Marxism, which claims to be superior to capitalism, reached China with a promise to eliminate inequity. The reality however has been problematic in that inequality persists. In terms of education, many school-age children are deprived of access. Even those who manage to attend school receive sub-quality education and less opportunity for higher education and higher paid jobs. The focus of this thesis is specifically inequity in educational provision in rural China, by locating policy thinking in discourses from 1949, with three distinct periods identified: the eras of Mao, Deng and post-Deng to the present. This study is inspired by Freire’s humanistic vision. Althusser’s concept of “ideological state apparatus” informs the framework of the existence of complex ideological relations and a dominant ideology. The main theoretical tool employed in this study of Chinese Marxism is through a Foucauldian lens of discourse as knowledge/power nexus. By focusing on the dominant discourses constructed by the Chinese leadership, it is possible to outline the changing nature of discursive practices which inform and legitimate educational priorities. The arguments used to justify policy priorities are both the outcome of power and a contribution to the knowledge/power of the leadership. The analysis examines the interpretation and position of Chinese Marxism in relation to the global context and the local historical and socio-political themes of Chinese society. Abbreviated as a global-local dialectic, this dynamic relationship between external and internal factors distinctively shapes political choices and priorities. This dialectic provides a more complex framework to analyse why it is that deprived Chinese communities — at least in educational terms — have been the least likely to benefit from the country’s increasing wealth. This study reveals that i) Mao’s dominant discourse of proletarianism has turned education into a means of creating a proletarian culture and outlook, leaving other forms of educational inequity irrelevant to its main concern; ii) under Deng’s economism, as related to China’s modernisation, rural educational inequity is acknowledged but mainly in a rhetorical way and often, in practice, to the detriment of this provision; and iii) the post-Deng era is dominated by the attempt to secure social cohesion because of increasing political instability. The official solution involves a focus on “harmony” by linking Marxist and Confucian ideas into a distinct ideological framework, which stresses values of justice and harmony, leading to a greater emphasis on addressing issues such as rural-urban educational inequity. Ideo-political adaptability in shaping policies has sustained the position of the ruling party. Educational policy as a tool, however, continues to be sub-ordinated to the national dominant discourse.

This dissertation aims at analyzing the relationship between socio-economic status (SES) and mental health and care. It attempts to understand how different socio-economic groups present unequal risk of mental disorders and to what extent different socio-economic groups use unequal quantity, type and quality of mental care. Since its earlier beginnings, psychiatric epidemiology has evidenced the association between socio-economic status and mental disorder. However, the numerous prevalence studies addressing depression have yielded inconsistent results. This calls for a thorough investigation of the sources of such heterogeneity. This dissertation attempts to achieve the following objectives: · To unfold methodological and contextual covariates influencing the SES/mental health relationship. · To assess the longitudinal influences of material deprivation on depression. · To assess the extent to which outpatient and inpatient mental care are fairly used. The methodological influences of socio-economic inequalities in mental health were tackled through a meta-analysis of previously published works. We built a database of previous published studies addressing the socio-economic factors of depression prevalence, incidence and persistence in adults population studies and being published in English, French, German and Spanish after 1979. The lower socio-economic group has 80% more prevalence of depression. Inequalities are more acute for persistent depression than for new episode. The results indicated that inequalities are much more pronounced when mental health is looked at from a subjective point of view or in terms of resulting disability. Social inequalities in mental health are also influenced by geographic context. Europe has a gradient 30% less pronounced than North-America. As the period of reference decreased, the gradient rose, suggesting that duration might be an explanatory factor. Geographical analysis of socio-economic inequalities in mortality is carried out with the death certificates of the Belgian National Institute of Statistics (NIS), covering all causes mortality and 11 specific mortality causes, from 1985 to 1993. Spatial concentration was computed through a Moran’I. We compare a simultaneous autoregressive model with a weighted-least-square model. Findings show that spatial concentration is pervasive, that suicide and mortality by liver cirrhosis are among the most correlated causes of death. Getting rid of spatial autocorrelation leads to significant change in the relationship between deprivation and mortality, suggesting the influence of contextual effects on socio-economic inequalities. The difficulty to move from correlation to causation between SES and depression owes partly to the difficulty of disentangling the direct effect of socio-economic status from other –and numerous- confounding factors such as family history, genetic endowment, cognitive abilities, early schooling experience, which, for most of them are rather stable overtime. The longitudinal analysis attempts to estimate the impact of time-varying socio-economic covariates on depression. The results show that material deprivation (and change of) does not affect the level or the risk of depression while social network does slightly. We found much stronger gradient with time invariant socio-economic factors such as educational level. Inequity in outpatient mental care was assessed with the data of the first Belgian Health Interview Survey (HIS), a cross-sectional household-health interview survey carried out in Belgium in 1997. The Minimum Psychiatric Summary, a case register of all psychiatric admissions in Belgium (1997-98), allowed us to carry out the study of inpatient inequalities of mental care. In terms of mental health services uses, inequalities arise in the setting were care is delivered: less well-off use more primary care and less specialised care, are more likely to be admitted in a non-teaching, psychiatric hospitals with long length of stay. The lower the socio-economic groups with mood disorders are less likely to receive the expected treatment such as antidepressant and psychotherapies. Finally, the outcomes of the hospitalisation, in terms of overall functioning and in terms of psychological symptoms are less favourable for the individuals of lower socio-economic status. Part of such unequal outcome is related to unequal treatment. We concluded that inequalities in health should be addressed in their geographical context, that early and stable socio-economic factors are more important than time-varying factors. Horizontal socio-economic inequities arise in the type of care used as well as in the appropriateness of care. However, for a given equal treatment and use, outcome inequalities remain so that it seems relevant to consider socio-economic status as a general vertical equity principle.

In this dissertation, I explore the systematic failure of the current state of the art statistical techniques to detect gender salary inequity in a special case to propose a more appropriate quantitative method for analyzing gender salary discrimination. This research contributes in three key areas for the development of the quantitative analysis of salary inequity detection. I uncovered salary inequities within gender groups that can mask the salary discrimination between these groups. I then proposed the Two-stage Classification Regression as an appropriate novel statistical method. Finally, the additional propositions made can enhance future salary inequity research.Regardless of the outcome of any gender salary inequity study, we can often find a subgroup of females that is discriminated against when compared to the rest of females. Likewise, a subgroup of males may also be victim of salary inequity when compared to other males. In this context, the first main discovery is that the existence of salary inequities within gender groups can prevent regular statistical techniques from detecting salary inequity between males and females. Detecting this form of salary inequity will increase the sensitivity of the statistical test and hedge its potentially higher risk to the institution.Facing such a statistical problem, the second main contribution was devising a novel statistical approach that can not only succeed where other techniques systematically fail, but also provide a new framework for a more informative statistical analysis. In addition, a more comprehensive definition of salary inequity that goes beyond the simple measure of gender salary gap was derived.The third significant contribution is a set of propositions aiming at framing the agenda for future research on salary inequity studies. A statistical test was proposed to determine when the outcomes of these the linear regression and reverse regression techniques can be expected to be the same. Also, the probability model which is not estimable, but the most robust model was shown to be equivalent to the logistic regression model which is easily estimable, but somewhat difficult to interpret. The goal is to create theoretical supports for better statistical and econometric analyses.

Infrastructure development is a topic that has occupied a noble niche within development thinking since the middle of the twentieth century. However, despite over half a century of research concerning infrastructure development processes, structurally-oriented development theories continue to dominate infrastructure development research and praxis. Critically informed approaches to development, which acknowledge the integral role of place, power, and agency to infrastructure research, have yet to make a noticeable mark within infrastructure development policymaking. A review of the multidisciplinary infrastructure and development literature reveals a clear emphasis on structurally-oriented processes of infrastructure provision, and an insufficient understanding of agency-oriented, place-specific processes of infrastructure access, particularly within the context of inequitable societies. Therefore, the purpose of this research is to critically examine infrastructure development processes based on the lived experiences of marginalized populations and to integrate such experiences into the construction of infrastructure knowledge. This dissertation is a compilation of three manuscripts and three additional chapters (the introduction, methodology, and conclusion). The first of these manuscripts, entitled The Science and Politics of Infrastructure Research, is a conceptual paper that critically explores the intersection of infrastructure and development literature. Herein I describe three perspectives, the technocratic, interventionist, and critical perspectives, that articulate the different ways that infrastructure is valued among multiple actors involved in the production of infrastructure knowledge. Among these perspectives, I contend that technocratic and interventionist perspectives have occupied a dominant position with respect to informing infrastructure development policy and praxis throughout the twentieth century. I question whether such dominance is the product of superior scientific rigor or the politicized process of knowledge production. Towards the goal of giving greater prominence to the critical perspective, and in effort to offer a systematic way forward from this post-development critique, I propose the Critical Acquisition Framework. The framework is designed to facilitate an agency-oriented understanding of infrastructure development processes from the perspectives of marginalized groups. Inspired by critical-social theory and capability analyses, the Critical Acquisition Framework helps to understand how marginalized groups deploy their existing capability sets to access infrastructure via multiple overlapping institutions. In addition, the framework helps to envision alternative agency-oriented scenarios of infrastructure access. In essence, the framework demonstrates how the acquisition process influences the capability sets and therefore agency and power of marginalized groups. The framework can be used to assess whether infrastructure ???develops??? according to emic perspectives, or whether infrastructure reifies inequitable power relations. The research is informed by a critical methodological approach and mixed-methods research design. To investigate infrastructure access through the experiences of marginalized groups, the empirical aspect of this research is based on two instrumental case studies located in the northern highlands of Peru. The first case study and second manuscript is entitled: Women???s Acquisition of Domestic Water Services in the District of Cajamarca, Peru. Three impoverished women???s groups, representing rural, peri-urban, and urban locales are analysed, based on the women???s experiences of accessing water through their respective institutions of domestic water provision. Overall, the findings illustrate how marginalized groups exercise agency, as well as the limits to their agency in accessing domestic water services. Considerable variations are found in the quality of domestic water institutions that play a deciding role in women???s experiences of access. The findings also suggest that inefficient institutions may be perpetuated as such in order to maintain the powerful positions of dominant groups involved in domestic water provision. The second case study and third manuscript, is entitled Access for Whom and to What? A Critical Acquisition Framework for Understanding Rural Experiences of Multiple Accessibilities. This paper examines the iterative process through which vendors working within an informal market district repeatedly deploy their multiple capability sets to navigate multiple overlapping institutions that regulate comprehensive access to rural transportation and other privatized infrastructures. Three sub-processes of rural accessibility are investigated: transportation access, market access, and infrastructure access. The findings reveal the complexity of rural accessibility, and suggest that failures of infrastructure access may be attributed to inequitable institutions that regulate the acquisition process. The instrumental case studies have been used to help inform, test, and refine the Critical Acquisition Framework. In doing so, this research has achieved its aim to integrate the experiences of marginalized populations in the construction of infrastructure development knowledge. This research offers a new way of understanding an old problem of infrastructure development. Positioning the notions of agency, power, and place as central tenets of infrastructure development analyses, not only complements the existing body of infrastructure knowledge, but can also lend to a more equitable process of infrastructure development within inequitable societies.

This study explored how public health nurses (PHNs) work to address health inequities. Cultural safety was used as a theoretical lens. Methods for interpretive description were relied on for data collection and analysis. Data sources included interviews with 14 staff from an urban public health unit and document review of three policies. Two themes emerged: building relationships and working within a frame. Building relationships involved: delivering the message, taking the time, being present, the right nurse and learning from communities. The public health frame influenced the capacity of PHNs to address health inequities through: culture and stereotypes, public health standards, setting priorities, inclusion of priority populations, responding to change and (re)action through reorganization. Discursive formations of priority populations, and partnership and collaboration, were revealed. Findings highlighted downstream public health approaches to addressing health inequities. Importantly, embedding cultural safety as a framework for public health practice can guide upstream action.

This study explored how public health nurses (PHNs) work to address health inequities. Cultural safety was used as a theoretical lens. Methods for interpretive description were relied on for data collection and analysis. Data sources included interviews with 14 staff from an urban public health unit and document review of three policies. Two themes emerged: building relationships and working within a frame. Building relationships involved: delivering the message, taking the time, being present, the right nurse and learning from communities. The public health frame influenced the capacity of PHNs to address health inequities through: culture and stereotypes, public health standards, setting priorities, inclusion of priority populations, responding to change and (re)action through reorganization. Discursive formations of priority populations, and partnership and collaboration, were revealed. Findings highlighted downstream public health approaches to addressing health inequities. Importantly, embedding cultural safety as a framework for public health practice can guide upstream action.

In order to address the 10/90 gap and ensure the ‘right to health’ for all, there is a need to identify promising innovations, evaluate them for effectiveness and potential to be implemented at scale. To be of maximal benefit, they must address inequities and access to health in the local context of Southern Africa (taking into account the local disease burden, resource constraints and the complex context of health). This study proposes a method for identifying innovations and evaluating their impact on health outcomes, equity, implementation and potential for scale-up. It examines seven case examples of local innovation in Southern Africa with an application of this method to identify common themes in innovation, elements for success and common barriers. The research was informed by a grounded theory case study approach, with data collection via the innovative method of documenting projects through film and multimedia. The footage served as a data source as well as the source material for inspiring short films that capture the essence of each innovation. Innovation could provide an alternative approach to improve public health practice by using community-based solutions that have been proven to work in context. Ideally, innovation and public health research efforts should be combined to focus on key challenges in population health, and encourage a culture of innovation to accelerate progress towards better health. If effective innovations can be scaled up successfully, we may yet achieve Health for All. / 2031-01-01

Children have an early-emerging expectation that resources should be divided fairly amongst agents, yet their behavior does not begin to align with these expectations until later in development. This dissociation between knowledge and behavior raises important questions about the mechanisms that encourage children to behave how they know they should behave. Here I tested whether explicitly invoking fairness norms encourages costly fair decisions in 4- to 9-year-old-children. I examine children’s responses to unequal resource allocations in the Inequity Game by varying the direction of inequity (advantageous versus disadvantageous inequity) and normative information (to be fair or to act autonomously). The results show children are more likely to reject advantageous allocation in the Fairness norm condition than in the Autonomous norm condition, but I did not see this difference when children are presented with disadvantageous allocations. This study showcases children’s costly fairness norm enforcement as a flexible process, one that can be brought in and out of alignment with their knowledge of fairness by shining a spotlight on how one ought to behave.

Social behaviours have been widely studied in behavioural economics and psychology. However, the origins of these behaviours in the brain are poorly understood. In this dissertation I will discuss two main avenues of study which constituted separate projects during my PhD candidacy. The first section contains experiments in which I collaborated with Dr Raymundo Báez-Mendoza on the topic of inequity. The second part includes a study on coordination and cooperation behaviour in macaques. Inequity is a concept ubiquitous in daily life. It is the difference between one’s own reward and that of another. There have been several studies that have suggested inequity affects brain activity. However, few studies have touched upon how this parameter is incorporated in neuronal activity. In the experiments that will be described here, monkeys (Macaca mulatta) performed actions to obtain rewards for both themselves and another. The level of inequity in these rewards was manipulated by varying the magnitude of own and other’s rewards. We then proceeded to study neuronal activity by means of single neuron recordings in the striatum of two macaques. We found that inequity modulated task related activity in about 32% of recorded striatal neurons. In addition to this study on inequity we also recorded some sessions in which one of the animals made choices with varying rewards for self and other. From these results, I attempted to characterise behaviour with regards to own reward and inequity in choice situations. Inequity has been considered a contributing factor in explaining cooperation behaviour. Coordination and cooperation are important and frequently observed behaviours. To study coordination and cooperation, I designed an experiment in which the combination of two monkeys’ choices determined the rewards for both animals. In this dissertation I attempt to address how the animals perform combined choices (playing together vs. alone) as well as the nature of their behaviour (e.g. pro-social vs. self-interested). The aim of this work was to characterise what type of information the animals use to solve these tasks. This is vital if one is to study these concepts in the brain using macaques as a model. In summary, this work contributes to a better understanding of social behaviour and provides an example of how this social behaviour is computed in the brain.

An overview of Aboriginal education in the last two hundred years reveals that Aborigines have had a depressingly inadequate education, also marked by inequity of opportunity and participation. The developmental pattern of Aboriginal education has been characterised by four broad periods or eras related to specific government policies. These periods are identified successively as The Protection Era, the Segregation Era, The Assimilation Era and The Integration Era. The Protection Era began with the early frontier settlement of Europeans in Australia and extended until the 1860's. The Segregation Era marked the full development of Aboriginal reserves from 1860 to 1940. The Assimilation Era extended from the 1940s to the mid 1960s. Finally the period of Integration began in the late 1960s and gathered momentum in the 1970s. Throughout the periods of protection, segregation and assimilation very little effort was expended in the provision of adequate education for Aborigines. It was not until the late 1960s that concerted attempts were made to redress the many decades of neglect and apathy. Researchers uncovered glaring problems needing urgent redress. Aboriginal pupils persistently achieved very poorly in comparison with others and left school at an earlier age. As a consequence Aborigines left school lacking the knowledge and skills to compete with other Australians and had much poorer prospects of employment. In the early 1970s the National Aboriginal Education Committee and the state Aboriginal Education Consultative Groups, combined with support and funding from DAA, Commonwealth Education and The Schools Commission, were very influential in establishing programmes. In response to the growing numbers of Aborigines who were denied adequate schooling, three general types of adult programmes were developed: a) enclave/support systems; b) pretertiary/bridging courses and c) off campus centres. It was these programmes operating at WACAE that DEET commissioned me to evaluate. The existence of these programmes is the result of WACAE's prompt response to the need for redressing Aboriginal educational imbalance. The programmes developed following the commencement of the Aboriginal Teacher Education Programme at Mt Lawley College in 1973. The first enclave was established in 1976, external AEEC commenced in 1978 and G.E.C. in 1980, the first off campus centre was set up in 1983, and the Tertiary Preparation Course (internal AEEC) began operation in 1985. Commonwealth money has provided the financial basis for the programmes, but WACAE was the first institution in Australia to implement programmes and its achievement is significant. The terms of reference for this project required that the method of research should be through data gathering by means of interviews and examination of documentary evidence during a three week period in Perth. The evaluator consulted DAIS staff, students and, as particularly requested in the brief, Aboriginal community members. Findings revealed that WACAE's enclaves, on campus and off campus, have made progress towards educational equity for Aborigines, provide good support and are valued by students and Aboriginal community members. Aboriginalisation was found to be essential to maximum enclave effectiveness. Staff, students and Aboriginal community members would like to see increased Aboriginal representation, contract hiring of staff not being conducive to employment security or staff continuity. It is recommended that rationalisation of enclaves would achieve a more efficient pooling of resources. During the last thirteen years considerable amounts of external funds have been injected and it is recommended that WACAE take greater institutional responsibility for enclaves, using funds from normal Commonwealth sources, as distinct from special course funding. The existing staffing patterns and conditions of employment should be regularised in regard to salary, tenure, study leave, superannuation, etc. Such a measure is necessary to ensure staff continuity, security and inclusion in the power structure of the institution. WACAEs external pretertiary courses (AEEC and GEC) have achieved a small measure of progress towards equity of access and participation in education for Aborigines. The wide geographical distribution is significant in providing availability of courses. The courses are valued by Aboriginal community members and there is a need for external courses of this nature to continue in the future. However, progress towards equity has been extremely slow and time taken for completion of courses is unduly long considering the basic nature of GEC, and the fact that the courses are designed for completion in one year. The courses are preceived as enhancing employment performance and prospects as well as being preparation for tertiary study. There has been a shift in opinion regarding Aboriginal education during the 1980s towards the view that education should not be seen in isolation but in combination with employment and training. It is recommended that DEET take immediate steps to implement the Aboriginal Employment Development Policy in Western Australia, considering how best the benefits of external AEEC and GEC can be maintained and expanded. On the other hand, the Tertiary Preparation Course (internal AEEC) has achieved commendable results and is assessed as being worthy of increased resources and energy. Difficulty was encountered in efforts to determine exactly how DEET funding was used. It seems that this type of enquiry would necessitate the services of a qualified accountant. Enclave/support systems and pretertiary/bridging courses will be needed for some time to come. Many Aboriginal people stated that they envisage the time when these programmes will no longer be needed, 'when inequity of education has been addressed' and 'equality' achieved. Until this goal is reached the programmes will remain necessary. The achievement of the broad objectives of the AEDP, i.e. employment and income equity with other Australians and equity of participation in all levels of education, will see Aboriginal aspirations becoming a reality.