bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
BME community engagement in the UK and public policy: a brief retrospective
Authors: Afridi Asif
Published: May 2018

This chapter outlines the ways in which ethnic minorities have been represented through ‘community engagement’ work and the close relationship between British race relations policy and the development of a black and minority ethnic (BME) community and voluntary ‘sector’ since the Second World War. It suggests that the relationship between the state and BME communities has been restrained (even contained) and has impeded progress on race equality. It argues that new forms of community engagement may ultimately be required to help progress race equality in the UK, but this requires a reevaluation of societal views on what it means to ‘represent’ and achieve ‘equality’. The chapter focuses specifically on community engagement, an important part of community development in its broadest sense.
Learning alliance approaches to working with BME communities on healthcare innovation: a case study in palliative and end-of-life care services
Authors: Smith David , Moreno-Leguizamon Carlos
Published: May 2018

This chapter discusses and evaluates the use of a learning alliance (LA) as a methodology for community engagement and capacity building through a case study examining the use of, and attitudes towards, palliative and end-of-life care services among black and minority ethnic groups in north and mid-Kent in the United Kingdom. The first section summarises the key tenets of the LA methodology before summarising the project itself and the process of implementing the LA. The final sections of the chapter discusses the formation and evolution of the Learning Alliance on Palliative Care and End of Life project, and considers what this approach added to the project in terms of inter-organisational learning, knowledge creation and dissemination.
Community development with Chinese mental health service users in the UK
Authors: Tang Lynn
Published: May 2018

This chapter focuses on Chinese mental health service users in the UK and aims to illustrate how structural inequalities shape their recovery journeys. It starts with a discussion of the Recovery Approach with which the research critically engaged. It then introduces the diversity within the Chinese community in the UK. It selects two stories from the research to shed light on how, for UK Chinese people, inequalities such as class, gender, and ethnicity intersect at national and transnational levels, and impact on the way recovery journeys unfold. Such inequalities contribute to their distress and ill-health in the first place and could hinder their recovery. The implications for community development work with Chinese communities are then discussed.
Participatory action research with refugee and asylum-seeking women
Authors: Greenfields Margaret
Published: May 2018

This chapter discusses the methods, processes, and outcomes of a Comic Relief-funded three-year community development and advocacy programme undertaken with Refugee and Asylum-Seeking Women (RASW) in London. It focuses on how the use of participatory action research and training delivered by RASW can challenge and inform the way in which ‘professionals’ deliver health and legal services to vulnerable communities. The project, undertaken during 2012–15 by Independent Academic Research Services, a London-based charity, was co-designed with participant beneficiaries with the explicit aim of generating institutional change and increased gender sensitivity in the treatment of RASW, both through harnessing research findings to drive policy and practice change and by allowing women themselves to articulate the problems they currently face in terms of accessing appropriate support.
Working with female migrant workers in Hong Kong
Authors: Hung Suet-lin , Fung Kwok-kin
Published: May 2018

This chapter discusses how socio-political forces in Hong Kong shaped the situation of new immigrants from mainland China. It provides an overview of responses from the community development field regarding ethnic and cultural diversity to set the context of social services offered to new immigrants to Hong Kong from mainland China. A small-scale qualitative study of community workers who work with these migrants was conducted in Tin Shui Wai North, a Hong Kong community with the second-highest proportion of migrants from the mainland. It is argued that ethnic diversities within the same race (Chinese) are characterised by a complex range of factors, including gender and class, and are emphasised by migration from a ‘developing’ (China) to a ‘developed’ (Hong Kong) location. It emphasises the need for community development workers to be self-reflexive when developing ethnic and culturally sensitive community practices that deal with the dimension of ‘difference’ of new immigrants.
Well-mothered daughters?
Authors: Armstrong Jill
Published: May 2018

This chapter examines how the daughters felt about having grown up with a mother mainly working full-time or close to full-time hours. In most cases the daughters felt well mothered. The daughters demonstrated this view by recalling far fewer events when they felt compromised by the trade-offs their mothers were making than did their mothers. Most revealing was the five key ways many of the daughters offered to explain how their mothers managed the compromises involved in combining work and family life. The chapter discusses five themes: being there for the events where parents (especially mothers) were expected to be, being able to predict their mother's routine, their mother being emotionally present when at home, being cared for at home after school and being taught to be independent.
Working motherhood across generations
Authors: Armstrong Jill
Published: May 2018

This chapter examines the influence the generations of mothers and grandmothers have upon their daughters' views about combining work with motherhood. It explores the continuities and discontinuities in intergenerational transmission of attitudes about work and hours of work through the lens of differences in historical, biographical and maternal time. Almost all the daughters and ‘daughter mothers’ intend to emulate, or are emulating, their mothers in continuing to work after motherhood. Moreover, many conversations take place about working motherhood between the grandmothers and ‘daughter mothers’, because female generations become closer when the generational chain acquires another link. This is a moment in the biographies of the daughters when they are most receptive to their mothers' influence. The chapter then addresses why the grandmothers encourage or discourage commitment to work.
Partners in parenting
Authors: Armstrong Jill
Published: May 2018

This chapter focuses on the crucial role played by partners and fathers in influencing both the positive and negative feelings mothers have about combining work with motherhood. Almost half of the partnered mothers and daughter mothers had a more or less egalitarian parenting arrangement. These mothers tended to feel more positive about their experiences of managing work and family life. Nevertheless, most of the mothers — including many with egalitarian parenting partnerships — shouldered an unequal amount of domestic responsibility. This has persisted across generations, as exemplified by the fact that over half of the daughters had or were planning to adopt the male breadwinner, female part-time model that they perceived as the ‘best of both worlds’. Motivations and experiences involved in shared parenting tend to be emotionally complex and full of contradictions.
Making working motherhood work
Authors: Armstrong Jill
Published: May 2018

This concluding chapter explores the intersections between the accounts of the relationship between mothers and daughters with social changes in the expansion of opportunities for women. The recommendations for daughters centre on challenging feelings of generalised maternal guilt by communicating the finding of this, and other research, that most daughters feel positive about having a mother with a career. The daughters in this research pointed out several ways in which they were protected from feeling any ill effects, which it will be useful to disseminate in order to positively influence the ‘emotion management’ of work and caring commitments. Mothers have an important role to play in encouraging their daughters' ambition. The chapter then discusses contemporary feminisms in the context of the culture of ‘maternal citizenship’ and the masked cost to the professional, middle-class women of the trend towards making individual mothers wholly responsible for their children's outcomes.
Social participation and social support
Authors: Wilson Lisa , Fahmy Eldin , Bailey Nick
Published: May 2018

Townsend argued that poverty is a key barrier to social participation as it limits people’s ability to participate in social activities and to maintain social relationships or networks. The results in this chapter support this argument finding that poverty acts as a barrier to social contact, particularly with friends; that it constrains participation in a range of social activities, and; that it shapes perceptions of support and satisfaction with relationships. People experiencing social and material deprivation have less social contact than they would like, and attribute this to cost or affordability problems, although other factors such as health or caring responsibilities can play a role too. That said, the importance of contact with family in particular emerges clearly in this analysis. For those groups where there are likely to be additional needs for support as a result of poverty, caring roles or health problems, contact with family tends to be significantly higher - likely reflecting the importance of family as both the central source of financial resources and of practical and emotional support. Households in these groups who lack access to such family networks may face particular disadvantages. All in all, the study finds that people experiencing poverty are often in effect excluded from widely accepted norms of social participation in the UK today.
Poverty and social harm: challenging discourses of risk, resilience and choice
Authors: Pemberton Simon , Pantazis Christina , Hillyard Paddy
Published: May 2018

This chapter explores the injurious nature of poverty as a condition and a generative context which determines the experience of related injury. Drawing on the social harm approach we seek to contextualise these injuries and to provide a counterpoint to dominant narratives of risk, resilience and choice that serve to individualise the harms of poverty. Using both quantitative and qualitative data from the PSE-UK study, four key findings emerge. First, poverty increases the risk of injuries in the home and at work, as well as the likelihood of being the victim of violence. Second, powerlessness is a key injury of poverty; the loss of control over key aspects of individuals’ lives is anxiety provoking – the PSE poor were three times more likely to report suffering from a mental illness than the non-poor. Third, the injuries of stigma and disrespect are daily features of life on a low income – the PSE poor were nearly eight and six times more likely to report instances of misrecognition due to class and disability. Finally poverty injuriously impacts relationships and the ability to participate socially; under financial constraint, PSE survey participants are more likely to relinquish friendships
Financial inclusion, financial stress and debt
Authors: Bramley Glen , Besemer Kirsten
Published: May 2018

Exclusion from financial services in the form of bank accounts has fallen and appears less significant than informal borrowing and problem debt, which have increased dramatically and are strongly associated with poverty. The most common arrears problems are with housing, local taxes and utility bills, not consumer credit. About a fifth of households are not poor but exhibit similar signs of financial stress. Family remains more important than ‘payday lenders’ as a source of informal lendng,underlining the importance of social capital
The multidimensional analysis of social exclusion
Authors: Bailey Nick , Fahmy Eldin , Bradshaw Jonathan
Published: May 2018

The Bristol Social Exclusion Matrix (BSEM) identifies multiple domains of social exclusion, and the PSE-UK 2012 survey successfully operationalised these for the first time in a single UK household survey. There are many approaches which can be used to explore the relationships between the multiple domains. This chapter uses two different approaches to see how consistent the picture is between them. There is considerable overlap or correlation between some of the domains, suggesting that the original ten can be reduced to a smaller number of broader groups. Material resources and hence poverty not only form one of the main dimensions of exclusion, but also correlate with many other aspects of exclusion. In other words, poverty and deprivation are at the core of the concept of exclusion. Nevertheless, there are aspects of exclusion which are much less connected to material disadvantage, if at all. The concept – and its operationalisation in the PSE-UK survey – therefore succeeds in drawing attention to a wider set of processes producing disadvantage.
Conclusions and emerging themes
Authors: Bramley Glen , Bailey Nick
Published: May 2018

Poverty as measured by material deprivation through lack of economic resources remains absolutely central to understanding the causation and patterning of most aspects of social exclusion and a wide range of social outcomes. Concerns are expressed about the implications of trends to greater inequality, marketization and loss of social cohesion, as well as stagnating living standards and increased precarity in the workplace and housing market. While the multi-dimensional perspective combining poverty and social exclusion is shown to be of value the emerging behavioural agenda around poverty requires critical challenge.
Human development, capabilities and the ethics of policy
Authors: Otto Hans-Uwe , Walker Melanie , Ziegler Holger
Published: May 2018

This book examines policy interventions driven or influenced by human development or human security concerns and how a capability approach can be implemented to achieve more just societies and foster equal opportunities for individuals and groups across the social and class spectrum. It also analyses the discrepancies and obstacles that actual policies present to what a capability approach could mean in social policy practice. The primary goal of the capability approach is to advance democracy at the community, local and national level in ways that promote genuine possibilities for agency to enable everyone to actively participate in shaping public policy. The book considers how the capability approach has been conceptualised and operationalised into practice in different parts of the world, including India, Buenos Aires, South Africa, England and New York City.
The contribution to human development of social policies in the Central American Integration System
Authors: Bornemann-Martínez Guillermo , Caldentey Pedro , Morales-Fernández Emilio J.
Published: May 2018

This chapter examines the contribution to human development of social policies in the Central American Integration System (SICA), a tool for designing and implementing regional initiatives complementary to national policies. It considers whether the conceptual foundations of the social dimension in SICA are adequately defined and offers suggestions for redefining the social dimensions on the paradigm of human development and the capability approach. After providing an overview of the extent of human development and capability approaches in Central American development plans, the chapter discusses the progress of national social indicators in the region in terms of of the effectiveness of policies and indicators associated with human capabilities. In terms of regional policies, one proposal is to adjust the focus of the strategic approach of social integration in the SICA framework to the human development capabilities approach in member countries.
The third sector and capability-promoting policies
Authors: Acconcia Giuseppe , Chiappero-Martinetti Enrica , Graziano Paolo R.
Published: May 2018

This chapter focuses on third sector associations and the development of capability-promoting policy in Italy. It employs the capability approach as a basic framework to analyse social phenomena in order to elucidate the role of third sector associations at the local level in promoting socially innovative processes to enable the integration of groups formerly excluded from the labour market (such as disadvantaged youths). It considers the extent to which third sector stakeholders enhance policy integration and social innovation by drawing on the results of fieldwork research involving the Libera network, a grassroots association supporting community empowerment projects engaged in managing confiscated lands owned by mafias in Milan and Naples. The chapter highlights the factors driving the differential impact of a capability approach to social innovation and the limits of third sector participation both at the meso and micro levels with respect to policies aimed at contrasting youth unemployment.
Capabilities and the challenge to inclusive schooling
Authors: Felder Franziska
Published: May 2018

This chapter examines the role of schools in inclusion and capabilities formation and proposes an ethical model that views inclusion as social participation. The proposed model is based on two intuitions: inclusion understood as a social phenomenon and inclusion that is concerned with freedom. The chapter first considers the different perspectives on inclusion and its normative implications as a moral value in the field of education before discussing the ways that the capability approach can articulate and analyse the intuition of the freedom to be included, thus enhancing the concept of ‘full’ or ‘substantive’ inclusion. It also explains how the proposed ethical model of inclusion can be applied to design inclusive schools. It also discusses some examples of corresponding best practice in the field of education, drawn from international empirical research and practice.
Early childhood educational curricula: implications of the capability approach
Authors: Potsi Antoanneta
Published: May 2018

This chapter examines the potential of the capability approach as a framework of normative aims for early childhood education (ECE) curricula. More specifically, it considers Martha Nussbaum's list of basic human capabilities, developed as a relatively definite standard of minimal justice and as the minimum entitlements a person should have, as an adequate frame for capability-promoting policy in ECE and especially in curriculum development. Nussbaum's basic human capabilities are deeply rooted in the normative principles that govern ECE and care and contrast with the reductionist and instrumental view of the ECE curriculum that prevails within contemporary policy frameworks. The chapter argues that a capability-promoting curriculum could help us better understand what is worth seeking for its own sake without lacking academic content.
The impact of the global financial crisis on Millennium Development Goal attainment in Africa
Authors: Polonenko Leah McMillan
Published: May 2018

This chapter examines the challenges involved in attaining the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in Africa in the wake of the 2008 global financial crisis and highlights important lessons for future financing of global initiatives. The 2008 global financial crisis provided a very important caution: global initiatives are only as good as their global conditions. The crisis had very real consequences for the education sector, particularly through the reduction of adequate funding. The chapter first considers the consequences of the global financial crisis to education, taking into account the role of foreign aid, before discussing the cases of primary education in Ghana and Zimbabwe. It concludes by suggesting some best practices for learning from the failures to education from the 2008 agenda.
Ideas from early childhood development approaches to contribute to Millennium Development Goals’ achievements in Latin America1
Authors: Agosta Laura
Published: May 2018

This chapter examines trends in early childhood development (ECD) programmes in Latin America and their relevance to the achievement of Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in the region. It begins with a theoretical background on ECD policies, including child protection policies, the ‘ecological’ approach to ECD programmes, how such programmes seek to break the intergenerational cycle of poverty, and their emphasis on the ‘vital cycle’ approach. It then considers some conditioning factors for child development before turning to the monitoring and tracking system of Chile Crece Contigo (ChCC), an early childhood development programme in Chile. It also discusses parenting stimulation as a component of ECD programmes in Jamaica.
Exploring the National Economic Empowerment and Development Strategy (NEEDS) as a micro-Millennium Development Goals’ framework in Nigeria
Authors: Adeniran Adebusuyi Isaac
Published: May 2018

This chapter examines the impact of the National Economic Empowerment and Development Strategy (NEEDS), a socio-economic framework for enabling sustainable human development in Nigeria, and how it incorporates the basic targets of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) into government policy at both the national and grassroots levels. The chapter draws on the results of a study that was conducted to assess the specific impacts of the NEEDS policy in the process of improving the condition of existence in Nigeria by promoting socio-economic inclusivity. It considers the achievements of the NEEDS, the impediments that have constrained its functioning, and the lessons that have been or could be learnt from related achievements and failures of past development policies in Nigeria. It also offers some recommendations to make the NEEDS more effective in addressing the challenges and threats posed by poverty and other social incongruence in Nigeria.
United Nations Millennium Development Goals (UN MDGs) and the Arab Spring: shedding light on the preludes?
Authors: Tok M Evren , Elbassiouny Nancy , Samper Sofia , Showkath Mohammed Sayeed
Published: May 2018

This chapter examines whether the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) provided a concrete background to illuminate the preludes to the Arab Spring by focusing on the experiences of Egypt, Syria, Tunisia and Yemen. It first considers the common features of the Arab Spring in Egypt, Syria, Tunisia and Yemen before discussing the implementation of the MDGs in those countries. It also assesses the effects of the Arab Spring on the MDG progress in each country with respect to indicators such as eradicating extreme poverty and hunger, achieving universal primary education, promoting general equality and empowering women, reducing child mortality, improving maternal health and ensuring environmental sustainability. The chapter proceeds by analysing the impact of the Arab Spring on Arab civil society and concludes with an overview of prospects for the Arab world in the post-2015 era.
Conclusion
Authors: McFarlane Jason , Besada Hany , Brunton Kathryn Anne , Saniei-Pour Alireza
Published: May 2018

This book concludes with some recommendations aimed at ensuring the legacy and success of the Post-2015 Development Agenda. It argues that the Post-2015 Development Agenda needs to address a new and more complex set of challenges and emphasises the importance of good governance and institution-building. In conjunction with poverty reduction, the Post-2015 Development Agenda must tackle the growing problem of youth unemployment. It also must take into account the macroeconomic vulnerabilities of developing countries and the role of technology, such as mobile phones, in intermediating global development finance. Furthermore, the Post-2015 Development Agenda must reflect a concerted effort to draw lessons from the positive and negative experiences of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) and apply them to a variety of challenges whose prioritisation differ from country to country. Finally, policymakers need to address predicaments such as the ongoing financial and Eurozone crisis and identify trends that indicate imminent emergencies.
Introduction to leaving state care in China
Authors: Shang Xiaoyuan , Fisher Karen R.
Published: May 2018

This introductory chapter talks about how the rapid social, economic, and demographic changes in China have affected all aspects of the living environment of children and young people, particularly children in state care. Positive developments are the growth of the mixed welfare state and the relaxation of the family planning requirements, so that all families can now choose to have more than one child and they are more likely to receive free social services. These trends imply that fewer children will be left in state care in the future. On the other hand, whereas the government once arranged jobs for young people leaving care or other young people with disabilities, it now relies on the developing labour market to fulfil this function.
Self-identity of young people leaving state care
Authors: Shang Xiaoyuan , Fisher Karen R.
Published: May 2018

This chapter analyzes the self-identity, with reference to social inclusion, of the young people in care in their transition to adulthood and the possibility of independent living. It focuses on how the various aspects of social inclusion during childhood and young adult years might affect their identity. In addition to the usual dynamic identity formation of teenagers, young people leaving care also negotiate the shedding of an identity as someone in the care of the state and the acquiring of an identity as an independent young adult. These processes have important policy implications because they imply that transition to independence of children in state care requires a care approach and environment that are supportive to positive identity formation during childhood and adolescence.
Social networks and the employment of young people leaving care
Authors: Shang Xiaoyuan , Fisher Karen R.
Published: May 2018

This chapter illustrates how most young people in Chinese state care become state wards as very young children and have disabilities. When they reach adulthood, many of them remain unemployed. Before the economic transitions in the 1980s, the government provided most of these young people with jobs when they became young adults, or they gained employment in welfare enterprises with tax concessions to employ people with disabilities. After the economic transition, however, many welfare factories reduced their employees or closed down, and state directives for job placement were dismantled. The chapter shows how job placement for young adult orphans has become a challenge for child welfare institutions, and a bottleneck for the support of new children entering state care.
Housing pathways of young people leaving care
Authors: Shang Xiaoyuan , Fisher Karen R.
Published: May 2018

This chapter utilizes the social exclusion framework to analyse the housing pathways of young people in state care who were trying to leave care at the time of the research. It considers their exclusion from the market, policy, and society, and the interrelationship between these three aspects of exclusion due to their isolated childhood housing experience. It also explores how the state manages their right to independent housing during their transition to adulthood and how their housing status affects other aspects of their adult life. The chapter shows young people's expectations for future social relationships, their place in the community and their contribution to it, can be stymied by their lack of housing options.
Environmental affordances and the work of everyday family lives
Authors: Phoenix Ann , Vennam Uma , Walker Catherine , Boddy Janet
Published: May 2018

This chapter looks at the sort of environmental issues that families in India and the UK had to negotiate: sometimes routinely (for example, pollution and danger from road traffic) and sometimes unpredictably (for example, flooding and other extreme weather events). It addresses the complexity of the intermeshing of environmental concerns and practices by focusing on families who were so preoccupied with caring for their families and the daily grind of family maintenance that this superseded concern with climate change. Since families live in diverse material circumstances, environmental messages are likely to be received in different ways and to have varied impacts on different families and children.
Environmental concerns, identities and practices
Authors: Phoenix Ann , Vennam Uma , Walker Catherine , Boddy Janet
Published: May 2018

This chapter explains how narratives of environmental concern that derive from particular Minority world contexts are not truly global. Popular images of an apparently depopulated pristine nature, such as the earth from space or the solitary polar bear, are quite literally distant from the lives of the majority. Yet, they are considered by many as foundational to galvanising environmentalism into a purportedly ‘global’ movement. This kind of affluent Minority world imaginary is problematic in several respects. Images of depopulated pristine nature conceal the fallacy of nature culture dualism, rendering invisible the vast differences within and between countries in human nature interdependence, and how children and families understand, value, and are put at risk by their environments.
Children are the future? Power, generation and environmental practices
Authors: Phoenix Ann , Vennam Uma , Walker Catherine , Boddy Janet
Published: May 2018

This chapter talks about how children are often responsibilised in environmental policy and media discourses in both India and the UK. Abstract evocations of future generations materialise in many areas of climate change policy, based on the ethical argument that, as those imagined to outlive current generations of adults, children have the most to gain from activities and policies seeking to sustain the environments of which they are a part. Yet the centring of children in discourses of climate change impact and response is not without practical and ethical problems. Positioning children as ‘undercover agents of change’ for the environmental movement is as much an abrogation of responsibility for what are essentially the damaging environmental practices of adults, as is offshoring environmental responsibility to the next generation of stewards of the earth.
Negotiating environments in children’s and families’ everyday lives
Authors: Phoenix Ann , Vennam Uma , Walker Catherine , Boddy Janet
Published: May 2018

This chapter demonstrates how, through in-depth qualitative research with 24 families who live in differing contexts in India and the UK, environmental practices are inextricably relational, and linked with dynamic family practices, childhood, and parenthood. Holistic understandings of environmental practices, and of children and families, benefit from juxtaposing Minority and Majority world understandings, and so challenging patronising (colonial) moral discourses of environmental concern that are rooted in Minority world understandings of the affluent ethical consumer practising care at a distance. This approach helps to build the new global perspective based on dialogue between childhoods in Majority and Minority worlds that the book advocates, and so to understand “other” lives, in context.
Politics, ‘democracy’ and the ideology of the postmodern city
Authors: Briggs Daniel , Gamero Rubén Monge
Published: May 2018

Here we explore how and why macro ideological and commercial processes produce a place such as Valdemingómez by contextualizing how the political and economic changes over the last 40 years have crippled the urban poor in places like Madrid. We firstly show that these are global processes are linked to structural undercurrents of deindustrualisation which have produced greater inequality, unemployment and poverty before showing how a politics of distraction dilutes our collective consciousness to these issues. Both these elements are reflected in how social planners and politicians have engaged in urban cleansing programmes which relegate problem groups like drug users to the city margins; out of sight, out of mind. We show the consequences of this in the final part of the chapter when we discuss the implications this has for the city and its urban outcasts.
The council, police and health services: An impasse to solutions
Authors: Briggs Daniel , Gamero Rubén Monge
Published: May 2018

What is precisely contributing to the continued functioning of the drug market in Valdemingómez? How is it so many people arrive here at this point in their dependency yet so few are able to recover? If the council and police know where the problem is, why are they not able to intervene? It is simply not just only because of the ready availability and demand for drugs because there are high levels of police corruption taking place and the harm reduction team, with all good intentions, are only able to ‘maintain’ people in their misery: both of which are directly linked to wider political deficiencies. In this chapter, we discuss the importance of this because a moot point arises from potential meaningful intervention because the “problem” - and its complexity, gravity and cultural genetics – carries the same liability as the “intervention”: so in short intervention merely sustains the problem.
Epilogue
Authors: Briggs Daniel , Gamero Rubén Monge
Published: May 2018

In the time since our fieldwork completed in November 2016, we are still reminded everyday about the people we met in Valdemingómez because we exposed ourselves to a brazen reality which is far from public consciousness and yet close to political inertia. This is especially the case when we walk around the glory and city-centre paradise in Madrid’ city centre, knowing that only a few kilometres south, in some forgotten corner of the city, there exists an unimaginable poverty which has turned socially septic. We got to know the people there rather than judge them for their disheveled appearance, brutal attitudes towards damaging drug use and absolute destitution. Here we acknowledge for a time that Valdemingómez had us hooked; the peoples’ circumstances, their stories, and the sight of it all. And in doing so, we have unlocked a consciousness about how the world works which we cannot seal for we are able to recognize where else similar destructive processes are taking place which ravage the lives of the most vulnerable in society. For we see the below the opulence and pizzazz of the commercial city centres, we see its oppressive undercurrents in action on a daily basis; in the city’s shadows, where rampant inequality lurks and the conventional fractures.
A plot to Islamicise schools?
Authors: Holmwood John , O’Toole Therese
Published: May 2018

This introductory chapter provides an overview on the events in Birmingham that came to the public attention in March 2014 involving an alleged plot by conservative and hardline Sunnis to Islamicise a number of state-funded schools where there were significant numbers of Muslim pupils. Attention was focused on one particular school, Park View Academy, and its associated Park View Educational Trust (PVET), incorporating two other schools, Nansen Primary and Golden Hillock secondary. The affair also drew in many others who were suspected of extremist activity — with 21 schools in Birmingham subjected to snap Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted) inspections and included in the various inquiries into the affair. The government cites the 'plot' in its argument about the need to develop a new counter-extremism strategy that confronts extremist ideology and not just threats of violence. However, the Kershaw Report and some other commentators argue that there was, in fact, no evidence of extremism.
Prevent: from hearts and minds to muscular liberalism
Authors: Holmwood John , O’Toole Therese
Published: May 2018

This chapter examines the government's Prevent strategy for addressing extremism and radicalisation. The Prevent strategy that was launched by the Department of Communities and Local Government (DCLG) under the New Labour government in 2007 sets out a ‘hearts and minds’ approach to counterterrorism, in which engagement and partnership with British Muslims were seen as key to tackling violent extremism. It sets out four key objectives: ‘promoting shared values, supporting local solutions, building civic capacity and leadership and strengthening the role of faith institutions and leaders’. Accordingly, ‘Preventing Violent Extremism’ (PVE) or ‘Prevent’ initiatives focused on disaffected Muslim young people who were seen as particularly vulnerable to radicalisation, and mobilising Muslim women, whom government considered to be potential moderating forces on young Muslim men, as well as on modulating expressions and practices of Islam in Britain.
Religious education, collective worship and publicly funded education
Authors: Holmwood John , O’Toole Therese
Published: May 2018

This chapter details the specific requirements of religious education and collective worship in non-faith schools and the nature of the agreed syllabus for religious education in Birmingham. The main difference between faith and non-faith schools concerns the recruitment of teachers and other staff — for example, whether a particular faith-background can be required — and pupil selection — for example, whether this can be from a particular faith background. In schools with a religious foundation, religious education and collective worship will reflect the Trust deeds of the school, whereas those schools without a religious foundation will either follow the locally agreed syllabus or, in the case of academies and free schools, a religious education syllabus of their choosing in line with their contract with the Education Funding Agency (EFA).
Corporate Culture
Authors: Sedliaková Ingrida
Published: May 2018

Numerous articles, publications and researches show a strong impact of a good corporate culture on business success and economic performance. A strong corporate culture can be responsible for the process of creation of internal organization values, and it can also influence the proper functioning of the company and even its competitiveness. In those companies, that recognize the importance of corporate culture, corporate culture can become the most important tool, which can help them to achieve their strategic objectives. According to opinions of some authors, an excellent corporate culture is “the spirit” of organization. It is a part of entrepreneur’s core competitiveness but also it is a bas of core competencies. The present article is focused on identification and evaluation of problems during the forming process of corporate culture. The identification of problems was realized through questionnaire at the sample of 130 respondents. The result of the research shows that certain issues such as "buying your own people" (69% of respondents believe that remuneration is unfair), "sanctions" (more than ¼ of respondents think that work environment is not open for new ideas) or "copying of culture" (almost ¼ of respondents answered that they do not feel comfortable in existing culture) are still appearing in the shaping of corporate culture of companies.
Analysis of heavy metal accumulation food with X-Ray fluorescence spectometry
Authors: Székely Dóra , Csighy Attila , Stéger-Máté Mónika , Monspart-Sényi Judit
Published: May 2018

The theme of the study is the examination of heavy metal accumulating ability of commercially available chicken, pork and beef liver samples and comparison with the limits specified by the laws. The measurements were carried out with the Delta XRF device manufactured by Innov-X, which operates on the principle of X-ray radiation. The lead content of all samples of the first and second sampling were beyond the maximum level (0.5 mg/kg) which is required by the Commission Regulation 1881/2006. The measured values were between 2 and 3 mg/kg for both samplings. In case the samples of the third sampling the lead content could not be detected by the applied device. The cadmium contents of the all samples of three samplings exceeded the required cadmium limit in the regulation (0.5 mg/kg). The measured values were between 10 and 20 mg/kg in case of all samples. Tin and mercury contents were not detected in the investigated samples by the applied measurement method. Among the non-toxic heavy metals the samples contained high amounts of iron and manganese, in additional each samples contained small amount of zinc, rubidium and antimony but these does not constitute a health risk due to the minimal amounts.
Economy and politics in Hungary during 2nd Orbán Government Period
Authors: Gősi János , Gál József
Published: May 2018

The 2nd Orbán government and the more than two-thirds parliamentary majority behind a relatively heavy heritage took over in the summer of 2010. The left-liberal governments of GDP in 2006-2009, reaching 12% of the size of austerity (expenditure cuts and tax lifting) as a result of Hungary's policy is not developed in a similar situation as the crisis in Greece. The most difficult years of the crisis – between March and June 2009 – the international debt financing market premium for loans fall from six percent to two, the euro exchange rate is reduced from 270 to 315 HUF. The 2nd Orbán government's so-called unorthodox economic policies – which happened to break with the IMF and serious political disagreements with the EU has been associated with – as a result of increased to HUF exchange rate of 300, the premium at the end of 2011 exceeded 6% again; currently around 3%, although the EU abolished the excessive deficit procedure against Hungary, and the sixth year of the current account is positive. Hungary's GDP after a 6.7% decline in 2009, in 2010 – faster than expected – increased by 1.2%, in 2011 was only 0.7% in 2012 and 1.7 % drop. Accelerated use of the 2007-2013 periods, EU investment funds due to a 1-1.5% in 2014 and expected in 2013 2-2.5% growth. The Hungarian economic performance in the last decade since EU accession has been at average of less than 0.5% per year increased. The durable and – at least – from 2.5 to 3.5% growth per year have failed to materialize in the domestic political economy foundations between 2010 to 2014.
Biomass potential assessment for locating biorefinery plant in Hungary
Authors: Kohlheb Norbert , Belényesi Márta , Podmaniczky László , Sipos Bálint , Balázs Katalin
Published: May 2018

To find a suitable site for a 150,000 metric ton dry material per year (t dm/yr) input capacity biorefinery plant in Hungary is a challenging task. Not only biomass potentials have to be assessed, competing uses, sustainability aspects, public opinion and future threats to feedstock availability should be also taken into account. As a result of our calculations, currently there is enough feedstock available for the targeted input capacity to operate in an ecologically sustainable way. However, several factors may threaten the future of feedstock availability. In the long run enhanced price competition is anticipated for biomass among biorefinery, livestock keeping, timber industry and biomass based renewable energy production. The majority of stakeholders accept in general biorefinery as a promising solution for substituting fossil based plastics, still local interests give priority to a balanced agricultural production including higher shares of husbandry.
Optimization of the extraction process in order to isolate antioxidant compounds from walnut leaves
Authors: Alexe A-M. , Vizireanu C.
Published: May 2018

In the popular perception, nuts were considered to have high content of fats and therefore were seen as unhealthy foods, which are indicted in different cardio-vascular diseases or diabetes. This perception has changed after the lately researches, which proved their healthy fatty acid profile of the walnut and its products. The walnut (Juglans regia L.) consumption is now associated with a reduced risk of coronary heart diseases, cancer and all other oxidative stress mediated diseases. Different studies had shown that the walnut leaves contain several phenolic compounds which contribute to their biological properties. Researchers are focused on walnut because it contains an important phenolic compound called juglone and it is used in the treatment of inflammatory and infectious diseases. They also inhibit the Gram positive and Gram negative bacteria and also fungi. The present research has the priority to establish the proper method of extraction using walnut leaves and a mixture of solvents in different volumetric proportions. Primary the walnut leaves were extracted with a mixture of ethanol and water in proportions 50:50; 60:40; 70:30; 80:20. After the extracts were obtained, they were concentrated and the final extract was used to analysis.
Simultan sacharification and fermentation of tobacco samples
Authors: Graciano R. M. L. , De Freitas V. P. , Ábel M.
Published: May 2018

Tobacco plants (Nicotiana rustica, Nicotiana tabacum) produce abundant biomass in more than 100 countries and could be used to produce abundant biofuels. Tobacco is an ideal crop for biobased products; it is a perennial herbaceous plant. About one quarter of the tobacco plant is cellulosic material. Tobacco stem is a by-product in the tobacco industry after the tobacco leaves are harvested. The utilization ratio of tobacco stem is only approximately 40% due to difficulties in the comprehensive utilization technologies of tobacco stem. Therefore most of the tobacco stems have gone to waste. This biomass appears attractive for conversion to ethanol because it contains very low amounts of the hard-to-convert woody material lignin. The aim of this study is to identify the best parameters of the simultaneous saccharification and fermentation (SSF) process on tobacco based substrate. Just to make this technology cheaper, the enzyme recovery was investigated by membrane technology. Polyethersulfone membrane filters with 0.1 µm were used for microfiltration followed by determination of proteins using photometer and Kjeldahl method to measure the enzyme recovery. The aim was to decide whether the microfiltration membrane with cut-off 0.1 µm is a proper membrane for recycling the enzyme. During the filtration, increased resistance and decreased flux were detected.
Sustainable Management of Biomass Energy in Rural and Urban Context
Authors: Szendrei János , Szűcs Edit , Grasselli Gábor
Published: May 2018

The most sustainable energy is the energy not used. Best way to (not) use energy is the proper design of a facility or an energy consuming system. The remaining energy needs have to be covered with energy utilisation of waste materials, renewable energy sources and, until the previous solutions are not sufficient to satisfy the energy demands, the last is the use of conventional fossil and nuclear energy sources. In terms of renewable energy, biomass has an important role today. However, there is a difference between available inputs and utilisation when considering biomass energy possibilities in rural and urban context. This paper suggests biomass energy possibilities that are recommendable in rural context: possibilities of solid biomass combustion, of liquid biofuels and of anaerobe digestion. Also important are possibilities of solid biomass combustion and wet biomass digestion for urban energy production, although with some remarks on system considerations of urban biomass. Most advanced solutions for sustainable management of biomass energy include circular systems, both in rural and urban context, as recommended.