Tag: inequality

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Queue to learn

The protests of students in France has been biased by reports on the violence by people who looted shops. The broadly unmatched learning ambitions of students has entered little into the reporting. In the 2 weeks after the protest students flocked to public libraries to learn in decent conditions. Nowadays, this includes access to fast internet and other sources of inspiration depending on interests. Researchers who were the primary users of the BNF have been outnumbered by advanced pupils and students ready to queue for 1 hour to catch a place even sitting on floors. This brings back the time of the baby boomers who entered with large birth cohorts into high schools and universities later on. Such social trends are predictable and adequate policy responses not even extremely expensive. Until education institutions are expanded there will be queues to learn. 

BNF queues to learn 2026-10-26
BNF queues to learn 2026-10-26
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Reading confidence

Competence and confidence in reading skills are closely related. The exact nature of the relationship remains a bit of a puzzle. Educational psychology stresses the importance of self-concept and self-efficacy for attitudes towards learning in general, but evidence on relationships related to the progress of reading competence over longer periods is scarce. The might be virtuous and vicious circles of competence and confidence at work. At the Frankfurt Book Fair 2026 many publishers presented established manuals on acquisition of reading skills. However, pre-school, primary school teachers as well as parents struggle to support early learners.
The “Lauter Verlag” presented a stimulating approach which tries to set children on a virtuous reading acquisition track. It start with very short 2, then 3, then 4 … letter words in German to reach the level to read whole sentences. Children build confidence with each step and they are encouraged to quickly reach a more challenging higher level. About time to test the interrelationship of competence and confidence in more detail to reach all learners of languages with innovative approaches. Even the much acclaimed French author Georges Perec kept lists of 3,4,5,6,7,8 letter words to build some of his famous poems.

Frankfurt Book Fair 2026 Lauter Verlag
Frankfurt Book Fair 2026 Lauter Verlag
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Gaps in Mirror

The legendary figure of “Till Eulenspiegel” (name is a composition of “owl” and “mirror”) is still attracting attention, largely because of his way to reach and sometimes expose ordinary anomalies. We have mirrors all around us, as well as explicit historical details, but we tend to overlook or create voluntarily gaps into mirrored images of the past and their reflections into the present. The novel “The Gaps” (Die Lücken) by Shida Bazyar exemplifies, why dealing with history on a local level is of utmost importance for societies to be aware, deal and transmit fundamental human values. Till Eulenspiegel of the 21st century has a migration background and experience of care work, 2 fields at the cutting edge of humanity. Dealing with the gaps in narratives of locals enters visually into the novel as well. We ar caught t “automatic lly” read ov r the g__s before we realize how huge the gaps in narratives and our mirrors of the past can be. The novel is a great reminder to actively deal with our own gaps. Check the mirrors as well, there might be gaps that blur images of the past.

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Glass wall

A glass wall remains a wall even if it is transparent. The glass and steel construction of the Neue Nationalgalerie by Mies van der Rohe has large windows which allow light to flow into the building and create an illusion of transparency as well as openness. However, for most exhibitions “paywalls” are erected to limit access. The Cattelan installation in the gallery erected another light barrier before the official opening in form of the ribbon barring entrance. For those who had experienced the real wall in front of or behind the Brandenburger Tor”, a certain allergy against walls is probably a leftover from those days or years. Hence, Klaus Biesenbach and Maurizio Cattelan tear that wall down!
Thanks go to the Volkswagen Group “Art-4-All” sponsorship which allows free entry on Thursday evenings already. Public-private partnerships are way forward and “Mäzene” can accompany such journeys in multiple ways. 

Cattelan Maurizio at Neue Nationalgalerie Berlin 2026-9

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Sleepless sleep

The reasons why we pass an almost sleepless night or sleep are manifold. Too much to drink, eat or partying are just among the more social ones. The neighbour’s cat or cock may be another one. A recent comment by Pixin Gong (2026) outlined a whole research agenda on heat and sleep deficits. What is the threshold of bad sleep? Do we accumulate over days and how do we recover from it? Which measures and metrics are important? How to determine the social gradient of sleep deficits? The research base is largely missing due to neglecting the link of temperature as crucial impact on sleep in addition to melatonin levels. The implications of expected results can be far reaching like re-organization of homes, urban planning and architecture. (Image on the right: Rooster 1924 and Sleeping Muse 1910 by Brancusi, Centre Pompidou Paris in Berlin Exhibition Neue Nationalgalerie 2026-5)

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Stinging issues

Sometimes a topic can make it into the headlines only if it is a stinging issue. The fact that certain mosquitoes travel and survive further north due to global warming is indeed such a stinging issue. As the living conditions for mosquitoes depend on warm weather conditions particularly during (tropical) nights as well as water availability for breeding purposes, the spread of mosquitoes can already be observed studying the spread of dengue fever, malaria and chikungunya in some southern European and American countries. Climate change, especially the warming parts of it,  shall bring home a number of stinging issues and consequences to people who didn’t seem to know or care about the spread of spread of infectious diseases.  

Green land in summer between Priesterweg and Südkreuz Berlin 2026

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Road injuries

Road injuries are a serious matter. The lives lost and people suffering from lasting injuries continue to be a major health hazard on a global scale despite significant reductions over the last 3 decades, mainly in wealthier countries . The Global Burden of Disease study (Ng et al. 2026) shows that between the ages of 10-39 fatal road injuries are the main cause of death for young men. The study has no data to speak to causal effects, but the basic statistics show a clear pattern according to gender. Several factors need further exploration:
1. Men are known to have a much larger share of the total amount of road traffic in most countries, which leads to a higher risk exposure.
2. Men seem to take higher risks when driving, which puts them at higher overall risks as well.
3. Responsibilities for road incidents are not investigated, which leaves other causes or contributions to road injuries (like alcohol or drug abuse) unaccounted. (Source: Ng et al 2026. Global, regional, and national burden of road injuries 1990–2023, p.7)

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Job Quality Insights

In the U.S. the Upjohn Institute for Employment Research conducts a major empirical study on job quality (Houseman et al. 2025 1st wave 18.000 respondents). The documentation and the full set of questions (Link) cover 5 dimensions of job quality: compensation and job security; work structure and autonomy; work environment; worker agency and voice; growth and development. The special merit of the survey is that it makes great efforts to cover also new forms of (precarious) self-employment (Abraham et al. 2026). The degree to which can you make autonomous decisions is of relevance to the self-employed as well as it is a part of the job quality of dependent employees in small, large or big firms.
Related to the use of AI for work purposes question 31 asks for the influence on the decision to use new technologies in your job. This is the modern version of a question, whether you have influence on how you do your job. Bullying in a job may come from supervisors, colleagues or customers and respondents report on this. Beyond the answers given for “your main job”, it is noteworthy that the inclusion of questions on a secondary job allow to identify with more precision the precarious forms of how people try to manage to make a decent living in the U.S.A.
(Image: Exhibition Fashion Council Berlin at New National Gallery 2026)

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Art Station

Mobility takes time. All people who travel frequently know the long waiting times at train stations. Be for commuting between places or long distance travel, we can hardly escape from the moments when time gets long and longer. The Paris train station Gare de l’Est has brought art in form of posters to the station as a kind of accessible micro-exhibition. The cooperation with the Petit Palais in Paris allows to give more people a taste or at least an appetizer to art work. Most people rush by, but some spend some minutes reading, inhaling exhaling, and continue to their destination or next date. In the battle for attention such initiatives like art in the station hold societies together. People with very different horizons cross each other for short moments in time.

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Premium for silence

People are willing to pay a premium on housing prices for a more silent environment. In the study Enrico Moretti & Harrison Wheeler (2025) estimate that the construction of a silencing wall near a noisy traffic junction or road will increase prices for every decibel of noise reduction by about 3%. Distances closer to the noise shields get higher increases and this mechanism works even up to 400 meters away from the isolation. The investment in decibel noise reductions (not statistical noise) meets a willingness to pay a premium on housing prices. Investment in positive environmental effects (silence) have an obvious marketable premium value. This is most likely just the obverse effect that noise nearby housing is penalized and part of the social mechanism of gentrification. Housing prices and rental costs are known to be powerful drivers of gentrification as well.