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This paper examines how social media are affecting Japanese civil society organizations, in relation to efficacy and political participation. Using data from the 2017 Japan Interest Group Study survey, we analyzed how the flow of information leads to the political participation of civil society organizations. The total number of respondents (organizations) were 1285 (942 organizations in Tokyo and 343 from Ibaraki). In the analysis of our survey we focused on the data portion related to information behavior and efficacy and investigated the meta-cognition of efficacy in lobbying among civil society organizations in Tokyo and Ibaraki. We found that organizations that use social media were relatively few. However, among the few organizations that use social media, we found that these organizations have a much higher meta-cognition of political efficacy in comparison to those that do not use social media. For instance, social media usage had a higher tendency of having cognition of being able to exert influence upon others. We also found that organizations that interact with citizens have a higher tendency to use social media. The correspondence analysis results point towards a hypothesis of how efficacy and participation are mutually higher among the organizations that use social media in Japan.

This article examines the theoretical assumptions underlying K-12 economic curriculum and the consequences of this curriculum for citizenship education and democracy. Specifically, the article discusses scholarship related to the critique of neoclassic economic theory's role in influencing the Voluntary National Content Standards in Economics and the trickle-down effects into state standards and textbooks. From the literature, the author uncovers two main critiques of neoclassicism: that neoclassic theory is unrealistic and impersonal. Neoclassic theory has enormous consequences for the civic mission of social studies. The author investigates the extent to which neoclassical theory makes for good citizenship and is desirable for a democratic society.

Development approaches have traditionally emphasized material resources, ignoring the less tangible forms of capital. But sustainable development, especially in relation to land use and production systems, calls for an integration of environmental, economic, human, and social capital. Emphasis on only one type of capital can in fact undermine sustainability. By examining the interaction of different kinds of capital in four buffer zone communities, the study identifies features of economic, social, and political organization that are positively related with the potential for building environmental capital.

The article presents preliminary data of a survey that aimed to investigate the beliefs of children and adolescents about not learning. A total of 80 students, aged 6 to 16 years participated of the study. Among the participants, 20 are 6 years old, 20 are 9, 20 are 12 and 20 are 16 years old. As methodological tool, it was asked the participants to draw a person that learns and another one that doesn't learn. Data was analyzed according to the Piagetian perspective for the construction of social knowledge. The main results indicate that a significant part of the participants tend to blame the students for the result of no learning. This indicates that students are able to consider the amplitude of different dimensions of social phenomena only partially. When considering the level of understanding of social reality, it was observed that, even at older ages, participants have a very basic notion of the social world.

published_or_final_version ; Politics and Public Administration ; Master ; Master of Public Administration

Covid-19 has put all urban planning systems around the world to the test. Cities' design and how these are managed are being observed, analyzed, and even questioned from the perspective of the pandemic. Density and poverty have been two fundamental aspects to manage in the pandemic scenario in cities of the Global South, which face this challenge along with other pre-pandemic planning problems. In the city of Quito, Ecuador, the response to the pandemic has been coordinated through regulations issued by the emergency operations center at the national level, and the information (number of cases) has been recorded per parish. The objective of this research is to determine if there is a relationship between Covid-19, poverty, and population density at the parish level for the canton of Quito. The results have shown that there is no correlation. What they did show is that due both to the difficulties of responding to the pandemic and the city's planning structure, another type of characterization, or characterizations, of the territory (for example, by scenarios or by situations) is needed, which can respond to the needs of the most vulnerable groups. Another observable result was that the gap between urban planning and management instruments and the complexity of territorial needs contributes to the polarization of local government approaches, which compromises urban planning with minimum continuity and coherence.

Abstract
Over the COVID-19 period, much attention has been paid to the governance relationship between citizens and the state. In this article, however, we focus on a feature that is less evident in the day-to-day living of the social contract: the relationship between citizens. Because this horizontal cohesion is critical to the social contract, we suggest that it should not be neglected, even amid a deepening crisis of state–citizen relations. Using the case of South Africa's vaccine roll-out as an illustration, we argue that certain kinds of state failures – failures in making complex fairness decisions, in treating citizens as equals when enacting these decisions, and in providing public justification for these decisions – risk dual damage to both citizen–state and citizen–citizen relations and so undermine an already fragile social contract.