Winner-take-all politics in Europe? European inequality in comparative perspective

In this introduction to the special issue on The New Politics of Inequality in Europe, we summarize recent literature on income inequality in the advanced democracies and argue that dominant accounts are too heavily focused on the United States, while the experience of western European countries has been neglected. While income inequality has risen nearly everywhere in the rich industrial democracies since the end of the 1970s, it has done so from different starting points, at different rates, and for reasons connected to different mechanisms and different parts of the distribution. Extending the analysis to Western Europe enables us to fully understand this variation

Disembedding the Italian economy? Four trajectories of structural reform

Southern Europe’s debtor nations need far-reaching structural reforms if they are to prosper within the strictures of the single currency, runs the constant refrain of the Euro crisis. 1 Yet Italy, the target of many such recent complaints, had already transformed its economy fundamentally over the past two decades, among other reasons in order that Italy could participate successfully in the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU). The need to comply with the Maastricht convergence criteria drove major budgetary reforms in the mid- to late 1990s, as well as banking reform, privatization, decentralization, judicial reform, deregulation, and changes to the labor market and the welfare system. Europe provided a “vincolo esterno” or external constraint (Dyson and Featherstone 1996) that pushed Italy into accepting structural reforms which would otherwise have been resisted. Italy was “rescued by Europe” (Ferrera and Gualmini 2004)

Constraints, Compromises and Choice: Comparing Three Qualitative Research Studies

Although a number of texts explore social research strategies and methods, most are limited to a basic discussion of such methods and their associated advantages and disadvantages. Few if any, evaluate and compare methods in the context of actual research experiences. This paper endeavours to bridge that gap by reporting the experiences of three researchers working on three separate qualitative studies. All three studies were concerned with investigating the social milieu within organizations. While the research questions were different in each case, all the researchers shared a common goal - to develop explanations for complex social phenomena manifest both internally and externally to each organization. The research strategies, methods and data analyses employed are assessed through the personal evaluations of the researchers. Thus, a singular opportunity is offered for other researchers to benefit from the practical insights and lessons learned. The collective experiences of all three researchers suggest that the contextual conditions and constraints of each study force certain compromises, but which importantly, do not compromise qualitative research studies

Constructing and Implementing a Summer Wellness Curriculum: Bridging the Gaps at YES

Introduction: Youth experiencing homelessness lack learning experiences during the summer months, potentially leading to delinquent activities and hazardous situations. The project created and implemented a summer wellness curriculum at Youth Emergency Service (YES) that aimed to identify gaps in and educate the youth on various health and wellness topics. Daily exercise actively promoted physical wellbeing. Methods: The curriculum aimed at a mixed group of adolescents facing homelessness integrated various educational and/or physical activities with wellness activities by YES staff and Title I programming. Activity description, cost, location, time and date, and number of attendees were recorded in a logbook. Qualitative analysis described reception of the activities and was compared to cost and number of attendees. Title I programming, YES wellness activities, field trips, and activities after 7/26 were not included in analysis. Results: The most attended activities with greatest apparent interest cost money (Power of Words, Tie-Dye, and Skyzone) or supplied a monetary incentive (Haven House). 16 youth learned about HIV and participated in HIV testing. The most successful inclusive free activities were yoga, cooking, and water balloon games, as both males and females participated and were consistently engaged throughout; males predominated attendance of other physical activities. Creating the Heart Smart poster and vision boards were the least popular. Conclusion: Youth at YES tended to be motivated by special activities or monetary incentives; more of these activities should be incorporated into future programming. Individualized input from female youth should be utilized to elicit greater participation during physical activities next year

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

The Miseducation of Black Youth: Black youth spittin’ lyrical lessons of Black joy, laughter, and affirmation in the rural south

This counter-storytelling performance highlights the educational experiences of Black youth living in the Rural Black South. In the shadows of critical race theory and critical teaching pedagogy, the researchers draw from BlackMothering scholarship as a theoretical framework to illuminate insights into how Black faculty create critical pedagogy to help make students more critical consumers of their educational experiences and provide them with skills to produce counternarratives. The researchers created a critical teaching project that allowed Black youth participants space to critically reflect, interrogate, and dialogue about their educational experiences and in doing so the youth created verses to song telling their stories. This project highlights three significant findings when teachers use an arts-based approach as a critical teaching practice: Black youth agency to resist, Academic mobility, and Black youth intellectualism and identity

Foreclosure and Health Status

In 2009, more than 2.8 million housing units in the U.S. received a foreclosure notice. That represents about 1 in every 45 properties and a 120% increase in the number of foreclosed properties since 2007. Real estate experts predict even more foreclosures in 2010 as high unemployment continues. The cascading effects of the foreclosure crisis on the U.S. economy are all too clear; the effects on individuals’ health status are less obvious. This Issue Brief summarizes two studies that examine the health implications of foreclosure and reveal a vulnerable population that may benefit from coordinated health and financial services