School Nursing in the News

This study investigated the image of school nursing in the American press during 1978 and 1980. Content analysis of newspaper articles yielded specific measurements of the extent to which school nursing is visible via the press, the content of messages disseminated to the public about school nursing issues and two year changes in newspaper treatment of this topic. The mean number of articles published per state was 1.43 in 1978 and 6.30 in 1980. The typical school nurse article appeared in a daily newspaper circulated to less than 10,000 readers. Articles published in 1978 were significantly larger than those published in 1980 and were more likely to focus primarily on the school nursing program rather than on teachers, school boards, funding concerns or other issues. The majority of the articles (77%) devoted some space to describing the services provided by school nurses. Nearly 30% of the articles reported problems with funding for school nursing programs and 21% reported threatened or actual loss of funding for services. Although reports of protests against budget cuts by school nurses, teachers, administrators and parents were found, parents were depicted as the only interest group to succeed in efforts to avert the loss of services. Criticism of school nursing services was found in only 2% of the articles. More than 80% of the articles praised school nursing as a vital force for improving the health of American school children. It was concluded that school nursing has not yet attained a position on the public agenda as an important community issue despite the fact that the quality and level of school health services are increasingly threatened in the current budget-cutting climate.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/73217/1/j.1746-1561.1983.tb01153.x.pd

Security: Collective good or commodity?

This is the author's accepted manuscript. The final published article is available from the link below. Copyright @ 2008 Sage.The state monopoly on the legitimate use of violence in Europe and North America has been central to the development of security as a collective good. Not only has it institutionalized the state as the prime national and international security provider, it has helped to reduce the threat from other actors by either prohibiting or limiting their use of violence. The recent growth of the private security industry appears to undermine this view. Not only are private security firms proliferating at the national level; private military companies are also taking over an increasing range of military functions in both national defence and international interventions. This article seeks to provide an examination of the theoretical and practical implications of the shift from states to markets in the provision of security. Specifically, it discusses how the conceptualization of security as a commodity rather than a collective good affects the meaning and implementation of security in Western democracies.ESR

| [Afrique du Sud: défis et succès du confinement liés au COVID-19]

At the beginning of March 2020, South Africa (59 million inhabitants) was hit by the pandemic of COVID-19 and soon became the most affected country in Africa by the SARS-CoV-2 virus. From one single case on March 5th, the number of cases increased rapidly, forcing the South-African Government to swiftly react and place the country under strict lockdown for six weeks. The strategy of the South African Government bore fruits with a contained spread of the virus. If the number of positive cases at the end of the lockdown reached 5647, the number of fatal casualties was limited to 103 deaths. The lockdown was overall well respected, even if serious problems of food supply soon occurred in informal settlements, leading to riots and confrontation with security forces. Indeed, populations were obedient, but not being able to practice sport or outdoors activities appeared heavy