Mediating Effects Between Objective and Subjective Indicators of Urban Quality of Life: Testing Specific Models for Safety and Access

Enhancing the urban quality of life (QoL) is an explicit policy goal of many countries, yet it is rarely studied using models that relate objective measures of the urban environment to the subjective evaluations of residents. It thus often remains unclear how planning interventions in the urban environment may influence residents’ satisfaction with their living conditions. In particular, during periods of significant urban growth, such as those recently observed in Switzerland, which result in diverse, unwanted threats to the local QoL (e.g., loss of green spaces, traffic congestions, and fear of crime). This study uses data from a sample of 1,693 residents that participated in a postal survey about urban QoL. The responses were combined with objective attributes of residential conditions, using geographic information systems. Structural equation models were calibrated to examine the direct and indirect effects of important indicators of urban QoL, namely safety in public spaces and access to central urban facilities. The study sheds further light on the mediating effects between objective characteristics and subjective evaluations that influence the urban QoL. The results showed predominantly low correlations between objective characteristics and subjective evaluations of urban QoL, which confirmed the findings of the few previous studies on this topic. Surprisingly, this study also found a strong link between objective access and perceived accessibility. This relation was explained by the spatial scope of the study region and suggested that the scale discordance theory should be tested in future research. The findings implied that variations in objective measures do not reliably represent differences as evaluated by residents.     

Das Profilstudienprogramm: <Emphasis Type="Italic">Konfliktberatung für Pädagoginnen und Pädagogen</Emphasis> des Instituts für Psychoanalyse an der Universität Kassel. Ein psychoanalytisch-pädagogischer Ansatz

Zusammenfassung  Der Aufsatz stellt das Profilstudienprogramm ‚Konfliktberatung für P?dagoginnen und P?dagogen‘ an der Universit?t Kassel vor. Dabei handelt es sich um ein freiwilliges Studienangebot für Lehramtsstudierende. Die Ausbildungsziele werden auf Grundlage von aktuellen Untersuchungsergebnissen zu den Gründen von Frühpensionierungen im Lehrerberuf im Kontext von psychosozialen Belastungen und berufsrelevanten Pers?nlichkeitsmerkmalen erl?utert. Im Anschluss daran werden die Bedeutung der Berufswahlmotivation sowie die Schulung der F?higkeit zur Selbstreflexion als ein wesentlicher Teil der Professionalisierung im Lehreramtsstudium hervorgehoben. Die verschiedenen Seminarbausteine werden vorgestellt. Abschlie?end wird die Bedeutung des Profilstudienprogramms für die Lehrerbildung diskutiert.

Discourse, Learning and Welfare State Change: The Case of German Labour Market Reforms

In this article we argue that Germany has significantly changed its approach to labour market policies (LMPs) during the past decade; in many instances Britain has served as a model to learn from. In a first step, we identify the core institutional arrangements of the conservative approach to LMP in Germany and contrast them with the liberal approach, using the UK as an example. Secondly, we trace the development and nature of changes in German LMP since the 1990s. We show that the policy has increasingly incorporated elements of, and to a considerable extent shifted towards, a liberal approach. Thirdly, we review competing theoretical approaches that might explain this turn in LMP and conclude that changed interpretative patterns have been crucial to understand the overall shift. Fourthly, utilizing the policy transfer framework, we show that in regards to the specific policy instruments German policy‐makers have learnt from the experiences in the UK.     

Outlier Robust Small‐Area Estimation Under Spatial Correlation

Modern systems of official statistics require the estimation and publication of business statistics for disaggregated domains, for example, industry domains and geographical regions. Outlier robust methods have proven to be useful for small‐area estimation. Recently proposed outlier robust model‐based small‐area methods assume, however, uncorrelated random effects. Spatial dependencies, resulting from similar industry domains or geographic regions, often occur. In this paper, we propose an outlier robust small‐area methodology that allows for the presence of spatial correlation in the data. In particular, we present a robust predictive methodology that incorporates the potential spatial impact from other areas (domains) on the small area (domain) of interest. We further propose two parametric bootstrap methods for estimating the mean‐squared error. Simulations indicate that the proposed methodology may lead to efficiency gains. The paper concludes with an illustrative application by using business data for estimating average labour costs in Italian provinces.     

The role of social transfers in mitigating families with children from the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic

In this study, we investigated the household income of families with children. Our specific interest was the earned income losses during the COVID-19 pandemic, and how social transfers have mitigated those losses. We assessed the monthly income levels by comparing the information on the year prior to pandemic to income levels during COVID-19 pandemic. We found that the pandemic affected all studied subgroups of families with children, with the most negative economic influence in May 2020. In addition, our results indicate that in Finland the social transfers protected fairly well against the negative economic impacts of the pandemic among families with children, especially among vulnerable families (those with lowest income level prior COVID-19, with low parental education, single-parent families and families with non-Finnish-born parents). The information gained from this analysis can be useful in economic recovery during and after COVID-19 pandemic, and when preparing for future challenges.     

Party Politics and Childcare: Comparing the Expansion of Service Provision in England and Germany

The expansion of childcare provision in the traditionally ‘service‐lean’ welfare states of England and Germany, in times when most other welfare programmes faced retrenchment, came with some surprise to the comparative social policy and political economy literature. With the expansion of employment‐oriented family policies, both countries have departed from their previous strong male breadwinner trajectories. Electoral competition and corresponding party and family policy modernisation in attempts to improve female voter mobilisation is key to understanding this paradigmatic shift informed by the adult worker model.     

Towards a More Social Orientation in Gerontechnology: Case Study of the “Reminiscence Stick”

The purpose of this article is to investigate, through a case study, how social orientation can be realized in gerontechnology's objectives. The focus is on user-driven development process of an “mStick,” which is a tool for storing various biographical material: photographs, texts, audio and video clips, and using it in elderly care services. Qualitative data were collected in 11 pilot cases. The content analysis was used to investigate how the “Gerontechnology's Five Ways”: prevention, enhancement, compensation, care, and research, were applicable especially from the perspective of social implications. The mStick acts as a prevention by offering meaningful contents to life, as enhancement by offering a possibility to utilize elderly person's resources. It compensates weakening abilities by preventing the world from becoming narrower. In care, it helps to see patients as whole human beings with unique biography. In addition, mStick offers potential for, for example, applications in memory research. The implication of this study is to pay attention to gerontechnology's role in supporting the social nature of the human being. This may contribute to renewing caring culture towards a more social and biographical orientation. Limitations of this study include focusing on the early development and implementation process with no long-term use data.     

A Transactional Model of Temperamental Development: Evidence of a Relationship between Child Temperament and Maternal Stress over Five Years

Although there is growing consensus that parental stress is a risk factor in child development, longitudinal studies of its effects are few. This study tested a sample of 231 mother–child dyads in terms of whether the relations between the global experience of stress in mothers (perceived stress scale) and child temperamental characteristics (infant behavior questionnaire and child behavior questionnaire) could be conceptualized through transactional models of development. The assumption was that higher negative emotionality and lower positive affectivity in the infants would contribute to an increase in maternal stress over a five‐year period, beginning in infancy, and that higher maternal stress would contribute to an increase in child negative affectivity and a decrease in positive affectivity and self‐regulation over the same period. Evidence was found for both hypotheses, but not within the same models: the effect of maternal stress on child temperamental development was greater. The results are discussed with reference to bidirectional models of temperamental development.     

Die Forschungsleistung der Soziologie an zehn deutschen Universitäten

Der Artikel stellt eine Methodik zur Bildung von bibliometrischen Ma?zahlen vor, mit denen sich die Forschungsleistung von Autoren, Institutionen, F?chern und F?chergruppen darstellen l?sst. Basierend auf den im SSCI erfassten wissenschaftlichen Artikeln, den Impaktfaktoren der Zeitschriften, in denen sie erschienen sind, sowie der H?ufigkeit, mit der die Artikel innerhalb der Zeitschriften des SSCI zitiert werden, beschreiben absolute und relative Publikations- und Zitationsma?e anschlie?end die Publikationsleistung der soziologischen Institute im Vergleich zu den anderen gro?en wirtschafts- und sozial-wissenschaftlichen F?chern Politologie, Betriebswirtschaftslehre und Volkswirtschaftslehre. An insgesamt zehn deutschen Hochschulen liegt die Soziologie bei der absoluten Zahl der Ver?ffentlichungen und Zitationen zwischen 1993 und 2002 weit hinter der Volkswirtschaftslehre, holt unter Berücksichtigung des eingesetzten Personals jedoch auf. Eine zweite Analyse vergleicht die Forschungsleistung der Institute für Soziologie an den zehn Standorten. Bei allen absoluten Ma?zahlen liegt die Universit?t Mannheim vorn. Unter Berücksichtigung der eingesetzten Mittel zeigt sich, dass die Soziologen der LMU München und der Universit?t zu K?ln qualitativ und quantitativ am produktivsten forschen und auch kleine Institute unter Effizienzgesichtspunkten wettbewerbsf?hig sind.