Children Capabilities and Family Characteristics in Italy

This paper explores the possibilities of using structural equation modelling to measure capabilities of Italian children. In particular the paper focuses on two capabilities: “Senses, Imagination and Thought” and “Leisure and Play Activities ”. The indicators used to measure the capability of ‘Senses, imagination and thought’ for 6-13 years old children are attitude towards education, attendance to arts classes and other type of extra curriculum classes like computing and languages. The variables used as indicators of the capability of “Leisure and play activities” include how often children play in playground, various types of games, attendance to sports classes. We use both descriptive statistics, an ordered probit model, and a structural equation model in order to investigate the relation among the above mentioned indicators, the latent construct for capabilities and a set of covariates. Moreover we use a new data set in order to include family income among the covariates. The data result from the matching (through a propensity score method) of two data sets: Bank of Italy Survey on Income and Wealth for year 2000 and Istat Families, social subjects and childhood condition for year 1998.Education, Capabilities, Child Well Being, Structural Equation Modelling

'We Look Forward to Seeing You': Air Travel Digital Discourse in the Post-peak Pandemic Period. In V. Franceschi and S. Hartle (eds), (Special Issue): Tourism Discourse in the 21st Century: Challenges and New Directions

The unfolding of the Covid-19 crisis has had a detrimental impact on global travel and tourism. In particular, the air transport industry has been affected severely and will need to undergo radical change to still be operating in the aftermath of the pandemic.Within the framework of Corporate Discourse Studies, and relying on a corpus-assisted discourse analysis approach, the current article explores how airlines use online language to neutralize the discourses that create distrust and to highlight their achievements and commitment in order to encourage air travel in the post-peak period. This analysis is meant to empirically contribute to the existing literature on the topic of trust in corporate discourse and communication by shedding some light on the discursive strategies employed by airline companies to (re)construct travel experience in time of crisis

Dalla segregazione al diritto all’abitare

Questo capitolo introduce la quarta parte del volume, relativa a casi di politiche locali finalizzate a superare la formula del “campo nomadi” e aumentare la varietà delle misure di inserimento abitativo1. L’abitare è una dimensione cruciale della vita in società, e il fatto che a partire dagli anni Settanta i gruppi zigani siano stati forzati dentro un’unica tipologia abitativa, il campo nomadi, ha avuto grandi conseguenze non solo sulla qualità di vita delle persone lì residenti, ma anche sui rapporti fra questi gruppi e le società urbane in cui risiedono (...)

Another Theory of Prostitution

This paper presents a model of prostitution as an economic activity characterised by stigma, whose supply is based on the availability of other earning opportunities. On the basis of available empirical evidence and findings from other studies, we put forward a rigorous economic analysis of the industry and its different markets making no restrictive assumptions regarding the gender, pay and nature of forgone earning opportunities of the prostitute, and applying the same behavioural hypotheses to prostitutes and clients.

THE PRAGMATICS OF REFUSING A REQUEST IN ITALIAN AND AMERICAN ENGLISH: A COMPARATIVE STUDY

This study falls in the area of cross-cultural pragmatics because it compares how speakers of American English and speakers of Italian refuse a request. We used a guided conversation protocol to elicit refusals to a request. The results show marked differences between the two groups. Speakers of American English tend to rely on Positive face strategies (praise, encouragement) to mitigate their refusals. In contrast, speakers of Italian tend to use Negative face strategies: lengthy explanations combined with apologies. Both groups used avoidance strategies, but speakers of American English were less likely to offer detailed explanations that require the disclosure of personal information. These findings show that pragmatic strategies to perform speech acts might vary significantly even when we compare groups from two different Western countries

Exploring the multiple effects of the invasive alien robinia tree: a PhD project presentation

The poster explains the background, research questions and objectives and methods of the PhD study on black locust (Robinia pseudoacacia) funded by the Linda Scattolin J:ROBIN project (2016-2019)

AN INTEGRATED APPROACH TO PREVENT THE EROSION OF SALT MARSHES IN THE LAGOON OF VENICE

The loss of coastal habitats is a widespread problem in Europe. To protect the intertidal salt marshes of the lagoon of Venice from the erosion due to natural and human causes which is diffusely and intensely impacting them, the European Commission has funded the demonstrative project LIFE VIMINE. LIFE VIMINE aims to protect the most interior, hard-to-access salt marshes in the northern lagoon of Venice through an integrated approach, whose core is the prevention of erosion through numerous, small but spatially-diffuse soil-bioengineering protections works, mainly placed through semi-manual labour and with low impact on the environment and the landscape. The effectiveness of protection works in the long term is ensured through routine, temporally-continuous and spatially-diffuse actions of monitoring and maintenance. This method contrasts the common approach to managing hydraulic risk and erosion in Italy which is based on large, one-off and irreversible protection actions. The sustainability of the LIFE VIMINE approach is ensured by the participatory involvement of stakeholders and the recognition that protecting salt marshes means defending the benefits they provide to society through their ecological functions, as well as protecting the jobs linked to the existence or conservation of this habitat

Resistance to Institutions and Cultural Distance: Brigandage in Post-Unification Italy

We study how cultural distance affects the rejection of imposed institutions. To this purpose, we exploit the transplantation of Piedmontese institutions on Southern Italy which occurred during the Italian unification. We assemble a novel and unique dataset containing information on episodes of brigandage, a form of violent uprising against the unitary government, at the municipal level. We use geographic distance from local settlements of Piedmontese descent as a proxy for cultural distance between each municipality and the new rulers. We find robust evidence that cultural distance from the origins of the transplanted institutions is significantly associated with more intense resistance to these institutions. Our results further suggest that the rejection of the transplanted institutions may have a long lasting effect on political participation