Immigrant life satisfaction in Europe: the role of social and symbolic boundaries

The cross-national investigation of immigrant subjective well-being remains an understudied field, especially with regard to the link between institutional settings and individual outcomes. We approach this gap by investigating the role of policies regulating immigrant integration for life satisfaction. Immigrants’ status and life chances depend on the inclusiveness of integration policies in forms of rights given to immigrants in the receiving country. These policies differentiate immigrants from natives: exclusionary integration policies understood as social boundaries should result in lower levels of well-being. We also consider an alternative policy type (i.e. multicultural policies) as well as symbolic boundaries (i.e. natives’ attitudes towards immigrants). We distinguish between national citizens, EU citizens and third-country nationals (TCNs). Results based on up to five rounds of data from the European Social Survey indicate that in terms of life satisfaction only TCNs profit from inclusive integration policies. Furthermore, while political multiculturalism does not play a role, we find that EU migrants appear more susceptible to the negative impact of natives’ anti-immigrant attitudes. Policy-making is more important for TCNs, while a migrant-friendly opinion climate is more important for EU migrants. These findings are robust to controlling for unobserved time-constant country heterogeneity via country fixed effects.     

Volunteering in a School Kitchen Garden Program: Cooking Up Confidence,Capabilities, and Connections!

This paper reports on the evaluation of a kitchen garden program in primary schools in Victoria, Australia. It focuses on the motivations, impacts, and issues associated with volunteering in the program. The study revealed that volunteers are drawn from a range of sources, including: families of current and former students, former teachers, local residents, clients of aged care and/or disability services, other schools and communities, local universities, community organizations, the community services sector, and the corporate sector. Benefits to volunteers included: opportunities to use time productively, an increased sense of belonging, learning opportunities, and an increased sense of self-worth and enjoyment. For schools, volunteers enhanced engagement between the school and the local community, enabled them to engage more effectively with hard to reach groups, and increased student engagement. In addition, the involvement of volunteers improved the sustainability of the program, improved communication between teachers and families of students from minority ethnic groups, and gave students the chance to relate to new people, to learn from their experience and to have fun in working with the volunteers. Perhaps the most telling benefits to flow both to students and to volunteers were not the “three Rs—reading, w’riting and a’rithmetic” but the three Cs—confidence, capabilities, and connections. However, a clearly identified issue was the importance of matching volunteers’ motivations and needs with the roles they play to sustain current levels of volunteering and, therefore, the program itself.     

Klasse und Geschlecht als Kategorien sozialer Ungleichheit

The issue of the formative influence of class versus gender, respectively, as the two main structural categories of modern societies is discussed in this paper. It presents results of an empirical research project. An overview of recent women’s and gender studies is given, taking a critical look at inequality relations. Selected empirical results of the crossing effects of class and gender are presented, referring mainly to Bourdieu’s (class) model of the multidimensional space of social positions. The materials used in the analysis are quantitative data of the representative West-German Socio-Economic Panel and qualitative biographical interviews with selected women (from interviewed couples) in contrasting social positions. The ?gender class“ hypothesis is being checked quantitatively by positioning it in connection with employment on the basis of mean average comparisons and a factor variance analysis. The ?class gender“ hypothesis is checked qualitatively by means of the case reconstructions on the basis of sequential analysis of interview interpretation. Finally, a theoretical reflection on the results is made in view of both crossing hypotheses.     

Revisiting the concept “dialogue” in public relations

This paper follows a critical approach in exploring the philosophical underpinnings and key features of dialogue in public relations practice and thinking. It argues that dialogue has been uncritically equated to two-way symmetrical communication, which has not done justice to the nature of dialogue, and has effectively stifled concrete development of a dialogic theory in public relations. The paper draws from a range of literature, including mainstream public relations and communication philosophy—in particular the philosophy of Martin Buber. The purpose of this paper is to inform public relations thinking by encouraging debate rather than proposing a new theoretical approach. As such, it sets out to explore the concept of dialogue and its philosophical underpinning, considers its practical application and suggests that it should not be seen as superior to persuasion.     

Examining power struggles as a signifier of successful partnership working: A case study of partnership dynamics

In Britain, and Wales particularly, inclusion and equal opportunities for all became key principles guiding the work of the many partnerships that were established at the beginning of this century. A primary objective of this paper is to develop a greater understanding of the politics and processes within ‘partnership’ as a widely used governance instrument. We argue that rather than dismissing partnerships for their exclusionary mechanisms, they might be considered as distinctive ‘arenas of power’ where the emphasis on participation and consensus shapes power relations in particular ways. What we demonstrate, using a differentiated topology of power [Allen, J., 2003. Lost Geographies of Power. Blackwell Publishing], is the effect that different modes of power, at different times, can have on social interaction and the process of partnership working. Although inequality in terms of resources existed in our study, we show that effective partnership working was enhanced at times when more reciprocal modes of power were used. We conclude, therefore, that an analysis of power based on resources alone is limited because the use and effect of resources may be “modified, displaced or disrupted depending upon the relationships that come into play” [Allen, J., 2003. Lost Geographies of Power. Blackwell Publishing, p. 97]. Hence, there is a need for more research on power struggles and conflicts in partnerships over time. Only then it is possible to see how and when differences in resources affect social interaction and result in different levels of (in)equality. A partnership cannot be seen simply as an indirect instrument of a dominant government actor to control organisations and individuals.     

Source Attribution of Food-Borne Zoonoses in New Zealand: A Modified Hald Model

A Bayesian approach was developed by Hald et al .^{( 1 )} to estimate the contribution of different food sources to the burden of human salmonellosis in Denmark. This article describes the development of several modifications that can be used to adapt the model to different countries and pathogens. Our modified Hald model has several advantages over the original approach, which include the introduction of uncertainty in the estimates of source prevalence and an improved strategy for identifiability. We have applied our modified model to the two major food-borne zoonoses in New Zealand, namely, campylobacteriosis and salmonellosis. Major challenges were the data quality for salmonellosis and the inclusion of environmental sources of campylobacteriosis. We conclude that by modifying the Hald model we have improved its identifiability, made it more applicable to countries with less intensive surveillance, and feasible for other pathogens, in particular with respect to the inclusion of nonfood sources. The wider application and better understanding of this approach is of particular importance due to the value of the model for decision making and risk management.     

The dynamics of fertility amongst Palestinians in Israel from 1980 to 2000

A dynamic stalled fertility transition is the best way to describe the recent fertility experience of Muslim Palestinians in Israel. It is generally assumed that once fertility levels fall by 10%, transition is well underway. Muslims in Israel experienced rapid fertility decline from TFR levels near 9 in the 1960s to about 4.5 in the early 1980s, but period TFRs have remained essentially constant since then. This article uses multilevel statistical models and census data to examine the changing determinants of fertility amongst Muslim Palestinians in Israel during the stage when aggregate fertility levels approached stagnation. The results show that as educational levels increased among Israeli Muslim women, the strength and nature of the relationship between education and fertility has changed at both the individual and community levels. We also explore other potential determinants of fertility such as minority status and cultural affiliation—exciting new directions for explaining the stagnation of aggregate fertility levels.     

An Index of Child Well-being in the European Union

While the living conditions of children and young people in the European Union have gained increasing recognition across the EU, the well-being of children is not monitored on the European level. Based on a rights-based, multi-dimensional understanding of child well-being we analyse data already available for the EU 25, using series data as well as comparative surveys of children and young people. We compare the performance of EU Member States on eight clusters with 23 domains and 51 indicators and give a picture of children’s overall well-being in the European Union. The clusters are children’s material situation, housing, health, subjective well-being, education, children’s relationships, civic participation and risk and safety.