Exploring global recognition of quality midwifery education: Vision or fiction?

Background

Midwifery education is the foundation for preparing competent midwives to provide a high standard of safe, evidence-based care for women and their newborns. Global competencies and standards for midwifery education have been defined as benchmarks for establishing quality midwifery education and practice worldwide. However, wide variations in type and nature of midwifery education programs exist.

Continuity or team-teaching approach for midwifery education? An exploratory qualitative study of student and academic preferences

BackgroundThe content of midwifery courses is very similar across universities. The teaching approach is not, with universities adopting a variety of pedagogical methods.AimTo explore views of midwifery students, midwifery academics and senior academic managers comparing a continuity approach where one main academic provides the majority of midwifery content plus pastoral care compared with a team-teaching approach of midwifery education where lecturers change throughout the course.MethodsSemi-structured interviews and focus groups were used to discover thoughts, benefits and disadvantages of two teaching approaches. Data were analysed using thematic analysis.FindingsMidwifery students and academics valued relationship building, consistency of advice and assessment expectations of the continuity approach but also appreciated a variety of teaching styles and content found in the team-teaching approach. Senior academic managers favoured a team-teaching approach due to workload concerns.DiscussionContinuity and team-teaching pedagogical approaches offer different advantages. Continuity in midwifery education may provide students with a meaningful trusting relationship with their teacher and consistency of information, which could aid learning. A team-teaching approach provides students with diversity of teaching styles and midwifery ‘stories’. A combination of both pedagogies offering both a mix of teachers and a named ‘go-to’ mentor might help meet student requirements for both continuity and variety.ConclusionRelationship building, consistency and trust, were all evident in the continuity approach whereas the team-teaching approach was considered to be a more sustainable workload model.     

Dual Citizenship Rights: Do they Make More and Richer Citizens?

In the 1990s, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Costa Rica, and Brazil passed dual citizenship laws granting their expatriates the right to naturalize in the receiving country without losing their nationality of origin. I estimate the effects of these new laws on naturalization rates and labor market outcomes in the United States. Based on data from the 1990 and 2000 U.S. censuses, In find that immigrants recently granted dual nationality rights are more likely to naturalize relative to immigrants from other Latin American countries. They also experience relative employment and earnings gains, together with drops in welfare use, suggesting that dual citizenship rights not only increase the propensity to naturalize but may also promote economic assimilation. The effects of dual citizenship on improved economic performance, if mediated through naturalization, are consistent with American citizenship conferring greater economic opportunities.     

Dowry Inflation: Perception or Reality?

Population Research and Policy Review - Research on South Asia has consistently documented increasing dowry amounts over the past several decades. Although recent studies have largely concluded...     

Hospital accreditation: Driving best outcomes through continuity of midwifery care? A scoping review

ProblemContinuity of midwifery care models are the gold standard of maternity care. Despite being recommended by the Australian Health Ministers’ Advisory Council, few women in Australia have access to such models.BackgroundExtensive research shows that if all women had access to continuity of midwifery care, maternal and neonatal outcomes would improve. Hospital accreditation, the main national safety and quality system in Australia, aims to encourage and enable the translation of healthcare quality and safety standards into practice.AimThis paper explored the realities and possibilities of a health care accreditation system driving health service re-organisation towards the provision of continuity of midwifery care for childbearing women.MethodsA scoping review sought literature at the macro (policy) level. From 3036 records identified, the final number of sources included was 100:73 research articles and eight expert opinion pieces/editorials from journals, 15 government/accreditation documents, three government/accreditation websites, and one thesis.FindingsTwo narrative themes emerged: (1) Hospital accreditation: ‘Here to stay’ but no clear evidence and calls for change. (2) Measuring and implementing quality and safety in maternity care.DiscussionRegulatory frameworks drive hospitals’ priorities, potentially creating conditions for change. The case for reform in the hospital accreditation system is persuasive and, in maternity services, clear. Mechanisms to actualise the required changes in maternity care are less apparent, but clearly possible.ConclusionsStructural changes to Australia’s health accreditation system are needed to prioritise, and mandate, continuity of midwifery care.     

Sending or Receiving Stations? The Dual Influence of Railroads in Early 20th-Century Great Plains Settlement

This study investigates how railroads shaped settlement patterns in the twentieth century US Great Plains using railroad, population census, and environmental data. The substantive question speaks to recent theoretical and methodological interests in contextual and ecological issues. Drawing from theories of transportation and development, I use spatially-oriented techniques to empirically test long-held claims about the relationship of railroads to population development. The Great Plains is a region where settlement is commonly attributed to railroad expansion. Study results show a complex relationship between county population growth and the presence of railroads during the period after the railroad heyday and before the widespread adoption of the automobile, 1900–1930. Counter to the nineteenth century pattern, the association between population change and railroads is negative. Yet the relationship is conditioned by the stage of county development; in the first decade, railroads are receiving stations for counties with smaller population density and sending agents for more settled places; the reverse is observed during the 1920s; and no significant relationship exists during the 1910s. Spatial effects are addressed in the analysis, and theoretical and statistical implications for scholarship concerning transportation and spatial units of analysis are discussed.

Controlling earth's resources: Markets or socialism?

The important message contained in Garrett Hardin's seminalScience article, "The Tragedy of the Commons," is that in making resource-use decisions individuals see their own narrow interests best and, if not constrained by institutions such as governmental rule or market incentives, will tend to follow those narrow interests. Individuals do not automatically seek to use resources in the long-run best interests of society. This fact of life leads to abuse of resources to which access is not controlled.In this paper, the same insight is applied to the two types of control mechanism cited by Hardin: socialist management and private ownership. Much has been written in the economics literature, especially since "Tragedy" was published, which bears on any comparative analysis of the two systems. Some of these insights are reported here.     

Same-occupation spouses: preferences or search costs?

Married individuals match with spouses who share their occupation more frequently than should happen by chance if marriage markets are large frictionless search markets covering a particular geographic area. This suggests that either there is a preference for same-occupation matches or that search costs are lower within occupation. This paper uses 2008–2015 data from the American Community Survey to analyze same-occupation matching among a sample of recently married couples. Our empirical strategy compares the difference in wages between same-occupation husbands and different-occupation husbands across occupations with different percent male workers. Under a preference explanation, this difference should become less negative as the share of males in the occupation increases. Under a search cost explanation, this difference should become more negative as the share of males increases. Our results are consistent with the search cost explanation. Furthermore, using an occupation-specific index of workplace communication, we demonstrate that the results are most consistent with the search cost mechanism for occupations with a greater degree of workplace communication. Finally, we show that matching on field of degree for couples in which both spouses have a college degree is also consistent with the search cost explanation.     

The journal editor: Friend or foe?

The role of the journal editor may not be well known by authors. The purpose of this article is to explain the role in order to encourage future participation in reviewing and publication. Illustration is provided of the publishing process.