Frames in the Ethiopian Debate on Biofuels

Biofuel production, while highly contested, is supported by a number of policies worldwide. Ethiopia was among the first sub-Saharan countries to devise a biofuel policy strategy to guide the associated demand toward sustainable development. In this paper, I discuss Ethiopia’s biofuel policy from an interpretative research position using a frames approach and argue that useful insights can be obtained by paying more attention to national contexts and values represented in the debates on whether biofuel production can or will contribute to sustainable development. To this end, I was able to distinguish three major frames used in the Ethiopian debate on biofuels: an environmental rehabilitation frame, a green revolution frame and a legitimacy frame. The article concludes that actors advocating for frames related to social and human issues have difficulties entering the debate and forming alliances, and that those voices need to be included in order for Ethiopia to develop a sustainable biofuel sector.

Cultural capital and smoking in young adults: applying new indicators to explore social inequalities in health behaviour.

BACKGROUND Associations between social status and health behaviours are well documented, but the mechanisms involved are less understood. Cultural capital theory may contribute to a better understanding by expanding the scope of inequality indicators to include individuals' knowledge, skills, beliefs and material goods to examine how these indicators impact individuals' health lifestyles. We explore the structure and applicability of a set of cultural capital indicators in the empirical exploration of smoking behaviour among young male adults. METHODS We analysed data from the Swiss Federal Survey of Adolescents (CH-X) 2010-11 panel of young Swiss males (n = 10 736). A set of nine theoretically relevant variables (including incorporated, institutionalized and objectified cultural capital) were investigated using exploratory factor analysis. Regression models were run to observe the association between factor scores and smoking outcomes. Outcome measures consisted of daily smoking status and the number of cigarettes smoked by daily smokers. RESULTS Cultural capital indicators aggregated in a three-factor solution representing 'health values', 'education and knowledge' and 'family resources'. Each factor score predicted the smoking outcomes. In young males, scoring low on health values, education and knowledge and family resources was associated with a higher risk of being a daily smoker and of smoking more cigarettes daily. CONCLUSION Cultural capital measures that include, but go beyond, educational attainment can improve prediction models of smoking in young male adults. New measures of cultural capital may thus contribute to our understanding of the social status-based resources that individuals can use towards health behaviours.

Comparability of Outcome Frameworks in Medical Education: Implications for framework development

Background: The demand for international harmonization in medical education increases with the growing mobility of students and health professionals. Many medical societies and governmental offices have issued outcome frameworks (OF), which describe aims and contents of medical education based on competencies. These national standards affect the development of curricula as well as assessment and licensing procedures. Comparing OF and identifying factors that limit their comparability may thus foster international harmonization of medical education. Summary of Work: We conducted a systematic search for national OF in MedLine, EmBase and the internet. We included all OF in German or English that resulted from a national consensus process and were published or endorsed by a national society or governmental body. We extracted information in five predetermined categories: history of origin, audience, formal structure, medical schooling system and key terms. Summary of Results: Out of 1816 results, 13 OF were included into further analyses. OF reference each other, often without addressing existing differences (e.g. in target audiences). The two most cited OF are “CanMEDs” and “Scottish Doctor”. OF differ especially in their level of detail as well as in the underlying educational system. Discussion and Conclusions: Based on our results we propose a two-step blueprint for OF, that may help to establish comparability for internationally aligned key features – so-called “core competencies” – while at the same time allowing for necessary regional adaptations in terms of “secondary competencies”. Take-home messages: Considerable differences in at least five categories of OF currently hinder the comparability of outcome frameworks.