EQUALITY
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"The midwife should wear normal clothes when facilitating group-based antenatal education as a symbol of equality
in power relationships within the group. When power relationships
between women and the midwife are equalized, women are more able to take
responsibility for their health as they are less likely to defer to the
'expert'." Link
| Equality, equity, and the role of merit
Preschoolers are able to take merit into account when distributing goods
Abstract: Classic studies in developmental psychology demonstrate a relatively late development of equity, with children as old as 6 or even 8-10 years failing to follow the logic of merit-that is, giving more to those who contributed more. Following Piaget (1932), these studies have been taken to indicate that judgments of justice develop slowly and follow a stagelike progression, starting off with simple rules (e.g., equality: everyone receives the same) and only later on in development evolving into more complex ones (e.g., equity: distributions match contributions). Here, we report 2 experiments with 3- and 4-year-old children (N = 195) that contradict this constructivist account. Our results demonstrate that children as young as 3 years old are able to take merit into account by distributing tokens according to individual contributions but that this ability may be hidden by a preference for equality. Investigators: Baumard N, Mascaro O, Chevallier C. Citation: Developmental Psychology. 2011 Dec 12. [Epub ahead of print] Link to PubMed abstract A review of global progress toward the Millennium Development Goal 1 Hunger Target
Abstract: The hunger component of the first Millennium Development Goal (MDG) aims to reduce the proportion of people who suffer from hunger by half between 1990 and 2015. In low- and middle-income countries, progress has been mixed, with approximately 925 million people hungry and 125 million and 195 million children underweight and stunted, respectively. Based on this review, most strategies being implemented and scaled are focusing on treatment of malnutrition and rooted within the health sector. While critical, these programs generally address disease-related effects and emphasize the immediate determinants of undernutrition. Other major strategies to tackle undernutrition rely on the production of staple grains within the agriculture sector. These programs address hunger, as opposed to improving the quality of diets within communities. Strategies that adopt multisectoral programming as crucial to address longer-term determinants of undernutrition, such as poverty, gender equality, and functioning food and health systems, remain underdeveloped and under-researched. Investigators: Fanzo JC, Pronyk PM Citation: Food and Nutrition Bulletin, June 2011, 32(2):144-58. Link to PubMed abstract. | Are some more equal than others?
All
professionals are equal but some professionals are more equal than
others? Dominance, status and efficiency in Swedish interprofessional
teams
Abstract: This study explored status differences in interprofessional teams and their link with efficiency. In total, 62 teams (423 individuals) from occupational health-care, psychiatry, rehabilitation and school health-care responded to a questionnaire. Fifty-four of those teams (360 individuals) also participated in an observation session simulating problem-solving team meetings. Data were reduced to a number of indexes: self-assessed/ perceived equality, functional influence and efficiency; and observed verbal dominance/ activity and problem-solving capacity. Perceived status differences within the teams appeared moderate, irrespective of professional belonging. With respect to verbal dominance during meetings, however, the findings revealed a hierarchy with psychologists, physicians and social workers at the top together with special education teachers. No relationship was found between self-assessed efficiency and actual problem-solving nor between observed verbal activity and problem-solving. The findings suggest that different problems may demand different prerequisites to be solved effectively: successful solving of simple convergent problems correlated negatively with equality, whereas functional influence was a predictor of success with respect to divergent, complex problem-solving. The findings raise questions about leadership and procedures during team meetings. Investigator: Thylefors I., Department of Psychology, Göteborg University, Göteborg, Sweden Citation: Scandinavian Journal of Caring Sciences, 2011 Dec 5. [Epub ahead of print] Link to abstract |
