Education and inequality in Finland, Spain and Brazil

Production of INCASI Project H2020-MSCA-RISE-2015 GA 691004Finland, Spain and Brazil are three very internally complex and heterogeneous realities, with contradictions and permanent reforms to their education systems. In a first quantitative approach each country can be placed in a continuum of the education system that goes from most successful in terms of reaching a high level of education all across the population, in conditions of equity and facilitating youths' incorporation into the labour market, to least successful, with Finland and Brazil occupying either end of the spectrum respectively and Spain occupying an intermediate situation. Although there are differences, they share certain tensions in their respective education systems. On the one hand, about the conception of education, ranging from more utilitarian, human capital theories, to the more humanist and civic-minded perspective. On the other hand, the challenge of comprehensiveness between an academic and a vocational path. In addition, there is also the challenge of improving the education level of the population while also improving equality. The tensions differ from country to country, since their education traditions and cooperation and conflict strategies between the education agents, with varying levels of resources and different alliances with political actors vary, as does the social consensus

Domestic knowledge, inequalities and differences

Research suggests that domestic knowledge is an expression of gender differences, which is constructed and deployed through unequal social relations, and is able to empower women if it gains collective spaces of expression. The article presents an analysis of parental involvement at school in Spain so as to underpin the former thesis and highlight its connection with the political theory about the "sexual contract"

A new Late Agenian (MN2a, Early Miocene) fossil assemblage from Wallenried (Molasse Basin, Canton Fribourg, Switzerland)

Excavations of two fossiliferous layers in the Wallenried sand- and marl pit produced a very diversified vertebrate fauna. New material allows the reassessment of the taxonomic position of the ruminant taxa Andegameryx andegaviensis and endemic Friburgomeryx wallenriedensis. An emended diagnosis for the second species is provided and additional material of large and small mammals, as well as ectothermic vertebrates, is described. The recorded Lagomorpha show interesting morphological deviations from other Central European material, and probably represent a unique transitional assemblage with a co-occurrence of Titanomys, Lagopsis and Prolagus. Rodentia and Eulipotyphla belong to typical and well-known species of the Agenian of the Swiss Molasse Basin. Abundant small mammal teeth have allowed us to pinpoint the biostratigraphic age of Wallenried to late MN2a. The biostratigraphic age conforms to data derived from the charophyte assemblages and confirms the oldest occurrence of venomous snake fangs. The palaeoenvironmental context is quite complex. Sedimentary structures and fauna (fishes, frogs, salamanders, ostracods) are characteristic for a humid, lacustrine environment within a flood plain system

Renal Diseases and Social Inequalities in Access to Transplantation in France

Renal diseases are invisible and silent up to an advanced stage. Renal transplant is today the most effective therapy at all ages of life in terms of survival and quality of life, and is also the least expensive for French health system. Yet, whatever their age or sex, patients with a lower level of education less frequently receive transplants. Various independent factors produce these social inequalities: the nature of renal pathologies, resulting partly from patients’ lifestyles; the degree of attention paid to initial symptoms and the existence of two types of replacement therapy (dialysis and transplant) practiced differently in the private and public sectors. Patients with the highest level of education are in a better position to negotiate the system than the others. The results presented in this article are based on data from two national surveys of renal patients conducted in 2011 and 2012