On the test score gap between Roma and non‐Roma students in Hungary and its potential causes

Using unique data from Hungary, the gap in reading and mathematics test scores between Roma and non‐Roma 8th grade students is assessed and a substantial gap between them revealed. Standardized test scores as well as the fraction of students with competences considered inadequate are examined. Regardless of measurement and subject area, the bulk of the gap is explained by social differences in income, wealth and parental education. Using reduced‐form regressions, two major mediating mechanisms are identified: first, on average the home environment of Roma children is less favourable for cognitive development; second, the educational environment of the average Roma student is different from the average non‐Roma student. Comparing students with similar home environments from the same school and class, the ethnic gap in test scores is found to be insignificant. Ethnic differences in the home environment are explained by social disparity, and ethnicity seems to play no additional role in that regard. The unequal distribution of Roma students in schools and classes is found to be explained predominantly by social difference, too, with a significant residual portion, indicating the effect of ethnic segregation.     

‘I Don't Like My Children to Grow up in this Bad Area’: Parental Anxieties about Living in Informal Settlements

A growing body of research on informal settlements considers the experiences of children, but seldom outlines the daily parenting experiences of adult men and women. At the same time, policy on housing in South Africa points to the ways in which the ‘eradication’ of informal housing will help provide children with better futures. This article explores the social relation of parenting within an informal settlement in Durban, South Africa, bearing in mind the broader difficulties of parenting in poverty, and points to ways in which the material qualities of informal settlements contribute to feelings of anxiety in parents. It questions how these experiences might differ from or be similar to those of parents who live in generic contexts of poverty (but not necessarily informality). It concludes ultimately that living in an informal settlement does actually contribute to particular parental anxieties, but that there is no guarantee that informal housing eradication will remove these concerns.     

Balancing health,harmony and hegemony: Parents' goals and strategies in children's food related consumer socialization

Parents play a pivotal role in socializing their children for healthy eating. The objectives of the present study were (1) to identify food socialization outcomes valued by parents, and (2) to study how parents socialize their children for (healthy) eating at home and during food shopping. Including both parents' perceptions of valued food socialization outcomes and associated processes addresses a significant gap in the food socialization literature. The study used semi‐structured, in‐depth interviews with parents of young children. Data were subsequently analysed by interpretive, thematic procedures. The sample consisted of middle‐ to high‐income families from two cities in Denmark. Findings reveal four main food socialization goals valued by parents: (1) Nutrition and Health, (2) Healthy Relationship with Food, (3) Food Assimilation and (4) Self‐Regulation and Autonomy. Parents prioritized children's acquisition of a healthy relationship with food which included preserving family relations and harmony, more than strictly attending a nutritious diet, contrasting the focus on the nutritional value of diet usually emphasised by public health authorities. The study therefore concludes that parents' notions of what constitutes healthy diets for their children is not completely aligned with common nutrition‐oriented recommendations. Also, fathers were found to play a very active role in their children's food‐related consumer socialization. The findings underline the importance of addressing the priorities and strategies of both mothers and fathers when marketers and policy makers target contemporary families regarding children's food socialization.     

Parenting styles and Internet use

The Internet has become the most popular way for young people to communicate with one another. Recent data indicate that 95% of students have Internet access. This study examined the links between Internet use and the parenting styles that shape parent–child interactions. Empirical analysis showed that Internet use accounts for the majority of adolescents’ leisure time. The neglecting parenting style has the strongest relationship with addictive Internet use by adolescent girls and boys. For boys, addictive Internet use is also related to a combination of different parenting styles resulting from inconsistencies and contradictions between parents.     

Releasing Control: Parents on Vacation

The paper examines the family vacation phenomenon by comparing parents on vacation (n = 203) with parents during daily life (n = 246) in terms of two psychological constructs: regulatory focus and parenting style. Results revealed that parents in both samples were similar in their ‘regulatory focus of promotion’ (need for challenges) and ‘parenting styles’ (permissive and authoritarian), but parents on vacation scored lower on both need for security (‘regulatory focus of prevention’) and authoritative ‘parenting style’. The findings suggest that parents, especially mothers, view family vacation as an opportunity to relax and release parental control. The findings' theoretical and practical implications are discussed. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The purchase of moral positions: an essay on the markets of concerned parenting

The markets directed towards the very youngest are rapidly expanding. This article looks into the mechanisms behind the expansion of this type of parental consumption, assigning children a position similar to what Veblen categorized as vicarious consumption. The assumption put forward is that the modern markets for babies and toddlers rooted not only in the need to stimulate, protect and support the child, or the desire to display cultural and economic capital through vicarious consumption, but also in the need to indicate positions in the moral economy of concerned parenting. The expanding markets of considered consumption are partly based on translation values, empathy and care made into tangible products with symbolic values in the moral economy.     

基于母合框架的公司多元化战略

多元化是企业发展的一种重要途径,关于企业多元化动因的解释很多。从母合优势的角度,分析了实现多元化经营的条件,为企业进行多元化决策提供了一个新的视角,并对比分析了母合优势与核心竞争力及母合优势产生的根源。     

Parenting advantage in the MNC: An embeddedness perspective on the value added by headquarters

What determines the value an MNC's headquarters adds to its own affiliates? In this paper, we shed light on this question by linking the embeddedness view of the multinational corporation to the literature on parenting advantage. We test our hypotheses on an original dataset of 124 manufacturing subsidiaries located in Europe. Our results indicate that the external embeddedness of the MNC is an antecedent to headquarters' value creation. We find that headquarters' investments into their own relationships with the subsidiaries' contexts are positively related to the value added by headquarters. Furthermore, this relationship is stronger when the subsidiary itself is strongly embedded. We discuss implications for the MNC literature, embeddedness research, and the literature on parenting and headquarters' roles. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A family affair? Exploring the influence of childhood sport socialisation on young adults’ leisure-sport careers in north-west England

Based on interviews conducted with 19 young adults aged 30–35-years-old living in north-west England, this paper examines the features of childhood sport socialisation that typically precede high levels of leisure-sport participation in adulthood. The evidence suggests that the extent to which respondents were invested with different experiences of sport socialisation by their parents was influenced by financial and transport constraints, whether parents had themselves participated in sport, and the extent of parental encouragement. Those with the highest levels of adulthood participation tended to have two sports active parents who encouraged them to participate in leisure-sport, typically for enjoyment and the ‘love' of sport, and who experienced fewer financial and transport constraints than other parents. These respondents were also more likely, to have inherited sporting habituses and values from both parents who were in turn more able, and likely to purposively invest their offspring with different resources during childhood as an aspect of family-based leisure relationships. The evidence suggests, however, that each of the identified features of childhood sport socialisation are necessary, but not sufficient, conditions for promoting high levels of leisure-sport participation during adulthood. Finally, the article concludes that sport policies may help raise the overall level of participation among the population, but frequent, and perhaps more health promoting, participation may remain confined to a minority who benefited from the required kind of sports socialisation in their childhood families.     

基于母合优势理论的母子公司协同机制研究

母合优势理论聚焦于母体组织和业务单元的协调与匹配,识别出最优的业务组合,不断创造母合优势与价值。它对企业多元化战略的选择具有重要的理论和实践意义。文章认为,母子公司协同机制是由各种子机制相互作用和构成的综合体,母子公司协同机制充分发挥母合优势理论的功能,形成基于母合优势理论的母子公司协同机制运行原理与实现保障,有利于实现母子公司整体协同效应和价值的最优化。