Science

Saskatchewan education sector workers are experiencing disturbing levels of workplace violence and harassment, says a new report spotlighting a situation that has reached “a breaking point,” according to its authors.

Testimonies catalogued by University of Ottawa researchers have found that Saskatchewan schools are far from offering a safe and violence-free environment as workplace violence becomes increasingly normalized.

“I’ve been punched in the face, had push pins held to my eyeballs, and scissors held to my throat,” the report quotes one educational assistant.

“(A) student flipped a table, choked me with my lanyard, and repeatedly threw the chair into the wall … (then) the window, and started kicking (me),” assert some of the people interviewed for the study.

The findings

Researchers surveyed 828 Saskatchewan education sector workers—teachers as well as direct and indirect student support workers—for the National Violence and Harassment Against Education Sector Workers, and found:

• Nearly three-quarters of respondents experienced one attempt of physical force from a student.
• 85% witnessed at least one student-initiated act, attempt, or threat of physical force against a co-worker. These behaviors frequently involved a refusal to respect authority, swearing, and offensive remarks.
• 54% of respondents experienced parent-initiated harassment, with teachers and clerical workers reporting the highest rates.
• Women experienced 20 unique acts, attempts, or threats of physical force from a student, whereas men reported an average of 10.
• Identity plays a role: Education sector workers with a reported diagnosed mental illness were most often targeted for harassment, as were 2SLGBTQIA+ workers.

“Saskatchewan schools are beyond the breaking point. Years of underfunding and dwindling resources have culminated in compounding costs and everyone in the school community is paying the price,” says Chris Bruckert, a Full Professor from the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Ottawa and Principal Investigator on the project.

Impact on students

The lead author, Darby Mallory, a uOttawa doctoral student in the Department of Criminology, noted, “It is hard to overstate how destabilizing it is for students to routinely witness violence against their teachers and/or educational assistants. The research identified three principal ways students are affected by educator-directed violence: access to instruction, capacity to learn, and emotional well-being.”

The detailed report found just 6% of respondents felt actions taken to deal with the violence they experienced were “very effective.” Most institutional responses to workplace violence and harassment were reactive, deflective, or dismissive, with participants describing their concerns being negated as incidents are routinely “swept under the rug.”

Proactive measures like safety plans have the potential to address these issues but their effectiveness is compromised by the chronic lack of resources in schools.

“Overwhelmingly, Saskatchewan’s education sector workers described feeling burnt out, less enthusiastic, and dissatisfied with their jobs,” adds Bruckert, from the Department of Criminology. “We all pay the price when careers are abandoned by trained education sector workers, and the physical and mental injuries at work further strain our health care system.”

Parents with any kind of disability are much more likely to have some type of interaction with the child welfare system than other parents. This means they are more likely than other parents to be reported for child abuse and neglect and more likely to have abuse or neglect substantiated by child welfare workers. They are also more likely to have their children placed in foster care and more likely to permanently lose their parental rights.

More than one-third of mothers with intellectual and developmental disabilities have an interaction with the child welfare system within four years of their child’s birth, and about one-fifth of all children in foster care have a parent with some type of disability.

However, there is little evidence that parents with disabilities abuse or neglect their children at higher rates than anyone else. Instead, there’s evidence that many young adults raised by a parent with a disability have very positive childhood experiences.

New rules that went into effect in July 2024 provide the first federal protections specifically for parents with disabilities. These new rules ban discrimination against parents and caregivers with disabilities throughout the child welfare system.

Government is changing these rules

I’m a social work policy researcher who has studied policies affecting parents with disabilities since 2007.

In 2010, I found that three-quarters of states had laws which said that a parent’s disability could be used as the grounds for terminating their parental rights. Most of these state laws focused on parents with intellectual and developmental disabilities or mental health disabilities, though some listed physical disabilities and other types as well.

Many of these laws were vague and used outdated language such as “mental deficiency.”

Parental disability is the only grounds for termination of parental rights that focuses on a condition of the parent. The rest focus on behaviors. For example, parental poverty is not listed as grounds for termination of parental rights in any state, but neglect—a behavior—is.

State laws were only one of the issues parents with disabilities encountered related to child protection. For years, there had been confusion as to how the Americans with Disabilities Act, the federal law banning disability discrimination, applied to parents in the child welfare system. Until 2015, most state courts denied ADA claims by parents with disabilities who believed they were discriminated against.

In addition, most child welfare workers do not receive formal training on working with parents with disabilities. They are not trained in how to assess parenting skills or how to make accommodations to services that they typically provide, such as providing in-home parent training or conveying information in plain language. They might not know about the overwhelming evidence that parents with intellectual disabilities can learn parenting skills.

This has historically led many child welfare workers to make decisions based on stereotypes or speculation.

One of the main biases that parents with disabilities face is the “presumption of unfitness bias.” This is a widespread bias that parents are unable to parent solely because of their disability.

This bias can lead child welfare workers to not consider that parents with disabilities can rely on “parental supports” to assist them in parenting, ranging from adaptive cribs and baby monitors to in-home helpers. It also can result in parents with disabilities being held to a higher standard than others.

State laws specifically naming parental disability as a for termination of parental rights, the lack of federal protection, and widespread biases left parents with disabilities vulnerable in encounters with the child welfare system.

Gaining national attention

Two federal actions in the early 2010s brought national attention to parents with disabilities.

First, the National Council on Disability, the independent federal agency that advises the federal government on disability issues, released a report in 2012 called Rocking the Cradle. That report focused on the widespread discrimination faced by parents with disabilities; highlighted and called for changing the state child protection laws; and called for the application of ADA protections in child welfare cases involving parents with disabilities.

This report received a lot of media attention and led to more awareness of the plight of these parents.

Then, in 2015, Justice Department and the Department of Health and Human Services released guidance directing child welfare agencies to protect parents with disabilities from discrimination. This was the first federal action indicating that the ADA and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act applied to child protection services.

This guidance followed the departments’ investigation of the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families‘ removal of a newborn baby from Sara Gordon, a new mother with a developmental disability, in 2012. The Department of Justice and the Department of Health and Human Services found that the state agency had made assumptions that Gordon was unable to take care of her child and unable to learn parenting skills. The state agency had also failed to take into account that Gordon had support systems in place. She lived with her parents, and her mother had quit her job to assist with parenting.

Making progress for parents with disabilities

The momentum for protecting parental rights has led to some positive changes.

A few states changed their own child protection laws to address some of these problems before the federal government took action by providing new protections for parents with disabilities. In addition, the Department of Justice and Department of Health and Human Services have reached agreements with state agencies in Oregon, Georgia and Massachusetts related to discrimination against parents with disabilities.

Despite this progress, parents with disabilities are still discriminated against by the child welfare system in many parts of the country.

At the same time, I have no doubt that the federal government’s revision of the rules of Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act is a major step forward for parents with disabilities.

In particular, it is promising that Section  84.60 of the rule clarifies that disability discrimination is not allowed in any part of the child welfare process. Child welfare agencies throughout the United States now must ensure that they are not making decisions based on speculation, stereotypes or generalizations.

Thanks to changes in the federal rule, when a child welfare agency evaluates how a child is being parented, the tools it uses must be backed by research. The evaluations must be conducted by a qualified professional and tailored to the needs of the individual parent. Agencies must ensure that parents with disabilities can participate in any services they provide. These services include parent-child visitation, parenting skills programs, family reunification services and child placements in foster care settings or in the care of another relative.

Disability advocacy groups applauded this new rule when it went into effect in the summer of 2024.

I believe these new rules will protect parents with disabilities when interacting with child protection authorities. They will also make it easier for child welfare agencies and state courts to recognize disability discrimination when it appears in their caseloads or on their dockets.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Linguists have long known that sign languages are as grammatically and logically sophisticated as spoken languages—and also make greater use of “iconicity,” the property by which some words refer to things by resembling them. For instance, the sound of an English “bang” iconically resembles a sharp noise, and a meow resembles the crying sound of a cat.

Notably, in American Sign Language (ASL) and in numerous other sign languages, there are often two ways to say roughly the same thing—one using standard words (signs) and the other using highly iconic expressions, called “classifiers,” which serve to create visual animations.

But how normal signs and pictorial-like representations are integrated to create meaning is not well understood.

Philippe Schlenker, a researcher at France’s National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) and New York University, and Jonathan Lamberton, a Deaf native signer of ASL, an independent researcher and a former interpreter for the New York City mayor’s office, propose an answer in a pair of studies in the journal Linguistics & Philosophy, the first of which was co-authored with Marion Bonnet, Jason Lamberton, Emmanuel Chemla, Mirko Santoro, and Carlo Geraci.

They conclude that ASL can supplement its usual grammar (often with the word order subject-verb-object) with a distinct pictorial grammar in which iconic representations appear in the order they would on a comic book’s illustrated panels—not because ASL borrows techniques from comics, but because the same cognitive mechanism, pictorial representation, is involved in classifiers and comics.

Furthermore, just as is the case in comic-book drawings, viewpoint choice is crucial in how classifiers are represented. Spoken language must resort to different modalities (speech and gestures) to create a comparable synthesis of grammar and pictorial representations.

“These studies highlight the importance of visual animations in language, with consequences for grammar and meaning alike,” explains Schlenker. “The traditional view of language as a discrete system is thus incomplete: Within language, discrete words can be complemented with gradient visual animations, in one and the same modality in sign language and in two modalities—speech versus gestures—in spoken language.”

The simultaneous presence of normal signs and highly iconic classifiers in sign language has long been known. For instance, if an instructor wants to say, “Yesterday, during the break, a student left,” there are two ways to express the action in ASL. As with the English word leave, the signer may use a normal verb that renders unspecified the manner of movement. But the signer may also use an upright index finger—a classifier—to create a simplified animation of an upright person moving out of the room—e.g., fast or slow, towards the right or towards the left, directly or with a detour.

“The classifier functions as a kind of animated puppet inserted in the middle of a sentence,” explains Jonathan Lamberton. “This gives rise to an extraordinary mix of normal signs and pictorial-like representations.”

But how are these two components integrated? Schlenker and Jonathan Lamberton, together with Bonnet, Jason Lamberton, Chemla, Santoro, and Geraci, started with word order. In ASL, the basic word order is SVO—subject-verb-object—as in English. But it has been observed that classifiers often prefer for their objects to come before the verb—e.g., subject- object-verb (SOV).

The researchers propose that classifiers override the basic word order of ASL because they create visual animations. But they start with an observation that initially deepens the mystery. If a classifier is used to represent a crocodile eating a ball, both the subject and the object preferably appear before the verb—e.g. SOV. But if the classifier represents a crocodile spitting out a ball it had previously ingested, SVO order is regained.

Here’s how this can be explained by analyzing classifiers as pictorial-like representations, the authors say. Owing to their pictorial-like nature, classifiers preferably go with the order that would be found in a comic—if you were to view it left to right. For the crocodile eating a ball, one would typically see the crocodile and the ball before the eating, which is why the subject and object come before the verb (e.g. SOV). By contrast, for the crocodile spitting out a ball, one sees the crocodile (the subject) and the spitting first, and only then the ball (the object) coming out of the crocodile—which is why SVO order is regained.

“In spoken language, words can’t create visual animations, but gestures can,” notes Schlenker. “This work on sign language classifiers offers a new perspective on gestures in spoken language.”

It is an old observation that in sequences of silent gestures (pantomimes), speakers of diverse languages preferably use SOV, even if this goes against the order of their native language, as is the case in English (which is SVO). But the authors show that this SOV preference only holds for “eat-up-type” gestures. When “spit-out-type” gestures are considered, SVO order is regained, just as with ASL classifiers. And here too, the explanation is that gestures appear in the order that would be found in a comic.

In their second study, Schlenker and Lamberton ask how the meanings of standard signs and classifiers are integrated. Since the 1960’s, the meaning of sentences has been analyzed with logical methods, the researchers explain. Some have recently posited that there can be a logic of pictorial representations. Schlenker and Lamberton propose that the rich meaning components of sign language are integrated by combining the logic of words and the logic of pictorial-like representations.

More specifically, the “glue” between them is the notion of a viewpoint, corresponding to the position of a video camera: the camera position for the animation representing the student leaving will likely correspond to the instructor’s viewpoint.

However, there is considerable flexibility in the manipulation of viewpoints. Sometimes two classifiers that occur in the same sentence are evaluated with respect to distinct viewpoints, as happens if an instructor teaches linguistics in one classroom and philosophy in another classroom and wants to represent one student leaving the philosophy classroom fast and another student leaving the linguistics classroom slowly: each animation can come with its own camera position or viewpoint.

“This is but the tip of the iceberg, as viewpoint manipulation can get even more sophisticated,” notes Schlenker.

Here too, sign language classifiers offer a new perspective on gestures in spoken language. While spoken words can’t create visual animations, gestures can. And the viewpoint-dependency of sign language classifiers can be found in gestures as well, down to the details.

This dovetails with an old idea, the authors conclude: While speech alone can’t match the rich iconic component of sign language, speech with gestures sometimes can.

In the 18th century, philosopher James Beattie compiled a list of 17 common-sense beliefs. A few are incontrovertible: “I exist”; “A whole is greater than a part”; “Virtue and vice are different”. But others seem unnecessarily moralising: “Ingratitude ought to be blamed and punished”; “I have a soul distinct from my body”; “There is a God”. Then, there are the scientifically contestable: “The senses can be believed”; “I am the same being that I was yesterday – or even 20 years ago”; “Truth exists”. Overall, his list seems quaint and outdated. Worse still, it gives no clear idea of what common sense is. Surely, we can do better.

Superficially, common sense seems easy to define: it is generally seen as knowledge or beliefs that are obvious – or should be obvious – to everyone. Yet it is strangely difficult to pin down. Often portrayed as universal, it is also often claimed not to exist. With that in mind, it might surprise you to hear that nobody has tried to measure the “commonness” of this knowledge or its intrinsic properties (its “sensicality”) – until now. Shockingly, this research shows that common sense may not be common at all.

If true, the implications are huge. From parenting to politics and from public health to law, what counts as common sense matters. Increasingly, it is also a technological issue, with computer scientists keen to instil it in artificial intelligence-driven robots to make…

Governments, regulators and global financial institutions are overlooking major opportunities to unlock the estimated US$9.2 trillion worth of financing needed each year to fund the net zero transition, new research suggests.

To deliver the funding, a recent report from King’s College London argues for an urgent focus on three key areas of the financial system:

• Governments should engage with the new forms of partnerships between banks and other financial institutions that free up their lending capabilities;
• Multilateral development banks should make more use of their balance sheets to attract private sector funding through blended finance;
• Regulators should develop global carbon markets with a focus on integrating national emissions trading systems and enhancing trust in voluntary markets.

The report highlights that the multilateral development banks alone could more than double their stock of lending to release a further $1.2 trillion of net zero financing without harming their AAA ratings and estimates that governments could release £8.5 billion of new bank lending through every £1 billion they invest in loans to decarbonization projects.

The report and its recommendations were developed by Professor David Aikman, a former Technical Head of the Bank of England’s Financial Stability Division, and Professor Raúl C. Rosales, a member of the Management Committee of the Singapore Green Finance Centre.

“Mobilizing enough finance to achieve our net zero goals is a major challenge, but our research highlights the potential of three avenues that should become a focus for policymakers in the run up to COP29 and beyond,” says Professor David Aikman, Director of the Qatar Centre for Global Banking and Finance at King’s Business School.

The banks’ role in financing the transition to net zero

The report outlines how, ahead of the full implementation of the Basel III capital adequacy rules, banks are increasingly partnering with non-bank players in innovative ways that allow them to de-risk in line with existing regulatory and supervisory frameworks.

These include strategic partnerships and new investment fund platforms with private credit, as well as the increased use of so-called “synthetic risk transfers” that move credit risk to third parties such as investment funds, freeing up funds for further lending. EU banks alone issued €102 billion in synthetic risk transfer securitizations in 2023 and 11% of these were linked to sustainability lending.

The authors argue that governments and policymakers can support this transfer of risk between the banks and other parts of the financial sector;

• By fostering the globally harmonized regulation of de-risking mechanisms such significant risk transfers and synthetic securitizations
• As investors: The authors estimate that a £1 billion government investment in the junior tranche of a pool of loans for decarbonization projects would generate additional bank lending capacity of around £8.5 billion. In the UK, the new National Wealth Fund could play a role both as a guarantor and coordinator of private sector lending for net zero technologies and projects.

Blended finance

Blended finance uses catalytic capital from public or philanthropic sources to mobilize private sector investment in sustainable development projects, primarily in developing countries. Public investment is led through Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs) and Development Finance Institutions (DFIs). While climate finance accounted for over half of the value of blended finance deals in 2023, the report highlights that at $15 billion of new transactions, the overall sector remained relatively small, and sets out how it could be expanded.

The authors calculate that MDBs and DFIs draw on private sector investors for only 11% of their annual overall financing commitments. Their analysis of credit rating agency reports suggests that there is significant potential for MDBs to increase their leverage while still maintaining their AAA credit ratings. They estimate that collectively, the 13 MDBs focused on developing countries could increase the stock of development assets they finance by around $1.2 trillion, a 2.5-fold increase, without harming their current credit ratings.

Furthermore, if MDBs operated under an AA rating instead of AAA, their financing capacity would increase by a further $1–1.2 trillion, significantly boosting their development and financial impact.

Carbon markets

By putting a price on carbon, carbon markets create economic incentives for businesses and governments to invest in clean technologies and implement carbon pricing policies. They are also a source of revenue for government investments in net zero projects: in 2023, Emissions Trading Systems generated $74 billion in government revenues. Alongside the ETSs are voluntary carbon markets offering trading in ‘carbon credits’ issued by the developers of carbon removal and reduction schemes.

The authors argue that these markets can be made more attractive through:

• Linking the UK and EU ETSs as envisaged in the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement governing post-Brexit trade relations. This is also a necessary condition for exempting UK exports from the EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism.
• Stronger regulatory oversight, with clear rules on carbon credit usage, and a global standard for the financial accounting of certified carbon offset credits.
• Further integration, for example integrating the voluntary carbon markets with the established emissions trading systems, which would provide a strong pricing signal.

“Partnerships between banks, investors, and regulators offer a critical opportunity to channel funds into low-carbon technologies by de-risking through regulated schemes. Multilateral development banks (MDBs) can amplify their impact by leveraging resources without straining government budgets, helping to establish sustainable infrastructure platforms in developing countries. Governments play a key role in integrating carbon markets through mechanisms like ETS and GGRs, enhancing transparency, and market efficiency, and sending a strong price signal for decarbonization,” says Professor Raúl C. Rosales, Professor of Practice in Net Zero Asset Management at King’s College London.

Ever wished you could hit the pause button on ageing? At least one creature may do just that. Axolotls seem to halt one of the hallmarks of the process part way through their lives, a finding that could shed new light on ageing and regeneration.

Axolotls (Ambystoma mexicanum) belong to a group of amphibians called salamanders, which are famed for their astonishing powers of regeneration, such as regrowing amputated limbs. They also appear to age very little, a feature called negligible senescence.

Optimizing an investment portfolio to maximize returns while minimizing risk is the ultimate goal for investors and their advisers. However, there is no set path and challenges always arise. One such limitation is the high-dimensional, small-sample problem (HDSS). HDSS refers to a portfolio with a large number of assets but little historical data, leading to unreliable portfolio optimization and resulting in weak investment performance.

In research recently published, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s Chanaka Edirisinghe, Ph.D., Kay and Jackson Tai ’72 Senior Professor of Quantitative Finance, together with Jaehwan Jeong, Ph.D., associate professor at Radford University, has developed a data-driven method to improve portfolio selection in the context of HDSS. This work appears in an issue of The Journal of Portfolio Management, in honor of the “father of modern portfolio theory” and Nobel laureate Harry Markowitz.

Many portfolios use mean-variance (MV) optimization, which often results in excessive risk and portfolio fragmentation. To get around this, Edirisinghe and Jeong used cardinality control to restrict the number of assets, as well as a leverage constraint to control the amount of borrowing or short selling to help minimize risk. They also used norm constraints to help manage asset positions effectively. Finally, they used cross-validation to improve portfolio performance when applied to new, previously unseen data. Then, they tested their approach.

“We conducted a case study using large sets of stocks from the S&P 500 Index,” said Edirisinghe. “Our leverage-controlled sparse portfolio selection methodology significantly improved portfolio performance. The result is more manageability and decreased risk.”

“Professor Edirisinghe’s approach advances portfolio optimization,” said Liad Wagman, Ph.D., dean of Rensselaer’s Lally School of Management. “The integration of sparsity and leverage controls within a data-driven framework leads to better-performing portfolios.”

The skeletal remains of a senior officer of Sir John Franklin’s 1845 Northwest Passage expedition have been identified by researchers from the University of Waterloo and Lakehead University using DNA and genealogical analyses.

“Identification of a Senior Officer from Sir John Franklin’s Northwest Passage Expedition” by Stenton, Fratpietro and Park was published in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports.

In April of 1848 James Fitzjames of HMS Erebus helped lead 105 survivors from their ice-trapped ships in an attempt to escape the Arctic. None would survive. Since the mid-19th century, remains of dozens of them have been found around King William Island, Nunavut.

The identification was made possible by a DNA sample from a living descendant, which matched the DNA that was discovered at the archaeological site on King William Island where 451 bones from at least 13 Franklin sailors were found.

“We worked with a good quality sample that allowed us to generate a Y-chromosome profile, and we were lucky enough to obtain a match,” said Stephen Fratpietro of Lakehead’s Paleo-DNA lab.

Fitzjames is just the second of those 105 to be positively identified, joining John Gregory, engineer aboard HMS Erebus, whom the team identified in 2021.

“The identification of Fitzjames’ remains provides new insights about the expedition’s sad ending,” said Dr. Douglas Stenton, adjunct professor of anthropology at Waterloo.

In the 1850s Inuit told searchers they had seen evidence that survivors had resorted to cannibalism, shocking some Europeans. Those accounts were fully corroborated in 1997 by the late Dr. Anne Keenleyside who found cut marks on nearly one-quarter of the human bones at NgLj-2, proving that the bodies of at least four of the men who died there had been subject to cannibalism.

Fitzjames’ mandible is one of the bones exhibiting multiple cut marks, demonstrating that after his death his body was subject to cannibalism. “This shows that he predeceased at least some of the other sailors who perished, and that neither rank nor status was the governing principle in the final desperate days of the expedition as they strove to save themselves,” said Stenton.

19th century Europeans believed that all cannibalism was morally reprehensible, but the researchers emphasize that we now understand much more about what is known as survival or starvation cannibalism and can empathize with those forced to resort to it.

“It demonstrates the level of desperation that the Franklin sailors must have felt to do something they would have considered abhorrent,” said Dr. Robert Park, Waterloo anthropology professor.

“Ever since the expedition disappeared into the Arctic 179 years ago there has been widespread interest in its ultimate fate, generating many speculative books and articles and, most recently, a popular television miniseries which turned it into a horror story with cannibalism as one of its themes. Meticulous archaeological research like this shows that the true story is just as interesting, and that there is still more to learn,” said Park.

The remains of Fitzjames and the other sailors who perished with him now rest in a memorial cairn at the site with a commemorative plaque.

Descendants of members of the Franklin expedition are encouraged to contact Stenton. “We are extremely grateful to this family for sharing their history with us and for providing DNA samples, and welcome opportunities to work with other descendants of members of the Franklin expedition to see if their DNA can be used to identify other individuals.”

LGBTQ+ Americans experience widespread discrimination that impacts their physical and mental health—of the over 8% of U.S. adults who are members of the LGBTQ+ community, one in three report experiencing discrimination in the past year. Individuals who identify as transgender and nonbinary are exposed to more discrimination than their sexual minority counterparts, which is associated with worse health outcomes.

Minnesota and many other states have enacted policies meant to better protect LGBTQ+ people from discriminatory behavior. A new study from the University of Minnesota School of Public Health (SPH), published in Population Research and Policy Review, examines the efficacy of these policies.

Using survey data from the National Couples’ Health and Time Study, the research team explored whether protective, state-level, LGBTQ+ policies reduce interpersonal discrimination, particularly among transgender and nonbinary individuals.

The study found:

• Over 90% of transgender and nonbinary individuals have experienced discrimination, compared to 74% of cisgender sexual minorities and 73.2% of cisgender heterosexual individuals.
• Protective state-level LGBTQ+ policies significantly reduced instances of discrimination. States with more protections saw rates drop from 98% to 69.8% among transgender and nonbinary people.
• Cisgender sexual minorities and heterosexual individuals saw only minor reductions in discrimination in states with protective policies, indicating transgender and nonbinary individuals benefit most from these policies.

“The magnitude of discrimination faced by transgender and nonbinary individuals was both expected and alarming,” said Alex Bates, SPH researcher and lead author.

“What surprised us most was the significant impact that state-level protections have in reducing these harmful experiences. Our findings suggest that strengthening these policies—and resisting the push for anti-LGBTQ+ legislation—will be key to improving the well-being of this vulnerable population.”

Future research could explore the impact of these state-level policies on experiences of health care discrimination, mental health outcomes and how these stressors can lead to inflammation and negative health outcomes. The researchers also recommend more studies to consider the different experiences within the LGBTQ+ community to better understand how overlapping identities, such as race and gender, impact discrimination.

Ellsworth Avenue in Silver Spring, Md., sizzles on a summer evening: Residents stroll along its tree-lined sidewalks under the neon glow of upscale chain restaurants, retailers and a Whole Foods Market. Beyond the din of downtown is a different kind of sizzle: the intoxicating aroma of sliced meat frying in butter, garlic and onion—called tibs—wafting from one of many Ethiopian restaurants just outside the city center.

Many in Silver Spring’s Ethiopian population—one of the largest outside of Ethiopia—struggled to endure the redevelopment that spawned its flashy retail and entertainment district, and the rent hikes that followed. Now, they face new challenges with the construction of the state of Maryland’s light-rail Purple Line.

A new book released this week by University of Maryland Associate Professor Willow Lung-Amam asks the question: When a neighborhood is revitalized, who benefits? “The Right to Suburbia: Combating Gentrification on the Urban Edge” tells the story of people of color and immigrant communities fighting for their place in three rapidly developing American suburbs.

“I knew I wanted to write about this region, and I knew I wanted to write about it from the perspective of folks who were actually living here,” said Lung-Amam, who is director of UMD’s Small Business Anti-Displacement Network. “This is a story that’s been overlooked.”

Through a deep dive into Silver Spring and two other Maryland suburbs nestled along the edge of Washington, D.C—Wheaton and Langley Park—Lung-Amam reveals the history, politics and growing activism that has led to their varied yet interconnected fates. The book exposes the powerful influence of developers, government and white residents on the shaping of suburbs over a century and breaks down the complex process of gentrification, which uproots communities and culture during redevelopment.

But at its heart, “The Right to Suburbia” is about people: her in-laws, who worried at their Wheaton kitchen table about the future of their diverse neighborhood; the region’s Black residents, who have been systematically and serially displaced; and the growing new wave of suburban activists working for a voice in shaping their community’s future.

“Residents, small businesses and activists have learned from each other to build the tools that made each subsequent case more successful in pushing for new protections for vulnerable people and places,” said Lung-Amam.

Here are five takeaways from “The Right to Suburbia”:

Gentrification doesn’t just happen to residents—or in cities.

While scholars have examined gentrification and displacement in cities for decades, it has been poorly studied in suburbia, said Lung-Amam. The discourse around gentrification is largely residential, yet during her research on suburbs Lung-Amam saw that most of the impacts were on small businesses. “It matters that we’re talking about places other than urban communities because it broadens the way we talk about this phenomenon, who’s affected and what we can do about it.”

The history of suburbs’ racist development endures.

Restrictive covenants of the early 20th century created white enclaves around the D.C. area that forced Black people to communities that others deemed undesirable and treated as “dumping grounds” on the city’s outskirts, said Lung-Amam. Economic, legal and social shifts that later brought Black residents to these predominantly white areas spurred white flight and eventual disinvestment.

But it’s cyclical: As redevelopment makes some areas more appealing, the communities of color that have kept the neighborhood afloat often become targets for urban renewal and other disruptive policies. “Gentrification has historically followed Black and brown people wherever they go,” she said. “They weren’t in mind when these places were built, or when they were redeveloped.”

Transit can close doors.

When Metro opened a stop in Clarendon, Va., in 1979, the then-vibrant “Little Saigon”—launched by immigrants capitalizing on cheap rents offered during Metro’s construction—were quickly bought out or evicted by white developers with plans for a more upscale, dense shopping and business corridor. Forty years later, a similar scenario could play out in Langley Park, which will host one of the 21 Purple Line stops. “In other cases, people were reacting after the fact,” Lung-Amam said. “What I’ve learned from these cases is you have to start organizing early.”

Policy can make, and break, a community.

Tax credits, incentives and “upzoning,” which boosts density by changing zoning laws, are key to fast-tracking redevelopment; but without the right protections, these government tactics can harm the community already living there. “Planners often designate disinvested areas for the kind of development they would like to see, but we can’t do that at the expense of residents and businesses already in those places,” said Lung-Amam.

Suburban activists are ‘building the ship as it’s sailing.’

Unlike urban areas, where residents have had decades of experience organizing against displacement, suburbs don’t have the same legacy, playbook or tools, said Lung-Amam. But in researching her book, she has seen their ability over time to protect communities grow and evolve.

In Langley Park, organizations like UMD’s Purple Line Corridor Coalition have launched a “grass top” movement to engage with county and state leaders, developers, and local community organizations along the light rail corridor to prevent the displacement of vulnerable communities. “Organizing matters at every step and at many levels,” she said.