The Unequal Pandemic

EPDF and EPUB available Open Access under CC-BY-NC- ND It has been claimed that we are ‘all in it together’ and that the COVID-19 virus ‘does not discriminate’. This accessible, yet authoritative book dispels this myth of COVID-19 as an ‘equal opportunity’ disease, by showing how the pandemic is a syndemic of disease and inequality. Drawing on international data and accounts, it argues that the pandemic is unequal in three ways: it has killed unequally, been experienced unequally and will impoverish unequally. These inequalities are a political choice: with governments effectively choosing who lives and who dies, we need to learn from COVID-19 quickly to prevent growing inequality and to reduce health inequalities in the future. COVID-19 is an unequal pandemic

Storytelling and Retelling and Higher Order Thinking for English Language and Literacy Acquisition (Stella) for Immigrant Students

In this study, I examined the effectiveness of the literacy curriculum known as STELLA (Storytelling and Retelling and Higher Order Thinking for English Language and Literacy Acquisition) for newcomers to the United States in Grade 2. The number of immigrant students in elementary schools in Texas is on the rise, largely due to the geopolitical exodus of tens of thousands of Central American children. While STELLA has been proven to be an effective curriculum for gains in English language learners’ (ELL) oral language development in a previous longitudinal research study, the data had not been disaggregated to measure its effectiveness for the subgroup of ELLs – newcomers. In this small-n, mixed-methods study, I found no initial differences for three out of four of the Woodcock-Munoz Language Survey Revised subtests measuring oral language proficiency. On Story Recall, for which there was an initial difference, the immigrant group caught up to the home group nine months later. For Texas English Language Proficiency Assessment System (TELPAS) Listening, immigrant students entered Grade 2 with a lower ability, but caught up to the home group by the end of the grade; whereas for TELPAS Speaking, immigrant students entered Grade 2 with a lower ability, but did not catch up to the home group by the end of the grade. The context of this study was STELLA treatment classrooms in an urban school district in the Houston metro-area between newcomer ELLs who arrived to the United States within three years of Grade 2 and ELL students who were either born in the United States or arrived more than three years previous to Grade 2. Qualitative classroom observations in this study provide insight for teachers, administrators, and researchers as to what types of events should be occurring in a classroom housing newcomer ELLs

AN INTEGRATED MODEL FOR MANAGING INNOVATION IN THE EARLY STAGES OF NEW PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT IN SMES(RIKON Group)

This paper centralises the management of innovation in the early stages of the new product development (NPD) process. The purpose of this paper is to describe the critical episodes that enabled an SME to successfully manage the development of new product concepts from inception and, in so doing, presents implementable guidelines that can be used by SMEs to manage the delivery of creative and attractive new product concepts in the early stages of NPD. Action research was used to conduct a three-phase methodology involving a single case study. First, a diagnosis phase investigated the nature of innovation within the company. In the second phase, a series of iterative interventions by the researchers provided participants with both the theory and practice skills to manage innovation. The third phase involved an evaluation of the extent to which change in managing innovation in the company had occurred. The findings highlight a vast and sustained improvement in Dudley Europe‟s innovation management of their early NPD stages

Ageing and Health

Ageing societies can be healthy and productive- if they get the politics right. This book argues that the population ageing crisis can be solved through policies that reduce inequalities between and within generations. It then explores the political coalitions needed to support policymaking that avoids pitting generations against each other

OVERCOMING THE BARRIERS TO MANAGING INNOVATION IN THE EARLY STAGES OF NEW PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT IN SMES

This paper centralises the management of innovation in the early stages of the new product development (NPD) process. The purpose of this paper is to describe the critical episodes that enabled an SME to successfully overcome the barriers to managing new product concepts from inception and, in so doing, presents implementable guidelines that can be used by SMEs to manage the delivery of creative and attractive new product concepts in the early stages of NPD. Action research was used to conduct a three-phase methodology involving a single case study. First, a diagnosis phase investigated the nature of innovation within the company. In the second phase, a series of iterative interventions by the researchers provided participants with both the theory and practice skills to manage innovation. The third phase involved an evaluation of the extent to which change in managing innovation in the company had occurred. The findings highlight a vast and sustained improvement in Dudley Europe‟s innovation management of their early NPD stages