Poverty and Children's Access to Services and Social Participation

This briefing paper summarises evidence in the research and policy literature on inequalities surrounding access to services and social participation for children and young people living in poverty in Scotland. The related policy and practice implications for services’ access and societal participation are also outlined. In the poverty and inequalities context, a mix of policy interventions aimed at rebalancing power at all levels are more likely to be effective to changing the status quo. Rather than searching for a single ‘silver bullet’, policy should target the multiple dimensions of poverty and inequality and their intersections as experienced by young people

Values, change and inter-generational ties between two generations of women in Singapore

Personal values are framed by social contexts and carried through a person's lifecourse, but are sufficiently malleable to adapt to changing conditions. The dynamic character of personal values should be more frequently recognised in studies of inter-generational ties. This study examines the relationships between two generations of Singaporean women and their divergent values about gender roles, preference for the gender of children, family formation, care-giving and living arrangements. Younger women embrace more western views, while their older counterparts uphold Confucian values. Previous studies have tended to characterise inter-generational ties as conveying 'conflict' or 'solidarity', but here the concept of 'ambivalence' is employed to show that contradictory values coexist, and that inter-generational ties encapsulate the negotiated outcome of complex attitudes, values and aspirations.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

The past, present and future of population geography:Reflections on Glenn Trewartha's address fifty years on

On re-reading Trewartha's address 50 years after it was written, I am prompted to reflect on both the historical and geographical situatedness of his conception of a disciplinary space for population geography, as well as on my own concerns about population geography in the early twenty-first century. Trewartha's case for population geography, I suggest, reveals its cultural embeddedness within American geography of that time. However, it remains of more than historical interest since a similar case has yet to be articulated by the present generation of Anglo-American population geographers. I argue that, despite evident successes, population geography is currently facing two problems relating to its identity. The first arises from its marginalised position within human geography; and the second is associated with what might be called an 'imbalance' in the subject matter of research, where migration studies have become increasingly dominant. Both problems raise questions about the geographical credentials of population geography, and I ask what the future research agenda should be. New research frontiers appear to be re-mapping the spaces of knowledge in ways that could produce new configurations of the academy. In this context, the future of population geography seems uncertain