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Population health tends to be better in societies where income is more equally distributed. Recent evidence suggests that many other social problems, including mental illness, violence, imprisonment, lack of trust, teenage births, obesity, drug abuse, and poor educational performance of schoolchildren, are also more common in more unequal societies. Differences in the prevalence of ill health and social problems between more and less equal societies seem to be large and to extend to the vast majority of the population. Rather than referencing all the literature, this paper attempts to show which interpretations of these relationships are consistent with the research evidence. After discussing their more important and illuminating characteristics, we conclude that these relationships are likely to reflect a sensitivity of health and social problems to the scale of social stratification and status competition, underpinned by societal differences in material inequality.

Social entrepreneurship (SE) is perceived as a legitimate and innovative solution to social problems. Yet, when one looks at the literature one finds that the social problems that the SE movement seeks to address and how these problems are identified and defined are not studied. This lack of attention to the defining of social problems in SE has implications for the domain for problems do not exist unless they are recognized and defined, and those that define problems have influence on how these will eventually be addressed. Our paper presents an analysis of framing activities in SE done by the actors involved in the development and promotion of the SE movement. Our analysis reveals that these actors are concerned with creating an ecosystem to support social entrepreneurs. Critical analysis of discourses of these actors reveals a powerful mobilization discourse, one that supports social entrepreneurs as the agents of change. We also find that as the SE movement emerged at the beginning of a cycle of protest against capitalist systems, their framing of SE as system changing of these very systems therefore finds strong resonance with a wide variety of actors.

Sport’s historic attraction for policy makers has been its claims that it can offer an economy of remedies to seemingly intractable social problems—“social inclusion”, “development”. Such usually vague and ill-defined claims reflect sport’s marginal policy status and its attempts to prove its more general relevance. The dominance of evangelical beliefs and interest groups, who tend to view research in terms of affirmation of their beliefs, is restricting conceptual and methodological development of policy and practice. There is a need to de-reify “sport” and to address the issue of sufficient conditions—the mechanisms, processes and experiences which might produce positive impacts for some participants. This requires researchers and practitioners to develop approaches based on robust and systematic programme theories. However, even if systematic and robust evidence is produced for the relative effectiveness of certain types of programme, we are left with the problem of displacement of scope—the process of wrongly generalising micro level (programme) effects to the macro (social). Although programme rhetoric frequently claims to address social issues most programmes have an inevitably individualist perspective. Further, as participation in sport is closely related to socially structured inequalities, it might be that rather than sport contributing to “social inclusion”, various aspects of social inclusion may precede such participation. In this regard academics and researchers need to adopt a degree of scepticism and to reflect critically on what we and, most especially, others might already know. There is a need to theorise sport-for-change’s limitations as well as its “potential”.

A relatively small segment of business, known as social entrepreneurship (SE), is increasingly being acknowledged as an effective source of solutions for a variety of social problems. Because society tends to view \"new\" solutions as \"the\" solution, we are concerned that SE will soon be expected to provide answers to our most pressing social ills. In this paper we call into question the ability of SE, by itself, to provide solutions on a scope necessary to address large-scale social issues. SE cannot reasonably be expected to solve social problems on a large scale for a variety of reasons. The first we label the orga nizational legitimacy argument. This argument leads to our second argument, the isomorphism argument. We also advance three other claims, the moral y political and structural arguments. After making our arguments, we explore ways in which SE, in concert with other social institutions, can effectively address social ills. We also present two examples of successful ventures in which SEs partnered with governments and other institutions.

In contrast with the rest of Europe, Norway has one of the lowest proportions of young people who are outside education, employment, or training (NEET), yet many of the youth categorised as NEETs in the country often suffer more severe challenges than their European counterparts. This scoping review analyses state-of-the-art research on NEETs in Norway and has found that such studies can be divided into two separate strands, one focusing on NEETs as a social problem and the other on strategies for the re-education and re-employment of NEETs. Reflecting on this trend, we argue that this segmentation of social problems and individual solutions in research could be symptomatic of an underlying issue that may be mirrored in policymaking and practice.

This article investigates the impact of ethnic diversity on individuals’ satisfaction with their neighbourhoods. It uses panel data and a variety of empirical methods to control for potential endogeneity of diversity and of location choices. We find that a higher white share raises overall satisfaction with the neighbourhood in our (overwhelming white) sample, but has no significant impact on generalised trust or other commonly used measures of social capital. We suggest that part of the impact of diversity on overall neighbourhood satisfaction may be through an effect on fear of crime, though we find no effect on actual crime.

The rise and development of serious games have shown promise in addressing critical social issues, including school bullying. However, prior work often compares game-based interventions with the conventional non-game approach, failing to generate insights about which game features should be emphasized to create more effective games. To bridge this research gap, in light of video games’ advantages for creating immersive experiences that benefit persuasion, we created a narrative-based serious game addressing school bullying and conducted two studies (Study 1, N = 130; Study 2, N = 250) to explore the persuasive effects of two game features, respectively player–avatar similarity and in-game control, on player experience (including player–avatar identification, narrative engagement, and empathy) and prosocial intention. We found mixed results subject to player perspective such that only when players took the bully’s perspective did one of the game features—in-game control—successfully create the intended empathy via amplified narrative engagement toward the desirable prosocial intention.

В статье проанализирована динамика численности и состава учебных заведений системы государственных трудовых резервов в Астраханской, Саратовской и Сталинградской областях в послевоенные годы. Выявлены факторы, оказавшие влияние на эту систему, раскрыты основные пути ее структурной перестройки. Показаны методы комплектования школ фабрично-заводского обучения, ремесленных и железнодорожных училищ. Освещены изменения критериев приема в учебные заведения. Показано взаимодействие системы государственных трудовых резервов с детскими домами региона. Отражено состояние материальной базы СГТР, перемены в ее кадровом составе. Подсчитано количество квалифицированных рабочих, подготовленных для предприятий Нижнего Поволжья в четвертой пятилетке. Отмечено значение СГТР в решении экономических и социальных проблем послевоенного общества. Выявлено общее и особенное в развитии системы трудовых резервов в Нижнем Поволжье и стране в целом.