Teaching a world language for local contexts: The case of Namibian textbooks for the teaching of English

English was chosen as the official language when Namibia gained its independence in 1990. While many other countries use English language textbooks that have been produced for a world market, Namibian authorities set out to develop their own. Fivetextbooks for grades 8 – 12 were published during the years 1993-1999. These books have been described as unusually successful, not only in the way that they help students learn the language. Equally important is the fact that texts, topics and exercises have been selected in order to support the students’ general education and help them develop the knowledge and skills they need as citizens of a new, democratic nation. The process of developing and producing the books has also been referred to as efficient and innovative. This article casts light on some aspects of the books as well as the production process. The aim is to provide documentation and also to present an example that textbook developers as well as teachers elsewhere can learn from and be inspired by

Between Exclusion and Political Engagement: Conceptualizing Young People’s Everyday Politics in the Postwar Setting of Sri Lanka

Drawing on findings from research on youths in postwar eastern Sri Lanka, the aim of this chapter is twofold: first to develop a framework for understanding young people’s everyday engagements with politics in the context of the transitions that a postwar setting involves and second to develop an understanding of young people’s political everyday engagement in a context where the state has clearly and quickly moved from a postwar stage to a development stage. The authors find that the different experiences of the violent past and a politicized postwar setting continue to play a role in young people’s lives and form a constrained context in which their political engagement is shaped. Unemployment and lack of involvement in ongoing development initiatives by the state exclude Tamil and Muslim youths from political spaces and from having a political voice at the national level. Instead they are enmeshed in societal and spatial power relations in a political environment that impacts negatively on their identity construction and subjectivities

Well-being and Mobility of Female-Heads of Households in a fishing village in South India

This paper focuses on how Female Heads of Households (FHHs) in a village in Cuddalore District, in the state of Tamil Nadu, India, have tried to achieve their various well-being targets and overcome their vulnerabilities through engaging in fish trading and auctioning that in turn involves moving within and outside their village. The study is based on a three-week fieldwork undertaken in April and May 2017, including multiple methods, such as observations, village walks, informal discussions, focus group discussions, and in-depth interviews. We address how FHHs’ well-being intersects with old vulnerabilities that are an inherent part of their fishing culture (caste, class and gender) and new vulnerabilities created due to precarities related to mechanized fishing, modernization and post-tsunami development. We found that the complex situation of vulnerability and precarity in the fishing sector have affected the material, relational, and subjective wellbeing of FHHs differently, benefitting some female auctioneers but not the majority of fish vendors. In particular, the mobility of younger FHHs was restricted due to familial and social expectations

Factors shaping political priorities for violence against women-mitigation policies in Sri Lanka.

BACKGROUND: Although violence against women (VAW) is a global public health issue, its importance as a health issue is often unrecognized in legal and health policy documents. This paper uses Sri Lanka as a case study to explore the factors influencing the national policy response to VAW, particularly by the health sector. METHODS: A document based health policy analysis was conducted to examine current policy responses to VAW in Sri Lanka using the Shiffman and Smith (2007) policy analysis framework. RESULTS: The findings suggest that the networks and influences of various actors in Sri Lanka, and their ideas used to frame the issue of VAW, have been particularly important in shaping the nature of the policy response to date. The Ministry of Women and Child Affairs led the national response on VAW, but suffered from limited financial and political support. Results also suggest that there was low engagement by the health sector in the initial policy response to VAW in Sri Lanka, which focused primarily on criminal legislation, following global influences. Furthermore, a lack of empirical data on VAW has impeded its promotion as a health policy issue, despite financial support from international organisations enabling an initial health systems response by the Ministry of Health. Until a legal framework was established (2005), the political context provided limited opportunities for VAW to also be construed as a health issue. It was only then that the Ministry of Health got legitimacy to institutionalise VAW services. CONCLUSION: Nearly a decade later, a change in government has led to a new national plan on VAW, giving a clear role to the health sector in the fight against VAW. High-level political will, criminalisation of violence, coalesced women's groups advocating for legislative change, prevalence data, and financial support from influential institutions are all critical elements helping frame violence as a national public health issue

Atmospheric concentrations of black carbon are substantially higher in spring than summer in the Arctic

A key driving factor behind rapid Arctic climate change is black carbon, the atmospheric aerosol that most efficiently absorbs sunlight. Our knowledge about black carbon in the Arctic is scarce, mainly limited to long-term measurements of a few ground stations and snap-shots by aircraft observations. Here, we combine observations from aircraft campaigns performed over nine years, and present vertically resolved average black carbon properties. A factor of four higher black carbon mass concentration (21.6 ng m$^{–3}$ average, 14.3 ng m$^{–3}$ median) was found in spring, compared to summer (4.7 ng m$^{–3}$ average, 3.9 ng m$^{–3}$ median). In spring, much higher inter-annual and geographic variability prevailed compared to the stable situation in summer. The shape of the black carbon size distributions remained constant between seasons with an average mass mean diameter of 202 nm in spring and 210 nm in summer. Comparison between observations and concentrations simulated by a global model shows notable discrepancies, highlighting the need for further model developments and intensified measurements