Sozialindex und <Emphasis Type="Italic">gewichtenregeling</Emphasis>

In Germany and the Netherlands spatial information about the social structure of the inhabitants is used for the coordination of financial and human resources in the local school-system. The aim is to reduce educational inequalities by taking the social context of the schools into account. The article explains two approaches. In North Rhine-Westphalia (Germany) a so called Sozialindex is used to distribute additional teachers to municipalities with difficult social surroundings. The Dutch government uses an instrument to give each pupil a weight (gewichtenregeling) depending on the specific educational background. Combined with an evaluation of the school location an additional budget, if necessary, will be payed.     

Bedeutung kleinräumiger Daten für die Evaluation von Bildungsprojekten

The Junior University, a University for children and youth in the city of Wuppertal, offers science courses that target children and youth from all socioeconomic backgrounds. The first evaluation study done by the University of Wuppertal in 2013 aimed at examining whether the Junior University has achieved this goal. The main challenge of our analysis was to approximate missing individual information on socioeconomic status by using spatial data. Therefore, we georeferenced address information of the Junior University students and linked those results to different characteristics available for about 2800 city blocks in the city of Wuppertal. We found out that indeed the Junior University succeeds in attracting children and youth from all socioeconomic backgrounds. The results show that many of the students live in poor neighborhoods or in neighborhoods with a high share of immigrants.     

Das andere Zuhause

Cities are increasingly addressing high-skilled migrants. Our contribution examines the factors that shape how this group relates to places and why cities provide different conditions for this. We draw on empirical data from an explorative case study with highly qualified migrants in the university city of Münster. First, we look at the place ties at the new place of residence and thereby focus on their local social networks and their sense of belonging. Second, we turn to the place-specific characteristics, in particular the role of “connections” and “urban opportunity structures”. Based on our findings we discuss how urban policy-making may influence the place attachment of this desired group.     

The ‘Sand-Bath’ and Lithic Heat Treatment in the South African Middle Stone Age: Myth or Reality?

When heat treatment of silcrete for stone knapping was first discovered in the South African Middle Stone Age (MSA), the procedure used for it was suggested to be similar to the one used for heat treatment of finer rocks in other parts of the world: slow sand-bath heating. This comparison may have been based on published data from the fields of ethnography, experimentation and archaeology, describing sand-bath like structures and processes. In this review, I discuss whether the available data from these three fields indeed justify the suggestions that sand-bath heating was used in the context of MSA silcrete heat treatment. A careful revaluation of the available data shows that, although sand-bath heating is a widely accepted procedure that is documented in other parts of the world, understanding the earliest known cases of heat treatment in the MSA calls for another technical procedure.     

Human Responses to Climatic Variation in the Namib Desert During the Last 1,000 Years

Radiocarbon dates for camelthorn trees in the Namib Desert reflect marked variation in rainfall during the last 1,000 years. These records and other proxy climate data indicate a loose teleconnection with the southern African climatic record, especially for regionwide episodes of dry conditions resulting from extreme El Niño events. However, archaeological evidence of hunter-gatherer and nomadic pastoralist occupation does not mirror the climate record by indicating that the desert was only inhabited during periods of favourable rainfall. It points instead to a specialized strategy which allowed continuous occupation of the Namib Desert despite extreme fluctuations in rainfall, by combining the use of primary resource areas with opportunistic use of secondary, ephemeral resources in an alternating density-dependent and density-independent dynamic.     

Satellite Remote Sensing of Archaeological Vegetation Signatures in Coastal West Africa

This article discusses how archaeological sites in Sierra Leone, and by extension much of West Africa, can be identified through vegetation patterns (vegetation signatures) detectable in very high-resolution (VHR) multispectral satellite imagery. Settlement sites typically have a differing pattern of vegetation from the surrounding landscape, including concentrations of very large trees with sociocultural and historical significance: cotton (Ceiba pentandra) and baobab (Adansonia digitata). These features are conspicuous elements of the landscape both from the ground and in aerial imagery. Two complementary methods of using VHR multispectral satellite imagery are discussed in this paper: visual interpretation and semi-automated subpixel classification. These techniques are aiding ongoing archaeological survey of the Sierra Leone River Estuary. The impact of recently renewed industrial activity at a site of probable archaeological significance is also assessed through visually interpreted VHR satellite imagery.     

Vernetztes regionales Engagement – Das Beispiel Heilbronn-Franken

At a regional scale, a variety of actors from all three sectors of private, public and civil society act together in a philanthropic field. This article deals with the question of how cooperation in charitable action unfolds in this field. Using the example of the region of Heilbronn-Franconia, the empirical case unpacks the dominance of local and regional forms of philanthropy and reconstructs two successful examples of intersectoral collaboration. However, the analysis also demonstrates the limits of the external designability that are due to the individuality of charitable actors, their diverse objectives and the contextuality of the regional environment. The realization of synergies through regional governance therefore succeeds only by respecting the dedication and self-determination of philanthropic commitment and by creating legitimate and sensitive structures of moderation and facilitation.     

Unternehmen in der Verantwortung

Factory closures, relocations and extensive measures to reduce personnel have consequences far beyond the affected employees – the social and economic coherence of the location and region are often negatively affected, too. This presents an interesting and important field for economic and applied geography. Apart from the development and evaluation of concepts of instruments of regional development, geographers can discuss and conceive options and obstacles for compensation and replacement measures after corporate restructuring. This text discusses structural and individual opportunities and obstacles in implementing company-induced economic development measures in the wider context of the corporate responsibility debate.     

Unternehmerische Verantwortung in der Stadt- und Regionalentwicklung

Firms assume increasing importance within co-operative modes of regional and urban governance. Further to just filling gaps left by the retreat of the welfare state, firms recognise the impact of their regional and local business environment on their performance, especially when it comes to attracting and retaining highly-skilled personnel. As an introduction to this issue, this contribution introduces the basic concept of corporate social responsibility and its regional variation, corporate regional responsibility.