Neighborhood signaling effects, commuting time, and employment

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether there is unequal treatment in hiring depending on whether a job applicant signals living in a bad (deprived) neighborhood or in a good (affluent) neighborhood. Design/methodology/approach The authors conducted a field experiment where fictitious job applications were sent to employers with an advertised vacancy. Each job application was randomly assigned a residential address in either a bad or a good neighborhood. The measured outcome is the fraction of invitations for a job interview (the callback rate). Findings The authors find no evidence of general neighborhood signaling effects. However, job applicants with a foreign background have callback rates that are 42 percent lower if they signal living in a bad neighborhood rather than in a good neighborhood. In addition, the authors find that applicants with commuting times longer than 90 minutes have lower callback rates, and this is unrelated to the neighborhood signaling effect. Originality/value Empirical evidence of causal neighborhood effects on labor market outcomes is scant, and causal evidence on the mechanisms involved is even more scant. The paper provides such evidence.

Not just a pretty picture part two: testing a visual literacy program for young children

Purpose In an effort to advance visual literacy (VL) education, the purpose of this paper is to develop and test a VL instruction program for 2.5-4-year-old children in a public library setting. Design/methodology/approach The study was designed as a series of VL workshops for young public library visitors. Each workshop collected information about children’s existing VL knowledge, introduced them to new visual concepts, and measured their engagement and comprehension of the newly acquired material. The study data were collected via questionnaires and observations. Findings Most of the children who participated in the study workshops showed a solid baseline knowledge of colors, lines, shapes and textures and were actively engaged in instruction. After the instruction, children generally showed an improved understanding of the newly introduced VL concepts and were able to answer questions related to the new concepts, recognize them in images, and apply them in art projects. Research limitations/implications The study relied on a relatively small sample of library visitors in an affluent neighborhood. The findings are influenced by variations in the topics and delivery methods of instruction. The study findings might not be generalizable beyond the US context. Practical implications The study methods and findings would be useful to VL educators who work with children. Social implications As information continues to proliferate in non-textual contexts, VL is becoming an increasingly important educational goal. The study advances a VL agenda and advocates for introducing VL early in life. Originality/value The authors are not aware of any other study that tested VL instruction on a group of very young children in a public library.

Affluent Neighborhood Persistence and Change in U.S. Cities

Places are stratified along a hierarchy, with the affluent occupying the most resource–rich neighborhoods. Affluent neighborhood advantages include safety, high quality schools, and proximity to jobs. An additional benefit may be local economic stability over time. In a national context of rising interpersonal income inequality since 1970 and of the Great Recession, trends in neighborhood persistence and change expose this spatial advantage of the affluent. Using census data from 1970 to 2010, I find increasing rates of stability in the affluence and poverty of neighborhoods through 2000, with declines during the last decade. I also find that rates of chronic poverty and persistent affluence are high, ranging between 30 and 35 percent of neighborhoods across the 40–year period. This study highlights the structural persistence of affluence and poverty of neighborhoods as a vehicle for perpetuating social inequality and economic segregation.

Museum Review

In the affluent neighborhood and diplomatic district of Chanakyapuri in New Delhi lies the Indian National Rail Museum (NRM), the only one of its kind in Asia. Sprawling over 44,000 square meters, the NRM comprises a large outdoor museum, an indoor gallery and a large Auditorium for conferences. In 2010, the museum hosted the annual meeting of the International Association for the History of Transport, Traffic and Mobility (T2M).

Between Institutional Survival and Intellectual Commitment: The Case of the Argentine Society of Writers during Perón’s Rule (1945–1955)

An analysis of Peronism constitutes an obligatory point of departure of any study of Argentina’s history since 1945. The advancement of the popular masses toward the Plaza de Mayo on 17 October 1945, clamoring for their new leader (the Colonel Juan Domingo Perón) inaugurated a new era for this nation. For some, especially for those who marched on that day, it represented the beginning of a period of hope. For others, those who looked with stupor at the crowds “invading” the city, this was the start of a decade of undemocratic practices and populist pseudo-fascist reforms. Perón’s rise to the presidency in 1946 would find the majority of the Argentine intelligentsia in the ranks of the opposition. The intellectuals were particularly worried by the emergence of this political movement which, in their eyes, was a combination of a local incarnation of European fascism and the ‘barbaric’ regime of the caudillo Juan Manuel de Rosas. In 1956, the writer Ezequiel Martínez Estrada summarized the horror that this march signified for the “decent people.” He declared it the threat of a “San Bartolomé del Barrio Norte” (an affluent neighborhood in Buenos Aires) and characterized the Peronists as “those sinister demons of the plains which Sarmiento described in El Facundo.” In his description Perón was depicted as a local Franco, a Mussolini or a Hitler. Only those intellectuals who defended different versions of local nationalism joined the enterprise of the colonel-turned-popular-politician and put their hopes in him.

Between Institutional Survival and Intellectual Commitment: The Case of the Argentine Society of Writers during Perón’s Rule (1945–1955)

An analysis of Peronism constitutes an obligatory point of departure of any study of Argentina’s history since 1945. The advancement of the popular masses toward the Plaza de Mayo on 17 October 1945, clamoring for their new leader (the Colonel Juan Domingo Perón) inaugurated a new era for this nation. For some, especially for those who marched on that day, it represented the beginning of a period of hope. For others, those who looked with stupor at the crowds “invading” the city, this was the start of a decade of undemocratic practices and populist pseudo-fascist reforms. Perón’s rise to the presidency in 1946 would find the majority of the Argentine intelligentsia in the ranks of the opposition. The intellectuals were particularly worried by the emergence of this political movement which, in their eyes, was a combination of a local incarnation of European fascism and the ‘barbaric’ regime of the caudillo Juan Manuel de Rosas. In 1956, the writer Ezequiel Martínez Estrada summarized the horror that this march signified for the “decent people.” He declared it the threat of a “San Bartolomé del Barrio Norte” (an affluent neighborhood in Buenos Aires) and characterized the Peronists as “those sinister demons of the plains which Sarmiento described in El Facundo.” In his description Perón was depicted as a local Franco, a Mussolini or a Hitler. Only those intellectuals who defended different versions of local nationalism joined the enterprise of the colonel-turned-popular-politician and put their hopes in him.