Individual differences in trajectories of arithmetical development in typically achieving 5-to 7-year-olds

The arithmetical performance of typically achieving 5- to 7-year-olds (N = 29) was measured at four 6-month intervals. The same seven tasks were used at each time point: exact calculation, story problems, approximate arithmetic, place value, calculation principles, forced retrieval, and written problems. Although group analysis showed mostly linear growth over the 18-month period, analysis of individual differences revealed a much more complex picture. Some children exhibited marked variation in performance across the seven tasks, including evidence of difficulty in some cases. Individual growth patterns also showed differences in developmental trajectories between children on each task and within children across tasks. The findings support the idea of the componential nature of arithmetical ability and underscore the need for further longitudinal research on typically achieving children and of careful consideration of individual differences. (C) 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Are rural development programmes socially inclusive? Social inclusion, civic engagement, participation, and social capital: Exploring the differences

Considerable importance is attached to social exclusion/inclusion in recent EU rural development programmes. At the national/regional operation of these programmes groups of people who are not participating are often identified as ‘socially excluded groups’. This article contends that rural development programmes are misinterpreting the social processes of participation and consequently labelling some groups as socially excluded when they are not. This is partly because of the interchangeable and confused use of the concepts social inclusion, social capital and civic engagement, and partly because of the presumption that to participate is the default position. Three groups identified as socially excluded groups in Northern Ireland are considered. It is argued that a more careful analysis of what social inclusion means, what civic engagement means, and why participation is presumed to be the norm, leads to a different conclusion about who is excluded. This has both theoretical and policy relevance for the much used concept of social inclusion.

Bridging and Linking in a Divided Society: A Social Capital Case Study from Northern Ireland

This paper reports the results of research into social capital levels in the Central Housing Community Network, part of the community consultation structure of the Northern Ireland Housing Executive. Membership of the forum increased the bonding, bridging and linking social capital of its members and appeared to improve community relations, although that was not its stated purpose. However, the empirical link between social capital and the quality of community relations remains unproven. The research provides an example of the state creating a positive space for interaction with civil society through consultation on service delivery issues. In an international policy environment where ‘mixed’ communities are the ideal, the potential of service-based forums to contribute to community cohesion may have been underestimated.

Accumulation of knowledge and accumulation of capital in early ‘theories’ of growth and development

This paper argues that prior to Adam Smith economic progress was largely conceived as being based on the accumulation of knowledge. The development by Turgot and Smith of a concept of capital that subsumed other factors contributing to development led their followers to focus on capital to the neglect of the independent role of knowledge. The paper demonstrates that this paradigmatic shift was identified and challenged by Bentham, Hodgskin and Rae who argued for the independent role of innovation but without lasting impact. © The Author 2009. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Cambridge Political Economy Society. All rights reserved.

Social and Subcultural Capital among teenagers in Northern Ireland

This article makes a case for the inclusion of subcultural capital as an indictor of social capital networks in the lives of teenagers. It does so by critiquing approaches that assume that adult measures of social capital can be nonproblematically extended to account for stocks of social capital held by younger generations. To illustrate the fallacy of this approach, this article draws on data from the 2003 Northern Ireland Young Life and Times Survey (NIYLTS) and the indicators used to explore the relevance of social capital in the lives of teenagers. By ignoring concepts such as subcultural capital, surveys such as the NILYTS provide partial frameworks for understanding the complexities of young people's links to social capital networks and their inclusive and exclusive effects.

Migration, human capital accumulation and economic development

We study how the possibility of migration changes the composition of human capital in sending countries, and how this affects development. In our model, growth is driven by productivity growth, which occurs via imitation or innovation. Both activities use the same types of skilled labour as input, albeit with different intensities. Heterogenous agents accumulate skills in response to economic incentives. Migration distorts these incentives, and the accumulation of human capital. This slows down, or even hinders, economic development. The effect is stronger, the farther away the country is from the technological frontier. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Hicks meets Hotelling: the direction of technical change in capital-resource economies

We analyze a two-sector growth model with directed technical change where man-made capital and exhaustible resources are essential for production. The relative profitability of factor-specific innovations endogenously determines whether technical progress will be capital- or resource-augmenting. We show that any balanced growth equilibrium features purely resource-augmenting technical change. This result is compatible with alternative specifications of preferences and innovation technologies, as it hinges on the interplay between productive efficiency in the final sector, and the Hotelling rule characterizing the efficient depletion path for the exhaustible resource. Our result provides sound micro-foundations for the broad class of models of exogenous/endogenous growth where resource-augmenting progress is required to sustain consumption in the long run, contradicting the view that these models are conceptually biased in favor of sustainability.

Does governance matter for aggregate health capital?

The point of departure of our analysis is the seminal work of Rodgers (1979) on the absolute and relative income hypotheses. We find that substituting the governance index for the Gini index is statistically the preferred regression model. Our findings lend support to the argument that governance matters. Further investigation provides evidence for two types of threshold effects: in terms of both absolute income and governance. For those countries below a threshold, absolute income is the most significant determinant of health, while for those above it, governance matters the most. The regression analyses are conducted on a sample of 112 states, which is representative of a wide range of absolute income and governance levels.

Birthweight and the risk of childhood-onset type 1 diabetes: a meta-analysis of observational studies using individual patient data

Aims/hypothesis: We investigated whether children who are heavier at birth have an increased risk of type 1 diabetes. Methods: Relevant studies published before February 2009 were identified from literature searches using MEDLINE, Web of Science and EMBASE. Authors of all studies containing relevant data were contacted and asked to provide individual patient data or conduct pre-specified analyses. Risk estimates of type 1 diabetes by category of birthweight were calculated for each study, before and after adjustment for potential confounders. Meta-analysis techniques were then used to derive combined ORs and investigate heterogeneity between studies. Results: Data were available for 29 predominantly European studies (five cohort, 24 case-control studies), including 12,807 cases of type 1 diabetes. Overall, studies consistently demonstrated that children with birthweight from 3.5 to 4 kg had an increased risk of diabetes of 6% (OR 1.06 [95% CI 1.01-1.11]; p=0.02) and children with birthweight over 4 kg had an increased risk of 10% (OR 1.10 [95% CI 1.04-1.19]; p=0.003), compared with children weighing 3.0 to 3.5 kg at birth. This corresponded to a linear increase in diabetes risk of 3% per 500 g increase in birthweight (OR 1.03 [95% CI 1.00-1.06]; p=0.03). Adjustments for potential confounders such as gestational age, maternal age, birth order, Caesarean section, breastfeeding and maternal diabetes had little effect on these findings. Conclusions/interpretation: Children who are heavier at birth have a significant and consistent, but relatively small increase in risk of type 1 diabetes. © 2010 Springer-Verlag.


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