Digital learning divide

This article reviews a wide range of national and international reports, empirical research, and theoretical articles to present a renewed look at the evolving digital divide in educational settings. Digital inequality impacts students' learning, and it has become a crucial problem across the globe. Using an international comparative approach, the article focuses on explanations for the digital divide. It also seeks to address how the patterns of this new form of inequality vary systematically across countries, and highlights the potential importance of examining the digital divide in educational research. © 2023 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Changes in the intertemporal choice of people in or close to Chinese culture can predict their self-rated surviving achievement in the fight against COVID-19: A cross-national study in 18 Asian, African, European, American, and Oceanian countries

Humans are facing an unprecedented historical crisis and challenge. To identify the strategies that we can use to cope with historical crisis and challenge, we should investigate two well-studied strategies: "slow strategy, ” which is essentially an investment in the future, and "fast strategy” or "live fast, die young.” According to "The Ant and the Grasshopper, ” Aesop's fable, which is under the pretext of intertemporal choice of social insects, the "slow” rather than the "fast” strategy is recommended for those who want to survive the environmental crisis. Intertemporal choice requires tradeoffs among outcomes whose effects occur at different times. In the commonly accepted language of intertemporal choice, the Ant, whose choice is the "larger but later” (LL) option, is more likely to survive the harsh winter than the Grasshopper, whose choice is the "smaller but sooner” (SS) option. To determine the optimal intertemporal choice strategy that can help us to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic, we included 26, 355 participants from 18 Asian, African, European, American, and Oceanian countries in the present study. We investigated the participants' preferences in intertemporal choice with double-dated mixed outcomes, evaluated the degree of change in their intertemporal choice by differentiating the common currency in peacetime and epidemic time (i.e., two kinds of change indicators used for differentiating currencies and stages, respectively). We then asked them to rate their self-rated surviving achievement in the fight against COVID-19. Considering that individuals' surviving achievements were affected by individual-and religious-level factors, we analyzed all data by using multilevel linear analysis to reflect the data's hierarchical structure. After considering individual differences in personal factors and religious factors, we constructed two-level models to explore the effects of the change in intertemporal choice on self-rated surviving achievement, and measured the moderating role of cultural orientation in terms of Hofstede's six culture dimensions. The findings of the cross-national survey revealed that Change Indicator 1 (∆ currency) and Change Indicator 2 (∆ stage) of Chinese/Singaporeans could jointly predict their self-rated surviving achievement. Meanwhile, only Change Indicator 2 (∆ stage) alone could predict the self-rated surviving achievement of people in the cultural circle that included the India, Malaysia, Philippines, and Nigeria. Neither Change Indicator 1 (∆ currency) nor Change Indicator 2 (∆ stage) of the people in other cultures could significantly predict their self-rated surviving achievement. On the basis of the gist of The Book of Change and the resulting findings, we suggested that 1) how you differentially (flexibly) made an intertemporal choice in peacetime and epidemic time would reflect the extent to which you would survive the war against COVID-19. In addition, 2) the mindset of change might shape the competitive advantage of a nation, such as China, in response to the historical crisis. The closer the cultural distance of a country or nation from China, the greater the possibility of benefitting from a similar competitive advantage. It is our hope that our findings would contribute to answer the question of what are "Psychological Characteristics and Behaviors of Chinese People in Response to Historical Crisis?”. © 2023, Science Press. All rights reserved.

Negotiation of collective and individual candidacy for long Covid healthcare in the early phases of the Covid-19 pandemic: Validated, diverted and rejected candidacy.

This analysis of people's accounts of establishing their need and experiences of healthcare for long Covid (LC) symptoms draws on interview data from five countries (UK, US, Netherlands, Canada, Australia) during the first ∼18 months of the Covid-19 pandemic when LC was an emerging, sometimes contested, condition with scant scientific or lay knowledge to guide patients and professionals in their sense-making of often bewildering constellations of symptoms. We extend the construct of candidacy to explore positive and (more often) negative experiences that patients reported in their quest to understand their symptoms and seek appropriate care. Candidacy usually considers how individuals negotiate healthcare access. We argue a crucial step preceding individual claims to candidacy is recognition of their condition through generation of collective candidacy. "Vanguard patients" collectively identified, named and fought for recognition of long Covid in the context of limited scientific knowledge and no established treatment pathways. This process was technologically accelerated via social media use. Patients commonly experienced "rejected" candidacy (feeling disbelieved, discounted/uncounted and abandoned, and that their suffering was invisible to the medical gaze and society). Patients who felt their candidacy was "validated" had more positive experiences; they appreciated being believed and recognition of their changed lives/bodies and uncertain futures. More positive healthcare encounters were described as a process of "co-experting" through which patient and healthcare professional collaborated in a joint quest towards a pathway to recovery. The findings underpin the importance of believing and learning from patient experience, particularly vanguard patients with new and emerging illnesses.

Changes in the intertemporal choice of people in or close to Chinese culture can predict their self-rated surviving achievement in the fight against COVID-19: A cross-national study in 18 Asian, African, European, American, and Oceanian countries

Humans are facing an unprecedented historical crisis and challenge. To identify the strategies that we can use to cope with historical crisis and challenge, we should investigate two well-studied strategies: "slow strategy, ” which is essentially an investment in the future, and "fast strategy” or "live fast, die young.” According to "The Ant and the Grasshopper, ” Aesop's fable, which is under the pretext of intertemporal choice of social insects, the "slow” rather than the "fast” strategy is recommended for those who want to survive the environmental crisis. Intertemporal choice requires tradeoffs among outcomes whose effects occur at different times. In the commonly accepted language of intertemporal choice, the Ant, whose choice is the "larger but later” (LL) option, is more likely to survive the harsh winter than the Grasshopper, whose choice is the "smaller but sooner” (SS) option. To determine the optimal intertemporal choice strategy that can help us to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic, we included 26, 355 participants from 18 Asian, African, European, American, and Oceanian countries in the present study. We investigated the participants' preferences in intertemporal choice with double-dated mixed outcomes, evaluated the degree of change in their intertemporal choice by differentiating the common currency in peacetime and epidemic time (i.e., two kinds of change indicators used for differentiating currencies and stages, respectively). We then asked them to rate their self-rated surviving achievement in the fight against COVID-19. Considering that individuals' surviving achievements were affected by individual-and religious-level factors, we analyzed all data by using multilevel linear analysis to reflect the data's hierarchical structure. After considering individual differences in personal factors and religious factors, we constructed two-level models to explore the effects of the change in intertemporal choice on self-rated surviving achievement, and measured the moderating role of cultural orientation in terms of Hofstede's six culture dimensions. The findings of the cross-national survey revealed that Change Indicator 1 (∆ currency) and Change Indicator 2 (∆ stage) of Chinese/Singaporeans could jointly predict their self-rated surviving achievement. Meanwhile, only Change Indicator 2 (∆ stage) alone could predict the self-rated surviving achievement of people in the cultural circle that included the India, Malaysia, Philippines, and Nigeria. Neither Change Indicator 1 (∆ currency) nor Change Indicator 2 (∆ stage) of the people in other cultures could significantly predict their self-rated surviving achievement. On the basis of the gist of The Book of Change and the resulting findings, we suggested that 1) how you differentially (flexibly) made an intertemporal choice in peacetime and epidemic time would reflect the extent to which you would survive the war against COVID-19. In addition, 2) the mindset of change might shape the competitive advantage of a nation, such as China, in response to the historical crisis. The closer the cultural distance of a country or nation from China, the greater the possibility of benefitting from a similar competitive advantage. It is our hope that our findings would contribute to answer the question of what are "Psychological Characteristics and Behaviors of Chinese People in Response to Historical Crisis?”. © 2023, Science Press. All rights reserved.

Comparison of drug prescribing before and during the COVID-19 pandemic: A cross-national European study.

PURPOSE: The COVID-19 pandemic had an impact on health care, with disruption to routine clinical care. Our aim was to describe changes in prescription drugs dispensing in the primary and outpatient sectors during the first year of the pandemic across Europe. METHODS: We used routine administrative data on dispensed medicines in eight European countries (five whole countries, three represented by one region each) from January 2017 to March 2021 to compare the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic with the preceding 3 years. RESULTS: In the 10 therapeutic subgroups with the highest dispensed volumes across all countries/regions the relative changes between the COVID-19 period and the year before were mostly of a magnitude similar to changes between previous periods. However, for drugs for obstructive airway diseases the changes in the COVID-19 period were stronger in several countries/regions. In all countries/regions a decrease in dispensed DDDs of antibiotics for systemic use (from -39.4% in Romagna to -14.2% in Scotland) and nasal preparations (from -34.4% in Lithuania to -5.7% in Sweden) was observed. We observed a stockpiling effect in the total market in March 2020 in six countries/regions. In Czechia the observed increase was not significant and in Slovenia volumes increased only after the end of the first lockdown. We found an increase in average therapeutic quantity per pack dispensed, which, however, exceeded 5% only in Slovenia, Germany, and Czechia. CONCLUSIONS: The findings from this first European cross-national comparison show a substantial decrease in dispensed volumes of antibiotics for systemic use in all countries/regions. The results also indicate that the provision of medicines for common chronic conditions was mostly resilient to challenges faced during the pandemic. However, there were notable differences between the countries/regions for some therapeutic areas.

Cross-National Comparison of Religion as a Predictor of COVID-19 Vaccination Rates.

We examined the effects of religiosity on COVID-19 vaccination rates using a cross-national comparison while controlling for socio-economic factors and culture. Our analysis, conducted on data from 90 countries representing 86% of the world population, showed that Christianity was negatively related to vaccination, while there was no relation with Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, and nonbelief. The importance of religion, freedom of expression and belief, sex ratio, median age, and almost all cultural factors were not related to vaccination, whereas Human Development Index was. The influence of different religions on vaccination rates has also been described.