Children’s worlds : the subjective wellbeing of Maltese children

The authors would like to express their gratitude to all the children who participated in the study, to their parents for giving their consent, as well as their teachers and Heads of Schools who provided administrative support in data collection; to Dr Gwyther Rees who provided the international comparative graphs used in the report and other statistical assistance; to Prof Asher Ben-Arieh, Dr. Gwyther Rees and Ms Tamara Dinisman from the International Survey of Children’s Well-Being project team, for their support during the project planning, data collection and data analysis; and to Dr Valeria Cavioni (University of Pavia) for the design of the monograph’s cover and layout.We are pleased to publish the third monograph in the Resilience and Health series by the Centre for Resilience and Socio-Emotional Health at the University of Malta. The series aims to provide an open access platform for the dissemination of knowledge and research in educational resilience and social and emotional health. We have one e-publication per year in such areas as social and emotional development, health, resilience and wellbeing in children and young people, social and emotional learning, mental health in schools and professionals’ health and wellbeing. The publication of the Resilience and Health Monograph Series is based on the philosophy of the Centre for Resilience and Socio-Emotional Health, which is develop and promote the science and evidence-based practice of social and emotional health and resilience in children and young people.peer-reviewe

International survey of children's subjective wellbeing : Malta 2020

This research report presents the findings of the third wave of the International Survey of Children's Subjective Wellbeing with Maltese Children. Over 2000 Maltese children aged 8, 10 and 12 year old participated in the study. The findings indicate that the major systems in Maltese children’s lives, such as the family, the school, friends, and the community, appear to be functioning well for the majority of Maltese children. These systems are key indicators of children’s subjective wellbeing, as indicated by the high levels of cognitive, affective and psychological wellbeing reported by most of the participants in the study. Maltese children consistently ranked in the upper half of the 35 countries across overall subjective well-being measures. The positive findings for the majority of Maltese children, however, must not override the reality that a number of Maltese children are not satisfied with their lives and the conditions they are living in at home, in their locality, at school and other systems in their lives. This study has also identified various areas and issues in children’s lives, such as the relative lack of freedom and lack of participation in family decisions, lack of enough public spaces to play and lack of safety in the neighbourhood, not having enough friends, learning, classmates and bullying at school, low level of physical exercise, and concerns about the future, which need to be further explored and addressed through policy and practice at systems levels such as families, communities, and schools as well as broader macrosystems level. We hope that these findings and recommendations will be given their due attention by policymakers, educators, community leaders and other state and non-state stakeholders within an interdisciplinary , integrated approach. We also hope that the children themselves will be invited to participate actively in this process as key stakeholders.peer-reviewe

Institutional entrepreneurs driving change: The case of gender equality in the Australian construction industry

Taken-for-granted rules are difficult to change. The Australian construction industry is one example, where despite considerable attempts at regulating gender equality by government and others, the industry remains steadfastly male dominated. This article investigates the drivers (i.e. why) and processes (i.e. how) of change with regard to gender equality in the workplace. Using institutional entrepreneurship, we provide insight into the change towards gender equality in the Australian construction industry. We collect data from two Australian construction companies and, drawing on interviews conducted with business leaders, look at how new meanings around gender equality and diversity are negotiated. We find that while gender equality is an important point of focus for both companies, discrepancies remain between perceptions and reality as well as people’s level of readiness. We conclude with implications for theory and future research

Designing robust and revisable policies for gender equality: lessons from the Australian construction industry

The construction industry remains the most male dominated sector in Australia. Several decades of formal gender equality initiatives by government and business have failed to bring about any meaningful change to the hierarchical and numerical representation of women in the sector. Drawing on new institutionalism, particularly the concepts of ‘robustness’ and ‘revisability’, the nature and intent of formal policies and programs that impact on gender equality are analysed in two large Australian multinational construction firms. Through in-depth interviews with senior management and a document analysis of formal policies, it is concluded that gender equality initiatives and broader policies are primarily focused on increasing the numbers of women in construction rather than addressing gender practices and outcomes. These policies lack many of the qualities of robustness and revisability, which impacts on their capacity to genuinely challenge the gendered norms, practices and narratives of the sector

Demolishing gender structures

This report presents findings from Australian research investigating why policies and strategies to attract, retain and support the progression of women professionals in large construction companies have, for the most part, failed

When following the rules is bad for wellbeing: The effects of gendered rules in the Australian construction industry

The construction industry is known to be highly masculinised and to have work practices detrimental to employees’ wellbeing. Drawing on feminist institutional theory and a rapid ethnographic approach in two construction multinationals in Australia, we examine the relationship between the gendered nature of construction and workplace wellbeing for professional women and men employed in the industry. The findings reveal that adhering to the gendered ‘rules in use’ in the construction industry is negatively associated with wellbeing and is usually endured in silence. We also identify the ways in which the gendered rules have different effects on the wellbeing of men and women. We conclude that the construction industry is characterised by a set of ‘greedy’ gendered institutions that are inextricably linked to workplace wellbeing for both men and women and that these rules must be broken to improve worker wellbeing

The languages of Malta

The purpose of this volume is to present a snapshot of the state of the art of research on the languages of the Maltese islands, which include spoken Maltese, Maltese English and Maltese Sign Language. Malta is a tiny, but densely populated country, with over 422,000 inhabitants spread over only 316 square kilometers. It is a bilingual country, with Maltese and English enjoying the status of official languages. Maltese is a descendant of Arabic, but due to the history of the island, it has borrowed extensively from Sicilian, Italian and English. Furthermore, local dialects still coexist alongside the official standard language. The status of English as a second language dates back to British colonial rule, and just as in other former British colonies, a characteristic Maltese variety of English has developed. To these languages must be added Maltese Sign Language, which is the language of the Maltese Deaf community. This was recently recognised as Malta’s third official language by an act of Parliament in 2016. While a volume such as the present one can hardly do justice to all aspects of a diverse and complex linguistic situation, even in a small community like that of Malta, our aim in editing this book was to shed light on the main strands of research being undertaken in the Maltese linguistic context. Six of the contributions in this book focus on Maltese and explore a broad range of topics including: historical changes in the Maltese sound system; syllabification strategies; the interaction of prosody and gesture; the constraints regulating /t/-insertion; the productivity of derivational suffixes; and raising phenomena. The study of Maltese English, especially with the purpose of establishing the defining characteristics of this variety of English, is a relatively new area of research. Three of the papers in this volume deal with Maltese English, which is explored from the different perspectives of rhythm, the syntax of nominal phrases, and lexical choice. The last contribution discusses the way in which Maltese Sign Language (LSM) has evolved alongside developments in LSM research. In summary, we believe the present volume has the potential to present a unique snapshot of a complex linguistic situation in a geographically restricted area. Given the nature and range of topics proposed, the volume will likely be of interest to researchers in both theoretical and comparative linguistics, as well as those working with experimental and corpus-based methodologies. Our hope is that the studies presented here will also serve to pave the way for further research on the languages of Malta, encouraging researchers to also take new directions, including the exploration of variation and sociolinguistic factors which, while often raised as explanatory constructs in the papers presented here, remain under-researched

The languages of Malta

The purpose of this volume is to present a snapshot of the state of the art of research on the languages of the Maltese islands, which include spoken Maltese, Maltese English and Maltese Sign Language. Malta is a tiny, but densely populated country, with over 422,000 inhabitants spread over only 316 square kilometers. It is a bilingual country, with Maltese and English enjoying the status of official languages. Maltese is a descendant of Arabic, but due to the history of the island, it has borrowed extensively from Sicilian, Italian and English. Furthermore, local dialects still coexist alongside the official standard language. The status of English as a second language dates back to British colonial rule, and just as in other former British colonies, a characteristic Maltese variety of English has developed. To these languages must be added Maltese Sign Language, which is the language of the Maltese Deaf community. This was recently recognised as Malta’s third official language by an act of Parliament in 2016. While a volume such as the present one can hardly do justice to all aspects of a diverse and complex linguistic situation, even in a small community like that of Malta, our aim in editing this book was to shed light on the main strands of research being undertaken in the Maltese linguistic context. Six of the contributions in this book focus on Maltese and explore a broad range of topics including: historical changes in the Maltese sound system; syllabification strategies; the interaction of prosody and gesture; the constraints regulating /t/-insertion; the productivity of derivational suffixes; and raising phenomena. The study of Maltese English, especially with the purpose of establishing the defining characteristics of this variety of English, is a relatively new area of research. Three of the papers in this volume deal with Maltese English, which is explored from the different perspectives of rhythm, the syntax of nominal phrases, and lexical choice. The last contribution discusses the way in which Maltese Sign Language (LSM) has evolved alongside developments in LSM research. In summary, we believe the present volume has the potential to present a unique snapshot of a complex linguistic situation in a geographically restricted area. Given the nature and range of topics proposed, the volume will likely be of interest to researchers in both theoretical and comparative linguistics, as well as those working with experimental and corpus-based methodologies. Our hope is that the studies presented here will also serve to pave the way for further research on the languages of Malta, encouraging researchers to also take new directions, including the exploration of variation and sociolinguistic factors which, while often raised as explanatory constructs in the papers presented here, remain under-researched

The languages of Malta

The purpose of this volume is to present a snapshot of the state of the art of research on the languages of the Maltese islands, which include spoken Maltese, Maltese English and Maltese Sign Language. Malta is a tiny, but densely populated country, with over 422,000 inhabitants spread over only 316 square kilometers. It is a bilingual country, with Maltese and English enjoying the status of official languages. Maltese is a descendant of Arabic, but due to the history of the island, it has borrowed extensively from Sicilian, Italian and English. Furthermore, local dialects still coexist alongside the official standard language. The status of English as a second language dates back to British colonial rule, and just as in other former British colonies, a characteristic Maltese variety of English has developed. To these languages must be added Maltese Sign Language, which is the language of the Maltese Deaf community. This was recently recognised as Malta’s third official language by an act of Parliament in 2016. While a volume such as the present one can hardly do justice to all aspects of a diverse and complex linguistic situation, even in a small community like that of Malta, our aim in editing this book was to shed light on the main strands of research being undertaken in the Maltese linguistic context. Six of the contributions in this book focus on Maltese and explore a broad range of topics including: historical changes in the Maltese sound system; syllabification strategies; the interaction of prosody and gesture; the constraints regulating /t/-insertion; the productivity of derivational suffixes; and raising phenomena. The study of Maltese English, especially with the purpose of establishing the defining characteristics of this variety of English, is a relatively new area of research. Three of the papers in this volume deal with Maltese English, which is explored from the different perspectives of rhythm, the syntax of nominal phrases, and lexical choice. The last contribution discusses the way in which Maltese Sign Language (LSM) has evolved alongside developments in LSM research. In summary, we believe the present volume has the potential to present a unique snapshot of a complex linguistic situation in a geographically restricted area. Given the nature and range of topics proposed, the volume will likely be of interest to researchers in both theoretical and comparative linguistics, as well as those working with experimental and corpus-based methodologies. Our hope is that the studies presented here will also serve to pave the way for further research on the languages of Malta, encouraging researchers to also take new directions, including the exploration of variation and sociolinguistic factors which, while often raised as explanatory constructs in the papers presented here, remain under-researched

The languages of Malta

The purpose of this volume is to present a snapshot of the state of the art of research on the languages of the Maltese islands, which include spoken Maltese, Maltese English and Maltese Sign Language. Malta is a tiny, but densely populated country, with over 422,000 inhabitants spread over only 316 square kilometers. It is a bilingual country, with Maltese and English enjoying the status of official languages. Maltese is a descendant of Arabic, but due to the history of the island, it has borrowed extensively from Sicilian, Italian and English. Furthermore, local dialects still coexist alongside the official standard language. The status of English as a second language dates back to British colonial rule, and just as in other former British colonies, a characteristic Maltese variety of English has developed. To these languages must be added Maltese Sign Language, which is the language of the Maltese Deaf community. This was recently recognised as Malta’s third official language by an act of Parliament in 2016. While a volume such as the present one can hardly do justice to all aspects of a diverse and complex linguistic situation, even in a small community like that of Malta, our aim in editing this book was to shed light on the main strands of research being undertaken in the Maltese linguistic context. Six of the contributions in this book focus on Maltese and explore a broad range of topics including: historical changes in the Maltese sound system; syllabification strategies; the interaction of prosody and gesture; the constraints regulating /t/-insertion; the productivity of derivational suffixes; and raising phenomena. The study of Maltese English, especially with the purpose of establishing the defining characteristics of this variety of English, is a relatively new area of research. Three of the papers in this volume deal with Maltese English, which is explored from the different perspectives of rhythm, the syntax of nominal phrases, and lexical choice. The last contribution discusses the way in which Maltese Sign Language (LSM) has evolved alongside developments in LSM research. In summary, we believe the present volume has the potential to present a unique snapshot of a complex linguistic situation in a geographically restricted area. Given the nature and range of topics proposed, the volume will likely be of interest to researchers in both theoretical and comparative linguistics, as well as those working with experimental and corpus-based methodologies. Our hope is that the studies presented here will also serve to pave the way for further research on the languages of Malta, encouraging researchers to also take new directions, including the exploration of variation and sociolinguistic factors which, while often raised as explanatory constructs in the papers presented here, remain under-researched