Suchergebnisse

Objectives: In The Netherlands, school health care policy is decentralized to the municipalities and their Municipal Health Services (MHS) in 1990. Since then, an increasing diversity in school health care policy developed, which is is ill-understood, concerning the development of evidence-based public health. Methods: Case-study design in 4 MHS-regions. Documents and half-structured interviews are used as data sources. The analysis of the data is both qualitative and quantitative. Results: Many actors try to influence the policy process: MHS-internal actors like management and professionals as well as external actors like local health care providers, other municipal services, the municipalities and schools. Evidence is found of the use of scientific knowledge: 'body of knowledge' information as well as evidence from new research, of both local and (inter)national origin, mainly medical, but also social science research. Mainly School Health management and -professionals use scientific knowledge as a resource to influence the policy process. Other actors try to influence the policy process by using other resources like formal power, money or 'initiative'. The use of scientific knowledge is related to a combined (medical) scientific en political frame of reference. Conclusions: Policy formation in local public health takes place in a network of actors with mutual power-dependency-relations, using different resoures to influence the process. 'Evidence based public health' can be promoted by regarding evidence from scientific research as a resource in attempts to influence the policy formation process and the implementation of the outcomes of this process.

Playing between the lines. A strategy for ethnographic research into safety
Playing between the lines. A strategy for ethnographic research into safety
Research questions influence the position of the ethnographer in relation to the field and its actors. The ethnographic strategy of a detailed study of a specific tribe, youth group, police department or subculture sets an example for field work. However, to study the dynamics between local politicians, residents and professionals, a more dynamic research strategy is needed. Based on a comparative study of local safety in two disadvantaged neighbourhoods in Rotterdam and Antwerp, this article examines the potential of a dynamic position of the researcher between different actors instead of a more static position close by a specific actor (group). To study interaction in the field is to become part of this interaction and use reactions on one's presence in the field as data. The author concludes that this dynamic position is a useful research strategy to collect data about social relations, social constructions of meaning and power relations in the context of safety.

Informed consent and other ethical aspects of research among vulnerable youngsters in South Africa
Informed consent and other ethical aspects of research among vulnerable youngsters in South Africa
In this article the author will discuss ethical difficulties she encountered during her PhD-research on child-headed households in South Africa. Her idea that children are capable actors was not only different from existing principles in childhood research, but also from local ideas. The difficult environment in which the children and youngsters lived caused more ethical or methodological problems.

Brussels' urban space, like that of many other cities, is dotted with evidence of a productive industrial past. The activities that took place there were generally not geared to mass production for export, but to small-scale manufacturing aimed at supplying the needs of local city dwellers. That small-scale manufacturing industry included members of the building trade such as contractors, joiners and builders' merchants who catered to the demand for housing in an ever-expanding city. Their business premises formed a vital link in the creation and renovation of the urban fabric. This article focuses on the values of small-scale industrial heritage from the building trade, which is under enormous pressure in a city like Brussels. The dynamics of constantly rising real estate prices make residential redevelopment a lucrative investment. Thanks to gentrification, many workshops are being converted into housing and former warehouses are falling prey to large-scale property development. Real estate dynamics, scaling-up and changing market conditions are also contributing to the disappearance of the small-scale, live-work fabric that fosters a beneficial mix of functions. The expertise and skills that for centuries have supplied the basic needs of the city in a sustainable manner are then lost. In light of growing traffic congestion and unemployment, academics and urban planners are becoming increasingly convinced of the need for permanently embedded, city-servicing economic actors like building businesses. Thus, even today, small-scale industrial heritage is vital to the functioning of the urban economy, in that offers the possibility of spatially organizing or reorganizing city-servicing activities within a dense urban fabric. Inspired by integrated concepts of heritage, we therefore argue in favour of a broadening of industrial heritage values aimed at anchoring the use of such locations in time and space. We take issue with an exclusively material approach to industrial heritage by pointing out the immaterial heritage value of a continuity of productive use. After a brief theoretical reflection on the value of small-scale industrial heritage in the city, we examine the historical evolution of Brussels' industrial heritage at the macro level between 1890 and 1970, the period in which the development of the suburbs of Brussels was in full swing. We use a series of exemplary cases to illustrate the different trajectories of continuity and discontinuity of heritage on the one hand, and productive use of building trade locations in Brussels on the other. We also try to get to grips with the motivations of businesses that abandon the city, cease to exist or manage to adapt to volatile market conditions. This article uses a selection of cases to challenge a purely material approach to industrial heritage and makes the case for further research into the question of how individual heritage legislation might also recognize immaterial heritage values in historical business activity on a particular site or in an industrial building.