Supermarkets in Low‐income Mediterranean Countries: Impacts on Horticulture Systems

In the past decade, supermarkets have spread rapidly in the low‐income Mediterranean countries. Focusing on a case of advanced supermarket diffusion (Turkey) and of incipient diffusion (Morocco), this article examines this development and its impact on the fresh fruits and vegetable sector, emphasising the level of backward integration by the retailers into the supply chain and the type of retailer‐supplier governance structure. Both countries' food sectors resemble those of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) transition countries in their shift from a mixed traditional/staterun/owned retail system to a liberalised system. Moreover, Turkey is also on the road to joining the European Union, and is classed in policy discussions with the CEE candidates.     

Attitudes toward Immigrants,Immigration, and Multiculturalism in New Zealand: A Social Psychological Analysis1

The research examines attitudes toward immigrants and immigration policy based on a random sample of 2,020 New Zealand households. The analyses revealed that New Zealanders have positive attitudes toward immigrants and endorse multiculturalism to a greater extent than Australians and EU citizens. In addition, structural equation modeling produced an excellent fit of the data to a social psychological model commencing with multicultural ideology and intercultural contact as exogenous variables, leading, in turn, to diminished perceptions of threat, more positive attitudes toward immigrants, and, finally, support for New Zealand's policies on the number and sources of migrants.     

Improving special education mediation

This article provides background information about special education and mediation and offers some points to consider for those interested in starting, improving or analyzing a special education mediation process. This article is based on the author's experience as a mediator as well as on site visits, interviews and a review of the relevant literature. The author concludes that mediation can be a very effective method for settling special education disputes and/or improving relationships but that the process can be affected by outside factors such as politics, finances and/or the system.     

Walking: A Gender Issue?

Gender has been neglected in models of the social determinants of health. We use walking as a case study to demonstrate how gender might be incorporated into multilevel social determinants of health frameworks to investigate health behaviours. We found that while men and women had some similar individual (e.g. confidence in doing regular physical activity) and environmental (e.g. presence of destinations) predictors of walking there were also gender differences in the associations found at both of these levels. For example, low levels of education were only associated with men's walking time while having people in the household who made walking easy or hard was only associated with women's walking time. Likewise, having a variety of places to walk to was important for women's walking but not men's. These results indicate that both universal and gender‐specific approaches to health education, health promotion and planning might be needed to improve walking levels.     

The impact of sense of coherence and high-demand/low-control job environment on self-reported health, burnout and psychophysiological stress indicators

Sense of Coherence (SOC) is a new concept belonging to a salutogenic paradigm, proposing to explain health as contrasted to disease, a pathogenic paradigm. The Job Demand-Control (JDC) model of job stress suggests that the combination of high job demands and low job control, defined as job strain, is strongly associated with adverse health consequences. The aim of this study was to evaluate the relationship between SOC and the JDC model in assessment of negative job effects within three pathogenically defined contexts: self-reported health, burnout and psychophysiological stress indicators, assessing the explanatory value of SOC for such variables. The study was conducted with 103 employees of social-welfare and social-insurance agencies in Sweden. A questionnaire related to job conditions, health and burnout was administered, and blood samples were collected and analysed for serum concentrations of cortisol, prolactin and immunoglobulin G. Multiple-regression models were calculated including variables from all three contexts. In the analyses, a distinction was made between emotional job strain and quantitative job strain. The SOC interacted with emotional job strain, but the interaction also increased the independent effect of emotional job strain. The independent effect of SOC disappeared in most models when interaction was included. It is concluded that studies of job strain-effects according to the JDC model should include the SOC as an interaction factor.     

Out-Of-School Care and Youth Problem Behaviors in Low-Income,Urban Areas

Using data from Welfare, Children and Families: A 3-City Study, this study explores how change and stability in out-of-school care are associated with changes in problem behaviors among youth from Time 1 (i.e., at ages 10–11) to Time 2 (an average of 16 months later). Girls in at-home, family care or an organized activity at Time 1 and in informal, out-of-home care or self-care at Time 2 experienced greater increases in problem behaviors than girls remaining in at-home family care or an organized activity. Other changes in care were related to youth outcomes differently depending upon maternal psychological distress. Policies must provide a full range of support services related to childcare and mental health care for low-income families.     

Communicating the Risks of a New, Emerging Pathogen: The Case of Cryptococcus gattii

The news media are an important channel for communicating public health messages, providing important information about geographic extent, symptoms, and precautionary measures. This function may be particularly important in the case of new and emerging infectious diseases, which are unfamiliar to both the public and health professionals. We conducted a content analysis of the coverage in six Canadian newspapers of two ¨emerging infectious pathogens in British Columbia (BC), West Nile virus and Cryptococcus gattii ( C. gattii ), between 2001 and 2006. C. gattii was first identified in the Canadian Pacific Northwest in 1999, having previously been restricted to tropical and subtropical areas. By summer 2006, C. gattii had killed at least eight people and was responsible for over 150 hospitalizations in the province of BC, as well as significant morbidity and mortality among companion animals. West Nile virus reached Canada in 2001 and has since caused significant morbidity and mortality. It has not, to date, reached BC. Despite the much higher incidence of disease and death caused by C. gattii in BC, West Nile virus received five times more news coverage in the British Columbian and national newspapers examined. Surprisingly, the local newspaper closest to the center of the British Columbia C. gattii outbreak had a much lower proportion of coverage of the disease than other papers in the province. The article discusses possible explanations for these findings, and the implications for public health communication.     

Contesting neoliberalism through critical pedagogy, intersectional reflexivity, and personal narrative: queer tales of academia

In this article, we use personal narrative to explore allies and alliance building between marginalized people working in and through higher education, with an eye toward interrogating the ways in which ideologies of neoliberalism work to maintain hierarchy through the legitimation of othering. Inspired by Conquergood (1985 ), who calls scholars to engage in intimate conversation rather than distanced observation, we offer our embodied experiences as a way to use the personal to reflect on the cultural, social, and political. Our narratives often recount being out of place, moments of incongruence, or our marked otherness. Through the sharing of these narratives, we will demonstrate the possibility for ally building based in affective connections forged through shared queer consciousness, paying particular attention to the ways in which neoliberal ideologies, such as individualism and postracism, may advance and impede such alliances.     

On the detection of changes in autoregressive time series,II. Resampling procedures

We study an autoregressive time series model with a possible change in the regression parameters. Approximations to the critical values for change-point tests are obtained through various bootstrapping methods. Theoretical results show that the bootstrapping procedures have the same limiting behavior as their asymptotic counterparts discussed in Hušková et al. [2007. On the detection of changes in autoregressive time series, I. Asymptotics. J. Statist. Plann. Inference 137, 1243–1259]. In fact, a small simulation study illustrates that the bootstrap tests behave better than the original asymptotic tests if performance is measured by the α$\alpha$- and β$\beta$-errors, respectively.