Consumption and poverty in the homes of the English poor,c. 1670–1834

The consumer behaviour of the poor in the long eighteenth century has attracted more historical attention in recent years. Yet, we have little understanding of whether regional factors affected consumption or how the poor’s ownership of household goods was influenced by level of poverty and the life-cycle. By focusing on Kent and drawing comparisons to other counties, this article argues that the material lives of the poor were improving by the late eighteenth century, but finds that there were distinct regional differences as the poor acquired more and better goods in London and the Home Counties than in relatively remote areas. Moreover, by using pauper inventories and labourers’ probate inventories, the research finds that the poor were not a homogeneous group with similar levels of material wealth, but should be considered in terms of different subgroups which often led very different material lives to one another due to life-cycle-related problems including sickness and old age. Labourers’ probate inventories are found to represent a minority of the poor who were materially richer than most, whilst pauper inventories appear to represent a more typical subgroup of the poor that struggled to make do and owned most types of goods in smaller numbers.     

Partial Identification of Economic Mobility: With an Application to the United States

Abstract

The economic mobility of individuals and households is of fundamental interest. While many measures of economic mobility exist, reliance on transition matrices remains pervasive due to simplicity and ease of interpretation. However, estimation of transition matrices is complicated by the well-acknowledged problem of measurement error in self-reported and even administrative data. Existing methods of addressing measurement error are complex, rely on numerous strong assumptions, and often require data from more than two periods. In this article, we investigate what can be learned about economic mobility as measured via transition matrices while formally accounting for measurement error in a reasonably transparent manner. To do so, we develop a nonparametric partial identification approach to bound transition probabilities under various assumptions on the measurement error and mobility processes. This approach is applied to panel data from the United States to explore short-run mobility before and after the Great Recession.     

"指标困局":农村贫困治理的实践与反思

在国家的扶贫实践中，地方政府的行为策略是影响扶贫绩效的关键变量。通过对精准扶贫政策实践的调研发现，中央政府不断升级的治理手段为重构央地关系创造了条件，地方政府对国家扶贫理念转型认知的偏差以及在形成路径依赖之后的策略行为不仅容易产生对总体局势的误判，还为后期的政策困局埋下了伏笔。在此背景下，地方扶贫工作遭遇“指标困局”，即地方政府很难实事求是去识别贫困户，只能在既有的指标约束下进行精准识别，扶贫工作陷入了反复识别，却仍难实现精准的怪圈。     

The re-aestheticisation of poverty: blogging hunger in the age of austerity

This paper examines the re-aestheticisation of hunger and poverty with the emergence of austerity blogs. These blogs, which chronicle personal narratives while re-directing gaze in creating food through limited budgets and in sharing the intimate brutalities of hunger, bring a renewed focus and interest to poverty through daily lived experiences of hunger. Beyond personalising hunger in a climate of austerity, blogs as a symbol of articulation of the laypeople for the general public become interstitial spaces between government rhetoric and media representations, making poverty an intimate, personal and present proposition. Blogs as peoples’ archives of social history are hybrid spaces of personal iterations amenable to public consumption and media scrutiny. In the process these can re-mediate and disrupt the social reality of first-world hunger, inviting a gaze through first-hand narratives. Poverty becomes a contested entity online where blogs perform both resistance and reiteration of the neo-liberal stereotypes about the unemployed and those on benefits.     

Deliberate acquisition of competence in physiological breech birth: A grounded theory study

Problem

Research suggests that the skill and experience of the attendant significantly affect the outcomes of vaginal breech births, yet practitioner experience levels are minimal within many contemporary maternity care systems.

就业优先:以"公平而有质量"的教育 在民族地区阻断贫困代际传递

“发展教育脱贫一批”是在民族地区实现共同富裕的重要方针。然而在“教育改变命运”的共识之外，布迪厄认为教育一代代地维持着对社会中下阶层的不公平的“文化再生产”理论，被一些学者应用于对我国少数民族教育的研究。如在“三区三州”等民族地区，代际间的贫困传递难以阻断，因家庭文化资本弱势而造成子女求学、求职受阻，看似可用“贫困文化的再生产”予以概括，但笔者不同意直接套用西方理论认定中国存在“教育不公平”的论述。因为我国社会实际与布氏提出“学校教育再生产社会阶层结构”观点之环境不同，有多项教育政策在切实保障着少数民族通过“教育改变命运”——当前在我国民族地区实现教育公平的主要障碍，并非 “文化再生产”的结构性阻力，而在于就业环节的阶段性困难。教育公平可分为起点、过程和结果三个环节，民族地区经多年教育扶贫，“起点”入学机会和“过程”教育质量已明显改善，而作为“结果”的就业环节亟待改善。以“就业优先”方针多渠道扩大少数民族就业，可激发内生动力、促进市场融入、巩固减贫成效和精准防控返贫，是助少数民族自主掌握教育“社会阶梯”和阻断贫困代际传递的有效路径。     

英语口语教学刍议

英语口语技能是听、说、读、写四项基本语言技能中很重要的一种技能。要通过课堂教学提高学生口语能力 ,必须从教师、教学方法和学生三方面入手 ,即教师应组织和动员学生积极参与学习 ,采取循序渐进的教学方法 ,发挥学生的主观能动性。学生应有明确的学习目标和计划 ,积极配合老师 ,多说勤炼     

乔伊斯的文学实验精神在小说整体布局中的体现

爱尔兰著名作家詹姆斯·乔伊斯在其文学作品创作过程中始终追求艺术形式的创新.作为20世纪初现代主义文学倾向的代表人物,乔伊斯在小说<一个青年艺术家的肖像>中大胆突破传统,以强烈的文学实验精神将其创作理论应用到实际创作中.以时间、意识和技巧为创作中心,生动展示了主人公斯蒂芬·迪达勒斯的现代精神气质.本文以其代表作小说<一个青年艺术家的肖像>为实例,旨在从两个方面展示乔伊斯的文学实验精神,即乔伊斯美学理论在实际创作中的应用以及其现代主义创作技巧在体现小说整体布局中的作用.     

浅析新时期我国人口较少民族的扶贫开发对策

改革开放以来,我国人口较少民族在各方面得到了巨大的发展,然而,由于粗放式发展、自然环境、历史等方面的原因,我国人口较少民族少数地区仍至今存在着不同程度的贫困问题,影响了小康社会的全面实现。本文即围绕我国人口较少民族的部分特殊性,以科学发展观为指导,探讨在新的历史时期我国人口较少民族的扶贫开发对策。     

探究性学习在化学教学中的实践和体会

化学中的探究式学习方式涉及提出问题、猜想与假设、制定计划、进行实验、收集证据、解释与结论、反思与评价、表达与交流等要素。探究式教学对学生起到了唤醒、激励、体验和感召的作用,使课堂教学焕发出勃勃生机。