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The aim of this article is to compare the Belgian family policy to policies in other countries within the so-called conservative welfare state regime group, namely, France, Germany and the Netherlands, and to the policy applied in one country that has adopted a social-democratic model, i.e., Sweden. Based on previous studies, we aim to identify strengths and weaknesses according to two criteria: efficacy in promoting fertility and promoting gender equity, the latter being understood as mothers’ involvement in the labour market and fathers’ involvement in care. We maintain that the Belgian family policy presents several features that have the potential to positively affect fertility. Such positive features mainly pertain to family allowances and birth premiums, together with enrolment rates for children under three years of age (albeit with worrisome, low public spending on childcare). However, other aspects of the Belgian policy are more critical for gender equity. Such aspects include the remuneration of parental leave and time credit, a lack of radical reforms to support fathers’ involvement, and regional disparities in several family policy measures. Counterintuitively, short durations for maternity leave and parental leave might also negatively affect gender equity.

Sentences can be enriched by considering what the speaker does not say but could have done. Children, however, struggle to derive one type of such enrichments, scalar implicatures. A popular explanation for this, the lexical alternatives account, is that they do not have lexical knowledge of the appropriate alternatives to generate the implicature. Namely, children are unaware of the scalar relationship between some and all. We conducted a priming study with N = 72 children, aged 5;1 years, and an adult sample, N = 51, to test this hypothesis. Participants were exposed to prime trials of strong, alternative, or weak sentences involving scalar or ad hoc expressions, and then saw a target trial that could be interpreted in either way. Consistent with previous studies, children were reluctant to derive scalar implicatures. However, there were two novel findings. (1) Children responded with twice the rate of ad hoc implicature responses than adults, suggesting that the implicature was the developmentally prior interpretation for ad hoc expressions. (2) Children showed robust priming effects, suggesting that children are aware of the scalar relationship between some and all, even if they choose not to derive the implicature. This suggests that the root cause of the scalar implicature deficit is not due to the absence of lexical knowledge of the relationship between some and all.

Connectives such as but are critical for building coherent discourse. They also express meanings that do not fit neatly into the standard distinction between semantics and implicated pragmatics. How do children acquire them? Corpus analyses indicate that children use these words in a sophisticated way by the early pre-school years, but a small number of experimental studies also suggest that children do not understand that but has a contrastive meaning until they reach school age. In a series of eight experiments we tested children's understanding of contrastive but compared to the causal connective so, by using a word learning paradigm (e.g., It was a warm day but/so Katy put on a pagle). When the connective so was used, we found that even 2-year-olds inferred a novel word meaning that was associated with the sentence context (a t-shirt). However, for the connective but, children did not infer a non-associated contrastive meaning (a winter coat) until age 7. Before that, even 5-year-old children reliably inferred an associated referent, indicating that they failed to correctly assign but a contrastive meaning. Five control experiments ruled out explanations for this pattern based on basic task demands, sentence processing skills or difficulty making adult-like inferences. A sixth experiment reports one particular context in which five-year-olds do interpret but contrastively. However, that same context also leads children to interpret so contrastively. We conclude that children's sophisticated production of connectives like but and so masks a major difficulty learning their meanings. We suggest that discourse connectives incorporate a class of words whose usage is easy to mimic, but whose meanings are difficult to acquire from everyday conversations, with implications for theories of word learning and discourse processing.

Background Literature started to describe proximity to kin over the life course, concentrating on general patterns. Little is known about kin proximity during childhood and how this varies with family structure. Objective We provide estimates on kinship structures and proximity to kin for children living with both parents, with only one parent (distinguishing whether the other parent is deceased, never registered, and in case of being alive, where the other parent lives (in the country vs. abroad)) or with no parent. Following two birth cohorts over childhood, we evaluate changes over the children’s life course and across time. Methods Data come from Belgian register-based data (DEMOBEL). We rely on information over household configuration, intergenerational links and place of residence of children born in 1992 and 2003, at age 8 and 16. We estimate the percentage of children having at least one relative (great-grandparents, grandparents, aunts/uncles, (half-)siblings) that are alive, living in the same household or living close and the average number of kin, by type of family structure and children’s age. Results Children living with both parents lived more often close to at least one grandparent and aunt/uncle than children living with only one parent. This gap is greater at age 16 than at age 8, but it is smaller for children born in 2003 compared to 1992. Contribution The life course of children has diversified in recent decades. Documenting how kinship structures differ for children living in different family structures enables to better understand inequalities in the possibilities of informal support.

Entre mars 2020 et février 2021, la pandémie Covid-19 a généré près de 22 000 décès en Belgique, soit l’épisode le plus meurtrier de son histoire démographique depuis la Seconde Guerre Mondiale. Dans une perspective comparative des différentes vagues de la pandémie, cet article a pour objectif principal de dresser le bilan de la surmortalité liée à la Covid-19 selon l’âge, le sexe, la situation de ménage et le groupe social. Les analyses se basent sur des données agrégées fournies par STATBEL (office belge de statistiques). Des indicateurs de surmortalité sont calculés afin de comparer la situation de l’année 2020 avec celle observée durant la période de référence 2015-2019. A partir des données du Registre national, des tables de mortalité par sexe, région et groupe social ont été calculées. Elles permettent d’estimer la perte d’espérance de vie en 2020 par rapport à 2019 et la contribution spécifique des différents groupes d’âge à cette diminution.

Mindfulness has recently shown promise in mental illness treatment and preventative contexts with school-aged young people. However, there is a shortage of studies investigating the effects of school-based mindfulness interventions on young people of a pre-adolescent and early-adolescent age. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to investigate the effects of a regional multi-site school-based mindfulness programme on wellbeing and resiliency in UK school children aged 9–12 years old. A total of 1,138 children who received mindfulness training completed the Resiliency Scale for Children and Adolescents and the Stirling Children’s Wellbeing Scale pre- and post-intervention. Results showed significant improvements following intervention delivery in positive emotional state, positive outlook, and resiliency, with resiliency effects maintained at a six-month follow-up assessment. Findings indicate that mindfulness delivered by school teachers can improve wellbeing and resiliency in children and young people.

The aim of this article is to describe Belgian family policy in comparison with the policy of other countries in the so-called conservative welfare state regime group, namely, France, Germany and the Netherlands, and with the policy of one country with a social-democratic model, Sweden. On the basis of previous literature, we also aim to identify strengths and weaknesses according to two criteria: efficacy in promoting fertility and gender equity. Belgian family policy presents several strengths. Its family allowances and birth premiums are among the most generous. Enrolment rates for children under three years old are among the highest. Recent findings have shown a positive association between these features of Belgian policy and couples’ fertility. However, other aspects of Belgian policy are more critical for gender equity. They regard the nature of public spending on families, the duration of maternity leave, the remuneration of parental leave, the lack of radical reforms to support fathers’ involvement, and the sub-national disparities in some family policy measures.

En 2020 et 2021, la Belgique a été marquée par l’épisode le plus meurtrier de son histoire depuis la Seconde Guerre mondiale. Jusqu’au mois de juillet 2021, la pandémie de Covid-19 a entraîné plus de 25.000 décès, principalement au cours de deux vagues : la première de mars à mai 2020 ; la deuxième d’octobre 2020 à janvier 2021. Dans une perspective comparative des deux premières vagues de la pandémie, cette étude a pour objectif de dresser le bilan de la surmortalité liée à la Covid-19 selon diverses caractéristiques sociodémographiques et spatiales, telles que l’âge, le sexe, la région/la commune de résidence, la situation du ménage et le groupe social. Plus précisément, cette étude a pour objectif l’analyse des schémas de mortalité liés à la Covid-19 : la mortalité se calque-t-elle sur les inégalités sociodémographiques et spatiales de mortalité générale existantes, ou définit-elle ses propres déséquilibres ? Ces disparités sont-elles les mêmes au cours des deux vagues ? Quelles sont les répercussions de la pandémie en termes d’espérance de vie ? Et la pandémie touche-t-elle équitablement toutes les classes sociales ou, au contraire, amplifie-t-elle des inégalités déjà présentes auparavant ? Les analyses se basent sur des données agrégées fournies par Statbel (Office belge de statistiques). Des indicateurs de surmortalité sont calculés afin de comparer la situation de l’année 2020 avec celle observée durant la période de référence 2016-2019. A partir des données du Registre national, des tables de mortalité par sexe, région et groupe social ont été calculées. Elles permettent d’estimer la perte d’espérance de vie en 2020 par rapport à 2019 et la contribution spécifique des différents groupes d’âge à cette diminution., In 2020 and 2021, Belgium experienced the deadliest episode in its history since the Second World War. Until July 2021, the Covid-19 pandemic resulted in more than 25,000 deaths, mainly in two waves: the first from March to May 2020; the second from October 2020 to January 2021. With a comparative perspective of the first two waves of the pandemic, this study aims to assess the excess mortality related to Covid-19 according to various socio-demographic and spatial characteristics, such as age, gender, region/municipality of residence, household status and social group. More specifically, the aim of this study is to analyse patterns of Covid-19-related mortality: does this mortality follow existing socio-demographic and spatial inequalities in general mortality, or is it characterized by specific inequalities? Are these disparities the same in both waves? What are the implications of the pandemic for life expectancy? And does the pandemic affect all social classes equally or, on the contrary, does it amplify inequalities that were already present before? The analyses are based on aggregated data provided by Statbel (Belgian Statistical Office). Indicators of excess mortality are calculated in order to compare the situation in the year 2020 with that observed during the reference period 2016-2019. From the data of the National Register, mortality tables per sex, region and social group were calculated. They make it possible to estimate the loss of life expectancy in 2020 compared to 2019 and the specific contribution of the different age groups to this decrease.

The Green Spaces, Learning Places (GSLP) environmental education initiative runs schools-based and community-based sessions to create opportunities for children and young people to engage with green outdoor environments in London, England (including parks, heaths, and forests). Bespoke evaluation resources were developed by researchers in collaboration with the GSLP delivery teams. The evaluation was based on before and after survey responses from 504 school-aged children (5–10 years) and 54 young people (13–19 years), observation of 62 children, and interviews with 18 children and 8 young people. The mixed methods findings suggest the programs had a positive influence on increasing participants’ understanding, confidence, nature connection, wellbeing, and involvement in green outdoor environments.

The innate relationship that humans share with the natural world is becoming increasingly strained. Our connection to nature - reflected through the psychological construct of nature connectedness - has been shown to benefit areas of physical and mental well-being: of which, several relationships are thought to be mediated by ones' adaptive ability to regulate emotion. Emerging research has also indicated that nature connectedness and proficiency in emotion regulation share inverse relationships with deviant personality traits, such as psychopathy. However, it remains to be seen whether psychopathy, specifically, has a moderating role on the association between nature connectedness and emotion regulation. A total of 309 participants completed an online survey whereby they were asked to self-report nature connectedness, emotion regulation strategy use, and psychopathy. Pearson correlations indicated a positive association between scores on nature connectedness and the use of cognitive reappraisal, but not expressive suppression strategies: a relationship found to be weaker in individuals scoring higher in psychopathy through moderation analysis. Evidence reported here supports our hypotheses and indicates the necessity to acknowledge a more diverse array of personality constructs both when discussing the potential benefits of nature connectedness and when testing the efficacy of nature-based interventions as a means of bringing about health- and well-being-related change.

Priming of pragmatic enrichment has been found in behavioural studies. We extend this by examining the neural correlates of priming for two implicature categories, quantifiers and disjunctions. Participants engaged in a primed sentence-picture matching task where they were presented with a sentence (e.g., “some of the letters are Bs”) followed by a picture. In prime trials the pictures were either consistent with an enriched interpretation (some but not all) or a basic interpretation (some and possibly all) of the sentence. The pictures in target trials were always consistent with the enriched interpretation. Using ERPs, we found a priming effect on the picture reflected in a reduced positivity for quantifiers when the preceding trial had an enriched interpretation, and no effect for disjunction. The pragmatic priming effect can be dissociated from expectation-based processes. It suggests that abstract derivation processes are primed during pragmatic alignment

The work presented in this thesis uses structural priming to investigate pragmatic enrichment. Chapter 2 looks at the role the alternative plays in the derivation of scalar implicatures. We investigate whether the salience of the alternative is sufficient for the derivation of scalar implicatures or whether an additional usage mechanism is required. Chapter 3 focuses on the derivation of one particular category of implicature known as ad hoc implicatures. Ad hoc implicatures are different from traditional scalar implicatures in that they do not have a predefined scale from which to draw alternatives. We test whether specific alternatives are used in the derivation of ad hoc implicatures or whether a general anything else alternative is used. Chapter 4 investigates interlocutor alignment in the production of implicatures. Since implicature comprehension can be primed we extend this by investigating implicature production. The findings of the work presented here demonstrate that structural priming can be extended beyond its traditional application to syntax and semantics and can be used to. provide insight into pragmatic enrichments

The work presented in this thesis uses structural priming to investigate pragmatic enrichment. Chapter 2 looks at the role the alternative plays in the derivation of scalar implicatures. We investigate whether the salience of the alternative is sufficient for the derivation of scalar implicatures or whether an additional usage mechanism is required. Chapter 3 focuses on the derivation of one particular category of implicature known as ad hoc implicatures. Ad hoc implicatures are different from traditional scalar implicatures in that they do not have a predefined scale from which to draw alternatives. We test whether specific alternatives are used in the derivation of ad hoc implicatures or whether a general anything else alternative is used. Chapter 4 investigates interlocutor alignment in the production of implicatures. Since implicature comprehension can be primed we extend this by investigating implicature production. The findings of the work presented here demonstrate that structural priming can be extended beyond its traditional application to syntax and semantics and can be used to. provide insight into pragmatic enrichments