation and therefore cannot offer a sincere confession, the character has the power to choose whether or not to confess his or her story. Furthermore, this thesis explores the shift of control in three political climates: During apartheid, at the end of apartheid, and in post-apartheid South Africa in order to reflect the transferal of power from white hands to black hands. As suggested in the novels, the ability to speak correlates with the amount of power a subject has

Embodied Akrasia: James on Motivation and Weakness of Will

This paper presents an account of akrasia, drawn from the work of William James, that sees akrasia as neither a rational failing (as with most philosophical accounts) nor a moral failing (as with early Christian accounts), but rather a necessary by-product of our status as biological beings. By examining James’s related accounts of motivation and action, I argue that akratic actions occur when an agent attempts to act against her settled habits, but fails to do so. This makes akrasia a product of the agent’s practical failure to adequately structured her environment to bring about her desired action. Akratic action performs the vital function of revealing to the agent the exact point at which her cognitive effort was insufficient for bringing about her intended action. It also reveals that future improvement is within her control. As such, akratic action is the very foundation of James’s meliorism

Does the Sport Industry Change the Game for Job Satisfaction?: A Case of Triple-A Ticket Office Employees

Business success continues to be influenced by employee job satisfaction because satisfied employees are more likely to produce quality work, stay motivated, and continue with the organization for a longer period of time. The research into job satisfaction has only gone as far as the business industry but has not yet reached the sport industry. Using the sport of baseball, interviews with ten Triple-A, International League ticket office employees uncovered there are many commonalities between the sport and business industries in terms of factors that influence job satisfaction. Therefore, sport organizations can likely utilize existing research in this area to increase employee job satisfaction

Youth athlete leaders\u27 use of transformational behaviours and relations to trust in the leader and sport outcomes

Leadership is one of the most crucial factors determining whether a group succeeds or fails (Bass, 1990). Furthermore, leaders displaying transformational behaviours are thought to lift followers to higher levels of motivation to get them to perform beyond expectations (Bass, 1985), and they tend to have followers who are more committed and satisfied (Bass & Riggio, 2006). Another outcome of transformational leadership in organizations is that followers are more willing to trust leaders who show care and concern for the follower (Dirks & Ferrin, 2002). The purpose of the present study was to determine if the use of full range leadership behaviours by formal peer leaders on youth sport teams would relate to trust in the leader. Data were collected at two time points, once near the beginning of the season and again near the end of the season, using several questionnaires including the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire – Form 5 (Bass & Avolio, 2004). Only data from participants who were present at both data collection points were included in the analyses of study hypotheses, which included 126 athletes (77 females, 49 males; mean age = 15.49) from 12 interdependent sport teams. It was found that perceptions of full range leadership were related to cognitive- and affect-based trust at both time points. Interestingly, the transformational components inspirational motivation and idealized influence (attributed) contributed positively, and the non-leadership component laissez-faire negatively, to the relationship with affect-based trust at both time points. The results of the current study also found that both transformational leadership behaviours and higher levels of trust related to athletes perceiving their leader as being effective and satisfying, as well as being willing to put in extra effort. The results lead to the suggestion that youth peer leaders’ use of transformational behaviours will promote higher levels of trust from their teammates, over and above the use of transactional and non-leadership behaviours

The intersectionalities of identity in young adult fiction with biracial protagonists

In recent years, a notable increase of diverse texts, including those written about non- White characters, has entered the field of children\u27s literature helping to represent a racially comprehensive audience. One area that does not garner as much attention in the field, even in multicultural children\u27s literature, is biracial children\u27s literature, with little emphasis falling on novels with biracial protagonists. With the growing number of families in the United States identifying as biracial or multi-racial, it is important to examine the representations of biracial characters encountered by youth in books. The young adult novels, Sarah Jamila Stevenson\u27s The Latte Rebellion (2011), Joan Steinau Lester\u27s Black, White, Other (2011), Sandra Forrester\u27s Dust from Old Bones (1999), Matt de la Pella\u27s Mexican Whiteboy (2008), and Jaime Adoff\u27s The Death of Jayson Porter (2008), work against the idea of people (and characters) having to choose an identity that alienates part of themselves. Characters navigate through the channels of biraciality while developing a sense of what Lourdes India Ivory calls biracial competency and biracial efficacy allowing them to function successfully within both racial groups (Ivory 2010). In addition, these novels highlight the various intersectional forces that can potentially stand in the way of a character\u27s ability to successfully develop in relation to Ivory\u27s concepts specifically in regard to their basic psychological, emotional, and safety needs. This research analyzes the different forces that impact character identity development and how each of these forces contributes to a character\u27s overall ability to become comfortable as a biracial individual

Virtual Consumption, Sustainability & Human Well-Being

There is widespread consensus that present patterns of consumption could lead to the permanent impossibility of maintaining those patterns and, perhaps, the existence of the human race. While many patterns of consumption qualify as ‘sustainable’ there is one in particular that deserves greater attention: virtual consumption. We argue that virtual consumption — the experience of authentic consumptive experiences replicated by alternative means — has the potential to reduce the deleterious consequences of real consumption by redirecting some consumptive behavior from shifting material states to shifting information states

Parent and Student Voices on the First Year of the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program

In the 50 years since economist Milton Friedman published “The Role of Government in Education” scholars and policy makers have been debating how parental choice through market mechanisms can and does operate in education. Market “optimists” argue that education is a service that can be produced under a variety of arrangements and that parents are natural education consumers. Market “pessimists” argue that education is a public good that should be produced in government-run schools, and that school choice programs suffer “market failure” because only advantaged families will have the resources and experience to choose effectively

Voice Flows To And Around Leaders: Understanding When Units Are Helped Or Hurt By Employee Voice

In two studies, we develop and test theory about the relationship between speaking up, one type of organizational citizenship behavior, and unit performance by accounting for where employee voice is flowing. Results from a qualitative study of managers and professionals across a variety of industries suggest that voice to targets at different formal power levels (peers or superiors) and locations in the organization (inside or outside a focal unit) differs systematically in terms of its usefulness in generating actions to a unit's benefit on the issues raised and in the likely information value of the ideas expressed. We then theorize how distinct voice flows should be differentially related to unit performance based on these core characteristics and test our hypotheses using time-lagged field data from 801 employees and their managers in 93 units across nine North American credit unions. Results demonstrate that voice flows are positively related to a unit's effectiveness when they are targeted at the focal leader of that unitwho should be able to take actionwhether from that leader's own subordinates or those in other units, and negatively related to a unit's effectiveness when they are targeted at coworkers who have little power to effect change. Together, these studies provide a structural framework for studying the nature and impact of multiple voice flows, some along formal reporting lines and others that reflect the informal communication structure within organizations. This research demonstrates that understanding the potential performance benefits and costs of voice for leaders and their units requires attention to the structure and complexity of multiple voice flows rather than to an undifferentiated amount of voice.Business Administratio