Gender, remittances and migration: Latin Americans and Caribbeans in Europe

Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) migrations to Europe have grown rapidly and in the past few years partially replaced those to North America. Spain is the preferred destination of LAC migrants with about 840,000 LAC-born residents in 2001, a large increase over previous years. This migration is highly feminised and is likely to result in long-term settlement. It is also generating high levels of remittances. Whilst considerable work exists on the effect of remittances on households and communities in countries of origin, a gendered approach to these issues has only recently been developed. Yet, given that a high proportion of remittances in Europe are sent by and back to women, remittances are effectively circulating through transnational gendered networks. This paper examines remittances in the context of gendered migration from LAC countries to Europe and argues that policies concerning remittances need to incorporate a gender dimension. In particular we need to challenge the unproductive dichotomy between „productive‟ and „unproductive‟ activities, and recognise the significance of remittances for social reproduction, if we want to bank the unbanked. We also need to consider the effect of remittances on the lives of migrants in countries of destination

‘I understood the words but I didn’t know what they meant’: Japanese online MBA students’ experiences of British assessment practices

We report on a case study of high Japanese student failure rates in an online MBA programme. Drawing on interviews, and reviews of exam and assignment scripts we frame the problems faced by these students in terms of a ‘language as social practice’ approach and highlight the students’ failure to understand the specific language games that underpin the course assessment approach. We note the way in which the distance learning and online context can make the challenges faced by international students less immediately visible to both students and institution

Multilingual assessment of early child development: Analyses from repeated observations of children in Kenya.

In many low- and middle-income countries, young children learn a mother tongue or indigenous language at home before entering the formal education system where they will need to understand and speak a countrys official language(s). Thus, assessments of children before school age, conducted in a nations official language, may not fully reflect a childs development, underscoring the importance of test translation and adaptation. To examine differences in vocabulary development by language of assessment, we adapted and validated instruments to measure developmental outcomes, including expressive and receptive vocabulary. We assessed 505 2-to-6-year-old children in rural communities in Western Kenya with comparable vocabulary tests in three languages: Luo (the local language or mother tongue), Swahili, and English (official languages) at two time points, 5-6 weeks apart, between September 2015 and October 2016. Younger children responded to the expressive vocabulary measure exclusively in Luo (44%-59% of 2-to-4-year-olds) much more frequently than did older children (20%-21% of 5-to-6-year-olds). Baseline receptive vocabulary scores in Luo (β = 0.26, SE = 0.05, p < 0.001) and Swahili (β = 0.10, SE = 0.05, p = 0.032) were strongly associated with receptive vocabulary in English at follow-up, even after controlling for English vocabulary at baseline. Parental Luo literacy at baseline (β = 0.11, SE = 0.05, p = 0.045) was associated with child English vocabulary at follow-up, while parental English literacy at baseline was not. Our findings suggest that multilingual testing is essential to understanding the developmental environment and cognitive growth of multilingual children

Hearing the silences: adult Nigerian women’s accounts of ‘early marriages’

‘Early marriage’ is a relatively common, but under-researched global phenomenon, associated with poor health, mental health, educational and occupational outcomes, particularly for young girls. In this article, we draw on qualitative interviews with 6 Nigerian women from Sokoto State, who were married between the ages of 8 and 15. The interviews explored young women’s experiences of the transition to marriage, being married, pregnancy and their understanding of the marital and parental role. Using Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis, we explore women’s constrained articulations of their experiences of early marriage, as they are constituted within a social context where the identity of ‘woman’ is bound up in values and practices around marriage and motherhood. We explore the complexity of ‘hearing’ women’s experiences when their identities are bound up in culturally overdetermined ideas of femininity that function explicitly to silence and constrain the spaces in which women can speak

Integrated water resources management as a new approach to water security

Access to safe water is a worldwide problem facing three quarters of a billion people every day. The problem of access to water is not primarily due to an overall scarcity of water, but rather the unequal geographical and seasonal distribution of the water resources. The key issue at stake here is, how to make water available. The new approach presented by international institutions for improving water access is Integrated Water Resource Management. This chapter questions this new approach and highlights the depoliticizing implications

Facilitating open access to information: a community approach to open education and open textbooks

Access to information as a necessary precondition for human flourishing is recognized explicitly in the UNESCO Strategic Development Goals, and mirrored by the work of universities globally to reduce barriers to information, especially research outputs. Growing international attention has turned to learning and teaching resources, particularly textbooks as a key barrier to fully engaging with, and participating in, higher education. The affordances of open texts provide an alternative to commercially published and often exclusionary access practices; and empower educators and students in co-creation and open sharing of information and knowledge. This paper examines the design of an ongoing institutional grants program predicated on a facilitated community learning approach for academic staff seeking to adopt, or adapt open textbooks into the curriculum as one mechanism to increase access to information. The participants’ experiences and personal learning were captured through a series of semi-structured interviews that inform the iterative design of the ongoing grants program that could be transferred to other institutions seeking to support educational change

Wealth Inequality, Educational Environment and School Enrolment: Evidence from Mexico

Using data from the extended section of the 2010 Mexican census (2.9 million households), we study how school enrolment is associated with wealth inequality and with the educational environment the child is exposed to at the household and municipal levels. We provide robust evidence of wealth inequality as a negative predictor of school enrolment for children in primary, secondary and high school age ranges while a positive role is played by the educational environment. Through the introduction of interaction terms, we account for how economic and educational variables are intertwined at both the household and the municipal level, and we are able to illustrate the considerable heterogeneity in the role of adult education for households at different standards of living

On ‘Organized Crime’ in the illicit antiquities trade: moving beyond the definitional debate

The extent to which ‘organized crime’ is involved in illicit antiquities trafficking is unknown and frequently debated. This paper explores the significance and scale of the illicit antiquities trade as a unique transnational criminal phenomenon that is often said to be perpetrated by and exhibit traits of so-called ‘organized crime.’ The definitional debate behind the term ‘organized crime’ is considered as a potential problem impeding our understanding of its existence or extent in illicit antiquities trafficking, and a basic progression-based model is then suggested as a new tool to move beyond the definitional debate for future research that may help to elucidate the actors, processes and criminal dynamics taking place within the illicit antiquities trade from source to market. The paper concludes that researchers should focus not on the question of whether organized criminals- particularly in a traditionally conceived, mafia-type stereotypical sense- are involved in the illicit antiquities trade, but instead on the structure and progression of antiquities trafficking itself that embody both organized and criminal dynamics

Gender equality and girls education: Investigating frameworks, disjunctures and meanings of quality education

The article draws on qualitative educational research across a diversity of low-income countries to examine the gendered inequalities in education as complex, multi-faceted and situated rather than a series of barriers to be overcome through linear input–output processes focused on isolated dimensions of quality. It argues that frameworks for thinking about educational quality often result in analyses of gender inequalities that are fragmented and incomplete. However, by considering education quality more broadly as a terrain of quality it investigates questions of educational transitions, teacher supply and community participation, and develops understandings of how education is experienced by learners and teachers in their gendered lives and their teaching practices. By taking an approach based on theories of human development the article identifies dynamics of power underpinning gender inequalities in the literature and played out in diverse contexts and influenced by social, cultural and historical contexts. The review and discussion indicate that attaining gender equitable quality education requires recognition and understanding of the ways in which inequalities intersect and interrelate in order to seek out multi-faceted strategies that address not only different dimensions of girls’ and women’s lives, but understand gendered relationships and structurally entrenched inequalities between women and men, girls and boys

Inequalities in higher education in low‐ and middle‐income countries:A scoping review of the literature

Motivation:  Higher  education  is  regarded  as  a  key  instrument  to  enhance  socioeconomic  mobility  andreduce inequalities. Recent literature reviews have examined inequalities in the higher education systemsof  high-income  countries,  but  less  is  known  about  the  situation  in  low-  and  middle-income  countries,where higher education is expanding fast.Purpose:  The  article  reviews  the  academic  literature  on  higher  education  in  low-  and  middle-incomecountries using a research framework inspired by social justice and capability approaches. It considers the financial,  socio-cultural,  human,  and  political  resource  domains  on  which  people  draw,  and  how  they relate to access, participation, and outcomes in higher education.Methods: A literature search for studies explicitly discussing in-country  inequalities  in  higher  education revealed  22  publications. Substantial  knowledge  gaps remain,  especially  regarding  the  political  (and decision-making)  side  of  inequalities;  the  ideologies  and  philosophies  underpinning  higher  education systems; and the linkages between resource domains, both micro and macro.Findings:  The  review  highlights  key  elements  for  policy-makers  and  researchers:  (1)  the  financial  lens alone  is  insufficient  to  understand  and  tackle  inequalities,  since  these  are  also  shaped  by  human  and other non-financial factors; (2) socio-cultural constructs are central in explaining unequal outcomes; and (3) inequalities develop throughout one’s life and need to be considered during, but also before and afterhigher education.  The scope  of  inequalities  is  wide, and  the literature  offers a  few ideas  for short-term fixes such as part-time and online education.Policy implications: Inclusive policy frameworks for higher education should include explicit goals related to (in)equality,  which  are  best  measured in  terms  of  the  extent  to  which  certain  actions  or  choices are feasible for all. Policies in these frameworks, we argue, should go beyond providing financial support, and also address socio-cultural and human resource constraints and challenges in retention, performance, and labour market outcomes. Finally, they should consider relevant contextual determinants of inequalities.</p