Systemic Shifts (Asynchronous Session)
Featured THE COVID-19 Pandemic and the Questioning of the Principle of the Human Development Index: An Overview
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Shonal Rath
The Covid19 epidemic has wreaked havoc and affected nearly all economic and social activities across the world, in addition to its destructive and fatal impacts. As a result, estimates for global economic growth have been lowered downward. Furthermore, the pandemic scenario has pushed scientific study in new areas in order to discover answers to the new problems that have arisen as a result of the virus. We have questioned the idea of calculating the human development index (HDI) in this context while providing new assessment criteria judged useful and compatible with pandemic conditions to evaluate sub-dimensional development indicators pertaining to health, education, and income. As a result, we have shown that the environmental dimension is necessary for measuring the progression of the HDI, allowing us to offer a novel HDI calculation formula.
Students’ Perceptions of Poverty : Implication for Community Practice from a Global COVID-19 Pandemic Lens View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Mioara Diaconu, Laura Racovita, Domingo Carbonero Munoz, Linda Reeser
According to the “culture of poverty theory,” those living in poverty adjust to the context of their lives and in doing so instill certain attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors in their children (Boxill, 1994), which are passed from one generation to another (Ludwig & Mayer, 2006). Although this theory has been extensively criticized for decades by social scientists, who attribute poverty to malfunction at the macro-level such as tight employment markets and deplorable wages, it has made a comeback in academia, political circles and in think tanks. A research study, conducted by the presenters, at three institutions of higher education in two countries, looked at graduate and undergraduate students’ attitudes concerning persons living in poverty, causes of and solutions to poverty, beliefs about who the social work profession should serve, and poverty content in the curriculum. This paper shares the results of the research study, lessons learned, and recommendations for research and education. Furthermore, the implications for community practice from a global COVID-19 pandemic lens are explored.
Movers, Motives, and Impact of Illegal Small-scale Mining: A Case Study in Ghana View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Osman Antwi Boateng
The paper employs a mixture of theoretical and conceptual underpinnings to unpack the issues relating to the rise and impact of illegal small-scale mining in Ghana. The paper draws from the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework and the Resource Curse Hypothesis, also known as the Paradox of Plenty to assess the impacts of the rise in illegal small-scale mining on livelihoods of mining communities. This is accomplished via a qualitative study using illegal small-scale mining in the Talensi and Nabdam districts of Ghana as a case study. The research argues that illegal small-scale mining creates vulnerability in mining communities because of destruction in some of the capital assets upon which people derive their means of living. At the forefront of this phenomenon are rent-seeking elites, whereas structural factors such as rising unemployment and high population growth, as well as opportunistic factors including low barriers to entry, get-rich quick syndrome, and political corruption/weak institutions are fueling it as well. Although there are some economic benefits of illegal small-scale mining, these benefits are undermined by factors associated with the Resource Curse Hypothesis (RCH) or the ‘Paradox of Plenty.’ Most illegal small-scale mining communities are characterized by increased rent-seeking activities by diverse stakeholders particularly the elites, poor investments in human capital development, and weak institutional structures and processes. To sustainably address the illegal small-scale gold mining menace in Ghana, all efforts should be aimed at holistically dealing with the rent-seekers, especially the elites involved, eliminating their motives and removing the conditions that facilitate their involvement.
It’s Ideology, Stupid : How Capitalism Co-opts Education to Systematize Poverty View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Todd Stewart
In this integrative literature review, I interrogate how capitalism co-opts education to systematize poverty. I utilize a unique methodological combination of critical history, critical pedagogy, and personal narrative to investigate the following research questions: 1. How does capitalism co-opt education to maintain the socio-economic status quo and systematize poverty? 2. How might social foundations of education (SFE) reverse the status quo and prepare educators to engage social inequities such as poverty? I pressed my research questions upon a diverse range of historical-scholarly texts and uncovered the primary perpetrator of poverty’s systematization is capitalistic education’s ideologically driven meritocratic construction of commonsense in which the capitalism-democracy marriage, the cult of standardization, and the neoliberal marketization of everything are all deemed normative. I also discovered that SFE’s roots as an academic discipline focus on the inequitable ideological impact of capitalism put it in a unique position to address and redress these systemic inequities.
Impact of COVID-19 on Education: A Case Study of Dalit Children in India View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Pallavi Sanil
The pandemic has exacerbated inequalities in educational access and attainment and has even made them more visible. Online learning during the pandemic did not compensate for a large number of children, especially among the socially and educationally disadvantaged. While many such children eventually fell behind their counterparts in regular study and reading ability due to online education, some also ended up dropping out of school to take up jobs to support their families to mitigate their pandemic-induced crisis. This paper looks into pervasive inequalities brought about by globalization in the social and cultural differences in India. This paper analyzes the case study of Dalits, a group that has historically suffered from severe social, economic, political and cultural discrimination. Data and information are collected from various reports prepared by the national and international agencies on the COVID-19 pandemic, journals and e-contents relating to the impact of COVID-19 on the educational system. Too much reliance on digital education creates new means of social exclusion, thus making space for a new class. While the provision of infrastructure and digital connectivity is important, digital inequality is an intersectional problem. Weberian Cultural Perspective focuses on how ownership and use of digital assets define an elite lifestyle thereby excluding others. The highest adult education in a household, caste, and also the primary source of income of household differentiate the digital ownership and use. Overall, digital ownership and usage are significantly different for different socio-economic groups in India.
How to Influence Government: A Case Study from Malaysia's Fight against Human Trafficking
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Alexander Blocker
Throughout the late 2000s, likely thousands of Burmese people living in Malaysia were subjected to deportation, extortion, and enslavement in an arrangement between Malaysian immigration agents and Thai traffickers. For years, NGOs and the press had publicly raised the alarm about the trafficking operation but were met with denial and dismissiveness by Malaysian officials. Yet, the April 2009 publication by the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee of a report on the scheme sparked a chain of results: an acknowledgement of the problem by the prime minister, a police investigation, arrests of five immigration officers, changes in immigration staffing practices, and within a few months, a sharp decline in reported trafficking at the border. This paper asks, why did a single Senate staff report move the Malaysian government in ways that years of advocacy by civil society could not? Conventional wisdom would simply attribute this to the cachet of the U.S. government, but closer examination reveals that this facile explanation is far from the whole story. Through documentary research as well as interviews with Malaysian and American advocates, this paper studies the behind-the-scenes tactics employed to maximize the Senate report’s impact, explores differences in approaches to advocacy, and ultimately offers considerations for civil society actors seeking to exert influence over government.
