Include 2011 : The role of inclusive design in making social innovation happen.

Include is the biennial conference held at the RCA and hosted by the Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design. The event is directed by Jo-Anne Bichard and attracts an international delegation

Interacting with technology in an ever more complex World: Designing for an all-inclusive society

In a recent study we undertook we analyzed a relatively simple day-to-day technology namely the use of automatic teller machines (ATMs) by older adults. Our results alert to the fact that for an aging population Worldwide, even seemingly simple technological products (such as ATMs) have to be in future more carefully designed to be all-inclusive (e.g. intuitively usable by all) so that individuals do not feel marginalized by financially-oriented [as well as other] technology. This will enable obvious immediate benefits for people, including increased productivity, quality of life and independence. Recent studies have proven that belonging to social groups and networks – in sum, feeling included through one’s relationships in society – can be just as important for one’s health as diet and exercise – social isolation can be a health hazard comparable to that of smoking, high blood pressure and obesity (Jetten et al. 2009). Computers and technology, on the other hand, are to become ever more present in society (Challenger 2009). We thus believe that steps have to be taken to prevent the elderly and other groups with limitations from feeling disconnected in an increasingly technological World. Otherwise we will incur hidden costs at a growing rate (U.S. Census Bureau)

"The global telecommunications infrastructure: European Community (Union) telecommunications developments"

[From the Introduction]. Information, electronics, and telecommunication technologies promise to create communications networks of greatly expanded capacity capable of moving messages across interconnected wired and wireless systems almost anywhere in the world. Such global systems will profoundly affect the economic and social life of all countries. For those countries and economic sectors with a history of significant involvement in electronics, computers, multimedia, and telecommunications, early and timely deployment of state-of-the-art infrastructure may be a matter of prime importance. Many individual countries have made or are making changes intended to accelerate movement toward an information society, in large part because they recognize that a strategic competitive edge in the world economy will likely depend increasingly upon the availability, use, and exploitation of information. A major participant in the information race is the European Union (EU), formerly the European Community. The Commission of the European Union (Commission) has launched a strong push to adopt a common strategy for the creation of a European information society driven by a European information infrastructure. This strategy is aimed at bridging individual initiatives being pursued by EU Member States. [1. Member States now in the Union include the following: Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, and the United Kingdom, Austria, Finland and Sweden joined the Union on January 1, 1995.1

Developing the wider role of business in society: the experience of Microsoft in developing training and supporting employability.

The purpose of this paper is to describe Microsoft's activities in encouraging employability and to show how these activities provide strategic advantage

Arrested Development: Discrimination and slavery in the 21st Century

This document is part of a digital collection provided by the Martin P. Catherwood Library, ILR School, Cornell University, pertaining to the effects of globalization on the workplace worldwide. Special emphasis is placed on labor rights, working conditions, labor market changes, and union organizing.ASI_2008_DBS_Albania_Arrested_Development.pdf: 65 downloads, before Oct. 1, 2020

21st Century Welfare Provision is more than the "social insurance state": A reply to Paul Pierson

This article reflects on the important lecture The Welfare State Over the Very Long Run, delivered by Paul Pierson, at the London School of Economics on 8 November 2010, on the occasion of the launch of Oxford Handbook of the Welfare State. Pierson's explanation for what he sees as the surprising stability of the welfare state over the past three to four decades of permanent austerity is largely rooted in fears of electoral ret-ribution and organized interest opposition against social reform (cf. Pierson 2011). While, in a nutshell, Pierson's lecture was a restatement of his famous new politics thesis with a nod to rival theoretical accounts, the present paper tries to go beyond Pierson's account of change-resistant welfare states by adding a number of empirical as-pects and theoretical dimensions to the debate on the long-term transformation of the welfare state. Empirically, on the one hand, the paper highlights several significant qualitative changes in social insurance provision, macroeconomic policy priorities, la-bor market policy and regulation, industrial relations, old age pension, social services and social policy administration, that are largely absent from Pierson's portrayal, also given his choice of data. The observation of profound social reform raises important theoretical issues for the comparative study of welfare state development. Here the pa-per points to underappreciated theoretical mechanisms, especially dynamics of policy learning in mature welfare state. In sum, the paper observes more profound change on the dependent variable requiring both a softening and updating of the theoretical biases to path-dependent institutional inertia. If policy makers, contrary to received wisdom, do engage in major reforms in spite of many institutional obstacles and negative political incentives, what distin-guishes these actors and the institutional conditions under which they operate, from the seemingly more general case of welfare inertia? In conclusion, the article argues that the readiness to use information feedback from past performance, new ideas and expertise and the inspiring reforms successes in many countries, should count as important con-duits or mechanisms explaining reforms. -- Dieser Artikel beschäftigt sich mit dem bedeutenden Vortrag The Welfare State Over the Very Long Run, den Paul Pierson anlässlich der Herausgabe des Oxford Handbook of the Welfare State am 8. November 2010 an der London School of Economics gehalten hat (vgl. Pierson 2011). Piersons Erklärung für die seiner Meinung nach bemerkenswerte Stabilität des Wohlfahrtsstaates in den von permanenter Austerität geprägten vergangenen drei bis vier Jahrzehnten basiert im Wesentlichen auf der Angst der politischen Eliten vor der Abstrafung an der Wahlurne und dem Widerstand organisierter Interessen gegen Sozialreformen. Vorliegender Aufsatz beleuchtet sowohl die empirischen als auch die theoretischen Grenzen dieser These eines wandlungsresistenten Wohlfahrtsstaates. In empirischer Hinsicht weist er auf eine nicht unerhebliche Anzahl von qualitativen Veränderungen hin, etwa auf der Ebene der Sozialversicherung, makroökonomischer Politikprioritäten, der Arbeitsmarktpolitik und -regulierung, der Beziehungen von Arbeitgebern und Arbeitnehmern, Renten, sozialen Dienstleistungen und der Sozialverwaltung. Die Beobachtung grundlegender Sozialreformen werfen wichtige theoretische Fragen für das vergleichende Studium wohlfahrtstaatlicher Entwicklung auf: Was unterscheidet politische Entscheidungsträger und die institutionellen Bedingungen, unter denen sie agieren, von dem anscheinend weitaus üblicheren Fall von Reformträgheit, wenn diese Akteure - entgegen der landläufigen Meinung - trotz einer Vielzahl institutioneller Hindernisse und negativer politischer Anreize umfassende Reformen anstoßen? Als Schlussfolgerung argumentiert dieser Aufsatz, dass die Lehren vergangener Performanz, neue Ideen und Expertisen sowie anregende Reformerfolge in vielen Ländern als wichtige Mechanismen gelten müssen, mit denen sich wohlfahrtstaatliche Veränderungen erklären lassen.

Enrollment, Attendance and Engagement → Achievement: Successful Strategies for Motivating Students - Evidence of Effectiveness from Comparisons of 50 States and 45 Nations

The purpose of the educational enterprise is LEARNING. Engagement is essential to achieving this purpose. How do we increase the proportion of our young people who enroll in and attend school while simultaneously setting high standards and inducing them to become engaged and effective learners? This paper proposes an agenda of reform to achieve these two goals. Each of proposal has a research literature behind it that makes a good case that the policy simultaneously raises the achievement of existing students and encourages them to stay in school or alternatively achieves one of these goals without sacrificing the other. Strategy # 1 says “Do a better job of convincing adolescents that learning and schooling pays off big time.” Strategy # 2 proposes a variety of ways of making secondary schools both more attractive and more effective. Expand the offerings of and access to career-technical education. Stop building large high schools. Create a new set of small high quality schools of choice: KIPP Academies and Career Academies. In Strategy # 3 I propose that end-of-course exams [not minimum competency exams or standards based exams] be the primary mechanism (along with teacher grades) for signaling student achievements to colleges and employers and for holding high schools accountable.High quality end-of-course exams that reliably measure achievement over the entire A to F range would need to be developed. Exam grades would appear on the student’s transcript, be part of the final grade in the course and be factored into college admissions and placement decisions. The exam would be a spur for everyone in the class to try harder, not just those who are struggling to pass the course. This strategy brings the interests of students, parents and teachers into alignment, encourages a pro-learning culture in the classroom and makes it easier for teachers to be rigorous and demanding. Universal curriculum-based external exam systems—as they are called--work remarkably well in Europe, Canada, North Carolina and New York and there is every reason to expect them to be equally successful when implemented in other SREB states

Learning cultures on the move: where are we heading?

The paper analyzes the globally recognized cultural move towards a more learner-centred education and discusses the implications for the adoption of mobile technologies and design for learning. Current expectations vis-à-vis learner attributes, skills and competences are explored. The pervasiveness of mobile technologies is precipitating these developments, whilst also generating a distinct mobile culture where learners take mobility and context-awareness as starting points and become more visible as innovators, creators and producers. Language learning, one of the most popular application areas of mobile learning, provides fertile ground for the growth of this phenomenon. The paper reviews several innovative language learning applications and concludes by indicating the directions in which we are heading

City of Ideas: Reinventing Boston's Innovation Economy: The Boston Indicators Report 2012

Analyzes indicators of the city's economic, social, and technological progress; potential for creating innovative solutions to global and national challenges; and complexities, disparities, and weaknesses in the indicators and innovation economy paradigm