At what cost?

2021 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 14-16
Author(s):  
Sue Cowley

With childcare in the UK now being some of the most expensive in the world, questions about the sustainability of settings and the impact of funding on social mobility are at the centre of policy debates. Sue Cowley takes a look at the current situation with government funding and assesses the impact of the 30 hours entitlement.

Author(s):  
Andrew S. Herridge ◽  
Lisa J. James

This chapter looked at the implications of Brexit on the recruitment of international faculty, students, and the ability to obtain research funding. Higher education stakeholders have legitimate concerns regarding the impact of the UK's separation from the EU. In preemptive moves, students are transferring to institutions outside the UK and EU to universities that are welcoming and accommodating the special needs and circumstances of international scholars. Researchers are prematurely dissolving collaborative partnerships with colleagues to mitigate complications and lost funding expected, as a result of Brexit. There are universities exploring possible locations for new satellite campuses in other countries. Through the development of policies and treaties such as the Bologna Process, Lisbon Strategy, European Higher Education in the World initiative, the European Union has demonstrated the importance and purpose of higher education both in Europe and at the international level.


Author(s):  
Brian D. Ray

This chapter outlines the current situation about homeschooling across the world today. It highlights its enormous growth over the last 40 or 50 years, since its reintroduction in the USA and the impact that has had on the world homeschooling movement. It describes the contested outcomes of home education, including the evidence that students' academic, social, and emotional outcomes are higher while also providing a solid basis for ‘graduates' of home education to experience success in adulthood. Theorizing the roots of this success, the chapter looks at the measures of success and the theoretical bases of the success of the mainstream schooled and explores how the features that make a successful graduate of mainstream schools are naturally and almost exclusively present in the home education setting, Finally, it considers how the current turn against home education and suggests how future research might be useful to counter these negative discourses about the practice while understanding this growing cohort of children across the world today.


Author(s):  
Antónia Correia ◽  
Alain Decrop

Vulnerable is how we are nowadays. In fact, the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic is neither time limited nor spatially contained. But like many other natural disasters, the pandemic brought calamities and inequalities (Shklar, 1990), threatens the environment and raises a problem of precarity that is no longer limited to the poor and dependent as contagion patterns have no boundaries (Forester & McKibbon, 2020). So even more than revealing the vulnerability wealthy countries are facing, the pandemic forces us to recognize our progressively more interdependent lives in a globalized world and the responsibility to safeguard the planet. Economies all over the world were hindered by Covid-19 but tourism was completely devasted by this pandemic. In the first five months of 2020, international tourism arrivals decreased by more than half and some $320 billion dollars in exports from tourism were lost. Overall, some 120 million direct jobs in tourism are at risk (WTO, 2020). The current situation recalls emergency status for countries that depend on tourism and for minorities that may find in tourism a driver to social integration, empowerment and income. The Covid-19 crisis offers opportunities to rebuild tourism in a safe, equitable and sustainable way. To that end technology, partnerships and sustainable and responsible practices are strategic.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 488 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paola Fezzigna ◽  
Simone Borghesi ◽  
Dario Caro

International trade shifts production of a large amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions embodied in traded goods from the importing country to the exporting country. The European Union (EU) plays a prominent role in the flow of international-related emissions as it accounts for the second largest share of global exports and imports of goods. Consumption-based accountings (CBA) emerged as alternative to the traditional emission inventories based on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) guidelines. According to the IPCC criteria, countries where products are consumed take no responsibility for the emissions produced by exporter countries, thus neglecting the emissions embodied in trade. By taking this aspect into account, CBA are considered of great importance in revealing emissions attributed to the final consumer. Using a CBA approach, this paper evaluates the impact of international trade in the EU in terms of CO2 emissions, looking both at the internal trade flows within the EU-28 and at the external trade flows between the EU and the rest of the world during the period 2012–2015. We find that the EU is a net importer of emissions as its emissions due to consumption exceed those due to production. In particular, in 2015 the ratio between import- and export-embodied emissions was more than 3:1 for the EU-28 that imported 1317 Mt CO2 from the rest of the world (mainly from China and Russia) while exporting only 424 Mt CO2. Concerning emissions flows among EU countries, Germany represents the largest importer, followed by the UK. To get a deeper understanding on possible environmental implications of Brexit on UK emission responsibilities, the paper also advances a few hypotheses on how trade flows could change based on the existing trade patterns of the UK. Data analysis shows that a 10% shift of UK imports from EU partners to its main non-EU trading partners (India, China, and US) would increase its emission responsibility by 5%. The increase in UK emission responsibility would more than double (+11%) in case of a 30% shift of UK imports. Similar results would apply if UK replaced its current EU partners with its main Commonwealth trading partners as a result of Brexit.


2014 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 62-70 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ailsa Cameron ◽  
Lisa Bostock ◽  
Rachel Lart

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide an update to a review of the joint working literature in the field of health and social care for adults, with particular emphasis given to the experiences of users and carers. Design/methodology/approach – The aims of the literature review remained largely the same as those of the original, they were to identify: models of joint working, evidence of effectiveness and cost-effectiveness and the factors promoting or hindering the models. However, to reflect the growing interest in the experiences of users and carers a fourth aim was added to map these experiences. Given their prominence in terms of policy debates about integration, the review focused on jointly organised services for older people and people with mental health problems in the UK only. Findings – The review demonstrates tentative signs that some initiatives designed to join-up or integrate services can deliver outcomes desired by government. Importantly some studies that report the experiences of users of services and carers suggest that they perceive benefits from efforts to join-up or integrate services. However it is our contention that the evidence is less than compelling and does not justify the faith invested in the strategy by current or previous governments. Originality/value – The study updates our knowledge of the impact of joint working in the field of health and social care for adults. Importantly the paper highlights what is known about the experiences of users and carers of joint/integrated services.


2008 ◽  
Vol 205 ◽  
pp. 8-13
Author(s):  
Ray Barrell

In interesting times several things may happen simultaneously, and they may have connected roots. The financial turmoil that developed initially in the US banking sector had its roots in financial innovation that had made available cheap finance and increased demand for housing. This wave of low cost finance had spread to Europe, and house prices rose in a correlated way. The increase in demand in the world economy that resulted from strong growth in lending and high asset values helped raise output growth outside the OECD, and this in turn put upward pressure on oil prices. Markets sometimes work slowly, and the effects of the increase in demand on prices appear to be coming through just as the asset bubble is collapsing. The sequence of events was not inevitable, as low personal sector saving in the US and the UK as well as elsewhere could have been offset by tighter fiscal policy, and better prudential regulation of lenders would also definitely have helped. The desire to move financial regulation from the central bank, as in the UK, may have been for good, competition based, reasons, but it has meant that financial sector oversight has not taken account of the macroeconomic implications of a wave of lending that rested on risky financial innovation and therefore it has not properly addressed the issue of systemic risk (see Barrell and Davis, 2005). The resulting financial turmoil has meant that banks have made losses, and have been unable to trust each other's solvency when making deals. As a result three month interbank rates have risen well above central bank intervention rates, as can be seen in figure 1.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (18) ◽  
pp. 10212
Author(s):  
Abdullah Addas ◽  
Ahmad Maghrabi

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has emerged as a serious public health threat and has had a tremendous impact on all spheres of the environment. The air quality across the world improved because of COVID-19 lockdowns. Since the outbreak of COVID-19, large numbers of studies have been carried out on the impact of lockdowns on air quality around the world, but no studies have been carried out on the systematic review on the impact of lockdowns on air quality. This study aims to systematically assess the bibliographic review on the impact of lockdowns on air quality around the globe. A total of 237 studies were identified after rigorous review, and 144 studies met the criteria for the review. The literature was surveyed from Scopus, Google Scholar, PubMed, Web of Science, and the Google search engine. The results reveal that (i) most of the studies were carried out on Asia (about 65%), followed by Europe (18%), North America (6%), South America (5%), and Africa (3%); (ii) in the case of countries, the highest number of studies was performed on India (29%), followed by China (23%), the U.S. (5%), the UK (4%), and Italy; (iii) more than 60% of the studies included NO2 for study, followed by PM2.5 (about 50%), PM10, SO2, and CO; (iv) most of the studies were published by Science of the Total Environment (29%), followed by Aerosol and Air Quality Research (23%), Air Quality, Atmosphere & Health (9%), and Environmental Pollution (5%); (v) the studies reveal that there were significant improvements in air quality during lockdowns in comparison with previous time periods. Thus, this diversified study conducted on the impact of lockdowns on air quality will surely assist in identifying any gaps, as it outlines the insights of the current scientific research.


Author(s):  
Christine White

This chapter discusses the impact of stage design on musical theatre, and the development of musical theatre as a product packaged for consumption across the world. Its focus is chiefly on British musicals of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, during which ‘scenography’ has become recognized as the term for describing the whole theatre-designed space, encompassing, set, costume, sound, light, and more recently including film, animations, and a host of projection technologies and digital media. The chapter refers to contemporary reviews of productions, their success and failure, and the nature of the musical as a form in harmony with new scenic production aesthetics. What becomes apparent in this chapter is the interconnectedness of scenic practices and production aesthetics, which relates directly to the visual impact of musicals on the British stage and the interchange of production styles and modes of the UK and North America.


2020 ◽  
Vol 23 (6) ◽  
pp. 1033-1037 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francesca Sobande

The current COVID-19 (coronavirus) global pandemic has resulted in a wave of advertising and marketing approaches that are based on commodified concepts of human connection, care and community in a time of crisis. At the core of many brands’ marketing messages – whether these be supermarket advertising campaigns or celebrity self-branding – is the notion that ‘we’re all in this together’. While it is true that the impact of COVID-19 has affected the lives of many people around the world, not everyone is experiencing this crisis the same way, due to structural inequalities and intersecting oppressions. What is the relationship between COVID-19, capitalism and consumer culture? Who is the ‘we’ in the messages of ‘we’re all in this together’, and how might such messages mask distinct socio-economic disparities and enable institutions to evade accountability? This article examines sub-textual meanings connected to brand responses to COVID-19 in the UK context which rely on an amorphous imagined ‘we’ – and which ultimately may aid brands’ pursuit of productivity and profit, rather than symbolising support of and concern for people.


2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 32-37
Author(s):  
Mekhriniso Kilicheva ◽  

In the current situation the problem of loneliness, which is becoming a global issue among the people of the world, the fact that the motif of "loneliness" has risen to the level of a separate motif of literature attracts the attention of literary critics. In this regard, it is important to reveal the socio-psychological basis of the factors of human loneliness. This article discusses the psychological underpinnings of loneliness motif inEnglish author Jean Rhys’s novel “The Wide Sargasso Sea”. The impact of loneliness on the psyche of the protagonists and the resulting tragedy of the protagonist, who became insane and put an end to her life, is analyzed


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