RESTAVEC – from haitian slave child to middle-class american

Trabalho de Projeto apresentado ao Instituto de Contabilidade e Administração do Porto para a obtenção do grau de Mestre em Tradução e Interpretação Especializadas, sob orientação da Doutora Clara Sarmento

Overcoming Gender Disadvantages. Social Policy Analysis of urban middle-class women in Colombia

The World Bank Report 2012 starts with this statement: “Gender equality matters in itself andit matters for development because, in today’s globalized worlds, countries that use the skillsand talents of their women would have an advantage over those which do not use it.” With theframe that suggest that gender equality matters, this paper describes some policy alternativesoriented to overcome gender disadvantages in the formal labor market incorporation of theurban middle class women in Colombia. On balance, the final recommendation suggest that itis desirable to adopt policy alternatives as Community Centers, which are programs orientedto a social redistribution of the domestic work as a way to encourage women participationin the formal labor market with the social support of the members of their own community.The problem that the social policy needs to address is the segregation of women in the formallabor market in Colombia. Although the evidence shows that the women overcome theeducational gap by showing better performance in education that their male peers, womenare still segregated of the labor market. The persistence of high rates of unemployment on thefemale population, the prevalence of the informal labor market as a women labor market, andthe presence of the payment difference between men and women with similar professionaltrainings are circumstances that sustain the segregation statement. These circumstances areinefficient for the society because an economic analysis shows that the cost of maintain the statuquo is externalized in the social security system that includes health, pension and maternityleave regimens. Therefore, the women segregation involves a market failure.This paper evaluates five policy alternatives each directed to the progress of a different causaldimension of the problem: (i) Quotas in the private market, (ii) Flexible working hours,(iii) replace the maternity leave with a family leave, (iv) Increase the Community Centers forredistributing the care work, and (v) Equal payment enforcement. The first alternative looksto increase women’s participation in the formal labor market. The second, third, and fourthalternatives constitute a package addressed at redistributing care work by reducing women’sresponsibility for reproductive work in the household with the help of husbands and the localgovernment. The fifth alternative intervenes to resolve the equal payment problem.After a four criteria evaluation that measure effectiveness, robustness and improbability inimplementation, efficiency and political acceptability or social opposition, the strongest alternativeis the fostering of Community Centers that promote a redistribution of care work. Thispolicy performs well in the assessment process because it combines gender focus with importantindirect effects: child support and human capabilities. The policy also shows a bottomup implementation process that overcomes the main adoption difficulties in the gender focusprograms and is supported by strong evidence of success in the Colombian context; this evidenceis produced by both transnational actors as a World Bank and also in local accountabilityreporters executed by local institutions like Colombian Institute of Family Welfare (ICBF).

Transnational urbanism in Port of Spain: returning middle-class urban elites

Port of Spain, Trinidad offers an ideal context in which to analyze pre-retirement return migration to a Global South urban realm, expanding transnational urban research beyond the conventional focus on Global North metropolitan destinations. In this article, we draw on the transnational narratives of a selected sample of relatively youthful Trinidadians, who have spent many years abroad acquiring education and professional experience, but who have then decided to return in mid-career to the capital region of the island nation of their birth, or of their parent(s). Theoretically, we position these returning professionals as members of a "middling" transnational urban class whose return is at least partly motivated by a desire to "make a difference." Our results contribute to a growing literature that documents the role of transnational middle-class urban elites returning elsewhere in the Carribbean: "middling" transnational urbanism is reshaping key facets of urbanization in the Global South.

Troubling identities: teacher education students` constructions of class and ethnicity

Working with diverse student populations productively depends on teachers and teacher educators recognizing and valuing difference. Too often, in teacher education programs, when markers of identity such as gender, ethnicity, 'race', or social class are examined, the focus is on developing student teachers' understandings of how these discourses shape learner identities and rarely on how these also shape teachers' identities. This article reports on a research project that explored how student teachers understand ethnicity and socio-economic status. In a preliminary stage of the research, we asked eight Year 3 teacher education students who had attended mainly Anglo-Australian, middle class schools as students and as student teachers, to explore their own ethnic and classed identities. The complexities of identity are foregrounded in both the assumptions we made in selecting particular students for the project and in the ways they constructed their own identities around ethnicity and social class. In this article we draw on these findings to interrogate how categories of identity are fluid, shifting and ongoing processes of negotiation, troubling and complex. We also consider the implications for teacher education.

Analyzing Australian middle years students' preferred mathematics classroom practices

The Middle Years of schooling have become an issue for mathematics teachers and educators, and calls for the reform of this period of schooling are frequent. However, the suggested reforms appear to be divided in their views of what would be best for these students. This paper provides a brief overview of what some Middle Years students say about their needs. Some 1500 students in the Middle Years of schooling (Years 5 to 9) were surveyed about their preferred mathematics classroom activities: the methods and results of the survey may be extremely relevant to those contemplating Middle Years reform.

Learning to read journal articles : an exploratory study of an Australian marketing class

Reading and comprehension form an integral part of educational practice. This study explores students’ learning experience in reading journal articles for a Marketing class. Two broad aims are considered: 1) to reflect on students’ reading capacity of journal articles, and 2) to investigate students’ reflection on their use of a learning framework developed to assist them in reading. Data were collected as part of an explorative pilot study from 31 students in Marketing tutorial classes at a university in Australia during a summer semester. The participants were asked about their learning experience in reading a Marketing journal article and their experience of using the learning framework as they read the given article. Findings indicate that students were positive about the value of the learning framework in assisting them to read, to understand the Marketing journal articles and to extract relevant learning themes from them.

Theorising geo-identity and David Harvey’s space: school choices of the geographically bound middle-class

This paper draws on David Harvey’s theories of absolute and relational space in order to critique geographically bound school choices of the gentrified middle-class in the City of Melbourne, Australia. The paper relies on interviews with inner-city school choosers as generated by a longitudinal ethnographic school choice study. I argue that the participants construct their class-identity in relation to their geographical (or residential) positioning and this influences their schooling choices. In the light of this argument, I theorise geo-identity in thinking about how geographies inform and instruct identity and choice. This paper contributes by offering a focused analysis of Harvey’s spatial theories and class-identity in processes of choice.

The role of the middle class in economic development: What do Cross-Country data show?

This paper investigates the channels through which the middle class may matter for consumption growth and development. Determinants of the size and the growth of the middle class are also examined. Using several different middle class measures and a panel of 72 developing countries spanning the period 1985-2006, we find that a larger middle class influences growth primarily through higher levels of human capital investment. We also find that large governments, higher levels of urbanization, greater democracy, ethnic concentration, and sea access are all associated with a larger middle class. © 2011 by Asian Development Bank.

The role of middle class in democratic diffusion

The modernization hypothesis and the democratic domino theory have been at the forefront in explaining the democratization around the globe. This paper empirically investigates the ‘middle class-driven modernization’ hypothesis and the ‘middle class-driven democratic domino’ effect in a panel of 145 countries over the period 1985 to 2013. Using several middle class measures and a dynamic panel estimator, we show that the ‘middle class-driven modernization’ hypothesis finds strong empirical support in the sample of developing countries excluding Eastern Europe and Central Asia, while the ‘middle class-driven democratic domino’ effect finds support in the sample of developing countries excluding East Asia and the Pacific