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This paper presents a profile of the consumerist and tests for significant differences between the consumerist and the average consumer. The findings suggest that the consumerist differs significantly on socioeconomic, life style, attitudinal, readership, and listenership variables, while constituting a sizeable segment (15 percent) of the population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Chiapas, a Mexican southern state, non-formal education spaces have increased rapidly after "Zapatista Movement" in 1994. Nevertheless, recently some scholars have questioned certain activities carried out in these spaces because they find contradictions in the struggle against social exclusion. In this research paper, we analyzed with a reflexive point of view and with a critical approach the results obtained in a study performed in one of these spaces of non-formal education in which social transformation is promoted as an answer for the social exclusion problem. Here, we pointed out the delicate line that exists between actions and discourses in these non-formal education spaces. To reach this goal, we worked with a critical intercultural perspective and thus, we carried out an exercise to re-thinking space, relationships and social-educative practices in Amalgama, A. C. (fictional name), a non-formal education space located in San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas. As a result, we found out, on one hand that in the space, in the relationships and in the social-educative practice of Amalgama, A.C. there are elements of the colonialcapitalist-patriarchal structure, and such elements are closer to the coloniality than we expected at the beginning. On the other hand, this exercise allowed us to recover the perceptions of the educators to re-signifying this space, relationships and social-educative practice to eventually make social transformations encouraged them since the decolonial pedagogical approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The research context that this article seeks to show the different models of college, from the evolution and development of universities and their management in Latin America, particularly in Chile, and how they affect the development of societies, both past and contemporary, highlighting some similar and different characteristics that they have. It should be noted that the Chilean model of education has been considered to have a great impact on some countries in Latin America, especially in Colombia. Moreover, the general objective of this research was the reflection on the reforms of higher education in Latin America and the impact these reforms have had in recent years in Chile, which seem to have created a high dissatisfaction in the social context, due to the excessive commercialization of educational services. For the development of this paper an extensive review of the literature, which accounts for the phenomenon to be investigated is made and semi-structured interviews were carried out to experts in the field, which helped to understand what authors explain in the literature concerning models and educational reforms in Latin America and the current situation of education in Chile, thereby achieving a clear vision of the reality of the problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes the association between civil conflicts and educational achievement by studying the Turkish case. It combines the 2005 university entrance exam scores of more than 1.6 million students and a newly constructed data set on the casualties of the Turkish–Kurdish conflict to study the association between the conflict and educational achievement of Turkish students. The results reveal a significant negative association. Combined with the already well-established positive links between education and various measures of socioeconomic development like economic growth, social equality, and public health, the results in this article demonstrate that education is one of the channels through which civil conflicts damage the well-being of societies thereby creating the conditions that perpetuate them. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Homophily, the tendency for similar actors to be connected at a higher rate than dissimilar actors, is a pervasive social fact. In this article, we examine changes over a 20-year period in two types of homophily—the actual level of contact between people in different social categories and the level of contact relative to chance. We use data from the 1985 and 2004 General Social Surveys to ask whether the strengths of five social distinctions—sex, race/ethnicity, religious affiliation, age, and education—changed over the past two decades in core discussion networks. Changes in the actual level of homophily are driven by the demographic composition of the United States. As the nation has become more diverse, cross-category contacts in race/ethnicity and religion have increased. After describing the raw homophily rates, we develop a case-control model to assess homophily relative to chance mixing. We find decreasing rates of homophily for gender but stability for race and age, although the young are increasingly isolated from older cohorts outside of the family. We also find some weak evidence for increasing educational and religious homophily. These relational trends may be explained by changes in demographic heterogeneity, institutional segregation, economic inequality, and symbolic boundaries. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

China has one of the oldest educational testing systems in the world, yet its modern form was influenced by various western educational modes borrowed during the twentieth century. This essay reviews the history of the Chinese traditional educational testing system: its origin, features, and its past impact on Chinese people's lives as well as on modern education. It then examines the western influence on the Chinese educational testing system in the twentieth century, focusing on two historical periods, from 1905 to 1949 and post-1980, when western influences were most vigorous. It concludes with a discussion of the characteristics of Chinese assimilation to western educational models and the impact of such assimilation on Chinese people's lives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]