Well-Being Indicators in Aotearoa/New Zealand

Since the turn of the Millenium there have been active developments of social indicator frameworks in New Zealand, alongside related efforts of economic, environmental, and health indicators. The first phase included the Ministry of Social Development’s Social Report and the – still on-going - Quality of Life Project alongside living standards studies and the academic FWWP[1] study drawing on census data. In the second decade a new approach gradually emerged. The Statistics New Zealand (SNZ) General Social Survey provided a firm foundation for developing indicators, international conceptualisation from the OECD and other sources was explicitly drawn on, the Household Economic Survey underwent ongoing enhancement and Treasury embarked on the long-term development of its Living Standards framework. A recent fillip driven by the emerging rhetoric of ‘Social Well Being’ has been the institutionalising of social indicators in the forthcoming Treasury Wellbeing report, an interest in social cohesion, mobilisation of academic knowledge, consideration of a wider range of inputs (especially on behalf of ethnic communities) and establishment of more active SNZ and other websites and dashboards, which supply useful single-variable vignettes and considerable downloadable source data but little analysis. The New Zealand social indicator system, within the increasingly comprehensive overall indicator system, is beginning to consolidate but needs more considered development. [1] The Family and Whanau Wellbeing Project was carried out at the University Auckland: see Cotterell & Crothers, 2011.

Sustainability Indicators in a Bachelor’s Educational Program in the Health Area

Superior education institutions are interested in training human resources with a holistic and critical vision, which contribute to the attention of environmental problems from the health area. The objective was to analyze, with indicators and indexes, the achievement reached regarding the level of sustainability in the functions of directors, teachers, and students at the Superior School of Nursing No. 1 of the Autonomous University of Guerrero, Mexico. The methodology was quantitative; interviews were applied to three directors, and surveys to 18 teachers and 226 students. On environmental issues, the findings show that teachers have scarce knowledge, with 14%; directors vary significantly, registering 58%; meanwhile, students are located at 60%. In the social indicator, students had 66%, directors 64%, and teachers 31%; the economic indicator was the least valued with 41% for students, 40% for directors, and 15% for teachers. The sustainability index for teachers was 0.19%, in “collapse”; for directors and students, it was “unstable”, with 0.56% and 0.58%, respectively. It was concluded that teachers prioritize disciplinary content; students express greater concern, knowledge, and interest for the environment.

Tricky Tools for Feminist Struggle

This article takes up shifting meanings of the population sex ratio in select times and places. Through historicization and contextual analysis, I seek to identify possible origins and continuities of the gendered imperial and racialized logics that undergird current dilemmas for feminists related to the sex ratio. I argue that sex ratios, like other numerical abstractions that stand in as representations of empirical reality, are tricky tools for addressing social problems. Regardless of whether they are viewed primarily as natural, biological, cultural, racial, or even social, they have been both friend and foe to feminist struggle. Feminists might invest in interpretations of the ratio as a mutable, social indicator of the status of women and girls in need of improvement. Yet this idea runs the risk of misappropriation and conflation with diehard interpretations of sex ratios that reproduce hierarchy based on race/ethnicity and nationality.

Prevalence and Factors Associated with Physical Punishment and Psychological Aggression Towards Children in Laos: Results of the 2017 Social Indicator Survey

Background: Physical and psychological child punishment is an important public health problem. Objectives: This study aimed to assess the prevalence and factors associated with physical punishment and psychological aggression toward children (1 - 14 years of age) in Laos. Methods: In the nationally representative 2017 Lao Social Indicator Survey, 20,949 mothers or caretakers of children aged 1 - 14 years responded to questions on child disciplining methods used by adults in households during the past month and attitudes toward violence. Logistic regression was used to investigate the association between household and maternal characteristics and physical punishment and psychological aggression toward children. Results: The prevalence of psychological aggression was 64.0% (shouted, etc., 60.5% and called child dumb, etc., 26.4%), the prevalence of any physical punishment was 35.6% (spanked, etc., 27.1%, hit on extremities 23.9%, hit on the bottom, etc., 4.9%, hit on face 3.9%, and “beat the child as hard as one could” 1.0%). In adjusted logistic regression analysis, male gender, poorer household wealth status, living in the central and southern region of the country, the child living with biological parents, agreement with physical punishment of children were positively, while older age, urban residence, and belonging to the Lao-Tai ethnolinguistic group were negatively associated with any physical punishment. Older age, male gender, living in the central region of the country, the child living with biological parents, and agreement with physical punishment of children were positive, whereas rural residence without road and living in the southern region of the country were negatively associated with psychological aggression. Conclusions: Psychological aggression and, to a lesser extent, physical punishment of children are common in Laos. Interventions to prevent psychological aggression and physical punishment towards children should support parents in adapting non-violent forms of parenting practices.

The Scent of the Righteous vs. the Scent of the Wicked: Body Odor as a Social Indicator of Morality in Rabbinic Literature

Perceiving the odor emitted by one’s body or clothes as a manifestation of moral identity is a cross-cultural sociological and literary phenomenon. Odors were perceived as a mark that set social boundaries and they made it possible to distinguish between groups of people by their status or identity. In the Christian, Muslim, and Bahai traditions holy people, such as prophets, martyrs, and shahids, were perceived or described as smelling good. In Jewish cultural discourse, smell is a sociological-religious indicator that distinguishes, whether symbolically or realistically, between the good and the corrupt. The term “foul smell” is mentioned in association with negative people, mainly with regard to sexual promiscuity. In contrast, a good fragrance is emblematic of the Patriarchs (Abraham), people with stringent sexual morals (Joseph), and Torah scholars.

Progress Toward an Early Social Indicator for Infants and Toddlers

Measures of young children’s social development are needed in the Multi-Tier System of Supports (MTSS) approach to early childhood. In 2004, we reported initial development of an observational measure of infants’ and toddlers’ social skills designed for early educators, the Early Social Indicator (ESI). Here, we report preliminary findings on the ESI’s feasibility, sustainability, and sensitivity to growth in social engagement based on a large, multiyear sample of children in one early childhood program that agreed to pilot the measure. Results indicated that ESI use by program staff was sustained over a 5-year period. Program staff were reliable coding a range of children’s positive and negative nonverbal and verbal social skills. However, staff were not reliable when coding the target of a child’s social response when it was not the Adult play partner (i.e., the Peer, or Nondirected target). Results documented sensitivity to growth over time, dynamic patterns of change within and across key skills consistent with the typical course of social development, and moderation by children’s home language and Individual Family Service Plan (IFSP) status. Implications are discussed.