Higher education - crisis or change? A special programme exploring the role, meaning and future of a university education in a globalised world. It was once assumed that university graduates, particularly those from working class backgrounds, had a route to social mobility via a degree. Sara Goldrick-Rab, Professor of Higher Education Policy and Sociology at Temple University, tells Laurie Taylor why her new study suggests the end of the American dream of self improvement. Half the students, in her sample of 3,000 disadvantaged young adults, dropped out of college due to a lack of financial resources. Lorenza Antonucci, Senior Lecturer in Sociology at Teeside University, compared the lives of students in England, Italy and Sweden and found that, contrary to what is assumed by HE policies, participating in university education now exacerbates inequality. Thomas Docherty, Professor of English and of Comparative Literature at the University of Warwick, joins the discussion, placing these developments in the context of an increasing marketisation of education which, he argues, has turned the university into the servant of the economy.
2 October 2016
The Guardian: Cat snap: Jane Bown's feline photographs
The esteemed Observer photographer, known for her celebrated portraits of cultural and political luminaries, began and finished many of her rolls of film with pictures of cats. Now these photographs are gathered together in a new collection.
Social Europe: The Unresolved Dilemma Of Czech Immigration Policy
In general, the ethos of Czech immigration law is still based on an unspoken assumption that the best outcome is for migrants (not necessarily refugees) to come to this country for a limited amount of time and then to depart. The relatively low percentage of people granted asylum status also reveals little willingness to have migrants enter and remain on that basis either. Yet, the current reality of people interested in migrating to the Czech Republic and this country’s economic needs do not fit very well into this scenario. This creates certain problems for the non-profit organizations working to improve the lives and conditions of migrants, but is also a controversial mantra to follow, even for Czech officials. [...]
Since the mid-2000s, the proportion of immigrants with permanent residence among all those staying here on long-term visas has also grown very quickly. The past three years have seen that proportion leap over the 50% mark, along with a significant increase in citizenship applications.
The immigration laws of the Czech Republic, although relatively open until recently to labor migration, have not stayed in step with the times. Since around 2009, when the economic boom began to wane, politicians began using migrant workers as scapegoats for economic instability, stoking unfounded fears of rising unemployment and recession. This was also reflected in the tightening of immigration policies, making the hiring of foreign workers for longer periods of time more complicated.
Atlas Obscura: The Delightful Perversity of Québec's Catholic Swears
"I have heard that people swear with the things they are afraid of," says Olivier Bauer, a Swiss professor of religion who taught at the Université de Montréal and lived in the city for a decade. "So for English speaking people it's sex, in Québec it is the church, and in France or Switzerland it is maybe more sexual or scatalogical." Fear and power kind of tie together; swear words tend to be words that invoke something mysterious or scary or uncomfortable, and by using them we can tap into a bit of that power. (Yiddish, the swear words of which I grew up hearing, has about a dozen curses referring to the penis. I'm not sure which category that falls into.) [...]
The sacres is the group of Catholic swears unique to Québec. There are many of them; the most popular are probably tabarnak (tabernacle), osti or hostie or estie (host, the bread used during communion), câlisse (chalice), ciboire (the container that holds the host), and sacrament (sacrament). These usually have some milder forms as well, slightly modified versions that lessen their blow. "For example, tabarnouche and tabarouette are non-vulgar versions of tabarnak, similar to 'shoot' and 'darn' in English," says Polesello. [...]
"I think the second half of the 19th century, that's when it became omnipresent," says Bauer. The number of Catholic congregations in Québec skyrocketed. The Church all but took over social services yet again, from education to marriage. The dominance of the Catholic Church in Québec went on far longer than anywhere else in North America, and indeed most places in Europe. Over 90 percent of the Quebec population regularly attended Catholic church services right up until 1960. Catholic newspapers flourished. Catholic schools became the vast majority of the sources of primary education in the province.
In 1960 that all changed; the election of Jean Lesage as the premier of Québec found the province beginning what would come to be known as the Quiet Revolution. Secularization began in earnest as education was wrenched out of the hands of the Church through various means (standardizing curriculums, replacing Catholic secondary education with a pre-college school system known as CEGEP), and industries ranging from energy to mining to forestry were created as public institutions, undermining the Church's power.
The Atlantic: Masters of Love ( JUN 12, 2014)
Except, of course, it doesn’t work out that way for most people. The majority of marriages fail, either ending in divorce and separation or devolving into bitterness and dysfunction. Of all the people who get married, only three in ten remain in healthy, happy marriages, as psychologist Ty Tashiro points out in his book The Science of Happily Ever After, which was published earlier this year. [...]
From the data they gathered, Gottman separated the couples into two major groups: the masters and the disasters. The masters were still happily together after six years. The disasters had either broken up or were chronically unhappy in their marriages. When the researchers analyzed the data they gathered on the couples, they saw clear differences between the masters and disasters. The disasters looked calm during the interviews, but their physiology, measured by the electrodes, told a different story. Their heart rates were quick, their sweat glands were active, and their blood flow was fast. Following thousands of couples longitudinally, Gottman found that the more physiologically active the couples were in the lab, the quicker their relationships deteriorated over time. [...]
Throughout the day, partners would make requests for connection, what Gottman calls “bids.” For example, say that the husband is a bird enthusiast and notices a goldfinch fly across the yard. He might say to his wife, “Look at that beautiful bird outside!” He’s not just commenting on the bird here: he’s requesting a response from his wife—a sign of interest or support—hoping they’ll connect, however momentarily, over the bird.
The wife now has a choice. She can respond by either “turning toward” or “turning away” from her husband, as Gottman puts it. Though the bird-bid might seem minor and silly, it can actually reveal a lot about the health of the relationship. The husband thought the bird was important enough to bring it up in conversation and the question is whether his wife recognizes and respects that. [...]
There are two ways to think about kindness. You can think about it as a fixed trait: either you have it or you don’t. Or you could think of kindness as a muscle. In some people, that muscle is naturally stronger than in others, but it can grow stronger in everyone with exercise. Masters tend to think about kindness as a muscle. They know that they have to exercise it to keep it in shape. They know, in other words, that a good relationship requires sustained hard work.
Motherboard: Does Crime-Predicting Software Bias Judges? Unfortunately, There’s No Data
For centuries judges have had to make guesses about the people in front of them. Will this person commit a crime again? Or is this punishment enough to deter them? Do they have the support they need at home to stay safe and healthy and away from crime? Or will they be thrust back into a situation that drives them to their old ways? Ultimately, judges have to guess.
But recently, judges in states including California and Florida have been given a new piece of information to aid in that guess work: a “risk assessment score” determined by an algorithm. These algorithms take a whole suite of variables into account, and spit out a number (usually between 1 and 10) that estimates the risk that the person in question will wind up back in jail. [...]
I’ve been doing some research of my own into these recidivism algorithms, and when I read the ProPublica story, I came out with the same question I’ve had since I started looking into this: these algorithms are likely biased against people of color. But so are judges. So how do they compare? How does the bias present in humans stack up against the bias programmed into algorithms? [...]
All the researchers I talked to who study sentencing, risk assessment and these algorithms said they didn’t know of a single study that compared the sentencing patterns judges who do and don’t use these scores. There are studies out there on a variety of risk-assessment tools that look at questions of accuracy and reliability. There are plenty of studies that compare the algorithms’ guesses about recidivism with who really did return to jail. But there’s nothing that compares judges with and without the scores. Which means that states are using these scores in a variety of contexts without having any idea how they might impact decisions that impact people’s lives.
The Intercept: Europe's Top Human Rights Court Will Consider Legality of Surveillance Exposed by Edward Snowden
Ten organizations – including Privacy International, the American Civil Liberties Union, and Amnesty International – are taking up the landmark case against the U.K. government in the European Court of Human Rights (pictured above). In a 115-page complaint released on Thursday, the groups allege that “blanket and indiscriminate” surveillance operations carried out by British spy agencies in collaboration with their U.S. counterparts violate privacy and freedom of expression rights.
The case represents the first time Europe’s top human rights court has been asked to consider the legality of surveillance exposed in the Snowden documents. Its judgments are legally binding and could potentially have ramifications for how surveillance is conducted by U.K. agencies. [...]
The complaint argues that the scale of the surveillance “is unprecedented in terms of (a) the number of individuals whose communications are potentially affected; (b) the quantity of communications content and related communications data that is actually initially intercepted, extracted, filtered, stored, analysed and/or disseminated by the U.K. intelligence agencies.” It adds that the “the operation of sophisticated covert surveillance powers without adequate safeguards is ipso facto disproportionate.”
BBC4 Word of Mouth: Small Talk
Pointless chit chat or vital social lubricant? Michael Rosen and Dr Laura Wright talk small talk with psychotherapist and writer Philippa Perry, author of 'How to Stay Sane'. Why do we bother with small talk? What are the rules of banter? And what are we really talking about when we talk about the weather?
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