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This paper uses listings of residential real estate properties in Kiev, Ukraine to develop a picture of the principal underlying dimensions defining this market. It is possible to obtain valuable information about the structure of this important market from private sources. The paper reviews the history of the residential housing sector in Ukraine and explains the attributes real estate agencies use to characterize this market. The property listings provided by a private Kiev real estate agency are used to create a database for factor analysis. The results of the analysis are used to compare Kiev residential real estate with a study looking at housing dimensions in Canada and England. In light of the principal components of Kiev residential real estate, the authors present implications and suggest guidelines for decision makers in the industry. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

International focus on reducing onward HIV transmission emphasizes the need for routine HIV testing and early uptake of antiretroviral treatment (ART). Strategic targets have been set for 2020 to achieve the goal of 90% of people infected with HIV diagnosed, 90% of identified cases on treatment, and 90% of persons on treatment virally suppressed (90–90–90). It is vital to understand the complexity of factors influencing a person's treatment decisions over time and the context which may enable better adherence. In this paper we present findings from the review of published and gray literature (2003–2013) on the documented factors associated with treatment initiation and adherence in the general adult population of Australia, Canada, and the UK. A framework developed by Begley, McLaws, Ross, and Gold [2008. Cognitive and behavioural correlates of non-adherence to HIV anti-retroviral therapy: Theoretical and practical insight for clinical psychology and health psychology.Clinical Psychologist, 12(1), 9–17] in Australia was adapted to summarize the findings. A systematic database search using keywords and a set of inclusion criteria yielded 17 studies (Australia = 6; Canada = 8; UK = 3). In addition 11 reports were included in the review. We found that a person's abilities and motivations (intrapersonal factors, reported in 7 studies) to start and continue ART are influenced by a host of interconnected factors spanning relationship (interpersonal, 3 studies) and broader structural (extrapersonal, 15 studies) factors that are situated within social determinants of health. People therefore evaluate various costs and benefits of starting and staying on treatment, in which biomedical concerns play an important yet often subsidiary role. In this review the economic barriers to care were found to be significant and under-reported, highlighting the persistent health inequities in terms of access to services. Our understanding of the context around people's use of ART remains poor. Qualitative social research within HIV-positive communities is urgently needed to capture people's lived experiences and may address some of this deficit in understanding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Canada and the United Kingdom have pedigrees in offering asylum; however, research in both countries has demonstrated widespread poverty amongst asylum seekers and a high risk of homelessness. Focusing on case examples drawn from 60 in-depth interviews with refugees in Toronto and London, this paper shows how national and local structures shape pathways to homelessness, and how refugees interpret their homlessness in the context of their flight from persecution, reception, and settlement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For sixty years, the phrase ‘North Atlantic triangle’ has been employed by Canadian scholars to describe the relations of Canada, Britain and the USA. That image was a product of its time and its originator's perspective, with particular relevance to an understanding of Canada's international relations in the Second World War and its aftermath. This paper weighs the evidence for and against the existence of a triangular relationship in the 1940s and it concludes that the geometric form conveyed an incomplete understanding at the time and it has even less relevance since then. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents results from a cultural comparative research on the issue of teaching assistants' and comparable (para-)professionals role in the international context on Inclusive Education. Due to the increasing expectations towards schools to work inclusive, in the last years assistant roles have been an important topic of educational research. On the basis of interview data collected in the UK, Canada and Germany especially the varying conditions of (para-)professionals' practice in inclusion oriented lessons and their professional self-perception are interpreted and internationally compared. Referring to the theoretical concept of professionalism by Ulrich Oevermann, the significance of the working alliance between teaching assistants and students for (para-)professionals self-perception is analysed. As the interpretations point out, teaching assistants' professional roles depend on locally varying structural conditions, but in all three countries are strongly associated with a struggle for increasing autonomy. This article focuses on professionals in schools, whose task it is to help students with assigned Special Educational Needs, for instance "teaching assistants" or "integration aids". We analyse the role of teaching assistants in Canada, the United Kingdom and Germany. Our interpretations base on interviews which have been conducted with teaching assistants in those countries. We will make clear that it is important for assistants to work autonomously. However, in some countries they are expected to mainly support individual students (Germany) and in others they shall primarily support teachers (United Kingdom, Canada). Our analysis shows the tendency of regular education to delegate the therapeutic dimension of its practice. This means that, internationally, increasing employment of assistants could contribute to teachers' de-professionalisation and undercut the aim of inclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the course of the eighteenth and early-to-mid-nineteenth centuries the Irish, who moved throughout the British Empire, helped to build the social, political and economic structures that would enable the success of countless colonial settlements. They were merchants, traders, fishers and labourers, and a significant proportion of them were Catholic. While many would go on to play pivotal roles in the development of Catholicism in the colonies, the Irish were not alone and often joined or were joined by other Catholic groups such as the French, Spanish and Scottish Highlanders. That the Irish achieved greater political and economic success, though, had a knock-on effect for the other Catholic groups could then use the foundation that the Irish established for their own progress and development. This article considers the place of Catholics on Britain’s expanding colonial landscapes by examining the political awakening of Irish Catholics in Nova Scotia and Cape Breton Island, two of Britain’s north Atlantic colonies, between 1780 and 1830. These two colonies, like many others, witnessed the growth of an Irish Catholic laity that was ambitious, pragmatic and adept at using the political structures available to reframe their legal status. The election of Laurence Kavanagh, a second-generation Irish Catholic merchant from a tiny fishing outpost on Cape Breton Island, to Nova Scotia’s legislative assembly in 1820, is offered as an example of how this process actually worked on the ground and opens up a broader discussion about the importance of minority populations like Catholics to Britain’s imperial programme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the current global focus on strengthening HIV prevention through greater testing and treatment uptake, it is increasingly salient to identify and address barriers to testing. A review of the published, peer-reviewed literature and national reports from Australia, Canada, and the UK (2003–2013) on barriers to HIV testing was conducted to provide new information relevant to Australia and to complement earlier reviews from Canada and the UK. A systematic database search using keywords and a set of inclusion criteria yielded 36 studies (Australia = 13; Canada = 6; and the UK = 17). In addition 17 unpublished reports were included in the review. Our study uses a novel, comprehensive framework to describe barriers to HIV testing, and thus contributes to moving beyond the traditional patient–provider–system categorization. Within that framework, barriers are categorized as either intrapersonal (reported in 15 studies), interpersonal (21), or extrapersonal (16) and conceptualized within wider sociocultural and structural contexts. People's abilities and motivations to test (intrapersonal factors) are influenced by a host of interconnected factors spanning relationship (interpersonal) and broader socioeconomic, political and cultural (extrapersonal) factors. We suggest that the relative effects of interventions targeting barriers to HIV testing at the intrapersonal and interpersonal levels are limited by the extent to which the social determinants of health are addressed. The framework may also lend itself to thinking about the enabling factors for HIV testing, and future research may investigate the application of that framework for strategizing the most effective response. Future studies should also capture the lived experiences of barriers to HIV testing experienced by patients, especially in populations which are hard to reach based on social and geographic distance. Context-specific studies to evaluate the feasibility and effectiveness of various interventions proposed in the literature to address barriers to HIV testing are needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since previous research has shown that nation-states take the acts of other states in consideration when making decisions about their policies, this article focuses on analyzing national decision-making in actual practice by studying the justifications used in debating new legislation. The data comprises second readings of bills from Canada and the UK and House debates of US bills from 2001 to 2011. The total amount of bills analyzed is 208. The results show that the acts of governments and other agents in the global system are an essential part of the factors to which actors refer in their argumentation. The analysis also shows that the US political culture is less receptive to considering cross-national differences or policies adopted in other states as justification for domestic reforms than the other two countries, whereas Canadians are most sensitive to the international community and their position and reputation among the nations. From these differences in national political cultures we cannot deduce, however, that the United States is immune to external factors or the center of a unilateral system. Although decisions are less often justified by policies adopted in other countries, the global community and economic competition are an essential part of the environment to which US politicians place themselves as decision makers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Educational publishing sits at the intersection of industry, culture and education. Pedagogical aims must be balanced with the need for publishers to make a profit, while also acknowledging Canadian national identity and culture. The events of central interest are related to the tensions between two publishers’ associations in the wake of the sales, in 1970, of Canadian publishers Gage and Ryerson Press to American interests. The Canadian Book Publishers’ Council was comprised mainly of American branch plants and the Independent Publishers Association membership was Canadian-owned publishing companies. The two associations became bitter rivals, engaging in ‘fratricidal warfare’, as they lobbied the provincial and federal governments and fought to maintain their places in the textbook market. About 65% of total sales revenues from publishing in Canada came from textbook sales in this period. Both governments and commercial interests had to balance Canadian sovereignty with commercial gain and educational goals. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The conventional wisdom has been that the Canadian Citizenship Act and the British Nationality and Australian Citizenship Act demonstrated the growth of a local nationalism after the Second World War. In reality, the situation was more complicated. Both English-speaking Canada and Australia still regarded themselves as British nations. The passage of the Canadian Act was an illustration of the bicultural nature of that country, which developments during the war had brought to the fore. The Australian Act was simply a reaction to the Canadian Act, as the latter had undermined the common code of British subject status across the Commonwealth. Meanwhile, the British Nationality Act was primarily an attempt to preserve the common status of British subjects throughout the Commonwealth and maintain the integrity of this organisation during a period when it was being rapidly transformed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article provides a framing analysis of mainstream press coverage of poverty (offline and online) in Canada and the UK, and compares mainstream news coverage to coverage on alternative news sites. The research questions the extent to which, and how, coverage of children and immigrants presents contemporary constructions of the ‘deserving’ and ‘undeserving poor’. It is argued that rationalizing and individualizing frames dominate coverage of poverty and immigration. The author suggests that the significance of the dominance of these frames is their ability to privilege and embed market-based approaches to poverty and immigration. An analysis of alternative news content reveals the extent to which social justice frames, the very frames that counter market-based approaches, are absent from mainstream news coverage. Overall, these results indicate that challenging problematic representations and approaches to poverty will require changing representations, an expansion of coverage that runs counter to news norms, and structural investments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Canadian Constitution remained a British statute from 1867 to 1982, a situation that endured even after the country became independent in 1931. As a result, every time Canadians wanted constitutional changes, legislation had to be passed in Westminster. Between 1980 and 1982, following the Quebec referendum on independence, the then Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau undertook to change this situation. This meant devising a Canadian amending formula and, most importantly for Trudeau, the inclusion of an entrenched bill of rights in the constitution. Trudeau's initial project was opposed by eight of 10 provinces and this situation proved difficult for the UK. The opposing provinces lobbied British lawmakers in order to convince them to vote against the federal request. That situation eventually forced Ottawa to accept a diluted version of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is a result of a transnational comparison of two broadcast book programs' influence on readers' book choices. Online surveys and focus group interviews in Canada and the UK illustrate active audience participation in the converged era of print books, the internet, television and radio. The analysis examines readers' negotiation of book choices through uses and gratifications theory as informed by a cultural critique of the programs themselves. Readers simultaneously respond to and create a hierarchy of cultural tastes that are bound up in the cultural assumptions that they have about the different media. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The responsibility of the social work profession to be inclusive and equitable in its service provision is reviewed via policies relating to professional training regarding sexual orientation issues. A comparative review of Canada, the United Kingdom (UK) and the United States of America (USA) and international standards regarding sexual orientation issues in social work codes of ethics and curricula standards was undertaken. A consistency exists in the USA between its ethics code and curriculum standards further backed by a mandated approach, but it is weak in the area of ethically principled practice skills. Both Canada and the UK are less consistent and comprehensive and lack a mandated approach. The results speak to where consistencies exist and where they need to be established in order to develop an infrastructure that properly trains social workers in cultural competency for these populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines whether shared national values form a vital component in the construction and development of national identity. In so doing, it challenges Kymlicka and Norman in their assumption that shared values have little relevance for national identity. Drawing upon competing nationalist discourses in Canada, Quebec, Scotland and the United Kingdom, we argue that the idea of shared values serves as a useful tool in shaping and reinforcing national identities within multinational states. Such values contribute to defining the collective conception of national identity, describing who we are as a people, and what it is that binds us together while distinguishing us from others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]