Living and Learning
Oxford Brookes University (Gipsy Lane Campus)
Measuring the Social Rate of Return to Education Using the Social Progress Index View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Allison Roberts
Estimating the private rate of return to education has been a popular undertaking by economists, and a review of the literature reveals that return is somewhere on the order of 9% for the individual. However, efforts to provide accurate measures of the social rate of return to education have been fundamentally futile. Published results are candid in that they are certainly an underestimate because – while the costs to the individual and society can be quantified – the benefits to society, beyond the individual, aren’t included. This is because researchers are unable to monetize the positive externalities derived from education. The Social Progress Index (SPI), however, is a measure that allows us to quantify the advances enjoyed by society due to access to education, not with dollars, but with a comprehensive index. The SPI measures a nation’s social well-being based on 53 non-economic indicators in categories covering basic human needs, foundations of wellbeing, and opportunity. The SPI provides data for more than 160 countries for the past 7 years, making robust, panel data estimation of the social rate of return to education possible. This paper utilizes the SPI to estimate the social rate of return to education, which provides policy-makers, NGOs, and philanthropists with the information needed to make strategic resource-use decisions regarding optimal investments in education.
Tiro en Braille - a Mexican Sport-for-Development and Peace University-based Initiative of Mixed and Unified Sport for the Fulfillment of the SDGs View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Daniel Añorve
The academic literature on Sport-for-Development and Peace (SDP) is no longer a novelty. However, there are scarcely studied topics such as university-based initiatives, as well as those of mixed and/or unified sports. Tiro en Braille (Braille Shot) is a Mexican university-based sport, completely designed by undergraduate students with the guidance of professors. Tiro en Braille, as an organization (indeed it is both a sport and a SDP organization) has developed the VECTOR-I methodology, which was intentionally designed to contribute to the fulfillment of SDGs 3, 4, 5, 8, 11, 16, and 17. The methodology also aims at recovering traditional Mexican sports. Furthermore, it prohibits the use of fossil fuels and inputs, while requiring that the resulting sport activity is suitable to be played in a mixed (gender) and unified (ability) format. Tiro en Braille has three core components: 1) teaching; 2) research, and 3) a inclusive sport activity. Covid-19 stopped the inauguration tournament from taking place in April 2020. The first (experimental) tournament was played during May 2022. This paper presents the results using the VECTOR-I methodology as a template/benchmark. The findings are both quantitative (based on questionnaires), as well as qualitative, i.e., based on participant observation as well as on interviews at the end of the tournament. Finally, the findings may orient SDP initiatives in other geographies as a result of the semi-flexibility of the VECTOR-I methodology.
Waseda University’s 1905 American Tour: The First US-Japan Baseball Games and Japan’s First Overseas School Excursion for a Sporting Event View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Masako Gavin
Japan hosted the 2019 Rugby World Cup and the Tokyo Olympic in 2020. The Japanese enthusiasm about competitive sports seems to be ever growing thanks to Abe Isoo (1865—1949), who initiated Japan to the world of competitive sports decades ago. On 4 April 1905, during the Russo-Japanese War, Abe Isoo, a Christian intellectual and Professor of economics and political science at Waseda University, took his baseball players to the USA to play against American students and local players in California. Amidst the war and growing anti-Japanese sentiment in California, Abe realized his decade-long dream of participating in international athletic competitions in anticipation of such games contributing to the resolve of international conflicts without arms races. His two primary goals were that his students would experience ‘scientific baseball’ in its home soil and that they would broaden their international perspective. This paper focuses on Abe’s view of education, particularly in respect to physical education, as seen in his 1905 US tour (4 April - 29 June 1905).
