Enoch Powell,empires, immigrants and education

2018 marks the 50th anniversary of Enoch Powell’s infamous ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech, an intervention that is still viewed as one of the most incendiary statements of the perceived decay and violence likely to follow legislation intended to assure minoritised British citizens of equal rights regardless of their ethnic origin. In this essay, Sally Tomlinson (one of Britain’s foremost multicultural theorists) reflects on Powell’s legacy and the contemporary scene where in the US, UK and across Europe, White resentment and fear is increasingly shaping ‘mainstream’ debates about nationhood, migration and education.     

Language roulette – the effect of random placement on refugees’ labour market integration

Placement of refugees and subsequent labour market integration within a host country represents a key challenge for policymakers and has emerged as one of the most divisive topics in the public debate. Immigration policy in Switzerland adopts random placement of asylum seekers across its different language regions. Hence, this policy allows to estimate the causal effect of language skills on employment chances, as refugees are exogenously placed across regions where the spoken language could either match or deviate from individual language skills. The results of this ‘natural experiment’ indicate substantially higher probabilities of finding employment when asylum seekers are placed in regions with a lingua franca that matches their individual language skills. Additionally, the findings suggest that language course participation can offset the reduced likelihood of employment in cases of a language mismatch. While random placement of refugees may be desirable for political reasons, it is detrimental to the economic integration process. Thereby, the study draws relevant conclusions for a larger European immigration policy.     

Tiered Approach to Resilience Assessment

Regulatory agencies have long adopted a three‐tier framework for risk assessment. We build on this structure to propose a tiered approach for resilience assessment that can be integrated into the existing regulatory processes. Comprehensive approaches to assessing resilience at appropriate and operational scales, reconciling analytical complexity as needed with stakeholder needs and resources available, and ultimately creating actionable recommendations to enhance resilience are still lacking. Our proposed framework consists of tiers by which analysts can select resilience assessment and decision support tools to inform associated management actions relative to the scope and urgency of the risk and the capacity of resource managers to improve system resilience. The resilience management framework proposed is not intended to supplant either risk management or the many existing efforts of resilience quantification method development, but instead provide a guide to selecting tools that are appropriate for the given analytic need. The goal of this tiered approach is to intentionally parallel the tiered approach used in regulatory contexts so that resilience assessment might be more easily and quickly integrated into existing structures and with existing policies.     

China’s Choice of Analytical Models for Its Anti-Monopoly Law

Modern analytical models for anti-monopoly laws are a core element of the application of those laws. Since the Anti-Monopoly Law of the People’s Republic of China was promulgated in 2008, law enforcement and judicial authorities have applied different analytical models, leading to divergent legal and regulatory outcomes as similar cases receive different verdicts. To select a suitable analytical model for China’s Anti-Monopoly Law, we need to consider the possible contribution of both economic analysis and legal formalism and to learn from the mature systems and experience of foreign countries. It is also necessary to take into account such binding constraints as the current composition of China’s anti-monopoly legal system, the ability of implementing agencies and the supply of economic analysis, in order to ensure complementarity between the analytical model chosen and the complexity of economic analysis and between the professionalism of implementing agencies and the cost of compliance for participants in economic activities. In terms of institutional design, the models should provide a considered explanation of the legislative aims of the law’s provisions. It is necessary, therefore, to establish a processing model of behavioral classification that is based on China’s national conditions, applies analytical models using normative comprehensive analysis, makes use of the distribution rule of burden of proof, improves supporting systems related to analytical models and enhances the ability of public authorities to implement the law.     

新生代乡村教师的离职意向与政策改进

新生代乡村教师是乡村教育的新生力量和未来的中流砥柱，他们能否安心留在乡村学校从教，关系着乡村教育的可持续发展。为解决乡村教师"留不住"的问题，国务院办公厅于2015年6月发布《乡村教师支持计划（2015-2020年）》，从经济待遇、社会地位、专业发展等方面着手，提出了具体措施。但是通过实证研究发现：当前新生代乡村教师的离职意向仍然普遍存在，尤其是其中的男教师和工作在乡村小学的教师；新时代乡村教师的离职意向，受经济待遇、社会地位、专业发展、个人偏好、乡村文化适应性、家庭和学校支持度、教师教育满意度等多方面因素的影响，其中个人偏好和乡村文化适应性是最主要的影响因素。因此，为了更好地留住新生代乡村教师，仍需在"乡村教师支持计划"现有政策支持的基础上，进一步补充和完善相关的政策措施：（1）重视乡村教师招聘和管理过程中对个人偏好的考察与培育；（2）积极帮助新生代乡村教师适应乡村文化；（3）关心新生代乡村教师的家庭问题，提供帮助和支持；（4）重视乡村学校建设，给予新生代乡村教师更多的组织关怀；（5）出台针对乡村教师的教师教育标准。     

Radical alternative conceptualizations of the classical welfare state? Contrasting the United Kingdom and the Netherlands with Norway

In many countries, new, broad, and normative “conceptions of society” gained prominence that represent fundamentally different discursive alternatives to the classical welfare state. We present two political projects that contain radical alternative conceptualizations of the classical welfare state, the “Big Society” in Britain and the “Participation Society” in the Netherlands, and contrast these with Norwegian developments, where no such a radical alternative conceptualization of the welfare state can be found. We show that the British and Dutch political projects were attempts to replace the welfare state, whereas there is no comparable big idea about a radical overhaul of the welfare state in Norway. Our analysis contributes to a better understanding of a fundamental shift in welfare state reform, namely a radical reconsidering of the ideational and normative foundation that defines and underpins what the welfare state is or should be.     

Urban greening and mobility justice in Dhaka’s informal settlements

ABSTRACT

Urban greening in Dhaka, Bangladesh is fraught with injustice for slum dwellers. Access to the commons for the enactment of gardening, farming and foraging by the urban poor, many recent internal migrants from rural areas, is contested by wealthier citizens, developers and political elites. Through qualitative research with households within the informal settlement of Korail in Dhaka’s urban core, and a range of stakeholders in governmental and non-governmental organizations, this study critiques competing policy visions that involve urban greening and urban green infrastructure. Repurposing the conceptual lense of ‘mobility justice’ to analyse environmental and ecological issues in the global South, the findings highlight the importance of mobility concerns to just futures for urban planning.     

Varieties of liberalism: A comparative analysis of family policy and poverty outcomes across the 50 United States

The United States is generally recognised as an exemplar of liberal policy regime types. However, given evidence of state-level divergence in social policy, this article investigates to what extent such variation is present and relevant in state-level family policy. To this end, we pose a primary and secondary research question. Our primary question is whether varieties of liberalism exist across the 50 states in the United States. Our secondary question is whether these varieties of liberalism correspond to variety in social indicators of families' economic well-being. To answer our primary question, we first construct a family policy index that scores the relative generosity and coverage of state-administered social programmes that contribute to the (de)commodification and (de)familialisation of households with children. We then perform a cluster analysis to group states by shared decommodifying and defamilialising features. To answer our secondary question, we investigate how our family-policy clusters are associated with social indicators of families' financial security. Our findings suggest that varieties of liberalism do, indeed, exist within the United States. With the exception of Vermont, which stands out with respect to its comparatively generous family policies, we classify states into two groups: those with ‘soft’ liberal family policy in states featuring relatively generous and accessible policies and ‘hard’ liberal family policy in states achieving little of either. We find that these differences help explain state-level heterogeneity in levels of economic security among households with children, particularly single-mother households.     

陕西省交通基础设施对经济增长的空间溢出效应

为了从外部性角度说明目前陕西省交通基础设施的建设和投资在地域上存在的问题，为陕西省交通基础设施建设方向提供理论帮助，基于陕西省2009~2017年间各市相关数据，在交通基础设施对经济增长效应研究的直接效应和溢出效应基础上，加入空间要素，构建生产函数和空间权重矩阵，通过自相关检验（莫兰指数）、LM检验和 Hausman检验，选取合适的空间面板计量模型对陕西省交通基础设施的经济溢出情况进行研究。研究认为，2009~2017年间陕西省交通基础设施对经济增长的溢出效应（显著）整体为负，但依然存在正溢出的局部地区，即以西安为首的经济聚集区（西安、宝鸡、咸阳）和榆林、延安联合的陕北经济聚集区，资源过于集中和两个高地之间缺乏互联互通是整体呈现负溢出的重要原因。在地域分配的量和质上应充分考虑交通基础设施的溢出效应，避免资源过度集中在西安，在两个经济高地之间打通一条经济要道，并重点扶持相对落后又有发展前景的城市可促使陕西经济发展由总体集聚向总体扩散转变。