International tourism and poverty alleviation: cross-country evidence using panel quantile fixed effects approach

This paper evaluates the impact of tourism on poverty alleviation using a new panel quantile fixed effects method that allows regressors to affect the entire conditional distribution of the dependent variable providing substantial information gains. Our results show statistically significant negative marginal effects of tourism on both absolute poverty measures and Gini income inequality across all quantiles, including the poorest 10%. We also find evidence that international tourism can mitigate the slow improvement in domestic income level for poverty reduction. From a policy perspective, our findings can provide insights into developing targeted tourism policies and strategies to achieve better solutions on poverty alleviation. We also call for special attention to policymakers in developing countries to continue working on tourism product differentiation and targeting a smaller but reachable market in the post COVID-19 recovery era, to prevent the adverse effect of the worldwide income growth stagnation on their poverty rates.

Ready or Not: Gulf Country Teachers' Challenges toward Teaching Online Courses in Emergency Cases in Higher Education

The purpose of this study was to determine the challenges faced by teachers from the Arabian Gulf countries of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait while teaching virtual online courses. Because online learning in higher education in these countries had not occurred before the current pandemic, the teachers and students faced new challenges for the first time, including online communication, inadequate training, insufficient practice, and incompetence in online assessment. Seventy-six teachers of higher education in Kuwait or Saudi Arabia participated in this study, which was a survey created by the first author to determine the effectiveness of communication, training, practicing and assessing students' performance during the pandemic. Results indicated that no differences were found between the two countries, while participants felt that training was adequate for the task of converting to remote teaching, they were concerned about nonverbal aspects of communication and assessing online work. Suggestions included obtaining participants from other Gulf countries, refining the survey, and involving different types of institutions such as private colleges. The results of this study imply that for many teachers, improvements in communication and assessment are necessary to improve online teaching, which is likely to continue in these countries after the pandemic is over.

A Corpus-Based Comparison of Inclusiveness in L2 Reading Materials for Refugee Children

Despite increased emphasis on the role of inclusive practices and materials in post-COVID-19 classrooms and warnings about implicit biases against disadvantaged groups, the textbook problem has rarely been approached with equity measures in mind. This multimethod study aimed to investigate to what extent L2 reading materials, locally produced and used for refugee education in Turkey and New Zealand, include all children with different proficiency levels, gender identities and cultural backgrounds using corpus-driven methods. All verbal and nonverbal texts from ten thematically similar third-grade storybooks were subjected to qualitative and quantitative analysis. Comparisons against measures of grammatical and lexical complexity, and of gender and cultural equity revealed that despite both being far from achieving the ideal composition for creating inclusive learning-friendly environments, TSL materials were lagging further behind ESL counterparts. They depended on almost uniform sets of easy-to-read narratives embodying simpler grammatical features and high-frequency words, and thus needed extension with relatively elaborate ones to accommodate mixed-abilities. Gender disparities were institutionalised through male overrepresentation in hero-making, negative stereotyping, familial and occupational identification, and engagement in monetary and mobility activities, but occasionally ameliorated, in the ESL case, by reversing conventionally-gendered domestic, technical and intellectual skills in texts and illustrations. The widest gap was observed in cultural representations because TSL materials, written from a tourist's perspective, focused on imposing superficial knowledge of target-culture elements, and ESL materials on ensuring relevance through greater use of elements from diverse cultures. Therefore, egalitarian representations in gendered and cultural contents are required for their rehabilitation.

Society and the State in Russia and the World during the Coronavirus Epidemic.

This article is based on a report presented at the Scientific Session of the RAS General Meeting (Moscow, December 15, 2021). The reaction of society to the pandemic in Russia and other countries of the world is analyzed from an anthropological point of view. The features of the behavior and psychological reaction of residents of different regions, professional groups, and ethnocultural communities are considered with account for gender, age, and cultural characteristics (collectivism‒individualism, looseness‒tightness, power distance). Particular attention is paid to phobias and social activity during the pandemic; the growing role of nation-states in overcoming the consequences of the pandemic is discussed. The results presented can be used as an additional source of information for taking effective measures finally to overcome the pandemic and, most importantly, its negative social and political consequences.

Depression and consumption habits: a cross-cultural study

Purpose>This paper aims to explore the interplay between consumption and depression through a cross-cultural study conducted in Brazil and Germany.Design/methodology/approach>Data collection was conducted through an online survey. Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) was used to assess depression levels from a sample of 1,627 respondents (759 Germans and 868 Brazilians). Descriptive statistics, multiple linear regression and Mann–Whitney U tests were applied.Findings>Cultural characteristics are relevant in the consumption-depression interplay. The authors identified marketplace resources and stressors consisting of products categories that influence the depression level of the depressed consumer. Additionally, individuals with some level of depression presented different consumption habits than those without. A table summarizing the findings is presented at the end of the paper.Research limitations/implications>Work limitations refer to the consumption categories analyzed and the large share of students in the sample.Practical implications>Marketplace measures have an active role in mitigating or increasing depression levels. Thus, consumption can also be used as a transformative tool to benefit the lives of depressive individuals. Some suggestions are presented.Social implications>This study contributes to the discussion that consumption impacts the daily lives of people with depression and provides recommendations on how to adapt consumption habits to help depressive individuals optimize their quality of life and well-being.Originality/value>This paper contributes empirically and theoretically to the discussion of mental health and consumption and introduces innovative consumption categories (from daily life) that are incipient in previous literature.

Differences in psychological distress, resilience and cognitive emotional regulation strategies in adults during the Coronavirus pandemic: A cross-cultural study of Poland and Spain

Background. The objective of this cross-cultural study was to analyze the differences in resilience, cognitive emotion regulation strategies (CERS), as well as psychological distress during the COVID-19 pandemic between Poland and Spain. Method. An online survey was conducted on a sample of 1,182 adults. A MANOVA analysis was carried out to examine the differences in the studied variables between these countries. This was followed by MANCOVA analysis to control for gender and age. Linear regression analyses segmented by country were conducted in order to identify psychological distress prediction models. Results. Polish population was characterized by higher levels of anxiety, less resilience and more maladaptive CERS during the lockdown. Spanish population was more affected by stress but used more adaptable CERS and was more resilient. Age and female gender appeared as risk factors of psychological distress in Spain. The psychological distress prediction models were found to be different between both countries: adaptive CERS was predictive only in Spain, and resilience was predictive only in Poland. Conclusions. This study could guide in initiatives for the promotion of psychological well-being as a way to prevent psychopathological disorders during the pandemic. (English) [ FROM AUTHOR] Antecedentes. El objetivo de este estudio transcultural fue analizar las diferencias en resiliencia, estrategias de regulación cognitiva de las emociones (CERS) y distress psicológico durante la pandemia del COVID-19 en Polonia y España. Método. Se realizó una encuesta online en una muestra de 1,182 adultos. Se llevó a cabo un análisis MANOVA para examinar las diferencias en las variables estudiadas entre estos países. Esto fue seguido de un análisis MANCOVA controlando el sexo y la edad. Se realizaron análisis de regresión lineal segmentados por país con el fin de identificar modelos predictivos de distrés psicológico. Resultados. La población polaca se caracterizó por niveles más altos de ansiedad, menos resiliencia y más uso de CERS desadaptativas durante el confinamiento. La población española sufrió más estrés pero utilizó CERS adaptativas y fue más resiliente. La edad y el sexo femenino aparecieron como factores de riesgo de malestar psicológico en España. Se encontró que los modelos de predicción de distrés psicológico fueron diferentes en ambos países: las CERS adaptativas fueron predictivas en España y la resiliencia fue predictiva en Polonia. Conclusiones. Este estudio podría guiar en iniciativas para la promoción del bienestar psicológico como vía para prevenir trastornos psicopatológicos durante la pandemia. (Spanish) [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Anales de Psicología is the property of Servicio de Publicaciones de la Universidad de Murcia and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)

Editorial: Culture and Health

As this special issue demonstrates, evidence on culture and health is emerging in a variety of new frameworks, including international comparisons, national analyses, individual health, and population health. In the opening invited article, Miyamoto and Ryff (2022), two leading researchers in the field of culture and health, showed the theoretical and empirical relationships between culture and health. With a growing body of evidence for cultural influences on health, the pandemic will hasten progress toward health research taking insights from a cultural psychological approach. The ongoing coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, which presents a worldwide threat to humans, has focused people's attention on health and prompted the adoption of new behaviors to decrease infection risks. [Extracted from the article] Copyright of Japanese Psychological Research is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)

Grit and academic achievement: A comparative cross-cultural meta-analysis

This review examined the relations between grit and academic achievement based on a meta-analysis of 137 studies yielding 156 dependent samples (N = 285,331). Using the robust variance estimation, we found that the correlations of overall grit level with academic achievement were generally weak to moderate (weighted r = .19). The correlation of perseverance of effort to achievement (weighted r = .21) was stronger than that of consistency of interest (weighted r = .08). Adopting a cross-cultural perspective in reviewing these findings, we concluded that the associations between overall grit/2 facets and academic achievement did not differ across individualism-collectivism. We also investigated 7 other moderators, including grit measurement, types of achievement measures, publication type, educational levels, research design, study quality, and the female ratio of sampling in the grit-achievement relationship. After controlling for all proposed moderators, no significant moderators were found in the overall grit-achievement link or the consistency of interest-achievement link. There was a significantly stronger association between perseverance of effort and academic achievement in nonstandardized measures than in standardized measures. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Thrown into Deep Water: Feedback on Student Satisfaction--A Case Study in Hungarian and Romanian Universities

As a result of the COVID-19 health epidemic, online life has exploded into our daily lives, forcing most of us to move previously seemingly irreplaceable "face-to-face" activities into "non-face-to-face" meetings and activities in many sectors. One of the biggest challenges has been in the field of education: This sector, compared to other sectors, was less digitized. Under these circumstances, the entire education process was transferred to online space overnight, which was/is a major challenge for everyone. Thus, a questionnaire survey was conducted among students from two universities in Hungary and Romania, the results of which are included in the present article. The aim of the research was to measure students' satisfaction and to examine the benefits of online education, for example, in terms of introducing hybrid education over the long term. Descriptive statistics as well as the Wilcoxon rank-sum test were used to analyze the database. The results showed that, from a practical point of view, there was no significant difference between the Hungarian and Romanian respondents who had a fundamentally positive view of digital education. In this respect, positive feedback can be seen as encouraging, especially for those individuals and social strata who may find online education much more attractive than traditional physical teaching. Online education could be an attractive, accessible, sustainable form of further education in the long run.

Decolonising 'man', resituating pandemic: an intervention in the pathogenesis of colonial capitalism.

This paper brings together fifth-wave public health theory and a decolonised approach to the human informed by the Caribbean thinker, Sylvia Wynter, and the primary exponent of African Humanism, Es'kia Mpahlele. Sub-Saharan indigenous ways of thinking the human as co-constitutive in a subject we might call human-animal-'environment', in conjunction with the subcontinent's experiences of colonial damage in disease 'prevention' and 'treatment', demonstrate the lack of genuine engagement with Indigenous wisdom in Western medical practice.The paper offers a decolonial reading of pandemic history, focused primarily on the human immunodefiency virus (HIV), the severe acute respiratory syndrome of 2003 caused by the SARS Covid 1 virus (SARS-CoV1) and COVID-19, caused by the SARS COVID 2 virus (SARS-CoV2) to demonstrate the importance of the co-constitutive subject in understanding the genesis of these pandemics as driven by colonial-capitalism. I emphasise that prevention will indeed take the kinds of massive changes proposed by fifth-wave public health theory. However, I differ from the proponents of that theory in an insistence that the new kind of thinking of the human Hanlon et al call for, has already been conceived: just not within the confines of the normative human of Western culture.I illustrate that Western Global Health approaches remain constitutionally 'deaf' to approaches that, although the West may not understand this to be the case, arise from fundamentally different-and extra-anthropocentric-notions of the human. In this context, Man as Wynter names Him is a subject ripe for decolonisation, rather than a premier site of capitalist development, including that of healthcare provision.Recognising that most of us are not individually able to change the structural violence of the colonial capitalist system in which Global Health practices are embedded, I conclude with implications drawn from my argument for quotidian practices that enable healthcare providers see their actions within a harm reduction paradigm, in the context of communities experiencing intergenerational impoverishment consequent on colonial violence.

Modes and Trajectories of Shadow Education in Denmark and China: Fieldwork Reflections by a Comparativist

Purpose: In the domain of shadow education (private supplementary tutoring), Denmark and China may be placed at opposite ends of a spectrum. Denmark has a recently emerged, small, and high-cost sector that mostly serves low achievers, while China has a more industrialized sector with a long history and economies of scale. The paper juxtaposes the two to shed light on each. Design/Approach/Methods: The article is a personal narrative of the author's research experiences. She grew up and had initial education in China before moving to the Nordic realm for 2 years. This provided a set of initial lenses, which were subsequently deployed in research partnership from her current base in China with colleagues in Denmark. Findings: The juxtaposition raises questions that might otherwise not have been asked and provides insights that might otherwise not have been gained. Danish families hesitate to use shadow education for advantages in the egalitarian society, in contrast to Chinese patterns that stress competition and achievement. These facets have implications for the modes of shadow education and even the names of tutorial companies. Originality/Value: The paper has a methodological value in addition to its substantive insights on the trajectories of shadow education in the two countries.

The Women's Shed Movement: Scoping the Field Internationally

Our paper focuses on delineating and scoping international Women's Sheds, a movement that has emerged within the past decade, mainly in Australia, Ireland and the UK. It addresses two main research questions. Firstly, what is the origin, distribution, nature and intent of Women's Sheds internationally to March 2021? Secondly, how might Women's Sheds be located within a typology inclusive of Men's Sheds and a range of community development models? We employed a systematic search via the internet in 2020-21, followed up by attempted email or phone contact to publicly reported Women's Sheds and like organisations internationally. In the process, we created a publicly shareable blog including a database of 122 existing, previously active, developing or planned Women's Sheds and like organisations to 13 March 2021. We identify four nations where self-identified Women's Sheds have operated or commenced within the past decade: Australia (61), the UK (30), Ireland (28) and New Zealand (3), particularly during the five years between 2014 and 2019. The COVID-19 pandemic seriously curtailed this previous momentum and development after March 2020. We identify some similarities but also important differences between Women's and Men's Sheds. We propose a typology that accounts not only for the different ways in which Women's Sheds operate and women participate within their communities but also the different ways in which they locally collaborate (or not) with Men's Sheds in different countries. We conclude that Women's Sheds have largely been created by women in order to claim the shed as a positive female gendered space, in order to create an alternative community of women's hands-on practice. Sheds have operated or commenced within the past decade: Australia (61), the UK (30), Ireland (28) and New Zealand (3), particularly during the five years between 2014 and 2019. The COVID-19 pandemic seriously curtailed this previous momentum and development after March 2020. We identify some similarities but also important differences between Women's and Men's Sheds. We propose a typology that accounts not only for the different ways in which Women's Sheds operate and women participate within their communities but also the different ways in which they locally collaborate (or not) with Men's Sheds in different countries. We conclude that Women's Sheds have largely been created by women in order to claim the shed as a positive female gendered space, in order to create an alternative community of women's hands-on practice.