Targeting social assistance in Azerbaijan: what can we learn from micro‐data?

This article investigates the targeting performance of social assistance programmes in Azerbaijan, a low-income country in transition from a centrally-planned economy to a market economy. Micro-data from a nationally-representative household survey are used, through the employment of several empirical approaches, to assess the extent to which social assistance identified the neediest households. The set of empirical evidence presented in this article shows a low targeting effectiveness of the social assistance programmes. It indicates that a significant proportion of the poor did not benefit from social assistance, whilst a substantial share of social benefits was leaked to the non-poor. The receipt of benefits was also weakly associated with a variety of indicators of living standards including consumption, education, number of children, ownership of dwelling, household durables, motor vehicles, agricultural assets, and access to sanitation and utility supply as well as social capital. It is argued that the current social assistance programmes should be reformed to increase the success in reaching the poor.     

Arriving old: A qualitative study of elder refugee women’s self-perceptions of the first year of resettlement

ABSTRACT

This qualitative study examines eight elder women’s experiences of resettling with their family and the protective factors that enhanced their resiliency. The implications for social work include the need to assess elder refugees’ strengths, resilience, pre-resettlement functioning instead of services that might encourage integration into the dominant culture and community, and that the refugee experience is a lifelong experience that shapes and informs various stages of life.     

Pathways to age-friendly communities in diverse urban neighborhoods: Do social capital and social cohesion matter?

ABSTRACT

Using a social capital and social cohesion lens, we reposition the concept of civic engagement among older adults to examine pathways for building age-friendly communities. We analyzed data drawn from a Community-Based Participatory Research study in the Southern U.S. that explored lived experiences of older adults, age 55 and above, who participated in individual interviews (n = 15) and six focus group discussions (n = 45) to examine their perceptions of social identity, social connectedness, and civic engagement geared toward an age-friendly city. Findings indicated that several older adults had access to social networks and socially invested resources, thereby having opportunities for civic engagement and building age-friendly neighborhoods. However, social, cultural, linguistic, and structural barriers were more evident among certain diverse ethnic populations. Marginalized low-income minorities and immigrants, such as Hispanic participants, felt the lack of social cohesion among the larger society limited their ability to give back, thus decreasing their civic engagement activities. In contrast, Caucasian and African-American older adults were able to contribute to the political process through more civic participation activities. We provide implications for examining the role of social capital and social engagement to bolster civic engagement among older adults in building age-friendly communities.     

‘Going through the doors of pain’: asylum seeker and Convention refugee experiences in Aotearoa New Zealand

A qualitative study by ChangeMakers Refugee Forum and the National Refugee Network of the experiences of 18 Convention refugees has highlighted that the standards of safety and protection that Aotearoa New Zealand is obliged to extend to Convention refugees are inadequately met; most notably that there is a significant disparity between United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees quota refugees and Convention refugees, despite there being no distinction between the two within the 1951 Refugee Convention. Themes relating to participants' experiences of destitution, discrimination, and the deterioration of their physical and mental health during the process of seeking asylum and protection emerged from the study. Lack of resources, information and insufficient policies amounts to a lack of security and protection for Convention refugees in Aotearoa New Zealand, revealing an environment where funding, collaboration, and political and public goodwill are minimal.     

Social cognition,social neuroscience,and evolutionary social psychology: What's missing?

In this paper I argue that something important, and something social, is missing from contemporary accounts of social cognition, social neuroscience and evolutionary social psychology. Contemporary accounts of social cognition focus on cognition directed towards social objects, that is, towards persons and social groups. In contrast, early twentieth century accounts of socially engaged cognition focused upon beliefs and attitudes oriented to the represented beliefs and attitudes of members of social ‘reference groups’ and directed towards both social and non‐social objects. I argue that this earlier conception of socially engaged cognition should be integrated with contemporary research on social cognition, social neuroscience and evolutionary social psychology, since it poses a challenge but also an opportunity for these disciplines.     

‘The confidence to know I can survive’: resilience and recovery in post-quake Christchurch

This paper explores the relevance of terms such as resilience and recovery when analysing earthquake stories recorded for the Women's Voices/Ngā Reo o Ngā Wahine Project after the sequence of earthquakes and aftershocks in Christchurch, New Zealand's second-largest city, in 2010–2011. While the media focused on stories of victims, the heroic work of rescue teams, policy, army and firefighters, or the deliberations of national and local politicians, the National Council of Women of New Zealand wanted to ensure that women's everyday quake experiences were recorded for posterity. The outcome was an oral history project that documented the stories of women all over the city, both beneficiaries of earthquake support and those active in assisting others. Their narratives illustrate how resilience in the face of natural hazard events, such as this earthquake sequence, requires effort, ingenuity and imagination, but also the activation of multiple actor networks and relevant technologies. These ‘insider stories’ also highlight the ways in which expectations of ‘resilience’ can obscure vulnerability after natural hazard events and the complex and uneven processes associated with ‘recovery’. The relevance of critical reflections on discourses of resilience is explored through attention to the stories of specific women.     

Does social capital predict happiness,health, and life satisfaction in an urban Australian community?

Abstract

This paper investigates the extent to which social capital and participation in community activities predicts happiness, health, and life satisfaction in Australia. Residents of a Gold Coast suburb completed a random door‐to‐door survey, with a 74% response rate (n = 249). Ordinal regression analyses revealed that only two elements of social capital—Value of Life and Feelings of Trust and Safety—predicted happiness (β = 0.4, P = 0.00; β = 0.12, P = 0.00), life satisfaction (β = 0.46, P = 0.00; β = 0.09, P = 0.02), and health (β = 0.29, P =0.00; β = 0.11, P = 0.00). In terms of community activities, not participating in social activities predicted both unhappiness (β = ‐0.16, P = 0.05) and reduced life satisfaction (β = ‐0.20, P = 0.01). Such findings suggest that how social capital is defined and measured is important, as only two of the seven elements—life satisfaction and health—predicted happiness. The key implication is that implementing strategies, initiatives, and urban designs that facilitate feelings of trust and safety may foster health, happiness, and life satisfaction.     

Discount rates,social judgments,individuals’ risk preferences,and uncertainty

The choice of the proper discount rate is important in the analysis of projects whose costs and benefits extend into the future, a particularly striking feature of policies directed at climate change. Much of the literature, including prominent work by Arrow et al. (1996), Stern (2007, 2008), and Dasgupta (2008), employs a reduced-form approach that conflates social value judgments and individuals’ risk preferences, the latter raising an empirical question about choices under uncertainty rather than a matter for ethical reflection. This article offers a simple, explicit decomposition that clarifies the distinction, reveals unappreciated difficulties with the reduced-form approach, and relates them to the literature. In addition, it explores how significant uncertainty about future consumption, another central factor in climate policy assessment, raises further complications regarding the relationship between social judgments and individuals’ risk preferences.     

John Dewey’s social psychology and neopragmatism: theoretical foundations of human agency and social reconstruction

John Dewey’s social psychology arose within the intellectual context of the nature-nurture controversy and the transition from laissez-faire to étatise liberalism. These ideas were themselves enveloped within the progression from competitive to corporate capitalism. Dewey’s Human Nature and Conduct: An Introduction to Social Psychology (1922/1957), argued that choice and deliberation–agency–characterized human nature rather than behaviorism and determinism. Dewey’s ideas also furnished a social-psychological justification for social reform through education as a way to imbue individuals with intelligent habits and, in the process, to reconstruct society. Neopragmatists Richard Rorty, Cornel West, and Charlene Haddock Seigfried charge that race, class, and gender, subsumed under the broader category of structural analysis, were ignored by Dewey and other pragmatists. Thus a final section connects this new line of inquiry to Dewey, highlighting differences and similarities.     

‘It’s who we are’: eco-nationalism and place in contesting deep-sea oil in Aotearoa New Zealand

ABSTRACT

Given near consensus among the scientific community about the anthropogenic nature of climate change, there is pressing concern about how to mobilise enough people to care and demand wider socio-political change. In this article we explore this urgent issue, drawing on recent conflicts over deep-sea oil exploration and drilling in Aotearoa New Zealand. We explore how some activist groups are attempting to mobilise care and concern around deep-sea oil drilling and climate change through the use of narratives that entwine aspects of national identity with the non-human world. We suggest that these activist groups are not concerned about a retreat of the state, but rather, are in direct conflict with the state, and state interventionism, over fossil fuel development trajectories in Aotearoa New Zealand. In drawing upon eco-nationalism, and particularly a way of life related to place, activists have called into question the common sense of business as usual and thereby sought to expand space for ‘ordinary’ Aotearoa New Zealanders to care about climate change.     

What kind of people are we? 'Race', anti-racism and social welfare research

Summary This article argues that, to provide reliable and nationallyrelevant information on which to base policy and practice andto afford the Black population equal access to knowledge aboutits social realities, social welfare research needs to includeaccurate representations of minority ethnic groups and theirchanging needs. Using child welfare and community care as examples,a brief research review indicates the continued scarcity ofsuch research and its potential benefits. The methodologicalsupports available to researchers seeking to include minorityethnic populations and anti-racist perspectives are considered,and it is concluded that such supports are limited and patchy.In exploring the reasons for this, the author identifies someof the political, personal and technical challenges an anti-racistapproach presents. The terms 'experiential affinity' and 'experientialinterdependence' are introduced to help conceptualize the knowledgeand power differentials which may impede researchers pursuinganti-discriminatory aims, and a 'costs and benefits' frameworkis suggested to help understand and confront these issues. Then,drawing on existing research and theory, the article considersin detail some of the technical challenges to be overcome, withparticular reference to sample identification and selection,fieldwork processes and data analysis and suggests practicalways in which some of these challenges might be met.     

‘Work for others but none for us’: the economic and environmental inequalities of New Deal relief

This article calls for increased dialogue between social and environmental historians through an examination of the unintended inequalities caused by New Deal relief efforts in the United States during the Great Depression era. It does so not by exploring those directly involved in New Deal relief programmes, but rather by analysing the impact of such programmes on residents of local communities situated near New Deal work project sites. In particular, it traces how a dozen Civilian Conservation Corps camps in a state park thirty miles from New York City transformed the local environment, and in turn influenced the economies and political relationships of nearby local communities. The article argues that while working-class residents were unable to benefit financially from nearby New Deal relief work, middle- and upper-class business owners proved more successful. As a result of such economic inequalities, while working-class locals became increasingly critical of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal, middle- and upper-class residents became grudgingly supportive. The article concludes by urging both social and environmental historians to undertake ‘histories from the ground up’ that pay as much attention to nature as they do to race, class, ethnicity and gender.