Effects of Education Savings Accounts on Student Engagement: Instrumental Variable Analysis

As interest in youth financial inclusion continues to grow substantially, emerging research points to positive associations between students’savings and their educational outcomes. However, there is no definitive data on how assets alter student engagement, particularly in resource-limited settings. This study contributes knowledge by assessing the causal effects of education savings accounts on student engagement. We evaluate causal effects by using instrumental variable methods and data from a pilot study that assessed the viability of different education funding mechanisms for junior high-school students in Ghana. Results show that the offering of an education savings account to young people with an opt-out option has great promise for improving education account ownership. Results also show that simply having an account is not strongly predictive of school engagement. Instead, it is when people begin to save into the account that it positively shapes their school engagement. The finding speaks to the value of policies that support young people to cultivate a savings habit and to build their financial knowledge and skills. Efforts should be made to understand better how social workers and teachers could be adequately trained to provide financial counseling and financial education assistance to students within the community or school settings

Policy Recommendations for Meeting the Grand Challenge to Build Financial Capability and Assets for All

This brief was created forSocial Innovation for America’s Renewal, a policy conference organized by the Center for Social Development in collaboration with the American Academy of Social Work & Social Welfare, which is leading theGrand Challenges for Social Work initiative to champion social progress. The conference site includes links to speeches, presentations, and a full list of the policy briefs

Financial Capability and Asset Building in the Curricula: Student Perceptions

Although social work education competencies include economic justice, and practice includes addressing client finances and assets, social work curricula lack an emphasis on these topics. Little is known about students’ perceptions of the relevancy of this information or how well their program is preparing them for contemporary practice. This study explores the perceptions of 643 BSW and MSW students and finds a general consensus that social workers have an important role in addressing client economic issues. However, respondents perceive limited use of client financial information in practice and limited coverage of the topic in curriculum areas. Results indicate respondents’ perceptions may significantly differ based on their preferred fields of practice, level, and student program status. Curricula implications are discusse

Photogenic Urban Landscapes: Towards an Intermedial Framework for Landscape Criticism in the Age of Social Media

Drawing on cultural geography, visual cultural studies and theories of media ecology, this essay lays out a framework for collaboration between media scholars, architects and critics, positioning photographic social media such as Instagram as a means for pursuing questions about the changing role of landscape in the visual mediation of urban social life and public culture. While buildings and urban infrastructure also have mediating functions, I focus on designed landscapes such as public parks because they mediate visual perception in a manner that is historically intertwined with that of photography. Responding to existing interest in the critical reading of landscape values as well as research on new photographic forms and practices arising from social media use, I suggest that we take seriously the idea that landscape is itself a form of media. Attending to its ongoing interactions with other media will enable us both to specify the nature of its intermediality in a given time and place, and open a new space for reflexivity and critique. Beginning with an account of what is at stake in the visual mediation accomplished through urban landscapes on the one hand, and in the study of social media use on the other, I make a case for a critical, qualitative analysis of photographic content as opposed to quantitative analytics of the data associated with it. I then present an example of the kind of analysis I have in mind, drawing from an exploratory case study of photographs from Grand Park in Los Angeles (Rios Clementi Hale). In the process, I flesh out the concept of intermediality as it pertains to designed landscapes and demonstrate the kinds of questions and pedagogical opportunities such an approach may open