The decision makers

This is a report on family planning in 3 villages in India, Tanzania, and Bangladesh. The Indian and Tanzanian respondents favored large families and did not favor the practice of family planning because economic circumstances seemed to them to support the need for large families. The respondents in the Bangladesh villages realized that a large family could be an economic burden. There was some mention of rural health centers, primary health centers, and mobile matenal/child untis for the provision of health services to rural people. Knowledge regarding these services was not widespread or complete. Family planning education services must overcome the weight of ignorance, tradition, and misconceptions. The rural women in the Bangladesh villages observed were anxious to take oral contraceptives. Their need was for a regular source of supply, adequate education concerning the working of and possible side effects associated with pills, and proper medical supervision during their pill therapy.     

A population policy and a development policy are one and the same thing. An introduction to World Population Year

The disappointing results of many family planning programs in developing countries can be traced to the fallacious assumption that most poor people want smaller families. In fact, many poor people want large families. This is largely a response to economic conditions. Large numbers of children are considered necessary to provide support for their parents in old age, help with chores, and contribute to the family's income. If the problem is viewed as not only population but also poverty, then the solution becomes not only contraception but also social and economic development. Increasing equality of income distribution and access to social services is the major factor in both promoting development and reducing the birth rate. There is empirical evidence that significant falls in the birth rate occur only when the standard of living rises substantially for the majority of the population. Improvements in socioeconomic conditions can remove the need for large families. Thus, a development policy and a population policy are 1 and the same thing, and more equitable income distribution is the key to both.     

Social construction of capabilities and intersectional complexities in a Tamil village

India is an ethnographic museum, well-known for its national motto of “unity in diversity”. It is a country of diverse hierarchies where the social reality is intersected by the varied grades of caste and class, among others. Against this backdrop, this article conceptualises the intersections of primordial identities. The concept of intersection underscores how diverse social positions interact in a Tamil village in India. As intersectionality is “the mutually constitutive relations among social identities” (Shields 2008), the interactions of caste, class, and gender in education are conceptualised to understand the formation of capabilities.     

Attitudes towards gender equality and perception of democracy in the Arab world

This article analyses the relationship between support of democracy and attitudes to human rights, in particular, support for gender equality, in the countries covered by the first wave of the Arab Barometer project. We use cluster analysis and negative binomial regression modelling to show that, unlike in most countries of the world, correlation between support of democracy and gender equality is very low in the Arab countries. There is a group of people in the region who support both democracy and gender equality, but they are a small group (about 17% of the population) of elderly and middle-aged people characterized by higher education and social status. A substantial number of poorly educated males express support for democracy but not for gender equality. Many people, especially young males aged 25–35 in 2007, are against both gender equality and democracy. Younger people tend to be both better educated and more conservative, those belonging to the 25–34 age group being the most patriarchal in their gender attitudes. Yet, controlling for age, education does have a positive effect on gender equality attitudes. Nevertheless, this phenomenon may reflect two simultaneous processes going on in the Middle East. On the one hand, people are getting more educated, urbanized, etc., which means the continuation of modernization. On the other hand, the fact that older people are the most liberal age group may point to a certain retrogression of social values in the younger generations.     

Availability ray

As Director of the Office of Population in the U.S. State Department, Dr. Ray Ravenholt is a controversial figure. In an interview with New Internationalist Dr. Ravenholt agrees that economic development will reduce family size in developing areas as it has in industrialized countries but the availability of contraception is of primary importance. He believes the U.S. should be training gynecologists from developing countries in modern methods of contraception, including sterilization operations, but he does not believe in involuntary sterilization or coercion. In Greenland, for example, the birth-rate fell from 48/1000 in 1964 to 19/1000 in 1977 because the Danish Health Minister introduced family planning. No coercion was used. Contraceptives were made available. Although he sees value in redistribution and equal distribution of resources, Dr. Ravenholt claims that if you make information and family planning services available you control population growth in advance of solving the resource distribution problem. In China, where a strong attempt has been made to distribute resources equally, a very powerful planned birth control program was found necessary. Politicians may argue that the U.S. should limit its consumption of resources but they are the same people who are working to emulate the same amount of consumption.     

Television and attitudes toward foreign countries: A report on a survey of Scandinavian children

Children of all ages are more likely to use electronic sources of information such as television and radio-than they are print sources-such as newspapers and magazines-according to a variety of studies. This study examines whether this tendency continues if the children are forced by their primary and secondary school teachers to use multiple news sources-of their own choice-to follow an election campaign. Based on responses from an extraordinarily large sample of 24,348 children, this study focuses on media use by participants in the Kids Voting USA civics education program. Study results demonstrate that even when seeking campaign information in 1994, a non-presidential election year when the emphasis was more on state and local races, children overwhelmingly preferred television and radio as sources of information. Newspaper usage trailed both electronic forms even when a child's family subscribed to a paper. The study found no significant difference between White and non-White children in their choices and uses of information sources. The large sample size also allowed for a detailed look at often neglected subgroups such as Native American children (n = 1,114) and Asian-American children (n = 768).     

Population: fiction and fact

This article was written to refute some common misunderstandings regarding worldwide population levels and worldwide nutrition levels. The world food supply is able to keep pace with high population growth levels. Worl food production currently meets world need; the problem is a distribution system which allocates food only to those who can pay rather than to those who need it. In many developing countries, the best agricultural lands are reserved for commercial crops rather than for subsistence crops. The U.S. food aid program does not help the most needy nations generally. The rate of world population growth is already slowing down. The desire for large families in developing countries is very often a realistic reaction to the prevailing economic system. Family planning programs will succeed. They will succeed even better in countries where general development planning is undertaken concurrently with family planning. Environmental problems are attributable to the consumption explosion in the rich countries rather than to the population explosion in the poor countries.     

Violent attacks on education in the tribal areas of Pakistan and the role of NGOs in providing educational services

Education is no longer safe from attacks during times of armed conflict. In many regions of the world, armed groups intentionally target schools, teachers and students and violate the right of children to get an education. Such is the case in Pakistan, where militant violence and continued armed conflict has disrupted the education of hundreds of thousands of children, particularly girls. The present study addresses a call for a better understanding of how non-governmental organisations (NGOs) function and contribute to peace-building and development through the provision of educational services in conflict zones. Based on field research, the study finds that in spite of challenges, NGOs have been playing a vital role in providing educational services to the conflict-affected communities. Disseminating information, solutions for resuming education, improving school enrolment, psychosocial support and promoting quality education lies at the forefront of NGOs’ battle in the tribal areas of Pakistan. However, the state needs a comprehensive policy to protect education from violent attacks.     

From one participant cohort to another: Surveying inter-generational political incubation in an Indian University

Several recent studies propose that political choices of Indian youth can hardly be distinguished from those of their parents in many respects. Contrary to this well-established understanding, this article shows that when set apart from the spheres of family and work, students in a flagship Indian university—mostly in the social sciences and humanities—gradually transform their political attitudes in light of prolonged exposure to a campus environment. Through combining ethnographic study with the analysis of a survey of political attitudes of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) students, we show that time spent in situ fosters participation to political activities, increases chances of joining a student organization and make students more likely to identify themselves as politically radical. The class and caste background of students, on the other hand, are not strongly associated with political attitudes, showing the integrative nature of politicization on the JNU campus.     

在中国广西靖西县探寻胡志明革命活动遗迹

在胡志明领导越南人民争取民族独立的斗争中,中国广西靖西县是越南革命的后方基地。胡志明和他的战友曾长期在这里进行革命活动,靖西县也留下了不少胡志明革命活动遗址。这些遗址和相关史事反映了中越两国人民在共同斗争中相互支持、情同一家的亲密关系,见证了中越两国人民的传统友谊及胡志明主席与中NJ,,-民的深厚感情。靖西人民已经和正在对这些革命遗址进行妥善的保护和积极的利用,使其在对中越两国人民群众特别是青少年进行中越友谊传统教育中发挥重要作用。     

Matching services with local preferences: managing primary education services in a rural district of India

India's poorest households have particularly little access to education. Urgent reforms are therefore needed to improve the universal availability of quality basic services and universal access to those services. At least 32 million children in India are estimated to not be enrolled and attending school. These children must be brought into schools in order to meet the goal of Universal Elementary Education (UEE). Widespread support exists for the decentralization of public services due to the equity and efficiency benefits associated with it. In particular, decentralization is seen to facilitate the matching of services with local preferences, increasing the chances of meeting policy goals. This approach is explored in the context of research conducted in a village of Raichur district, where poor households' preferences with regard to school timing are analyzed. Sections consider the equity and efficiency merits of decentralization, the agenda for improving education service delivery in India, users' relationship to the education system in Raichur district, how preferences are revealed, whose preferences are important in the conflict between local and policy perspectives, preference heterogeneity in the village context, and whether aspects of education services can be selectively decentralized.     

Environment and climate mainstreaming: challenges and successes

This paper examines mainstreaming environment and climate change into development policy, planning, and budgeting. It looks at why we should integrate environment and climate and outlines challenges and successes. One result is that governments’ progress pro-poor and equitable development. Governance gains are important too: co-benefits include more transparent decision making and better cross-government working. Ultimately, the impact of mainstreaming has increased awareness, changed perceptions, and improved the way inter-sectoral decisions are made, especially in climate adaptation. This supports countries to achieve their sustainable development ambitions – lessons which could be applied to a post-2015 development agenda.     

Interdependent Preferences, Militarism, and Child Gender

Selection effects make it difficult to determine whether concern for other people genuinely affects individuals' policy preferences. Child gender provides a conveniently exogenous means of exploring the issue, especially in contexts such as military policy where girls and boys face different risks; in many countries male children are disproportionately likely to become soldiers and thus bear the costs of militarism. This creates divergent effects: those in households with girls generally prefer more hawkish foreign policies than do members of households with boys. Data from the 2004 American National Election Study confirm these intuitions, both in general statements of policy preference and in evaluating the net costs of the Afghanistan and Iraq conflicts.     

印度尼西亚政府克服贫困的新举措——家庭希望计划(PKH)

印度尼西亚政府于2007年建立了家庭希望计划,该计划属于有条件现金转移支付项目,它要求受助家庭把获得的救助金用于家庭中儿童的人力资本发展,因此,相应条件的设定主要集中在教育、营养和健康方面,体现了明显的促进发展的功能。虽然该计划还存在一定问题,但计划已初见成效,印度尼西亚的贫困问题尤其是儿童贫困问题通过该计划的实施得到了缓解,这对中国社会救助的发展完善具有一定的启示意义。     

Narratives of the Past and Present: Young Refugees' Construction of a Family Identity in Exile

Little attention has been given to the ‘refugee experience’of children who follow their parents in escaping violence. Thisstudy examines how the experiences of violence become importantevents in the lives of a group of young refugees who were bornin the Middle East, but escaped with their parents to Denmarkten years ago. On the basis of a narrative analysis the studyshows that the adolescents' experience of being a refugee isgreatly influenced by the stories of the past narrated aboutthe family, and the internal relations and conflicts withinthe families. Adolescent refugees who have grown up with violencein their family relations experience greater difficulties increating new homes in exile than adolescents whose memoriesof violence are connected with a narrative of the historicalpersecution and suffering of their family and people.     

Population: a new approach

Questionable assumptions are the basis of the prevailing view on population. It is assumed that rapid population growth is responsible for slums, pollution, poverty, unemployment, and underdevelopment, yet these asserted relationships have no proven scientific basis. Even rapid rates of population growth are not necessarily obstacles to economic development, but the present international economic policies of rich countries are. It also is claimed that population control programs are no substitute for other development assistance, but funds have skyrocketed and agencies mushroomed in the population field, while other development assistance has decreased. The world's economic system functions on the basis of producing short term profit for a few. Under this system, production is inevitably directed towards creating an artificial demand for increasingly useless objects, rather than meeting basic human needs. This leads in turn to wasteful methods of production which seriously harm the environment. The poor nations are essentially relegated to the role of purveyors of raw materials. Such industries as are set up are usually capital-intensive and based on Western technology, rather than labor-intensive. This impairs the ability of these nations to provide full employment and social services would would otherwise lead to lower fertility levels. Current efforts to influence birthrates are directed towards changing people's reproductive behavior. There is little reference to the social and economic factors which determine family size. Yet, it is these factors which will have to be influenced if family size is to be substantially altered. Family planning should be freely available to all, but it is the type of society which will actually determine whether or not people use family planning. The mose effective way to alter population variables is to alter societies so that their people have some hope in the future.     

Strengthening the citizens' role in international organizations

Today's international organizations are characterized by a fundamental deficit in democracy. We therefore propose institutional measures to increase the direct participation possibilities of the citizens in international organizations. In order to reduce the number of citizens involved in decision-making to a manageable size, a representative sample of trustees is selected using a random mechanism. The trustees are given the right to launch initiatives and to vote in referendums on issues related to an international organization's constitution. They can also recall executives when they are dissatisfied with their behavior. No specific changes to the organization of these entities, especially their executive function, are proposed. Rather, the executives of international organizations must obey the constitutional changes adopted by the trustees. The proposal gives international organizations democratic legitimacy. Moreover, the executives are subjected to the control of the citizens of the member states, which induces better responsiveness to the preferences of the people, as well as higher organizational efficiency. JEL codes D72 · 019     

What encourages households to adopt rice as a new crop? Understanding gender roles and perceptions in households in northern Namibia

This article investigates how the introduction of new crops influences intra-household decision-making among the Ovambo in northern Namibia where women are responsible for crop farming, while men are engaged in livestock farming. It examines gender relations that underlie daily activities. The findings of the study show that women try new crops on their own or with the help of their children and do not negotiate with their husband, mothers, or brothers over household resources such as land, labour, and the cash of other family members. Women avoid conflicts with family members, but may have an increased perception of contribution to the household if they succeed in introducing new crops.     

From Top-Down to Trickle-Up Influence: Revisiting Assumptions About the Family in Political Socialization

A growing number of theorists are calling for a revival of research on political socialization based on the premise that children are active in their own civic development. We advance this argument a step further by proposing a model of family communication that reverses the roles of parents and children as conventionally understood in political socialization. Adolescent children are not merely receptive to political stimulation; they possess the power to transform patterns of family communication in ways that benefit themselves and their parents. We first challenge a series of interrelated assumptions about the nature and direction of influence in the family. We then document evidence of "trickle-up influence," in which child-initiated discussion--stimulated by a civics curriculum--prompts the parent to increase her civic competence via increased news media use, knowledge gain, and opinion formation. The parent's response reflects her desire to maintain a leadership role in the family, and more important from a theoretical perspective, it reveals the intrinsic forces of family adaptation that can make the home a powerful incubator of citizenship. Political growth occurs when the family system adjusts to reestablish equilibrium in response to exogenous factors or developmental needs that propel change. The ultimate purpose of this essay is to propose a functional model of family political communication. We apply theoretical perspectives from developmental literature to illustrate how political communication serves the family goals of autonomy and cohesion during various stages of the family life cycle.     

Women in water management: the need for local planning

This article on women's role in water resource management is based on a paper delivered at a seminar organized at the Water and Land Management Institute in Anand, India, in 1994. The article reflects Family Planning International's (FPI) experience in community-based water resource development. Most analyses of village and household water management data exclude women's role. The reasons are identified as the lack of inclusion of women's thinking in land-development research and planning, the dominance of males in planning and consequent male assumptions made about women's work and use of water, the lack of valuation of the nonmonetary nature of women's relationship to water, and the ease of ignoring women. Women's roles that are obstacles to inclusion in research and planning are identified as the lack of effective women's lobbies, the undervaluation by women of their work, and the lack of professional recognition of women as potential users of water or spokespersons for more than their own self-interests as women. National water policies are shifting to community-based management because local authorities are in daily contact with users, of whom about 50% are women. Historically national policy shifted from attention to distribution of investments in the water sector to reorganization of water agencies and to building up the capacity of private or voluntary agencies. The local context allows for more efficient and effective responses to local conditions. Local institutions and groups are better equipped to solicit local participation. One primary lesson learned by FPI is that local water resource planning is very important in strengthening the economic and individual capacity of poor people in underdeveloped areas. FPI's experience in Mahesana, Banaskantha, and Sabarkantha in Gujarat state supports this lesson learned. Water resource development policies resulted in mixed outcomes, and national control has been inefficient and disrespectful to local authorities. Another obstacle in Gujarat to water resource development is identified as increased demand for public water services and inadequate provision of services due to remoteness of the area and financial limitations of central agencies. Infrastructure is poorly maintained.