1,720,981 research outputs found
Gender and professionalism: Still a black box. A call for research, debate and action. Suggestions from and beyond the pandemic crisis
No full textThe gender-professionalism nexus is the source of persistent inequalities in our society. Its continuing relevance emerges even more in the pandemic crisis as a revealing context of social dynamics, showing a “differential in visibility” among welfare professionals, associated with gender, status and power. The attribution of “masculine” and “feminine” connotations (re)produces structures of inequality: there are male/dominant and female/subordinate professions. The exploration of this nexus reveals the existence of two polar meanings of care and body work, as well as two conceptions of professionalism and citizenship. Caring as “therapy” is related to “work on the body” and reflects a classical conception of professionalism aimed at client-citizens; whereas caring as “to care for” is related to “work with and between bodies” and meets better new professionalism aimed at active citizens. Considering gender as professional practice ideology highlights how “gender commonality” is not a solution to inequalities. Furthermore, it can contribute to the deconstruction of the dominance structures. In a such research agenda, narratives of professionals are the key to open the black box. Taking up the challenge to open the gender-professionalism black box is not just a matter of research, but of political action, starting from academia itself
The nexus between education and fertility in six European countries
Full text linkGiven the many linkages between education and family behaviour, the expansion of higher education especially among women in recent decades may have important consequences for fertility in Europe. This is a crucial factor in both the New Home Economics (NHE) theory and the Second Demographic Transition (SDT) that predict a negative association between fertility and education. However, more recently, the Gender Revolution (GR) approach has emphasised the role of gender egalitarianism both in society and within households as a boost for fertility. By adopting a comparative perspective on six European countries, this paper reports our research on the effect of education on the fertility choices in light of the foregoing three different theoretical explanations. Using data from the second wave of Generation and Gender surveys (GGS) for Bulgaria, Czech Republic, France, Germany, and Poland, and the ISTAT survey “Famiglie e Soggetti Sociali” for Italy, we estimated the propensity to have the first and the second child birth on women born between 1940 and 1979 by means of multiprocess hazard models. For the first childbirth, the influence of education on fertility behaviours not only remains important but also tends to increase among younger cohorts. This result matches the NHE and SDT explanation, suggesting a similar evolution towards an erosion of the family. Conversely, for the second childbirth we found marked differences among countries suggesting an East-West polarisation giving support to the GR approach. However, peculiarities for the Italian case linked to a tempo effect emphasize the need to go beyond the West-East dichotomy
Labour Market Participation and Fertility in Seven European Countries: A Comparative Perspective
Full text linkAlthough evidence suggests a correlation between fertility and employment, comparative studies on this topic are relatively scarce, particularly when considering the diverse ways in which the two variables interact in different countries. The aim of this article is to analyse the relationship between the employment and reproductive behaviours of women born between 1940 and 1979 in seven European countries (Bulgaria, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Georgia, Italy, and Lithuania). Using data from the second wave of Generation and Gender Surveys (GGS) and the Istat survey Famiglia e Soggetti Sociali (FSS) in Italy, we estimated the propensity of first and second childbirth through multi-process modelling. The article’s contribution is both theoretical and methodological. First, this research aims to investigate the correlation between employment and the timing of first and second births in a comparative perspective challenging the traditional East-West divide in Europe and the potential convergence in the impact of employment on fertility behaviours across European countries. Furthermore, the study asks whether the relationship between employment and fertility is changing similarly across European countries or whether differences tend to persist over time.
The results are discussed considering women’s emancipation in different institutional settings, highlighting how women’s participation in labour markets affects reproductive behaviour. In particular, the relationship between employment and fertility behaviour is examined in relation to the opposing macro-level thesis, which suggests that the association between employment and fertility changed from negative to positive after the mid-80s.
The second contribution of the article is a methodological one. It involves using simultaneous models with three equations to account for potential unobserved factors that influence the timing of the first and second childbirth and the potential endogeneity of employment status on fertility behaviour. The three equations include two log-Hazard equations for the transitions to the first and second birth order and an additional probit model to estimate the probability of being currently employed over the life course. By using this approach, we aim to provide a more comprehensive understanding of the relationship between employment and fertility, while controlling for potential confounding factors.
Results suggest relevant national differences. On the one hand, the three Western countries considered in the analysis, France, Germany, and Italy, show a clear incompatibility of work and childbearing. However, in the first two, younger cohorts seem to be less affected by employment, likely because they benefitted from family policies introduced after the mid-1980s. On the other hand, the post-socialist countries are highly heterogeneous. In this area, we can find three different models. First, in Bulgaria and the Czech Republic employment is largely compatible with fertility choices resulting in a higher propensity of having the first and the second childbirth among working women. Second, in Lithuania the positive impact of employment for the first childbirth turns negative for the second one. Third, in Georgia we found a clear postponement of childbirth among working women for both birth orders. Overall, our results show deep differences across countries, suggesting that some European countries are far from demonstrating convergence in the relationship between employment and fertility
Il rapporto padri e figli dopo la separazione: l’istruzione della madre conta?
Full text linkGli studi sulla relazione tra padri
e figli dopo la separazione
suggeriscono che le caratteristiche
delle madri, in particolare
l’istruzione, siano fattori chiave.
Infatti, l’istruzione è un indicatore
sia di valori e credenze «moderne»
sia di maggiore autonomia
economica femminile che tendono
a ridurre le tensioni e il maternal
gatekeeping dopo la separazione.
Utilizzando i dati dell’indagine
Famiglia e soggetti sociali condotta
dall’Istat nel 2009, viene esplorato
quanto frequentemente i padri
separati vedano i loro figli minori
e quale sia il ruolo del livello
di istruzione della madre. L’Italia
è un contesto interessante poiché,
rispetto ad altri paesi europei,
mostra ancora come sia il titolo
di studio a guidare comportamenti
e atteggiamenti «innovativi»
e, inoltre, la legge sulla custodia
condivisa è stata introdotta solo
nel 2006. I risultati indicano che,
controllando per status
occupazionale, percezione delle
proprie condizioni economiche, età
dei figli, presenza di un nuovo
partner e vicinanza con ex partner
e con i nonni materni, il titolo
di studio della madre ha un impatto
significativo. Tuttavia,
contrariamente alle aspettative,
le donne con un livello di istruzione
terziaria e secondaria mostrano
lo stesso tasso di visite padre-figlio,
mentre sono quelle con solo
la licenza media ad avere figli
con scarsi contati coi padri dopo
la separazione
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Advanced Functional Materials and Cell-Based Therapies for the Treatment of Ischemic Stroke and Postischemic Stroke Effects
No full textIschemic stroke is considered one of the most threatening neurological disorders with high percentages of mortality and morbidity worldwide. Although in recent years, several nanotechnological advances have improved the survival rates, severe untreated poststroke side-effects continue to significantly influence the way of life of many. Tissue plasminogen activator and mechanical thrombectomy are considered the gold standards for the treatment of acute cerebral ischemia. These, however, fail to improve postischemic disorders. Herein, after a brief description of the pathophysiology of ischemic stroke and the following biochemical cascade, the most recent biomaterial and cell-based strategies are reviewed for its treatment. Other therapeutics that have been proposed not only for the treatment of cerebral ischemia but also for the regeneration of the infarcted brain that is responsible for a variety of disorders, including cognitive, motor, and speech problems are also presented. Finally, a few reported studies on diagnostic and theranostic nanostructures are also provided
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
- …
