Millions of children worldwide experience acute malnutrition. Forecasts of prevalence that afford sufficient reliability, precision, and advance warning are valuable to facilitate anticipatory action capable of mitigating the extent and downsides of crises. Existing research and resources lack prediction based on statistical analysis with broad cross-national scope and a focus on identifying leading indicators. We model the prevalence of child acute malnutrition at the level of subnational geographic regions (generally first-order administrative divisions), highlighting environmental conditions (precipitation, temperature, vegetation) and lethal and non-lethal conflict activity as main predictors, alongside demographic and geographic characteristics, and involving a temporal vantage point framework that reflects requirements of practical application. Estimations are performed using the random forest machine-learning algorithm, trained on data from 36 countries across mainland Sub-Saharan Africa spanning 2003-2019, including a novel compilation of measurements of prevalence rates drawn from DHS, MICS, and SMART surveys. Our results show strong predictive performance that remains consistent with lead times extending out from one month to 12 months. All the environmental and conflict factors register as important leading indicators. The findings reinforce the potential of relying on model-based approaches to bolster the foundations for humanitarian measures that are better positioned to reduce negative repercussions of food insecurity.

In principle, aid from donor organizations to developing countries should be based on need and the likelihood of positive impact, but political biases may intrude into deci-sions about aid allocations. This article elaborates a theory about why a particular form of bias, one based on partisan affiliations, can affect where aid goes and whether the goals of aid are met. Party networks can facilitate coordination of decisions and leverage bureau-cratic capacity, but they can also ensure that resources, such as aid, stay in the control of copartisans to boost reelection goals. The empirical analysis evaluates whether partisan bias is evident in the locations and impact of World Bank agricultural aid to India. The authors analyze georeferenced data on aid projects, election results, and cropland coverage at the levels of state parliamentary electoral constituencies and administrative districts from 1995 to 2008. They find that alignment between local legislators and the political parties that govern state and national governments is associated with a greater number of new aid projects and with anomalous changes in cropland coverage. The evi-dence is consistent with arguments that partisan bias works primarily through patronage to achieve strategic party goals.

While the influence of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) grows each year, there has been little written about what it means for education. Searches for modern monetary theory and education, school, school finance, education finance, economics of education and other combinations of search terms yield only a single citation of note by Hollings and Turner (2021), which briefly summarizes the theory as an economics of education but does not apply MMT to school finance policy. In this policy brief, I gesture towards MMT’s significance for education finance focusing on primary and secondary education. I first briefly summarize the central principles of MMT. I then gesture to two forms of school finance policy on which the framework would come to bear in school finance, federal Title 1A tax grants and school bonds. I conclude by situating MMT in the terrain of school finance research. As a gesture, this contribution must necessarily be incomplete and I hope it broaches more conversation in education research generally.

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Acute malnutrition affects a sizeable number of young children around the world, with serious repercussions for mortality and morbidity. Among the top priorities in addressing this problem are to anticipate which children tend to be susceptible and where and when crises of high prevalence rates would be likely to arise. In this article, we highlight the potential role of conflict and climate conditions as risk factors for acute malnutrition, while also assessing other vulnerabilities at the individual- and household-levels. Existing research reflects these features selectively, whereas we incorporate all the features into the same study. The empirical analysis relies on integration of health, conflict, and environmental data at multiple scales of observation to focuses on how local conflict and climate factors relate to an individual child’s health. The centerpiece of the analysis is data from the Demographic and Health Surveys conducted in several different cross-sectional waves covering 2003–2016 in Kenya, Nigeria, and Uganda. The results obtained from multi-level statistical models indicate that in Kenya and Nigeria, conflict is associated with lower weight-for-height scores among children, even after accounting for individual-level and climate factors. In Nigeria and Kenya, conflict lagged 1–3 months and occurring within the growing season tends to reduce WHZ scores. In Uganda, however, weight-for-height scores are primarily associated with individual-level and household-level conditions and demonstrate little association with conflict or climate factors. The findings are valuable to guide humanitarian policymakers and practitioners in effective and efficient targeting of attention, interventions, and resources that lessen burdens of acute malnutrition in countries prone to conflict and climate shocks.

Discerning educators should consider these different techniques, which include inquiry-based instruction, Advanced Placement courses and related methods, discussion techniques, acceleration strategies, and service learning, as potential curriculum design elements for their own settings. Although the AP social studies courses are not gifted education programs per se, the programs are, nevertheless, intended to offer rigorous, college-level curricula and assessment. In addition, a number of AP social studies courses, particularly in history, are undergoing revision for the purpose of allowing teachers more flexibility to focus on state and local priorities, especially as they relate to the College Board, n.d. The C3 Framework focuses on developing knowledge and skills via an inquiry arc that requires developing compelling questions, research, evidence-based claims, disciplined thinking, communication, and assessment. A critical view of the past also requires that students understand that history itself is a product of human thinking.

This paper examines one intellectual and historical premise upon which the foundational distinction between reproduction and resistance rests in critical education: the line of critique against the French communist philosopher Louis Althusser's theory of education. In the paper. I claim that a particular reading of Althusser coming out of British Marxist scholarship in the 1970s helped configure the distinction, making it thinkable for two founders of critical education: Michael W. Apple and Henry A. Giroux. I contend that this set of interpretations of Althusser during the years before and just after Bowles and Ginitis's Schooling in Capitalist America was published, gave substance to the distinction between reproduction and resistance at the heart of critical education. I first briefly revisit Althusser's theory of education and its accompanying philosophy as I understand them. I then look at Apple and Giroux's interpretations of Althusser and the interpretations' importance to the reproduction-resistance dichotomy. Third, I trace the provenance of their interpretations via their citations to a series of source critiques of Althusser by Jacques Ranciere, Michael Erben and Denis Gleeson, Alex Callinicos, and E. P. Thompson. I conclude the paper by suggesting that, if this earlier line of critique against Althusser were somehow flawed, then the distinction between reproduction and resistance might be flawed as well since Apple and Giroux base their concepts of reproduction and resistance upon it. And if this were the case, scholars and practitioners of critical education would have to rethink the foundations of our general paradigm.

The Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) has been appraising food security in numerous countries around the world since 1985. Multiple times per year, FEWS NET reports scores for current situation assessments and future projections of food security. The scores are measured on a five-level index scale and gauged for the geographic units of livelihood zones. These zones vary in size and do not remain static, which complicates comparison of food security within and across countries and over time. To facilitate such analysis and interoperability with other sources, we transformed available raw data to the units of geospatial grid-cells that have a uniform, static resolution of 0.5° × 0.5°, a common format of data used in research across diverse disciplines. FEWS NET provides public online access to shapefiles reflecting reports back to 2009. Separate shapefiles capture assessments and projections, with further delineation by the index score. Each shapefile can comprise a complex (multi)polygon, without clear differentiation among livelihood zones. Overlaying a geospatial grid allows disaggregation of the (multi)polygons to standard units. We performed the transformation to grid-cells on the shapefiles for all 25 countries (including Yemen) that FEWS NET tracked within regional groupings of East, Southern, and West Africa from July 2009–October 2020. For each report cycle, each grid-cell was assigned scores of the assessment and near-term and medium-term projections, based on the raw data for the corresponding livelihood zone. In addition, we calculated a value of bias in medium-term projections relative to subsequent assessments, which can be used as a metric for validation of accuracy. This article provides access to the grid-cell data on assessment and projection scores and bias values. In addition, we present time-lapse animated maps as tools to visualize historical patterns and trends in these indicators across Africa. Our related research article employed the grid-cell data to evaluate the accuracy of FEWS NET projections, including as a function of variation in humanitarian assistance, climate conditions, and violent conflict (Backer and Billing [1]). Researchers can likewise use the grid-cell data to conduct further validation of food security projections and to examine the relationship of assessments and projections to potential drivers and consequences. The data and animations are also valuable to stakeholders throughout the international community seeking to learn and disseminate knowledge about the tendencies of food security projections on a broad scale.

The Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) operates to mitigate harms associated with food insecurity. Many stakeholders depend on this resource to guide monitoring, planning, interventions, and resource allocations. These activities' effectiveness hinges on the credibility of FEWS NET projections. Published statistical evaluations are rare and narrow in geographic scope. Our extended analysis validates projections for 25 African countries from 2009-2020. Accuracy is 84 percent overall, but drops sharply with ascending food insecurity, biasing toward over-projection. Variation in humanitarian responses, climate, and conflict appear connected to the patterns. The study illuminates FEWS NET's performance in anticipating food insecurity amid fragile conditions and motivates recommendations for improvements through ongoing validation, deeper scrutiny of factors affecting reliability, increased transparency, and informed usage.

Despite early warning signs about threats to food security, humanitarian interventions often lag behind these warning signs. Climate and conflict conditions are among the most important factors preceding food system failures and malnutrition crises around the world. Research shows how conflict and climate conditions can upend functional food and economic systems, but this research does not address the severe health impacts of these conditions on infants and young children. Translating quantitative research findings into humanitarian interventions requires geographical detail, resulting in location-specific alerts of risks of food insecurity. We describe how the use of readily available, spatially referenced quantitative data can support targeted interventions for nutrition resiliency. Effective humanitarian programmes for targeted nutrition interventions require real-time datasets on food security drivers and models that can provide actionable guidance to mitigate negative impacts of conflict and climate conditions on the people most susceptible to food insecurity. Although treatment of acute malnutrition is important, treating existing malnutrition is not enough. Instead, action to prevent acute malnutrition should be taken to minimise suffering and to maximise wellbeing, particularly in contexts prone to worsening climate and conflict conditions.

Children who experience poor nutrition during the first 1000 days of life are more vulnerable to illness and death in the near term, as well as to lower work capacity and productivity as adults. These problems motivate research to identify basic and underlying factors that influence risks of child malnutrition. Based on a structured search of existing literature, we identified 90 studies that used statistical analyses to assess relationships between potential factors and major indicators of child malnutrition: stunting, wasting, and underweight. Our review determined that wasting, a measure of acute malnutrition, is substantially understudied compared to the other indicators. We summarize the evidence about relationships between child malnutrition and numerous factors at the individual, household, region/community, and country levels. Our results identify only select relationships that are statistically significant, with consistent signs, across multiple studies. Among the consistent predictors of child malnutrition are shocks due to variations in climate conditions (as measured with indicators of temperature, rainfall, and vegetation) and violent conflict. Limited research has been conducted on the relationship between violent conflict and wasting. Improved understanding of the variables associated with child malnutrition will aid advances in predictive modeling of the risks and severity of malnutrition crises and enhance the effectiveness of responses by the development and humanitarian communities.

“Ideology” has fallen out of favor as a term of art. Terms like “equity,” “bias,” “gap,” “discourse,” “norm,” various “isms,” “consciousness,” “experience,” and “policy” tend to appear in scholarly and mainstream education dialogue when it comes to social-political practices. Yet the term is important both historically and for the present day. After its first formal usage in the 18th century, intellectuals produced several concepts of ideology. Ideology transformed from a science of ideas to propaganda; from critiques of truth and falsity to necessary strategy; from a focus on consciousness to a focus on practice. These transformations impacted educational research, particularly in the postwar period during a renewed emphasis on schooling’s social context. Revisiting the various concepts of ideology, particularly ideology as a practice, is valuable for educators and scholars today.

The growing multitude of sophisticated event-level data collection enables novel analyses of conflict. Even when multiple event data sets are available, researchers tend to rely on only one. We instead advocate integrating information from multiple event data sets. The advantages include facilitating analysis of relationships between different types of conflict, providing more comprehensive empirical measurement, and evaluating the relative coverage and quality of data sets. Existing integration efforts have been performed manually, with significant limitations. Therefore, we introduce Matching Event Data by Location, Time and Type (MELTT)—an automated, transparent, reproducible methodology for integrating event data sets. For the cases of Nigeria 2011, South Sudan 2015, and Libya 2014, we show that using MELTT to integrate data from four leading conflict event data sets (Uppsala Conflict Data Project–Georeferenced Event Data, Armed Conflict Location and Event Data, Social Conflict Analysis Database, and Global Terrorism Database) provides a more complete picture of conflict. We also apply multiple systems estimation to show that each of these data sets has substantial missingness in coverage.

In this chapter, the author gives an extensive background on the field of transitional justice. A vigorous debate in the field of peace studies, this chapter explores the challenges over placating spoilers or holding perpetrators accountable. In transitional justice, the author argues, the focus is not solely conflict termination. Rather, the attributes of the resulting peace matter, and what is done about the causes and consequences of conflict can be linked to the progress of a peace process. Using examples from a variety of cases, including Rwanda, Serbia, and South Africa, the author contends that transitional justice is necessary to achieve quality peace. The author notes that transitional justice is susceptible to magnifying the risks of continued and renewed conflict, contributing to a marginal peace marred by impunity, violence, and unresolved grievances. Yet these failings do not discount the need for victims to receive justice in order to move forward. Quality peace, the author argues, is best understood as a state of affairs in which conflict is dormant and unlikely, while everyone enjoys an existence that represents clear progress relative to what was previously experienced. Both involve long-term processes, and those processes include seeking justice for victims. The chapter urges further study to validate notable findings and reconcile conflicting results from the existing literature in order to clarify the interactions between transitional justice and peace.

This chapter offers insight into the utility of the latest release of Uppsala Conflict Data Program's Georeferenced Event Dataset (UCDP-GED). The UCDP has an established record of compiling and disseminating an array of widely used data resources. The field of conflict studies, and the data that contributing scholars collect, have progressively moved toward greater specificity along several dimensions. UCDP-GED records the category of violence, the actors involved, the location and associated coordinates, and the timing of each event, as well as other characteristics. UCDP has been the source of the most widely used data in academic research on violence committed by organized armed actors. In particular, UCDP-GED provides a means for analyses to test micro-level theories. UCDP-GED has paved the way for methodological advances with a major bearing on substantive contributions to the literature.

This chapter presents the findings from a survey of more than 100 Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) active in the fields of trauma management and crime prevention across the Southern African Development Community (SADC). In particular, civil society initiatives exhibit visible contributions to peace-building and stabilisation efforts in Africa, as well as many other areas of the world, that appear to be worth advancing, whether independently or as part of multi-track strategies of conflict resolution. The SADC Crime and violence prevention project, in turn, sought to promote and consolidate the work of civil society around the region by encouraging further information sharing and networking among NGOs. During the 1980s and 1990s, over 40 of the 51 African countries were afflicted by either intrastate or interstate conflict. War, civil and political strife and social and economic collapse in places like Angola, and lately Zimbabwe constitute a serious threat to peace, stability and human security in these countries, not to mention the entire region.