In this article, the author talks about a gathering that was marching through the dusty Brazilian streets of Porto Alegre. 200,000 noisy representatives of civil society from the global South, together with dedicated supporters from more privileged countries like UK, travelled across continents to insist that "another kind of world is…

The most serious long-term problem facing the world at the moment is not terrorism but the desperate level of poverty and inequality endured by those living in the Global South--due in part to environmental problems created by the unsustainable abuse of natural resources. By the late 1990s there was a growing consensus that the prevalence of…

Over the past few years a constellation of social movements and organisations concerned with issues of globalisation and world poverty have exploded onto the world stage. They have mobilised demonstrations, organised mass gatherings and conferences, created e-networks and websites and become major players in international political lobbying and…

Vietnam's social policy reforms in the transition to a market economy included the introduction of fees for primary and secondary school in the late 1980s. Using data from the Viet Nam Living Standards Surveys, this paper examines how the increasing costs of education to households have impacted on school enrollment between 1993 and 1998, giving…

Context: Rural Appalachian women living in poverty have a high prevalence of prenatal smoking; yet, few studies have examined this issue. Purpose: To investigate the demographic and psychosocial characteristics of prenatal smokers and nonsmokers in low-socioeconomic status, rural Appalachian 2-parent families. Methods: During an 18-month period,…

Whether talking to local farmers or studying academic papers there is general agreement that environmental degradation is impacting upon agricultural productivity in Ethiopia. In a country, where around 90% of the population are dependent on agriculture for subsistence requirements and a similar fraction of the country's export income is generated…

Under the Commonwealth Accountability Testing System (CATS), Kentucky's public schools have been assigned individualized "baseline" and "improvement goal" indices based upon past school performance in relation to the 2014 statewide index goal of 100. Each school's CATS Accountability Index, a measure of school performance based…

When the East Timorese voted for Independence in 1999 they at least expected to have infrastructure, such as school buildings, available as they started the task of building a new nation. The post-Independence destruction also meant that unexpected priority decisions about what should be built, or rebuilt, first had to be made. In a country…

Substances in the environment that are potentially harmful to children's health and development, from conception onward, include metals such as lead and mercury, pesticides, indoor air pollution, residues of synthetic chemicals, radiation from the sun, nuclear sources, and air pollution. Children's exposures to these substances, as well as…

This paper evaluates responses to asylum seeker children in Ireland from a child poverty perspective and from that of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. It draws upon research undertaken in early 2001 on behalf of the Irish Refugee Council among asylum seeker families with children in Cork, Limerick and Ennis on their…

Part of a larger research project involving the study of mathematics achievement of middle and high school students in Tennessee, this report analyzes said achievement in terms of school locale and the percentage of disadvantaged (pdisadv) students enrolled in the school. Schools were designated as Rural, Large Central City, and Other Nonrural.…

This research explores violent and property crime rates in nonmetropolitan counties. It is argued that crime rates are lower in these counties because of higher levels of social integration. We test the hypothesis that predictors of crime from social disorganization theory exert different effects on violent and property crimes at different levels…

The No Child Left Behind Act of 2002 has increased emphasis on "closing the gap" between the achievement of African-American and disadvantaged children and that of their respective peers. Using the 2001 results of Kentucky's accountability tests (e.g., CTBS-5, KCCT), Chi-square analyses were performed to determine whether, when…

Context and Purpose: This study investigates associations between the proportion of farm families in rural counties and the health of rural individuals, independent of county poverty rate and individual and family socioeconomic factors. This study also examines relationships of these socioeconomic factors and prevalence of specific diseases.…

This paper estimates linear structural models using LISREL and employs MIMIC models to find out factors determining child health in Pakistan. A distinction has been made in permanent and transitory health states that lend support to Grossman's (1972) stock and flow concepts of health. The paper addresses the issue of health unobservability and…