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The ways in which privacy is understood, defined, perceived, and enacted are contingent on cultural, social, political, economic, and technological settings. Yet, privacy research is often criticized for not adequately accounting for these. A comparative perspective requires the contextualization of privacy through investigating similarities and differences across contexts. This article outlines the Comparative Privacy Research Framework, which involves (a) scrutinizing one's position (of power) and epistemological biases, (b) assessing the comparability of the object under study, (c) identifying and justifying meaningful units of comparison, and (d) reflecting on how these units of comparison interact in shaping privacy. We conclude by proposing a comparative privacy research agenda that informs efforts in privacy regulation, education, and research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using census and survey microdata from 49 African countries across 415 subnational areas, we offer a comprehensive overview of household size and composition in Africa. The study emphasizes the potential of these data for understanding family dynamics through co-residential units. Clear regional patterns emerge, showcasing a wide range of household sizes across the continent. We find that household size is linked primarily to the number of children and secondarily to the presence of other family and non-family members beyond the nuclear household. The analysis of household composition also highlights the uneven influence of polygyny and extended families. This research is a first step in examining harmonized census and survey data to delve into the structure and dynamics of households across Africa from a demographic perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article introduces a conceptual framework for analyzing competition in higher education, with a focus on competing as action. Drawing on Georg Simmel's sociological insights and behavioral decision theory, the framework captures key elements of competition. It distinguishes between observing and four forms of courting: performing, strategic informing, influencing valuation criteria, and attracting attention. To demonstrate its potential, the paper applies the framework to the German higher education system, particularly focusing on universities’ competition for third-party funding. This conceptual approach opens up avenues for comparative investigations of various forms of competition, enabling an analysis of both similarities and differences in the competitive actions of different actors within higher education, as well as across systems. The framework provides a valuable tool for exploring the complexity and multiplicity of competition in higher education and beyond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Changing levels of public trust in the news are of deep concern to both researchers and practitioners. We use data from 2015 to 2023 in 46 countries to explore how trust in news has changed, while also exploring the links with sociodemographic variables, differences by media system, and changing patterns of news use. We find that (a) there has been a small overall decline in trust in news since 2015, but also that (b) there are different trends in different countries. More specifically, trust has declined more in media environments that have become less structured by television news use, and increasingly structured by social media news use. Our findings underscore how changing structures of media use may be central to explaining trust dynamics in recent years, which suggests new avenues for restoring trust where it has eroded. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Populist supporters have a complex relationship with journalism (e.g., embracing elites' negative rhetoric, yet consuming news profusely). This study explores this relationship. The notion of folk theories informs an inductive analysis of thirty-three in-depth interviews conducted in 2021 with right-wing and left-wing populist supporters in the United States and Spain to understand how they (RQ1) make sense of their news consumption habits and (RQ2) navigate the current high-choice media environment to stay informed. Findings reveal three interconnected folk theories that populist supporters drew from in explaining their news consumption: (1) "everything is biased," (2) "it's a way of seeing what other people think," and (3) "it's a pleasurable source of information." Findings additionally support an important role of emotion underlying these folk theories, which helped participants reconcile their negative views of journalism with the pleasure they derived from meeting ingrained normative democratic ideals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Establishing and maintaining citizen trust is vital for the effectiveness and long-term viability of regulatory agencies. However, limited empirical research has been conducted on the relationship between regulatory action and citizen trust. This article addresses this gap by investigating the influence of various regulatory enforcement styles on citizen trust. We conducted a pre-registered and representative survey experiment in six countries (n  = 5,765): Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Israel, the Netherlands, and Norway. Our study focuses on three key dimensions of enforcement style: formalism, coerciveness, and accommodation. We hypothesize that a strict and punitive enforcement style with minimal accommodation will enhance citizen trust. Surprisingly, we found no overall effect of enforcement on trust. However, specifically high levels of formalism (strictness) and coerciveness (punitiveness) exhibited a small positive effect on trust. Furthermore, we observed no discernible impact of an accommodative enforcement style. Additional analyses revealed that the effects of enforcement style were not consistent across country and regulatory domains. This suggests we need to reconsider assumptions underlying enforcement theory, as our findings imply that public trust seems less conditional on heavy-handed enforcement than initially anticipated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Value polarization is one of the key factors in societal development. This research focuses on whether opinions concerning gender roles in the domestic and public spheres are polarized in European societies, a topic still under-investigated. Based on the fifth wave of European Values Study data (2017–2020), the study shows that gender role attitudes in the domestic sphere are more polarized than those in the public sphere. Polarization by education, level of income, migration background, and degree of religiosity is stronger for gender role attitudes in the domestic sphere, whereas polarization by gender is stronger for gender role attitudes in the public sphere. Both gender role attitudes in the public and domestic spheres are most strongly polarized by education. At the same time, belonging to a social group with higher education, higher income, and lower religiosity can promote more progressive views towards gender roles. Opinions in Eastern European countries tend to seem more polarized than in Western European countries, even if with some exceptions. In countries with a higher level of gender equality, the level of polarization is a bit lower, while in countries where there is a remarkable rise of anti-gender narratives, opponent and conflictual views are higher. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the face of continued socioeconomic inheritance, the belief that the simple expansion of educational opportunities will create meritocratic societies has been met with skepticism. It is well documented that within expanding educational systems, class-advantaged families attempt to secure further advantages for their offspring. Conversely, for many, the modernist belief that educational expansion is a means to achieving a fairer society remains compelling. Studying trends in intergenerational occupational mobility in 40 countries from four continents, I examine whether educational expansion enhances occupational mobility, and whether such trends are counteracted by heightened persistence between social origin and destination within education groups. The results indicate that educational expansion over time, and the policies supporting it, are linked to improved intergenerational occupational mobility. Furthermore, this increased mobility through expanded educational opportunities is not negated by a strengthening of within-education elite persistence in occupational status, suggesting that occupational mobility patterns can genuinely change through educational expansion. The modernist ideology around educational expansion as a driver of social mobility may warrant renewed attention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital work communication offers increased flexibility in timing and location, helping employees, particularly mothers, balance work and private life. This flexibility can enhance mothers' ability to increase their contracted hours in paid employment, especially given the impact of childbirth on their careers. Drawing on boundary management theory, this study posits that digital communication with supervisors enables mothers to better manage work tasks alongside personal obligations, potentially allowing them to work longer hours. However, the actual use of this flexibility is influenced by a country's level of de-familialisation, which refers to family policies that reduce care dependency. Analyzing data from the European Social Survey involving 3,179 mothers across 25 countries, the study found that mothers generally worked longer hours when they utilized digital communication more frequently. Comparisons across countries showed that this relationship was stronger in nations with robust de-familialisation policies. The findings suggest that the potential of digital work communication to enhance work involvement is particularly leveraged in countries that promote de-familialisation, allowing mothers to navigate their professional and personal responsibilities more effectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How food is produced and consumed matters for both our health and our societies' ecological footprint. Yet, food practices are a topic at the margins of news coverage and journalism studies. We narrow this research gap by exploring the framing of food in the news. Combining automated and manual content analysis, we study 10,022 articles published in elite newspapers from Germany, the United States (U.S.) and India (2016–2018). Food-related terms are frequently mentioned, but rarely become the main topic of an article. We identified 23 topics associated with five broader frames. The frames Pleasure and Art of Eating and Drinking and Body and Health are most prominent, while other aspects as articulated in the frames Sustainable Living, and Rituals and Traditions as well as Convenience and Price are neglected. U.S. newspapers tend to focus on recipes and restaurant reviews. Indian newspapers highlight health issues and weight loss. In Germany, there was less coverage focusing on food, but with a more even attention to different frames. Food reporting remains to be apolitical, a diversity of food choices is covered – with subtle disregard for questions of sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Continue Education Research is the property of Harbin Normal University and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The assumption of comparability underlies any comparative study of the social and political sciences. However, this assumption cannot be taken for granted. Especially in quantitative research in the field of values and attitudes, multiple sources of bias, both cultural and methodological ones, can undermine this assumption leading to the development of conclusions and generalizations based on misleading results. The paper describes these challenges from a methodological perspective and presents the main techniques for assessing measurement invariance (also called measurement equivalence) using as an empirical example the concept of interindividual solidarity as operationalized in the latest European Values Study (EVS) survey. The measurement model presents a three-dimensional structure: social, local and global solidarity. Based on data from the 21 EU countries included in the most recent wave of EVS (2017-2020), the results show lack of invariance and that the main source of bias lies in the "global solidarity" dimension. The essay concludes with some practical insights and directions for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Search engines play an important role in the spread of disinformation and conspiracy theories, accentuating the power of global platform companies such as Google to contribute to the digital (information) divide by providing search results of lesser quality in certain countries. We investigated this phenomenon by asking what kind of results users see when they search for information on eleven popular conspiracy theories (CTs) via Google. We analysed links from Google search results (N = 1259) in 12 Western and non-Western countries and 10 languages. Overall, users are more likely to encounter neutral or debunking content when using Google to search for prominent CTs. However, for some CTs, strong country differences in the quality of search results emerge, showing clear correlations between categorical inequalities and unequal access to reliable information. In countries where journalists enjoy less freedom, people enjoy fewer democratic rights and are less able to rely on social elites, Google also provides less enlightening content on CTs than in developed and prosperous democracies. The countries thus disadvantaged are precisely those countries where there is a high propensity to believe in CTs according to comparative survey research. However, in countries where a global language is spoken, for example, English or Portuguese, there is no correlation between structural, country-specific factors and the quality of search results. In this sense, structurally disadvantaged countries seem to benefit from belonging to a larger language community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, social media platforms have become key elements in many teachers' professional lives. In particular, teacher professional activities on X (formerly Twitter) have received attention from scholars. However, research has rarely explored X/Twitter use with attention to the diverse national contexts in which teachers work. To address this literature gap, this qualitative study collected data via individual and focus group interviews with teachers (N = 29) in three countries: England, Norway and the United States of America. Inductive analysis yielded findings related to purposes for, changes in and benefits and challenges of K‐12 teachers' X/Twitter use. Participants from all three contexts described professional learning activities that included sharing and/or acquiring knowledge and resources, and building professional networks and/or communities via X/Twitter. Multiple participants across contexts also referred to similar challenges such as avoiding negativity from other users. However, differences in X/Twitter use were also noted across teachers from the three national settings, such as only Norwegian participants speaking about using X/Twitter to find collaboration partners for teaching and learning projects. We discuss our findings in relation to literature, theory and practice around teacher professional learning in an era of widespread social media. Practitioner notes What is already known about this topic Many K‐12 teachers use X/Twitter and other social media platforms for professional learning purposes. Teachers can use X/Twitter for various purposes and in multiple ways. Contextual factors influence teachers' use of X/Twitter. Social media platform use varies to some extent across cultures and nations. What this paper adds Identification of similarities and differences in X/Twitter use among teachers. International comparative analysis based on individual and focus group interviews of participants from England, Norway and the United States of America. Evidence related to the evolving and dynamic nature of teachers' use of X/Twitter. Implications for practice and/or policy Teachers who use social media may benefit from understanding diverse potential uses of platforms. Policies and guidance regarding K‐12 teacher social media use should accommodate various contextual factors, including national context. Diversity and changes in teacher professional social media use warrant more international comparative research in relation to wider policy contexts in education. What is already known about this topic Many K‐12 teachers use X/Twitter and other social media platforms for professional learning purposes. Teachers can use X/Twitter for various purposes and in multiple ways. Contextual factors influence teachers' use of X/Twitter. Social media platform use varies to some extent across cultures and nations. What this paper adds Identification of similarities and differences in X/Twitter use among teachers. International comparative analysis based on individual and focus group interviews of participants from England, Norway and the United States of America. Evidence related to the evolving and dynamic nature of teachers' use of X/Twitter. Implications for practice and/or policy Teachers who use social media may benefit from understanding diverse potential uses of platforms. Policies and guidance regarding K‐12 teacher social media use should accommodate various contextual factors, including national context. Diversity and changes in teacher professional social media use warrant more international comparative research in relation to wider policy contexts in education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prior research has used innovative paradigms to show that some non-human animal species demonstrate behavioural choices (i.e. foraging for a food item at a specific location, and at a time that guarantees it has not yet decayed), reflecting episodic-like or 'WWW' memory (memory for 'what' happened, 'where' and 'when'). These results raised the question of whether similar approaches could be used to examine memory in young children in order to reduce verbal demands. The present research examines the extent to which children's WWW memory aligns with memory-based choices in 3- to 5-year-olds (n = 95; study 1) and in 7- to 11-year-olds and adults (n = 168; study 2). Results indicate that preschoolers' struggle with choice-based tasks probably reflects difficulty integrating their WWW memory with an understanding that certain items decay over time. Moreover, a convergence between verbal recall measures and choice-based measures is observable in 7-year-olds and beyond, reflecting a stronger integration of memory signals, understanding of state transformation, and decision-making. This article is part of the theme issue 'Elements of episodic memory: lessons from 40 years of research'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The issue of the secular state is pertinent in Latin America, especially in countries like Brazil, where religion may influence the political and educational field. Data from a survey of biology teachers regarding the teaching of evolution in Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay were analysed, recognising the secularity of the countries. The BIOHEAD-CITIZEN questionnaire and semi-structured interviews were used in this research. Two questions were highlighted: one regarding teachers' opinion on the separation of politics and religion and the other on the separation of science and religion. In both, the results from Brazilian biology teachers stand out, with a greater alignment with the conception that religion can participate in the political and academic sphere. The interviews also confirmed that Brazilian teachers must deal with religious clashes, with students and in their personal conceptions, when teaching evolutionary theory. This situation is of concern in the current Brazilian political context (Bolsonaro government), in which the theme of religion is in evidence in politics, and may become increasingly so in the school environment, notably in relation to the teaching of biological evolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research into seed germination classroom activities has been common in the last few decades. Didactic proposals have generally focused on the implementation of guided activities in a specific educational stage and context, and an evaluation of the results. However, it is not evident that students approach seed and germination concepts with a reasoned argument. In light of this, comparative research using an inquiry approach was undertaken with 59 primary school students and 82 trainee teachers at an education faculty in Spain, over two academic years. The results showed that it is necessary to give greater relevance to experimental activities to produce reasoned argumentation of seed and germination concepts. Activities should focus on variables that differ from those typical of common or historical agricultural knowledge. Variables derived from genetic information (size of the seed, latency period) are significant and helpful. It is also considered essential to work on the meaning and proper use of scientific terms, such as living and inert matter, sun-light-heat, or plant germination and growth processes. The search for explanations and the development of justifications, for example relating the excess of water to a lack of oxygen for the seeds, is also essential. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a large body of research exploring the difficulties young people experience on the transition to secondary education. However, there has been little comparative research yielding insights into how these experiences vary by institutional context. This article explores differences in school transition difficulties among young people in Scotland and Ireland using nationally representative longitudinal datasets – Growing Up in Ireland and Growing Up in Scotland. Despite generally making the transition with most or all of their friends, transition difficulties are greater on average in Scotland than in Ireland, perhaps reflecting the shorter duration of primary education in Scotland. In both systems, young people coming from households with lower levels of income and education experience greater difficulties and this gap is only partially accounted for by school experiences at primary and secondary level. An interesting feature is contrasting gender patterns in the two systems, with boys experiencing more difficulties in Scotland and girls more adjustment problems in Ireland. The male disadvantage in Scotland is partly explained by school experiences; the female disadvantage in Ireland is related to more negative attitudes to Maths at primary level than boys. Vocabulary development in middle childhood plays a stronger role in influencing ease of transition in Ireland, most likely because of the large number of (literacy-based) subjects students take on entry to secondary school. The article points to the potential for further comparative research on school transitions to better understand the dynamics in different contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Comparative communication research needs to catch up to other disciplines. In this special issue and the associated International Communication Association preconference, we focus on comparative work related to digital political communication. This introduction argues that comparative digital political communication needs to consider comparisons across various dimensions, including countries, platforms, and time, whereas existing comparative communication research focuses on country or territorial comparison. We highlight the six submissions' approaches to comparative work. Each submission provides at least one of these three dimensions of contrast. We conclude with a discussion of enduring gaps in this field of research, such as the lack of studies using time as a dimension of comparison. Time is crucial for understanding ever-changing digital media platforms. We also conclude by discussing some ongoing challenges in political communication research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholarly literature has demonstrated that hybridity transforms both legacy and new media, but that this change is not even. We treat social media platforms as arenas of remediation, where users share and add their own context to information produced by both media subtypes and compare social media conversations about migration in six European languages that include links to either traditional or new media during 2015–2019. We use a mix of computational and statistical methods to analyze 3.5 million (re)tweets and 500,000 links shared within them. We identify the main differences in agenda setting power, function, and tone present within tweets that include links to legacy or new media. Our results show that discourses are similar across languages but clearly different when remediating legacy and new media. Trust in legacy media is correlated with higher proportion of shared links from legacy media and reversely related to the proportion of shared links from new media sources. Considering the volume and timing of the remediated content, we conclude that legacy media retains its agenda setting power. New media linked content tends to cover migration in association to subjects such as Islam or terrorism and to express strong critical opinions against migrants/refugees. The language used is more toxic than in legacy media linked content. The tweets remediating legacy media articles covered topics like domestic or European politics, causes of refugee arrivals and procedures to give them protection. Thus, legacy and new media remediated content differs in both tone and function: toxicity is low and factuality high for content linking to legacy media, with the reverse being true for new media remediations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The UK's city centre apartment markets have been affected by the coronavirus pandemic and a building safety crisis in ways not experienced by its suburban and rural housing markets. Sellers and estate agents have encountered falling demand and prices, elevated safety concerns, reluctant lenders and changes in buyers' preferences. Against this backdrop, we investigated the narratives and images used to sell what have sometimes appeared to be 'less sellable' homes. Analysing the textual and visual content of 100 adverts for city centre flats, we explored the possible effects of the pandemic on property advertising, the positioning within adverts of building safety and, noting growing interest in sustainability, the presence of sustainability messages. Findings suggest that the core narratives used to sell city centre flats remain largely unchanged from those deployed to first market the concept of 'city living' to UK buyers in the late 1990s. Messages about building safety and sustainability appear uncommon. The implications of the findings are considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: A country's social welfare system may play an important role in maternal employment. This study compared the labor market participation of mothers of children within the United States (U.S.) and Norway to examine whether the child's age and severity of the ASD affected mothers' employment differently between the two countries. Methods: The 2019 National Survey of Children's Health was used for the U.S. analysis, and the 2019 administrative register data were used for the Norwegian analysis. A logit model was used to analyze the impact of a child's age and ASD severity on maternal employment in the U.S. and Norway. We presented the results as average marginal effects obtained from the logistic regression analyses. Results: After adjusting for mothers' sociodemographic variables and the child's age, U.S. mothers of children with mild ASD and moderate/severe ASD had respectively 12 and 25% points lower probability of being employed than U.S. mothers of children without special health care needs. In Norway, mothers of children with moderate/severe ASD had a 13% points lower probability of employment than mothers without special health care needs. The probability of being employed for mothers caring for a child with ASD was significantly greater as the child got older in both countries. Conclusions for Practice: The employment gap was more substantial in the U.S. than in Norway. A general high employment participation rate among women and an elaborated welfare state and policy package seem to benefit employment among mothers of children with ASD in Norway. Significance: What is Known about this Subject?: Previous research examining the relationship between ASD and maternal employment are dominated by small sample sizes and single-country design. What this Study Adds?: This study examine the implications of childhood ASD on maternal employment in two vastly different welfare regimes, U.S. and Norway using nationally representative large samples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As news organizations increasingly adopt AI-driven technologies like news recommender systems (NRS), notions of responsible artificial intelligence (AI) design have attracted significant scholarly and public attention. Particularly, transparency and user control are crucial for the fulfilment of democratic freedoms and human rights. However, users' desire for such features in NRS has not yet been sufficiently examined. Therefore, this study set out to comparatively examine how individual-level characteristics contribute to the desirability of transparency and user control in NRS across five nations (Netherlands, Poland, Switzerland, United Kingdom, United States; N = 5079). We show that the desire for features of responsible NRS is shaped by individual-level characteristics like NRS-related concerns and algorithmic awareness but does not always manifest equally across different national settings. By considering the audience's view on features of responsible NRS, our study can be a stepping stone towards responsible journalistic AI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social media platforms, such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter (now X), play a crucial role in facilitating connections between politicians and citizens, particularly during a crisis like the COVID-19 pandemic. This article examines the characteristics of viral social media posts in Norway and Sweden during the initial wave of the pandemic. Despite their geographical proximity and cultural similarities, Norway and Sweden adopted different approaches to the pandemic, providing a compelling basis for comparative analysis. Employing a visual computational approach, this study maps viral posts by analyzing engagement metrics such as likes, reactions, shares, and comments. A close reading of popular posts investigates the communication strategies employed across platforms and national contexts. The findings reveal that political criticism on Twitter attracted substantial engagement, while Instagram posts leaned toward self-promotion. On Facebook, popular posts exhibited a more varied use of communication strategies, reflecting a nuanced approach to engagement across different social media environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Landscape Architecture Frontiers is the property of Higher Education Press Limited Company and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Abstract Comparative school-to-work research has long emphasised the role of institutions in shaping youth labour market integration. This paper provides an overview of this research stream, consisting of four main sections. The first section introduces a variety of labour market outcomes of young graduates within Europe and identifies country clusters with higher and lower outcomes; this empirical evidence has so far remained limited in the multivariate oriented research stream. The second section links these labour market outcomes to the institutional settings of the education systems prevalent in the country clusters. By considering a wide country sample, it introduces a reliable country classification of transition regimes (along the OLM–ILM continuum), which has so far been partly inconclusive in research. The third section links labour market outcomes in turn to labour market institutions of the country clusters. This section emphasizes why labour market institutions drive only particular individual outcomes. Finally, the fourth section connects the previous three: it describes how certain institutional complementarities affect the youth labour market integration in the identified European country clusters. The review further identifies theoretical inconclusiveness or data-related desiderata, for which recommendations and solutions are proposed. The paper thus aims to assist both familiar and unfamiliar researchers to access the research stream by offering a comprehensive introduction and clear country classifications, linking research streams, and providing solutions to identified issues.

Comparative school-to-work research has long emphasised the role of institutions in shaping youth labour market integration. This paper provides an overview of this research stream, consisting of four main sections. The first section introduces a variety of labour market outcomes of young graduates within Europe and identifies country clusters with higher and lower outcomes; this empirical evidence has so far remained limited in the multivariate oriented research stream. The second section links these labour market outcomes to the institutional settings of the education systems prevalent in the country clusters. By considering a wide country sample, it introduces a reliable country classification of transition regimes (along the OLM–ILM continuum), which has so far been partly inconclusive in research. The third section links labour market outcomes in turn to labour market institutions of the country clusters. This section emphasizes why labour market institutions drive only particular individual outcomes. Finally, the fourth section connects the previous three: it describes how certain institutional complementarities affect the youth labour market integration in the identified European country clusters. The review further identifies theoretical inconclusiveness or data-related desiderata, for which recommendations and solutions are proposed. The paper thus aims to assist both familiar and unfamiliar researchers to access the research stream by offering a comprehensive introduction and clear country classifications, linking research streams, and providing solutions to identified issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This colloquium brings information about a second cycle of OECD's International Early Learning and Well-being Study (IELS) to the early childhood community, and offers a further critique of the approach to comparative research that the IELS embodies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the most significant aspects of increased inequalities in society are those pertaining to educational inequality, or disparities related to access, uptake and completion of education. Of decisive interest in this context are challenges and dilemmas facing practices which try to tackle or mitigate educational inequalities. Although research on the topic has developed considerably in the last two decades, there is still a lack of research looking at concrete practice from an internationally comparative perspective. Through qualitative practice research, including problem-centred expert interviews, focus groups and guided tours, we have investigated the challenges and dilemmas which obstruct the implementation, development and day-to-day activities of educational practices. We introduce this article by providing our theoretical perspectives on educational equality and its necessary pre-conditions. We argue in favour of a much more emancipatory educational practice in the sense of a Freire-inspired ideal of fostering participation, self-determination and solidarity in both formal and non-formal educational environments. These theoretical considerations are then related to concrete practices, whereby we focus on the perspectives of stakeholders and educational practitioners involved such as teachers, social workers, non-formal educators or coaches. Based on our empirical material we move on to reflect on challenges and dilemmas faced in such practices. We systematise these cross-national challenges into seven categories which we have labelled 'The seven Ps', namely: Politics, Placement, Partnerships, Provision, Personnel, Parents, and Participants. We conclude by explaining why this framework should be applicable to development education, arguing how these categories may serve as a cautionary framework for developing pioneering practices striving for social justice across the global community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: In the past few decades more and more studies have put the mental health and wellbeing of university lecturers in the limelight, especially considering the fact that lecturers' scope of responsibilities have been significantly transformed and expanded as a result of the massification and diversification of and structural changes in higher education. These changes intensified the workload, already rather high, thus negatively affecting lecturers' wellbeing. It is worth investigating how the increasingly marked presence of digital technologies affects the characteristics of teachers' workload. In this study, we intend to investigate the impact of digitization on the various areas of workload and work activities of university lecturers at a large university with many faculties, on the one hand, and teachers of institutions teaching in minority languages, on the other. Methods: The online questionnaire compiled and based on the findings of our previous qualitative study was completed by teachers at one of Hungary's biggest universities, the University of Debrecen, and lecturers at other institutions of higher education providing for the Hungarian ethnic minority across borders and affiliated with the University of Debrecen, altogether 596 people. The database created obtaining the data was named Central and Eastern European Teachers in Higher Education (CEETHE, 2023), IBM SPSS 29 software was used to analyze the data. Results: Digital technology plays a basic role in lecturers' work. Its importance is shown by the fact that the majority of respondents (54%) experiences significant or very severe stress in connection to technological problems. The majority of time spent with digital devices is included in working hours, so these technologies play a prominent role in dissolving the boundaries between professional and private life. Furthermore, many people find their use more exhausting than mental work performed without relying on them. Conclusion: By continuously developing the digital competency of university lecturers it is possible to mitigate the stress triggered by technological problems as well as reduce screen time. It is necessary to ensure that institutions of higher education introduce policies that ensure work-life balance for teachers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This document provides a comparative study of early childhood education and care (ECEC) national documents in China and Finland. It analyzes the key aspects and similarities and differences in the ECEC guidelines of both countries. The findings show that both China and Finland prioritize ECEC and emphasize principles that shape the learning environment and use diverse pedagogical methods. However, there are nuanced variations in their approaches, with China providing more specific guidelines tailored to different age groups and Finland offering general guidelines for all preschool age groups. The study has implications for policymakers, educators, and practitioners in international contexts. [Extracted from the article]

Scholars have long investigated the positive link between income and well-being, including its gender difference. However, little is known about (1) how low income is linked to ill-being among women and men; and (2) how their association varies depending on societal-level gender (in)equality. Filling this knowledge gap is crucial not only for scholarship but for social policy to tackle income-based disparities of ill-being. In this study, using the European Social Survey and the joint European Values Study-World Values Survey data, we conduct country-specific regressions and cross-national multilevel analyses to examine the relationship between low income, subjective ill-being (SIB), and macro-level gender parity. We first confirm that low-income individuals, regardless of gender, are more likely than their affluent counterparts to suffer from SIB in many countries. This indicates the applicability of implications derived from conventional approaches focused on the positive association between higher income and better well-being to the studies on low income and SIB. Nevertheless, the SIB risk significantly differs depending on the degree of gender inequality in that (1) both women and men face a higher likelihood of SIB in gender-inegalitarian societies; and importantly, (2) the psychological penalty for the poor is intensified under such gendered circumstances, especially among men. These results suggest that gender inequality not merely induces women's ill-being but punishes low-income men possibly by exacerbating pressure as a breadwinner and imposing stigmas when they cannot meet gendered social expectations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Investigating the relationship between Islamic religiosity and electoral participation amongst Muslim citizens in Western Europe, this study combines insights from the sociology of religion and Islamic studies with political behavior literature thus creating an improved theoretical framework and a richer empirical understanding surrounding the electoral participation of religious minorities. First, we theorize about three underlying dimensions of Islamic religiosity: frequency of mosque attendance, religious identification, and frequency of prayer. Subsequently, we consider how the religiosity–voting relationship is bolstered or hindered by hostile national environments such as more exclusionary policies and practices (e.g., veil banning or exclusionary citizenship laws). Empirically, we use a unique dataset that harmonizes five European surveys, resulting in a sample size of just under 8,000 European Muslims. Using multi-level techniques, we find, contrary to research on majority religiosity, that communal religiosity is unrelated to electoral participation. However, individual religiosity bolsters voting in particular among the second generation. Opposite to our expectation, we find that hostile environments do not seem to lead to different impacts of Islamic religiosity within Western Europe. Our results support the taking of a more fine-grained approach when measuring religiosity and also highlight how the impact varies across genders and generations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social media has faced criticism for promoting misinformation. The role of alternative media in spreading misinformation, however, remains uncertain. We examined 1661 Facebook posts from 25 most popular alternative media outlets during the Covid-19 pandemic in five countries (France, Germany, Switzerland, the UK, and the US). Our codebook covered a wide range of categories, from mild misleading content to blatant misinformation. Through cluster analysis, we identified four reporting types in alternative media: Light distortion, heavy distortion, ideological misinformation, and extreme misinformation. Light and heavy distortion were most prevalent in popular alternative media, while ideological and extreme misinformation had smaller but more engaged audiences. In summary, alternative media found more success on Facebook with content categorized as light and heavy distortion. This typology recognizes complexity in misinformation and alternative media research, while simultaneously reduces complexity to contribute to comparative studies in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Community supported agriculture, ecovillages, and renewable energy cooperatives are all instances of sustainable materialism initiatives. Currently, a wealth of research assesses their prefigurative dimensions and documents their market strategies; yet there is little explanation of why such initiatives rise and fall over time. This article aims to fill this gap. To do so, I investigate the lifespans of renewable energy cooperative projects in Denmark and France. Based on a qualitative comparative analysis, I argue that the rise and fall of these projects can be explained by the evolution of one type of economic power: the power of orientation, or the ability of collective organizations to simultaneously act in and act on a policy regime to create market opportunities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social origin affects not only access to higher education but also how students proceed through higher education. Based on the argument that an advantageous family background facilitates linear study trajectories through parents' provision of cultural and economic resources, this article investigates study trajectories in Germany and the United States, assessing the institutional structures as an intermediating factor. We reconstruct study trajectories of bachelor-degree-seeking students using sequence analysis based on two high-quality panel data sets (U.S. Beginning Postsecondary Students Longitudinal Study and the German National Educational Panel Study). The findings reveal that study trajectories are more complex overall and shaped by social origin in the United States. In both countries, study trajectories differ by higher education institution type. We conclude that not only are access pathways to higher education shaped by the institutional context of higher education systems but also that study trajectories and the disparities structured by socioeconomic background are equally institutionally embedded. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on adaptation and validation of the Academic Motivation Scale questionnaire (AMS‐28) in higher education in four Eastern European countries: Czechia, Slovakia, Serbia, and Poland. The research was conducted with a total of 1711 respondents. We examined the construct validity of AMS‐28 including measurement invariance and reliability according to national, gender and age groups. Our analysis confirmed its original seven‐factor structure as well as its reliability. The tool is measurement invariant across all compared groups (gender, age, countries) except Poland, whose results are specific. The results identify new places on the world map where AMS‐28 is functional. The tool appears functional in time, space and various language mutations. Despite satisfactory results, there is still room for future examination of the AMS‐28 among different countries. In practice, the tool has a wide range of application possibilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Concern over misinformation on social media has amplified calls to improve the public's knowledge about how news is produced, distributed and financed. This study investigates the relationship between people's news media knowledge and the ways in which they use social media for news using online survey data in five countries: the United Kingdom, United States, Germany, Spain and Sweden (N = 10,595). We find that people with higher news media knowledge are more likely to include social media in their news repertoire – but not as their main or only source of news. Second, we find that news media knowledge is positively associated with paying attention to source and editorial cues. When it comes to different social endorsement cues, news media knowledge is positively associated with paying attention to the person who shared the news, but negatively associated with paying attention to the number of likes, comments and shares. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this special issue, the authors theoretically, methodologically, and empirically address challenges and opportunities associated with comparative social media analysis in political contention. Actors from civil society, media, and institutional politics use social media to coordinate, mobilise, and communicate, turning public online communication into an arena of conflict that offers researchers valuable windows of observation. In this introduction to the special issue, we systematise comparative perspectives on social media and political contention. We outline the traditional comparative dimensions of space, time, platform, and case; and suggest an approach for comparison within dimensions that are less dependent on the rapidly changing social media environment and more attuned to the interconnection between social media and political contention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on political conflict often overlooks the role of visual-based platforms like Instagram in expressing political discontent, focusing primarily on textual content from newspapers and social media. This paper examines the practicalities and challenges of conducting visual research on Instagram, particularly in the context of comparative studies. We highlight the difficulties associated with sampling representative visual content. Through a small case study, we illustrate how hashtags associated with a single country can generate multiple conflicts, using indicators developed in political protest research and contentious politics. The existence of diverse debates within and across hashtags complicates cross-country comparisons of Instagram content and conflict dynamics. To address this issue, we propose an analytical tool for cross-hashtag analysis, allowing for the assessment of degrees of conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops an analytical framework for comparative research on political contention in the digital age and, building upon it, provides a literature review of social media research related to LGBTQ+ political contention. So far, we lack systematic insights into the literature on digitally-mediated LGBTQ+ political contention and its potential for comparative research. Applying scoping literature review, we focus on the key comparative dimensions such as political context, social media, and knowledge production. The results provide an overview of the state of the art, limitations, and opportunities while also developing an agenda for future comparative research. This paper supports the visibility of LGBTQ+ issues in a still hostile public debate for both LGBTQ+ activists and researchers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Taking the example of conspiracy-related communication online as one form of contentious politics, this study examines the data collection challenges for multidimensional comparative research across platforms, time, and cultural embeddings. It compares the architectures and features relevant to data collection, access regimes, and use cultures for a set of digital platforms and communication venues. Differentiating between actor- and content-based strategies, this study discusses the potentials and limitations of these approaches, considering differences in platforms, temporal dynamics, and cultural embeddings as well as several layers of equivalence. The discussion highlights crucial insights into designing data collection strategies in multidimensional comparative studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors provide a scholarly conspectus of comparative studies involving Russian, EU8 and EU15 Welfare Polities. They elaborate the notion of the 'welfare polity' and its potential for enhancing comparative studies of welfare institutions, policies and practices. This is accompanied by an overview of trends in comparative studies involving Russian, EU8 and EU15 countries, along with a consideration of how comparative research involving these states can be strengthened. Gaps in the literature and evidence base, including systematic cross-national and temporal data on the design and implementation of social policies and social protection, are highlighted. A shared concern was found with the growth of division and exclusion exacerbated by global economic factors and by state-level policy shifts, a trend especially notable in Russian studies. Fruitful pointers for future research and international collaboration are indicated and the need for further comparative efforts emphasised at a challenging time for geopolitical relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]