inequality

When considering which type of timetable is best, one question is: best for what and for whom? Not only does the scientific evidence on student learning and well-being come into play, but also the employment interests of teachers, the reconciliation needs of families, and the effects of each type of timetable on socio-economic inequality and the gender gap in care are also involved. We bring together more elements of the discussion in this second article.

Every school year in Spain, the debate returns about what kind of timetable schools should adopt: is it better to concentrate all teaching hours or to have a lunch break and extend the time spent at school? In this first issue, we bring together research on the effect of each type of timetable on students' performance, rest and socio-affective well-being, as well as the available data on public and charter education.

Research carried out with almost 300 participants from the United Kingdom and Malta revealed that they had more positive emotions, a willingness to help and less prejudice towards Ukrainian asylum seekers compared to Syrian or Somali refugees. According to the author, whose study is published in PLOS ONE, this is explained because “the perceived threat and negative emotions led to greater prejudice, which in turn led to a lower predisposition toward help.”

If effective strategies are not developed, more than 1.3 billion people will be living with diabetes by 2050, some 800 million more than today. This is according to the lead study in a set of papers published in The Lancet and The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology. In addition, 75% of these people will live in low- and middle-income countries, which is largely due to "structural racism and inequality", according to the editorial accompanying the studies.

A study based on data from the Environmental Justice Atlas says that 81 women were murdered worldwide for their environmental activism: one of them in Spain, 7 in Colombia, 5 in Honduras and 4 in Peru, among other countries. The study, published in Nature Sustainability, says that violence against women defenders is concentrated in conflicts around mining, agribusiness and industrial projects in the Global South. The first author of the study is Dalena Tran, a researcher at the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology of the Autonomous University of Barcelona. 

A study estimates that household energy expenditure has increased by 62.6 to 112.9 % in 2022, following the Russia-Ukraine conflict. This represents an increase of 2.7 to 4.8 % of overall household expenditure. The analysis, published in Nature Energy, warns that this increase could push between 78 and 141 million people worldwide into extreme poverty.

A meta-analysis of 42 studies from 15 countries, including Spain, concludes that the covid-19 pandemic caused learning delays in school-aged children and a loss of knowledge equivalent to 35% of the learning of a school year. The research, published in Nature Human Behaviour, highlights that these effects persisted over time.

The report Women Researchers 2022 highlights the fact that the presence of women in decision-making positions and in scientific and innovative leadership at the CSIC has increased. Among the shadows, the persistent under-representation of women researchers and the difficulty in achieving a gender balance in all scientific ranks, especially in research professorships.