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Education is increasingly going digital. The COVID-19 pandemic has compelled students to attend school and college online through the use of often private digital platforms. For many this change has been regarded negatively, yet for some, especially students with disabilities or from remote geographical areas, this opportunity has been essential to access or continue their studies, thus making the right to education, as enshrined in many national and supranational constitutional texts, even more effective. Despite the advantages of introducing a right to access education remotely, this paper examines the constitutional drawbacks of this proposal. The first part of the article argues that a right to digital education should be recognised as a component of the right to quality education in the digital age in terms of possibility for the individual to access educational materials online, as well as a right to acquire sufficient digital skills to fully participate in democratic society. However on the path towards a full implementation of this right lies a structural obstacle: education is not only increasingly digital but also private. The second part of the paper examines the constitutional challenges generated by private actors dominating the edtech sector. While education has usually been conceived of as a public service, increasingly this area of welfare is left in the hands of private actors that have the power to shape the technical and social infrastructures to exercise constitutional rights. The paper concludes with an assessment of existing regulatory frameworks to ensure that private organisations contribute to fostering the right to digital edu- cation.

Academic writing support has become an integral part of the learning process at third level. At Technological University of the Shannon: Midlands (TUS: Midlands), the Academic Writing Centre (AWC) offers individual and group support to all 5,000 learners attending the institute. Historically, all support was provided face-to-face, but due to Covid-19 it moved online in March 2020 and since then the service has been available through a combination of remote and face-to-face delivery. Learners attending the AWC during three academic years were asked to outline their preferences on the provision of support: face-to-face, online or a combination of both. The findings highlight that in the 2019 – 2020 academic year the majority of students expressed a preference for face-to-face contact with writing tutors, while in the 2020 – 2021 academic year there was increased preference for working remotely or a combination of face-to-face and remote delivery. Then, in the 2021 – 2022 academic year, there was a shift back to a preference for face-to-face delivery. Learners were also asked to identify specific areas where they needed academic writing support. The results show that in each academic year the area where students required most support was writing structure. Grammar and punctuation, referencing and paraphrasing, language and writing literature reviews were also among the main areas where academic writing support was requested by learners.

Introduction & purpose of toolkit. The Covid-19 pandemic put health and social care services under unprecedented strain. Before the development of effective vaccines, hospitals and intensive care units were pushed to the limit (and beyond) of their human and medical resources. Disability services were required to adapt to the continuously evolving pandemic-related rules and guidance. While it is to be acknowledged that the individuals working in these environments were working in extremely challenging conditions, and often engaged in innovative practice in order to try to preserve and protect the rights of persons with disabilities, there are clear lessons to be drawn from the Covid-19 period - both around the structuring of health and social care services, as well as practices which should be adopted in relation to people with disabilities in public health emergencies of this kind in the future. This toolkit is intended for use as an advocacy tool by disabled persons’ organisations (DPOs) in order to ensure that health and social care professionals (H&SC professionals) comply with their obligations under international human rights law in times of public health emergencies. It centres the experience of persons with disabilities, while also incorporating those of H&SC professionals and policymakers. It is primarily informed by the requirements of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). It is complemented by a toolkit outlining the obligations of States with respect to the rights of persons with disabilities in times of public health emergencies, which can be found on the ResPoNCE project website. non-peer-reviewed

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Black Canadians and Americans (BCAs) have experienced higher rates of infection and death than whites, in part, because of vaccine hesitancy. Rates of vaccine hesitancy were not significantly different between Black and white North Americans, but the issue is much more complex for BCAs because of racism, medical mistrust, and numerous other factors. Two major systemic factors must be addressed to develop culturally relevant vaccine hesitancy research: capturing the complexities of the issue in our data and recruiting Black participants to studies. This paper reviews the shortcomings of vaccine hesitancy research to determine how to address these gaps. Common themes in the literature reviewed were identified and categorised. It was found that in order to capture complex data, researchers should collect thorough demographic and regional data, and should conduct more small-scale, Black-focused studies. To facilitate more open and honest discussions, they should also collaborate with Black co-researchers, center personal and vicarious experiences with racism, and address the stigma associated with being ‘anti-vaxx’. To increase the representation of BCAs in study samples, researchers must build mutual trust and respect with participants and should also consider offering virtual and multilingual options for study participation. This guide has the potential to aid researchers in collecting less aggregated data on vaccine hesitancy that is more reflective of the values, beliefs, and concerns of BCAs, so that we can better support the health of the community.

Introduction & purpose of toolkit. The Covid-19 pandemic exposed the speed at which the rights of persons with disabilities can be either deprioritised or forgotten altogether in times of public health emergencies. The pandemic demonstrated major gaps in State planning for the protection and vindication of the rights of persons with disabilities in public health emergencies. It also magnified the pre-existing inequalities which people with disabilities experience. There were issues with accessibility of information and of testing and vaccination centres, the pausing or ceasing of some disability services, failures in the provision of financial support, denials of reasonable accommodation and increased isolation of some people with disabilities. This toolkit is intended for use as an advocacy tool by disabled persons’ organisations (DPOs) in order to ensure that States comply with their obligations under international human rights law in times of public health emergencies. It is primarily informed by the requirements of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), as well as the experiences of people with disabilities during the Covid-19. Based on this, it provides examples of best practice, as well as resources which DPOs can rely on when lobbying States for CRPD-compliant reform and action at the intersection of public health emergencies and disability. It is complemented by a toolkit outlining the obligations of health and social care professionals with respect to the rights of persons with disabilities in times of public health emergencies, which can be found on the ResPoNCE project website. non-peer-reviewed

After COVID-19, tuberculosis (TB) is the leading cause of death by an infectious disease in the world. This work presents a data set based on data collected from the Brazilian Information System for Notifiable Diseases (SINAN) for the period from January 2001 to April 2020 relating to patients diagnosed with tuberculosis in Brazil. The data from SINAN was pre-processed to generate a new data set with two distinct treatment outcome classes: CURED and DIED. The data set comprises 37 categorical attributes (including socio-demographic, clinical, and laboratory data) as well as the target class. There are 927,909 records of patients classified as CURED and 36,190 classified as DIED, totaling 964,099 records.

Changing collective behaviour and supporting non-pharmaceutical interventions is an important component in mitigating virus transmission during a pandemic. In a large international collaboration (Study 1, N = 49,968 across 67 countries), we investigated self-reported factors that associated with people reported adopting public health behaviours (e.g., spatial distancing and stricter hygiene) and endorsed public policy interventions (e.g., closing bars and restaurants) during the early stage of the pandemic (April-May 2020). Respondents who reported identifying more strongly with their nation consistently reported greater engagement in public health behaviours and support for public health policies. Results were similar for representative and non-representative national samples. Study 2 (N = 42 countries) conceptually replicated the central finding using aggregate indices of national identity (obtained using the World Values Survey) and a measure of actual behaviour change during the pandemic (obtained from Google mobility reports). Higher levels of national identification prior to the pandemic predicted lower mobility during the early stage of the pandemic (r = -.40). We discuss the potential implications of links between national identity, leadership, and public health for managing COVID-19 and future pandemics.

In un momento in cui molti governi nazionali si allontanano a livello retorico, se non pratico, da una collaborazione globale ed esaltano i nazionalismi economici, intesi qui come una pluralità di politiche storicamente e politicamente contestualizzate, gli autori di questo numero tematico indagano sui possibili contributi delle analisi etnografiche comparate dei nazionalismi economici alle analisi interdisciplinari e transnazionali. In questa introduzione alla sezione tematica, i curatori rilevano la svolta verso i nazionalismi economici nell’attuale contesto di crisi globale, passano in rassegna la letteratura sui nazionalismi economici e illustrano le profonde variazioni politiche e storiche dei nazionalismi economici anche all’interno della stessa nazione, utilizzando come esempio il caso indiano. Vengono discussi, uno in rapporto all’altro, i tre articoli etnografici che compongono la sezione tematica e che offrono esempi dalla Turchia, dall’Italia, dal Guatemala e dagli Stati Uniti, con un’attenzione comune ai nazionalismi economici e alla dipendenza dal lavoro dei migranti transnazionali sfollati a causa di guerre, espropriazioni di terre e cambiamenti climatici, nonostante a questi soggetti, che contribuiscono in modo vitale alle economie nazionali, venga negata la cittadinanza culturale e nazionale – un’ironia divenuta ancora più visibile durante la pandemia da COVID-19. In a time when many national governments are rhetorically, if not practically, turning away from global collaboration and emphasizing economic nationalisms, understood here as a plurality of historically and politically contextualized policies, the authors in this thematic issue explore the possible contributions of comparative ethnographic analyses of economic nationalisms to interdisciplinary, transnational analyses. In this introduction to the thematic section, the editors note the turn to economic nationalisms in the current context of global crises, review the literature on economic nationalisms, and illustrate the strong political and historical variations in economic nationalisms within even the same nation, using India as an example. The three ethnographic articles in this thematic section are discussed in relation to each other. They offer examples from Turkey, Italy, Guatemala and the U.S., with a shared focus on economic nationalisms and the reliance on the labor of transnational migrants displaced by war, land grabs, and climate change even as those vital contributors to national economies are denied cultural and national citizenship – an irony rendered all the more visible during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In a time when many national governments are rhetorically, if not practically, turning away from global collaboration and emphasizing economic nationalisms, understood here as a plurality of historically and politically contextualized policies, the authors in this thematic issue explore the possible contributions of comparative ethnographic analyses of economic nationalisms to interdisciplinary, transnational analyses. In this introduction to the thematic section, the editors note the turn to economic nationalisms in the current context of global crises, review the literature on economic nationalisms, and illustrate the strong political and historical variations in economic nationalisms within even the same nation, using India as an example. The three ethnographic articles in this thematic section are discussed in relation to each other. They offer examples from Turkey, Italy, Guatemala and the U.S., with a shared focus on economic nationalisms and the reliance on the labor of transnational migrants displaced by war, land grabs, and climate change even as those vital contributors to national economies are denied cultural and national citizenship – an irony rendered all the more visible during the COVID-19 pandemic.