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Wednesday, June 29, 2022

The youngest Canadian bilinguals are not a monolithic group, new research shows

by Patrick Lejtenyi, Concordia University

A new Concordia study of early childhood bilingualism in Canada reveals a portrait of language acquisition in the home that reflects the country's diversity. Immigration patterns, urban–rural demography and Indigenous populations are some of the main contributing factors to this varied picture

The study, published in the journal Canadian Public Policy, shows that bilingual children between the ages of zero to nine years live very different experiences depending on where they grew up, who their parents are and how long their families have been in Canada. The results are based on data from the 2016 census.

The researchers looked at the number of bilingual children in Canada, which language pairs are most common and the predictors of a child growing up bilingual. Krista Byers-Heinlein, a professor of psychology in the Faculty of Arts and Science and one of the paper's authors, says that this study addresses a notable absence of scholarship on the topic.

"There were statistics on rates of bilingualism in adults and adolescents in Canada, but we didn't have clear numbers on the babies, toddlers or even school-age children growing up in bilingual homes across the whole country."

Differences in east versus west, north versus south

The researchers found that 18 percent of children under 10 in Canada use or are exposed to at least two languages at home. Likely more hear one language at home and another language outside the home, a pattern not captured by the census. In large cities, this number rises to 25 percent, with rates highest in Canada's three largest cities: in Toronto, 29 percent of children aged zero to nine experience home bilingualism, in Vancouver 27.6 percent and 27 percent in Montreal.

Rates are even higher in Canada's northern territories, where 33.9 percent of young children are hearing and using two languages at home.

"The bilingual language pairs vary across the provinces and territories," explains Esther Schott, the study's lead author and a Ph.D. candidate at Byers-Heinlein's Concordia Infant Research Laboratory.

"In Quebec, for instance, the most common language pair is English-French, held by 40 percent of bilingual children, followed by French-Arabic and French-Spanish. But in British Columbia, the most common is English-Punjabi, held by 13.5 percent of all bilingual children. And in the northern territories, half of bilingual children are raised in a household speaking English and an Indigenous language."

The researchers also identified bilingual exposure and immigration generation as the most important predictors of bilingualism in young children.

While it is no surprise that children who are exposed to more than one language at home are more likely to be bilingual, they do note that one in two children living with a bilingual adult, and one in three living with two bilingual adults, were not actively bilingual at home.

Furthermore, the researchers show that roughly one in two children born outside of but now living in Canada is bilingual, but only one child in 15 with two parents born in Canada is bilingual. They believe this is the result of immigrant families assimilating into the dominant culture and language.

The authors created an interactive dashboard showing levels of bilingualism across the country with the most common language pairs to illustrate their findings.

Support must be specific

Bilingualism in Canada needs government and societal support to thrive, the researchers believe, and would deliver positive, long-lasting effects to the overall Canadian community.

"When children are supported in both their languages, they experience social, academic and employment benefits down the road," says co-author Lena Kremin, also a Ph.D. candidate at Byers-Heinlein's lab. "But that support needs to be adapted to and meet the different communities' needs. Whether it is through providing library books and story times in different languages, community events or language festivals, that support is going to be a big boost for those bilingual children."Children take longer to learn two languages at once compared to just one—don't fret

More information: Esther Schott et al, The Youngest Bilingual Canadians: Insights from the 2016 Census Regarding Children Aged 0–9 Years, Canadian Public Policy (2022). DOI: 10.3138/cpp.2021-064

Provided by Concordia University

Children of the 90s study helps scientists pinpoint those most at risk of long COVID

by University of Bristol

hospital patient — Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

A national study published today in Nature Communications suggests that those at greatest risk of long COVID are women, those aged 50–60, people with poor pre-pandemic mental health and those in poor general health, such as anyone with asthma or who is overweight.

Around 2 million people in the UK are affected by long COVID (ONS data, 1 May 2022), enduring symptoms for 12 weeks or more after they've been infected. Whilst the syndrome has been widely reported, the frequency and risk factors for the condition are not well understood.

In order to develop new treatments, Children of the 90s—along with nine other population-based cohort studies—has helped researchers to understand what causes some people to suffer the condition more than others. In parallel, researchers also utilized data from electronic health records collected by Spring 2021 for 1.1 million individuals diagnosed with COVID-19.

The research is part of the CONVALESCENCE study, which is run by University College London and is the first of its kind to look at long COVID.

Using existing studies, such as Children of the 90s where participants are surveyed regularly, allowed researchers to look at people's health before the pandemic, as well as including cases of long COVID that were not reported to the GP.

Children of the 90s' participant Michael from Bristol has been suffering from long COVID since November 2020. He said: "It's just never really gone away. One minute you're doing really fine and the next day you just don't have any energy and struggle to get out of bed…I don't feel I'm living my life as full as I was."

Key risk factors associated with increased risk in long COVID included:

age—with 1.2% of 20-year-olds experiencing impacts on daily life, and 4.8% of 60-year-olds. Debilitating symptoms are roughly four times as common in 60-year-olds than 20-year-olds
being female
having poor pre-pandemic mental health and poor general health
having asthma
those with overweight or obesity problems.

Professor Nishi Chaturvedi from University College London leads the ongoing CONVALESCENCE study and has featured in a Children of the 90s Discovery film discussing some of the findings around long COVID. She says: "Children of the 90s participants have given scientists really valuable and in-depth information about many aspects of people's lives. Using pre-pandemic information, through clinic attendance and questionnaires, we've come to understand more about long COVID. Further investigations into the cause of long COVID should inform strategies to address the syndrome in the population."

Those suffering with long COVID can access an online public forum, which has been set up by the CONVALESCENCE project team. The aim of the forum is to ensure that a wider cross section of public and patient perspectives is included in discussions about how to define long COVID and in the broader research.Up to 1 in 6 people with COVID-19 report long COVID symptoms

More information: Ellen Thompson, Long COVID burden and risk factors in 10 UK longitudinal studies and electronic health records, Nature Communications (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-30836-0. www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-30836-0

Journal information: Nature Communications

Provided by University of Bristol

PARALYSED MAN EATS WITH ROBOT HANDS

Fact versus fiction: ‘Forever chemicals’ hazardous substance designation is not a ban

If the Environmental Protection Agency designates the two best studied “forever chemicals” called PFAS as hazardous substances, manufacturers will not be forced to stop using them.

That’s because the relevant law, the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Liability, and Compensation Act, or CERCLA – better known as the Superfund law – doesn’t regulate use. It regulates cleanup. A CERCLA hazardous substance listing does not prevent responsible manufacturers from continuing to use PFAS. Instead, it governs the cleanup of sites contaminated by the release of hazardous substances and allows the EPA to recover costs from responsible polluters.

The need to clean up historic PFAS contamination has never been so urgent. This month, the EPA concluded that PFAS, which have been linked to cancer and other health harms, are far more toxic than previously thought.

Over the more than 40-year history of the Superfund law, designating a chemical a hazardous substance has rarely led manufacturers to stop using it. These hazardous substances are used by manufacturers every day, often in large quantities.

There are about 800 chemicals on the CERCLA hazardous substances list. Almost 700 have been on the list since 1980, when the Superfund law was passed. At least three-quarters, or 599, were likely still in active use as late as 2019, according to an EWG analysis that year. Nearly half, or 339, were not only still in production but also likely produced at high volume. One of the most produced and widely used chemicals in the world – sulfuric acid – has been classified a hazardous substance for more than 40 years.

Many false claims have been thrown around about the terrible consequences of this designation. Some members of Congress, repeating industry talking points, have claimed – incorrectly – that such a designation for PFAS would ground airplanes, end the use of life-saving heart stents and force us to throw out our masks.

For example, one legislator warned that “labeling all PFAS as hazardous poses a direct threat to FDA-approved drugs and devices” and “could lead to lives lost.” At the same hearing, another legislator asked whether the bill under discussion was “proposing to end the use of masks because many of them contain [PFAS].”

For all the doomsday scenarios being bandied about, the reality is quite different. CERCLA hazardous substances are often used in the medical field. Ethylene oxide is used to sterilize medical equipment. Xylene, toluene and formaldehyde help preserve tissue specimens. Dental amalgam fillings contain mercury. Several CERCLA hazardous substances, including arsenic trioxide, chlorambucil, cyclophosphamide, mechlorethamine, melphalan, mitomycin and diethylstilbestrol, are included on a list of hazardous drugs used in health care settings.

The use of these chemicals in drugs and medical devices won’t change if the EPA designates PFOA and PFOS as hazardous substances – because the CERCLA listing would not affect the factors the Food and Drug Administration considers when it makes decisions about which chemicals to allow in drugs and medical devices.

But here’s the most important reason the CERCLA designation does not amount to a ban: Manufacturers have already largely abandoned them because of a 2006 agreement with the EPA. There can be no de facto ban on chemicals that have already mostly been phased out.

The Superfund law distinguishes between chemicals designated hazardous substances and those considered mere “pollutants or contaminants.” The current law considers PFAS chemicals to be pollutants or contaminants, not hazardous substances. Because of this, the EPA and the states are severely constrained in what they can do to clean up PFAS pollution.

There are other important reasons for the designation. When a substance is only classified a pollutant or contaminant, it must be proven an “imminent and substantial danger” to public health before a site can be investigated and cleaned up. Even when the EPA can meet that high standard, it’s hampered in the actions it can take. Perhaps most important, the EPA has no way to make sure the polluters responsible for the contamination pay for the cleanup.

But for any chemical labeled a hazardous substance, releases into the air, land or water above a certain threshold trigger reporting requirements, investigation and potential cleanup.

Designating PFOA and PFOS will give the EPA new tools to address PFAS in thousands of communities across the country and finally hold polluters accountable for decades of contamination.

EWG.ORG

Engineers studying how PFAS interact with environment

Improved understanding is first step toward remediation

View image credit

By Tamara Dietrich
June 3, 2022

Environmental engineer Detlef Knappe was surveying water quality in North Carolina watersheds in 2013 when his team found something surprising in the Cape Fear River Basin: high levels of a group of human-created chemicals called “PFAS” that are linked to a host of health issues, including cancer.

PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, are a class of chemical compounds that show high chemical stability due to the strong bonds between carbon and fluorine. They have been used worldwide since the 1940s to make a wide range of consumer products, including food packaging, personal care products, nonstick cookware, stain-resistant fabrics and paint. Airports, industrial sites and military installations also contribute to higher PFAS levels in water, soil and air.

Products that contain PFAS.
Credit: Shutterstock/Vector Street

The high stability of these chemicals makes them resistant to processes that normally break chemicals down in the environment, which is why they are called “forever chemicals.” They persist and can build up in a person’s bloodstream and organs — by some estimates, everyone in the U.S. has PFAS in their blood.

Research suggests that long-term exposure to high levels of some PFAS can have a range of health impacts. In 2002, the U.S. began phasing out production and use of some PFAS, but thousands of others remain in production, and new ones are still being developed. Even phased-out PFAS can still be found in the environment, and in food and drinking water.
Tracking PFAS in North Carolina

Knappe, a professor at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, and his students, with support from two NSF grants, spent several years investigating PFAS chemicals, including GenX, found in the Cape Fear River Basin, which is used as a drinking water source for up to 1.5 million people in North Carolina. The team wanted to better understand where the chemicals were originating and where the contamination was spreading. Their findings sparked a movement to clean up the Cape Fear River watershed.

The Cape Fear River Basin, where NSF-supported researchers found PFAS,

is the source of drinking water for more than 1 million people in North Carolina.

Credit: N.C. Department of Environmental Quality

“There was a very immediate outcry from public officials and community members,” Knappe said. The N.C. Department of Environmental Quality ordered The Chemours Company, a chemical company spun off from DuPont in 2015, to stop discharging into the river and collect their processed wastewater. As a result, PFAS and GenX levels downstream of the plant have decreased. The state is now monitoring for PFAS and has set goals to limit the amount of chemicals found in drinking water.

Knappe counts NSF’s investments as a big success. “While they were rather small monetarily,” he said, “they were probably the most impactful grants I had in terms of making a difference for the public.”
Reducing contamination from PFAS

“The persistence of PFAs in the environment is the challenge,” said Jeanne VanBriesen, division director of NSF’s Division of Chemical, Bioengineering, Environmental and Transport Systems. “It's one of a class of chemicals that are famous because of how they remain in the environment a long time. Natural processes that would degrade or break down other chemicals don’t work on these. Understanding the fundamental questions of where these chemicals go and what controls their movement can give us insights on effective ways to remove it from our drinking water.”

PFAS are largely impervious to today’s conventional water treatment methods. In the last few years, NSF research has explored development of new filtration systems, including an ongoing material science project involving Knappe to see if a combination of environmentally friendly graphene oxide and cyclodextrin can selectively capture PFAS. The study will contribute to the fundamental understanding of the molecular interactions of PFAS and provide information for the development of sustainable strategies for PFAS remediation.

Post docs Mei Sun and Catalina Lopez collect water samples from the Haw River to test for PFAS and other contaminants.
Credit: NC State University

In 2021, NSF invested more than $4.1 million in nine fundamental research projects to create new strategies to remove PFAS from the environment. Researchers are using a range of approaches, from capturing the chemicals to changing them into benign products. This research is co-funded by NSF’s Environmental Engineering program in the Division of Chemical, Bioengineering, Environmental and Transport Systems, and DuPont de Nemours Inc.

“This research investigates how to remove PFAS from water and soil, and how to transform PFAS into chemicals that can be broken down in the environment,” VanBriesen said. “The new remediation methods must be feasible, effective and sustainable.

“What we learn with PFAS may be extended to other chemicals – ones we know about today, and ones we don't know about yet. The new techniques and deeper understanding of these chemicals in the environment should help us in the future.”

About the Author

Tamara Dietrich
Senior Technical Writer/Editor
Tamara Dietrich is a Senior Technical Writer/Editor at NSF in the Office of the Director, Office of Legislative and Public Affairs. She is NSF’s Social Media Writer, with expertise in science and environment writing. Before coming to NSF, Tamara was an award-winning journalist, columnist and editor at numerous daily newspapers. Her work has appeared in The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Virginian-Pilot, U.S. News & World Report, phys.org and other publications. She is the author of a novel, “The Hummingbird’s Cage,” published by Penguin Random House in the U.S. and by the Orion Publishing Group in the U.K. The book was optioned by a British film company. She is also lead author of a nonfiction account of the first 100 years of NASA Langley Research Center, “The Unknown and Impossible: How a research facility in Virginia mastered the air and conquered space.” Outside of science, Tamara enjoys photography, poetry, road trips and international travel.

Flat-Earth videos show how conspiracy theories spread, and can help us fight disinformation

Studying how flat Earthers talk about their beliefs, we can learn what makes disinformation spread online.

Carlos Diaz Ruiz

Around the world, and against all scientific evidence, a segment of the population believes that Earth’s round shape is either an unproven theory or an elaborate hoax.

Polls by YouGov America in 2018 and FDU in 2022 found that as many as 11 per cent of Americans believe the Earth might be flat.

It is tempting to dismiss “flat Earthers” as mildly amusing, but we ignore their arguments at our peril.

Polling shows that there is an overlap between conspiracy theories, some of which can act as gateways for radicalisation. QAnon and the great replacement theory, for example, have proved deadly more than once.

By studying how flat Earthers talk about their beliefs, we can learn how they make their arguments engaging to their audience, and in turn, learn what makes disinformation spread online.

In a recent study, my colleague Tomas Nilsson at Linnaeus University and I analysed hundreds of YouTube videos in which people argue that the Earth is flat.

We paid attention to their debating techniques to understand the structure of their arguments and how they make them appear rational.

One strategy they use is to take sides in existing debates.

People who are deeply attached to one side of a culture war are likely to wield any and all arguments (including truths, half-truths and opinions), if it helps them win.

People invest their identity into the group and are more willing to believe fellow allies rather than perceived opponents – a phenomenon that sociologists call neo-tribalism.

The problem arises when people internalise disinformation as part of their identity. News articles can be fact-checked, but personal beliefs cannot. When conspiracy theories are part of someone’s value system or world view, it is difficult to challenge them.

The three themes of the flat-Earth theory

In analysing these videos, we observed that flat Earthers take advantage of ongoing culture wars by inserting their own arguments into the logic of, primarily, three main debates.

These debates are longstanding and can be very personal for participants on either side.

First is the debate about the existence of God, which goes back to antiquity, and is built on reason, rather than observation.

People already debate atheism v faith, evolution v creationism, and Big Bang v intelligent design.

What flat Earthers do is set up their argument within the long-standing struggle of the Christian right, by arguing that atheists use pseudoscience – evolution, the Big Bang and round Earth – to sway people away from God.

A common flat Earther refrain that taps into religious beliefs is that God can inhabit the heavens above us physically only in a flat plane, not a sphere.

As one flat Earther put it: They invented the Big Bang to deny that God created everything, and they invented evolution to convince you that He cares more about monkeys than about you … they invented the round Earth because God cannot be above you if He is also below you, and they invented an infinite universe, to make you believe that God is far away from you.

The second theme is a conspiracy theory that sees ordinary people stand against a ruling elite of corrupt politicians and celebrities.

Knowledge is power, and this theory argues that those in power conspire to keep knowledge for themselves by distorting the basic nature of reality.

The message is that people are easily controlled if they believe what they are told rather than their own eyes.

Indeed, the Earth does appear flat to the naked eye. Flat Earthers see themselves as part of a community of unsung heroes, fighting against the tyranny of an elite who make the public disbelieve what they see.

The third theme is based on the “freethinking” argument, which dates back to the spirited debate about the presence or absence of God in the text of the US constitution.

This secularist view argues that rational people should not believe authority or dogma – instead, they should trust only their own reason and experience.

Freethinkers distrust experts who use “book knowledge” or “nonsense math” that laypeople cannot replicate.

Flat Earthers often use personal observations to test whether the Earth is round, especially through home-made experiments. They see themselves as the visionaries and scientists of yesteryear, like a modern-day Galileo.

Possible counterarguments

Countering disinformation on social media is difficult when people internalise it as a personal belief.

Fact-checking can be ineffective and backfire, because disinformation becomes a personal opinion or value.

Responding to flat Earthers (or other conspiracy theorists) requires understanding the logic that makes their arguments persuasive.

For example, if you know that they find arguments from authority unconvincing, then selecting a government scientist as a spokesperson for a counterargument may be ineffective.

Instead, it may be more appealing to propose a home-made experiment that anyone can replicate.

If you can identify the rationality behind their specific beliefs, then a counterargument can engage that logic.

Insiders of the group are often key to this – only a spokesperson with impeccable credentials as a devout Christian can say that you do not need the flat-Earth beliefs to remain true to your faith.

Overall, beliefs like flat-Earth theory, QAnon and the great replacement theory grow because they appeal to a sense of group identity under attack.

Even far-fetched misinformation and conspiracies can seem rational if they fit into existing grievances.

Since debates on social media require only posting content, participants create a feedback loop that solidifies disinformation as points of view that cannot be fact-checked.

Carlos Diaz Ruiz, assistant professor, Hanken School of Economics

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

Genetic, environmental factors contribute to how socioeconomic status impacts the brain

Research reveals more about how environment, genetics and socioeconomic status influence brain function

View image credit & caption
June 28, 2022

A study in Science Advances has revealed correlations among socioeconomics, genetics, environmental factors and brain structure. Socioeconomic status is typically defined by characteristics such as an individual's income, education and occupation, and is related to quality of life and physical and mental health.

The findings provide greater understanding about how socioeconomic, environmental and genetic factors interact to influence human brain development and structure. The endeavor was funded by a grant from the U.S. National Science Foundation.

An international team, including researchers at Penn Stat, analyzed a massive trove of data from the UK Bioban that contained the brain scans, genomic sequences and socioeconomic information of nearly 24,000 participants.

The researchers discovered that both nature and nurture play key roles in brain structure and development and that only about half the measured anatomical features in the brain could be attributed to genetic factors. Socioeconomic factors also play a significant role.

"What we saw is that some of the relationship between the brain and socioeconomic status could be explained by genetics, but there is a lot more to that relationship that remains even after accounting for genetics," said Gideon Nave, a study co-author. "This suggests that socioeconomic conditions get under the skin in some way and can have additional negative influences on the social and economic disparities we see around us."

The study also revealed differential impacts of socioeconomic status and environmental factors that span a variety of brain regions. Socioeconomic status can affect physical and mental health, cognitive capacity, educational achievement and brain development and structure. Understanding more about how environmental and genetic factors influence the effects of socioeconomic status on the human brain could lead to earlier and improved mitigation efforts.

"We know that environmental conditions such as air and water quality can have enormous impacts on brain development and size," said Jonathan Fritz, director of NSF’s Cognitive Neuroscience Program. "This research takes an important step forward by analyzing large data sets and using powerful statistical tools to reveal more clearly than ever the impact of socioeconomic status and environmental quality on the brain, which can lead to profound effects on human cognition."

The team noted that more study on the topic is necessary to move from correlation to causation in interpreting how the interplay of factors like environment, genetics and socioeconomic status shape brain structure and development

Research areas

Directorate for Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences (SBE)

Division of Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences (SBE/BCS)

THIRD WORLD USA

Maternal Deaths Increased During the Pandemic

— After March 2020, maternal mortality rates rose by 33%

by Elizabeth Short, Editorial Intern, MedPage Today June 28, 2022

Maternal mortality rates substantially increased during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a study using data from the National Center for Health Statistics.

After March 2020, maternal deaths increased by 33.3%, which was higher than the 22% overall excess death estimate expected to result from the pandemic, reported Marie Thoma, PhD, of the University of Maryland in College Park, and Eugene Declercq, PhD, of Boston University.

The rate of maternal deaths before the pandemic was 18.8 per 100,000 live births, which increased to 25.1 per 100,000 live births during the pandemic, the authors noted in a research letter published in JAMA Network Open.

Of note, late maternal mortality increased by 41%, they added.

The largest increases were seen in Hispanic and Black women, which was in line with maternal mortality rates before the pandemic. Hispanic women saw a relative change of 74.2% (8.9 deaths per 100,000 live births), and Black women saw a 40.2% relative change (16.8 deaths per 100,000 live births), while white women saw a 17.2% relative change (2.9 deaths per 100,000 live births).

"Future studies of maternal death should examine the contribution of the pandemic to racial and ethnic disparities and should identify specific causes of maternal deaths overall and associated with COVID-19," the authors wrote.

The largest relative increases were seen for indirect causes of death (56.9%), including other viral diseases (2,374.7%), diseases of the respiratory system (117.7%), and diseases of the circulatory system (72.1%).

Direct causes of death increased by 27.7%, which included diabetes in pregnancy (95.9%), hypertensive disorders (39.0%), and other pregnancy-related conditions (48.0%).

COVID-19 was mostly listed as a secondary condition with other viral diseases (16 of 16 deaths) and diseases of the respiratory system (11 of 19 deaths).

For this study, Thoma and Declercq used data from the National Center for Health Statistics for the years 2018 to 2020. Data were broken down by date for the years 2018 and 2019, and in quarters for 2020. January-March 2020 acted as quarter 1, and April-December 2020 acted as quarters 2 to 4.

A secondary code for COVID-19 was listed in 14.9% of maternal deaths in quarters 2 to 4 compared with 0% in quarter 1, and was higher among Hispanic women (32.1%) and Black women (12.9%) versus white women (7.3%).

While death rates were higher than estimated, further study is needed to determine whether COVID-19 itself was the determining factor.

Study limitations included the large proportion of COVID-19 cases with a non-specific underlying cause and the partitioning of data that resulted in small numbers for some categories, Thoma and Declercq noted.

Elizabeth Short is an editorial intern for MedPage Today. She is based in New York City. Follow

We asked Psychology of Social Class – UK Policy Implications (POSCUPI) members for their top books that psychologists should read to learn more about social class.

How Not to Be a Boy (Canongate Books, 2017) by Robert Webb

This book speaks volumes about the intersection of class and gender, and in particular brings into sharp focus the psychological impact of classism, and how working-class people can be made to feel as outsiders in middle/upper class spaces. Webb’s account is funny, moving and deeply insightful. Difficult to put down!

Dr Maxine Woolhouse

The Spirit Level: why equal societies almost always do better (Allen Lane, 2009) by Richard Wilkinson & Kate Pickett

The Inner Level: how more equal societies reduce stress, restore sanity and improve everyone’s well-being
(Allen Lane, 2018) by Richard Wilkinson & Kate Pickett

Written by leading epidemiologists, these two books present the irrefutable case for why social inequalities, played out through class hierarchies, negatively impact on the health, psychological well-being and life chances of those from lower/working class communities. Such inequalities impact at an individual level, affecting how we think, feel and behave. Moreover, such inequalities appear to be toxic for everyone, as individuals in the higher social classes are also caught in unhelpful and toxic ways of behaving and self-evaluation which has adverse effects.
A brilliant set of books and an absolute must read!

Professor Paula Reavey

Down and Out in Paris and London
(1933) by George Orwell

A brilliant insight into how living in poverty affects people. Orwell’s crisp writing documents the immense psychological toll that living in poverty entails, with its never-ending battle to make ends meet and its struggle for mere existence. A moving and visceral description of the sheer relentlessness of poverty.

Chavs: The Demonization of the Working Class
(Verso Books, 2011) by Owen Jones

A polemic account of how working-class communities became stigmatised in contemporary society because of the choices of politicians. Angry, insightful, and brilliant.

Miseducation: Inequality, education and the working classes (Policy Press, 2017) by Diane Reay

Few know more than Reay about inequality in education. This book documents class-based inequality from all angles, using a mix of personal insight and robust academic investigation. Numerous quotations from Reay’s interviewees made this a compelling and often heart-wrenching read.

Swing Time (Penguin Books, 2016) by Zadie Smith

This absorbing read might not seem like an obvious choice, but it contains some emotional descriptions of how ethnicity and class can intersect to, over generations, colour people’s relationship with the education system.

Dr Matthew Easterbrook

Union Street (Virago Press, 1982) by Pat Barker

I read this as a late teenager from a northern town, with a new baby and it bonded me to other working class women from the past in such an unforgettable way. Powerful, hilariously indecent, and bitterly gripping stories of seven working-class women living in the North East, on Union Street in the 1970s as they strive to survive a precarious world engulfed in poverty.

Posh Boys: How English Public Schools Ruin Britain (Simon and Schuster, 2018) by Robert Verkaik

I couldn’t put this down. This book slowly and systematically dismantles public school values while telling the story of the production of masculinity and classed based privilege. I was left with little doubt that understanding power in Britain today requires an understanding of the centrality of elite education.

Common People: An Anthology of Working Class Writers (Unbound, 2019) edited by Kit de Waal

Just tucking into this anthology. This is a breath of fresh air, ‘in celebration, not apology’, it’s a collection of unpublished working class writers’ essays and stories. It is packed with stories by consistently talented authors that immediately jar against commonly shared and lazy tropes about working class folk. Instead we hear splendidly complex, often very funny and vivid portrayals which have a potent and proud sense of place in working class lives in Britain.

Dr Bridgette Rickett

Poverty Safari, by Darren McGarvey (Picador)

A brutally honest account of the lingering wounds from growing up in a deprived and disempowered neighbourhood in Glasgow, combined with a searing analyses of class dynamics in the UK and superficial efforts at community outreach. Poetic, unforgiving, authentic, and enough to upset assumptions on all sides.

The Class Ceiling, by Daniel Laurison and Sam Friedman (Bristol University Press).

Clear and compelling write-up of a large mixed-method study of barriers to the advancement of working class professionals in elite fields, with a focus on accounting, architecture, acting, and television. Lots of psychological insight into the kinds of environments and social processes that make it difficult for working class people not only to ‘get in’, but also to ‘get on’ in elite professions.

Dr Jennifer Sheehy-Skeffington

Hate Sites Using the Wider Abortion Argument to Spread Racism and Extremism

28-Jun-2022, by Taylor & Francis

Newswise — White supremacists are using the debate around women’s reproductive rights to promote racist and extremist agendas, finds a new study released today – following news on Friday that millions of women in the US will lose the constitutional right to abortion.

US white nationalists are heading on to a Neo-Nazi website, ‘Stormfront’, in order to recruit more people to their way of thinking. Whilst online they describe abortions by white women, as ‘murder’ and look to “weaponize” the procedure. However, the extremists reason abortion by non-white women as ‘acceptable’ or even ‘desirable’ because, they argue, the procedure could solve threats to white dominance – including the “urgent need to limit third world populations”.

The findings, published in the peer-reviewed journal Information, Communication & Society, come following a detailed computer-aided analysis of more than 30,000 posts, spanning over two decades on the site.

The study authors warn that their evidence highlights how white extremists “weaponize” abortion arguments to attract recruits, using the political debate as a gateway argument that invites them to dive deeper into white male supremacy ideology.

“Our study shows that science, medicine, and conspiracy theories meet on the dark corners of the internet,” says lead researcher Dr Yotam Ophir at the University at Buffalo, State University of New York, USA.

“The result is the creation and spread of dangerous racist and misogynistic ideas. These are often born in extremists’ platforms, but have spilled over into mainstream politics and discourse.”

Abortion rights are a fiercely contested issue in the US. On Friday, the Supreme Court overturned its 50-year-old Roe v Wade decision, in a judgement that therefore entitles individual states to ban the procedure.

Specifically, in this research, Dr Ophir and his team wanted to better understand how white nationalists not only use abortion debates online to further their cause, but also apply different moral standards to whites and non-whites.

By analyzing posts made between 2001 and 2017 on Stormfront – a discussion board founded by former Ku Klax Klansman, Don Black – the authors found a marked difference in the way far-right extremists conceptualized abortions for whites versus non-whites.

Abortions among white women were described as ‘murder’. Using an entire topic labelled ‘avoid abortions’, Stormfront users accused white women considering terminations as being “deeply unethical” and even “treasonous” to the white race and their gender role. For example, talking about abortions among white women, a user stated that “abortion is the worst thing of all, it is killing a child. Killing a child is worse than bringing him/her up without a father. Adoption is always an option”.

Whereas with non-white women, posts often excused abortion: in order to limit non-white populations.

The authors say that such discourse could be used to recruit members and to “normalize extreme, racist ideologies”.

To protect the public, Dr Ophir says people, including children, need better tools to navigate the “misleading information environment that is the 21st century”.

Additional themes identified on Stormfront, included “The Great Replacement conspiracy theory” – a supposed plot to replace white people with non-white immigrants that is said to have inspired the Buffalo grocery store killings suspect.

Something, which Dr Ophir and colleagues argue needs more attention from the mainstream press, as they are concerned there is a spread of the ‘great replacement conspiracy’.

“Potential solutions should not end with social media and the internet. We also need to pay more attention to the rise of such conspiratorial thinking among television channels like Fox News and prominent political figures,” he says.

Stormfront posts analyzed by the team were supplied to the researchers by the Southern Poverty Law Center and by other academics.

The site is focused on propagating white nationalism, antisemitism and islamophobia, as well as anti-Hinduism, anti-feminism, homophobia, transphobia, Holocaust denial, anti-Catholicism, and white supremacy. As of 2015 the website was estimated to have than 300,000 registered members.

Full article: Weaponizing reproductive rights: a mixed-method analysis of White nationalists’ discussion of abortions online (tandfonline.com)