When Knowledge Is Not Enough: Elements to Strengthen Intercultural Sensitivity Among Professionals of Social Services in Andalusia (Spain)

ABSTRACT.

This study examines social services delivery in Andalusia, Spain, to determine the degree of cultural adaptation of its workers, given the important migratory flows taking place in the region during recent years. This study investigates the main characteristics of those workers with a high level of intercultural sensitivity (IS) and their cultural competences. The survey included 298 professionals with a validated IS scale along with questions related to the degree of intercultural contact and competence. A series of scales for the IS levels was created, and correlation analyses were carried out depending on the variables used. Results revealed high levels of self-attributed cultural competence and training as well as low levels of awareness and motivation for intercultural encounters. Theoretical knowledge appeared to be the only aspect in correlation with all dimensions of IS. Important deficits have been also observed when examining the type and intensity of contact among professionals and people of foreign origin. This highlights the need to transform knowledge in culturally adapted responses. Future research is necessary to deepen knowledge on how these aspects affect professional interventions.     

Assessing Changes Over Time in Inequality of Opportunity: The Case of Spain

The aim of this paper is to contribute both theoretically and empirically to the analysis of Inequality of Opportunity over time, providing some significant findings referred to the Spanish case. The analysis is carried out using microdata collected by the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC), which incorporate a wide variety of personal harmonised variables, allowing comparability with other countries. The availability of this database for the period 2004 and 2010 is particularly relevant for assessing changes over time in the main inequality indices and the contribution of circumstances to inequality of opportunity. We find that the effect of circumstances on income distribution has significantly intensified between the two years. To test the significance of the differences between years we perform bootstrap estimations.     

IS PHYSICAL INVESTMENT THE KEY TO CHINA'S GROWTH MIRACLE?

This paper applies Jones' test for the empirical validity of AK‐type models to the Chinese economy over the period 1952–2006 (Jones C. I., Quarterly Journal of Economics, 110, 1995a, 495–525). We aim to establish whether large permanent movements in the physical investment rate cause permanent movements in output growth. The evidence indicates that the one‐sector AK model cannot be rejected. We also find that augmenting the model to allow for transitional dynamics—via imbalances in factor endowments, structural transformation, and R&D‐based technology transfer—does a better job in describing China's growth dynamics than the basic AK model. (JEL C22, O41, O47)     

Sociodemographic characteristics of gay and lesbian victims of intimate partner psychological abuse in Spain and Latin America / Características sociodemográficas de gais y lesbianas víctimas de abuso psicológico en pareja en España e Hispanoamérica

Psychological abuse in same-sex couples has hardly been studied in Spain and Latin America, despite its importance in society and public health. The objective of this study is to examine the prevalence of psychological abuse in same-sex couples in Spain and Latin America and analyse the associated sociodemographic characteristics. An online survey was conducted with 663 gay and lesbian respondents from Spain and Latin America. Of the total sample, 10.6% reported that they perceived themselves as victims of psychological abuse from their partner (9.6% in gay men and 10.7% in lesbians). In gay men, differences were found between victims and non-victims on the sociodemographic variables of age, professional status, and daily alcohol consumption. In lesbians, significant differences were found between victims and non-victims in the country and professional status variables. When comparing gay and lesbian victims, significant differences were found in professional status and alcohol consumption. This study contributes to better understanding of this phenomenon, and it reveals the need for further research.     

Hierarchical Processing in Seven‐Month‐Old Infants

Hierarchical structures are crucial to many aspects of cognitive processing and especially for language. However, there still is little experimental support for the ability of infants to learn such structures. Here, we show that, with structures simple enough to be processed by various animals, seven‐month‐old infants seem to learn hierarchical relations. Infants were presented with an artificial language composed of “sentences” made of three‐syllable “words.” The syllables within words conformed to repetition patterns based on syllable tokens involving either adjacent repetitions (e.g., dubaba) or nonadjacent repetitions (e.g., du ba du ) . Importantly, the sequence of word structures in each sentence conformed to repetition patterns based on word types (e.g., aba‐ abb ‐ abb ). Infants learned this repetition pattern of repetition patterns and thus likely a hierarchical pattern based on repetitions, but only when the repeated word structure was based on adjacent repetitions. While our results leave open the question of which exact sentence‐level pattern infants learned, they suggest that infants embedded the word‐level patterns into a higher‐level pattern and thus seemed to acquire a hierarchically embedded pattern.     

Property Size and Land Cover Change in the Brazilian Amazon

This paper considers the size of a farmer’s property as a key variable influencing land cover and land cover change in rural areas of developing countries. Data from 126 rural familial properties in the region around the city of Santarém, Pará, in the Brazilian Amazon, indicate that property size is important for understanding the trajectories of land cover change. Past research has focused on the distinction between small family farms and large capitalized farms, arguing that family farmers have a higher deforestation intensity, or on estimating the strength of the effect of property size relative to economic or demographic factors. This paper shows that larger familial properties are able both to retain a larger area in forest and to have long enough cycles of use and fallow to allow previously used land to become forested again. Based on these analyses and discussion, we argue that land use and land cover research must consider property size as an organizing principle in order to better comprehend the reciprocal relationship between population and environment in frontier areas of the Brazilian Amazon and other rural landscapes.     

Bayesian acceptance sampling plans following economic criteria: An application to paper pulp manufacturing

The main purposes of this paper are to derive Bayesian acceptance sampling plans regarding the number of defects per unit of product, and to illustrate how to apply the methodology to the paper pulp industry. The sampling plans are obtained following an economic criterion: minimize the expected total cost of quality. It has been assumed that the number of defects per unit of product follows a Poisson distribution with process average 5 , whose prior information is described either for a gamma or for a non- informative distribution. The expected total cost of quality is composed of three independent components: inspection, acceptance and rejection. Both quadratic and step-loss functions have been used to quantify the cost incurred for the acceptance of a lot containing units with defects. Combining the prior information on 5 with the loss functions, four different sampling plans are obtained. When the quadratic-loss function is used, an analytical relation between the optimum settings of the sample size and the acceptance number is derived. The robustness analysis indicates that the sampling plans obtained are robust with respect to the prior distribution of the process average as well as to the misspecification of its mean and variance.     

A global energy network? The expansion and integration of non‐triad national oil companies

It is widely perceived that the rising influence of state‐owned energy companies from outside the traditional triad (USA, EU, Japan) is transforming the structure of the global energy market and generating a new wave of resource‐nationalism. There is, however, little empirical analysis of how this process has unfolded. Addressing this empirical gap, in this article I employ a longitudinal social network analysis of the changing corporate relations of five major non‐triad state‐owned energy companies in the period 1997–2007. The findings indicate that, in terms of corporate relations, alongside the global expansion of the non‐triad state‐owned energy companies, there was also an increased integration between them and the private energy companies during this decade. This implies that apart from the resurgence of resource‐nationalism – frequently highlighted in academia and politics – this period also witnessed an increasing transnationalization of the global energy market.     

Political discontent in new democracies: the case of Brazil and Latin America

Political changes related to globalization apparently produce similar effects on old and new democracies. All over the world, comparative research on democratization has showed that political distrust is a common variable affecting the whole of the State and the relationship between citizens and democracy. Nevertheless, political discontent in old democracies has stimulated citizens to adopt new attitudes and modes of political participation, while in newly democratized countries citizens tend to withdraw from politics as a consequence of institutional distrust. In fact, in many new democracies, although adhering to the normative meaning of the democratic regime, distrust of democratic institutions is associated to citizens’ negative feeling about political efficacy, low levels of political interest and political participation, and also preference for democratic models which exclude political parties and/or parliaments. This paper evaluates the meanings and consequences of the contemporary phenomenon of political discontent in Brazil and Latin America and discusses its implications for democratic theory.