(Micro)mobility,disability and resilience: exploring well-being among youth with physical disabilities

This paper explores the daily (micro)mobilities that youth with a visual or auditory impairment use to sustain well-being. Geographical research suggests that mobility is a universal phenomenon referred to the capacity to navigate one’s way through different spaces and places. Using a qualitative cross-cultural, visual methods approach to research with vulnerable youth, including four participants with visual or auditory impairments, we demonstrate that everyday patterns of (micro)mobilities through the youth’s home, school and community help disabled youth create pathways to resilience. The implications of these findings are discussed in relation to services that promote resilience against ableist beliefs.     

Interpretable sparse SIR for functional data

We propose a semiparametric framework based on sliced inverse regression (SIR) to address the issue of variable selection in functional regression. SIR is an effective method for dimension reduction which computes a linear projection of the predictors in a low-dimensional space, without loss of information on the regression. In order to deal with the high dimensionality of the predictors, we consider penalized versions of SIR: ridge and sparse. We extend the approaches of variable selection developed for multidimensional SIR to select intervals that form a partition of the definition domain of the functional predictors. Selecting entire intervals rather than separated evaluation points improves the interpretability of the estimated coefficients in the functional framework. A fully automated iterative procedure is proposed to find the critical (interpretable) intervals. The approach is proved efficient on simulated and real data. The method is implemented in the R package SISIR available on CRAN at https://cran.r-project.org/package=SISIR.

     

Reflecting upon vulnerable and dependent bodies during the COVID‐19 crisis

This article is a short narrative on how feminism helped me find a balance in my life and how this balance has been disrupted with the COVID‐19 crisis. I reflect on how this crisis is showing our vulnerabilities as human beings. This crisis reflects how our bodies depend on each other, moving away from the dominant patriarchal ontology that perceives bodies as being independent. This crisis is letting the most vulnerable in situations of survival because the infrastructures that support their bodies are not functioning. At the same time, this crisis is providing visibility to certain occupations that are dominated by issues of race, class and gender. These occupations are being at least temporarily rehabilitated to their central position in society. We are living a time where we could show, through our teaching, possible resistance to the neoliberal ontology that captured humanity.     

Enhancing volunteers capacity in all‐volunteer nonprofit organizations: The role of volunteer leaders' reliance on effective management processes and (de)motivating leadership

All‐volunteer nonprofit organizations rely solely on the commitment of volunteers to support their operations. As such, it is important that leaders of these organizations, even though they are volunteers themselves, rely on professional skills in order to optimize their organization's volunteers capacity. In the present study, we investigated how volunteer leaders' reliance on effective management processes and a (de)motivating leadership style related to volunteers capacity. To this end, we relied on the Competing Values Framework (CVF) and Self‐Determination Theory (SDT), respectively. Results revealed a positive (unique) association between (the sum score of) the management processes of the CVF models, as well as (the sum score of) the motivating leadership styles and volunteers capacity. Bivariate analyses indicated that the management processes of each CVF model (i.e., human relations model, internal process model, open system model, and rational goal model) and each motivating leadership style (i.e., an autonomy‐supportive and a structuring leadership style) related positively to volunteers capacity. These findings have important practical implications as they revealed that it is crucial for volunteer leaders to implement effective management processes, while adopting a motivating leadership style.     

The construction of social reality as a process of representational naturalization. The case of the social representation of drugs

This theoretical paper explores the role of social representations in the construction of social reality. Even though this question has been the subject of many debates, the actual processes and mechanisms through which social representations contribute to the construction of social reality have rarely been explored. Citing key works on the topic, the paper explores the role of the genesis of social representations in this process. Each stage of the objectification of social representations (selective construction, structuring schematization, and naturalization) is examined in detail. A more in‐depth analysis of the naturalization process is provided by dividing it into four phases: (1) recognition; (2) elimination of contradictions; (3) instrumental use; and (4) validation through experience. These phases are illustrated using the example of the construction of the social object of drugs in our contemporary society. The present examination of the naturalization process in relation to drugs reveals the mechanisms through which the reality of drugs as a social problem has been constructed and reproduced in our society.     

Understanding Settlement Pathways of African Immigrants in France Through a Capability Approach: Do Pre-migratory Characteristics Matter?

With the increase in asylum-related immigration since 2015, understanding how immigrants settle in a new country is at the centre of social and political debate in European countries. The objective of this study is to determine whether the necessary time to settle for Sub-Saharan Africa immigrants in France depends more on pre-migratory characteristics or on the structural features of the host society. Taking a capability approach, we define settlement as the acquisition of three basic resources: a personal dwelling, a legal permit of a least 1 year and paid work. We use data from the PARCOURS survey, a life-event history survey conducted from 2012 to 2013 that collected 513 life histories of Sub-Saharan African immigrants living in France. Situations regarding housing, legal status and activity were documented year by year since the arrival of the respondent. We use a Kaplan–Meier analysis and chronograms to describe the time needed for settlement, first for each resource (personal dwelling, legal permit and paid work) and then for the combined indicator of settlement. Discrete-time logistic regressions are used to model the determinants of this settlement process. Overall, women and men require 6 and 7 years (medians), respectively, to acquire basic resources in France. This represents a strikingly long period of time in which immigrants lack basic security. The settlement process varies according to gender, but very few sociodemographic factors influence settlement dynamics. Therefore, the length of the settlement process may be due to structural features of the host society.     

Building and valuing global brands in the nonprofit sector

Global nonprofit brands are the world's new “super brands” (Wootliff and Deri, 2001). Nonprofit organizations command unprecedented levels of trust, and nonprofit brand valuations are on par with major international corporations. Leaders and managers of nonprofits face new challenges in the stewardship of their brands. Based on current thinking in nonprofit management and detailed interviews with close to one hundred executives of ten international nonprofit organizations, this article draws strategic lessons on brand building and brand valuation activities of international nonprofits. The multiple roles and stakeholders that global nonprofit brands must address make nonprofit brand building complex and challenging. In particular, differences between advocacy and relief organizations must be explained. Despite the complexity, international nonprofit organizations may have an advantage over for‐profits in leveraging public trust and brand communication. Advocacy organizations in particular successfully link brand and cause to good effect. The valuation of nonprofit brands is a new strategic challenge with significant appeal, but also significant concerns for international nonprofits. In addition to providing nonprofit leaders and managers with a better understanding of brandbuilding activities, imperatives, and best practices in the field, this article outlines the opportunities and threats associated with the valuation of nonprofit brands.     

Le genre des politiques sociales. L'apport théorique des « gender studies » à l'analyse des politiques sociales

In English-speaking countries and Scandinavia, where feminist and gender studies have developed over the past thirty years, the issue of sex and then of gender has led to a very fertile renewal of social policy analysis, in particular in the field of comparative welfare state studies. By insisting on the cultural, social, normative and historical construction of welfare states and social policies, this approach sheds light on the societal paradigms that define how social policies are drawn up and their impact in terms of gender. It enables us to undertake a critical, original examination of the concepts, theories and analytical tools traditionally used in comparative welfare state litterature. This article presents an inventory of the theoretical advances made in writings on this topic.     

Quality of life perceptions in two cultures

This paper reports and analyzes the quality of life perceptions held by the inhabitants of two culturally different but demographically similar cities: Springfield, Illinois and Aix-en-Provence, France. Although the Springfielders expressed greater satisfaction than the Aixois in virtually all the life domains covered by the research, the areas of relative satisfaction and dissatisfaction were remarkably similar in the two cities; furthermore, the domains in which the French indicated the least satisfaction were generally ones where their objective quality of life conditions were inferior to those of their American counterparts. Multiple regression techniques are used to trace the relative contribution of domain satisfactions and demographic characteristics in explaining respondents' comparative life enjoyment and reported levels of happiness.