When environmental hazards strike, the damage is usually counted in numbers: how many people died, how many homes were destroyed, how many people were displaced, and how much money it will take to rebuild.

But not all losses and damage can be measured in financial terms. Some of the most profound impacts of climate-induced disasters are emotional, cultural and social, affecting how people feel, relate to each other and think about their world.

Read more: Tropical cyclone Idai: The storm that knew no boundaries

We are scientists who research environmental hazards, climate change impacts and development practice. We wanted to find out what recovery meant for survivors of Tropical Cyclone Idai, which hit eastern Zimbabwe’s Chimanimani District for five days in 2019, turning mountains into mudslides and leaving hundreds of people dead.

We interviewed community members, including survivors and local leaders, and held discussions with government officials and aid organisations. We also spent time in affected communities, observing daily life and listening to how people spoke about the disaster and its aftermath. This allowed us to capture not just what had happened, but what it meant to those who’d lived through it.

Our research found that survivors of climate disasters didn’t only speak of losing their houses and other material goods. They also talked of grief, dislocation, loss of places of cultural significance, and a lingering sense that life would never return to what it once was.

Read more: Cyclone Idai is over – but its health effects will be felt for a long time

These experiences are harder to quantify, but no less important. If recovery efforts overlook these less visible losses, they leave deep social and emotional wounds unaddressed.

Disaster recovery is not just about rebuilding material objects or infrastructure. It is about rebuilding lives.

The hidden losses

Tropical Cyclone Idai affected over 3 million people across Malawi, Mozambique and Zimbabwe. In many places, it destroyed whole communities. In eastern Zimbabwe’s Chimanimani District hundreds died, many people went missing, and thousands were displaced from their ancestral lands.

The cost of the economic losses and damage was more than US$2 billion. This amount does not include the non-economic losses – the damage to people’s sense of belonging, identity, relationships and emotional well-being that cannot be measured by money.

Our findings show that Cyclone Idai caused four major types of non-economic loss:

Loss of life and lasting trauma

The cyclone caused floods in the middle of the night, while people were sleeping, leaving them little chance to escape to higher ground before their houses collapsed or were washed away. Many families lost loved ones and said that grief remained a constant presence. A survivor told us:

What changed most is that we were a big family, but we lost two kids due to the cyclone. That alone has changed our lives and has affected us very much. We can hardly move forward because of these bad memories that we still have.

More than two years after the cyclone, some people said they still lived with injuries that prevented them from working or living as they once did. Mental health impacts, including anxiety, insomnia and post-traumatic stress, are widespread yet rarely addressed in formal recovery efforts.

Loss of sense of place and belonging

Displacement was one of the most significant consequences of the tropical cyclone. Families were moved to temporary camps and, later, resettled in new areas that were often very different from their original homes.

For example, people who had survived by farming and selling bananas were moved to a government housing compound (Runyararo village), where low rainfall makes it difficult to grow the fruit.

Read more: Rwanda has moved people into model ‘green’ villages: is life better there?

Their new area also has no tarred roads or electricity, yet people who had lived in urban and peri-urban areas were moved there. For many, this meant more than just relocation. It involved losing connection to ancestral land, familiar environments and ways of life. As one survivor described, it felt like being uprooted not just physically, but emotionally and culturally.

Breakdown of social networks

Before the cyclone, communities in Chimanimani were tightly connected through kinship, shared histories and mutual support systems. The disaster fractured these networks by separating families and neighbours. One survivor said:

We lost our younger daughter to the tropical cyclone. The older one is now living with my parents in another village, as we no longer have space … Since then, we have been helpless.

Well-intentioned aid agencies had various ways of describing the cyclone survivors – as “victims”, “directly affected people” or “beneficiaries or non-beneficiaries of disaster aid”. Our research found that using different labels for the survivors created new social tensions within communities that were already under strain.

Disruption of cultural and spiritual life

Tropical Cyclone Idai also disrupted cultural practices and belief systems. Sacred sites were destroyed, and burial rituals, which are deeply significant in local traditions, could not always be properly observed. Bodies were handled hastily due to damaged mortuaries, the absence of electricity, and acute labour shortages.

Some people were buried in pairs, which is against the Ndau culture of the area. A cultural leader said:

It was not proper to bury people who were not related, who did not share a totem, in one grave.

Breaking with established burial customs created a sense of spiritual unease and disturbed the moral and cultural order that helps people make sense of life and death.

A more human approach to disaster response

Climate change has been shown to intensify extreme weather events like Cyclone Idai, increasing both their severity and impacts. This is why disaster policies matter, including what governments and agencies do after extreme weather catastrophes.

Our research shows that disaster response must go beyond financial compensation and physical reconstruction. It must support survivors with the emotional and non-material dimensions of well-being.

Read more: Loss and damage: Who is responsible when climate change harms the world’s poorest countries?

Most importantly, it should involve affected communities in decision-making, ensuring that their experiences and priorities are recognised.

This is also a matter of justice. Whose losses are acknowledged? Whose voices are heard, and who gets support?

The stories from Chimanimani remind us that extreme weather and climate disasters tear apart the very fabric of life. When attention is focused mainly on what can be seen and measured, other forms of suffering remain invisible. But these “invisible” losses shape how people recover.

Read more: Mental health distress in the wake of Bangladesh cyclone shows the devastation of climate-related loss and damage

Emotional trauma can affect livelihoods. Loss of social networks can weaken resilience. Disconnection from place and culture can make it harder to rebuild a meaningful life.

Listening to these experiences is essential for building recovery efforts that are both effective and humane.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Nigerians have no reliable way of scrutinising the national budget. The citizen’s portal of the Nigerian Budget Office of the Federation is often offline, and when it is online, it is highly technical and difficult for ordinary citizens to understand.

Data on the Nigerian budget sourced elsewhere online is also frequently hard to find and incomplete. As a result, the Nigerian budget is treated like a government secret and Nigerian citizens are unable to effectively scrutinise the government’s income and expenditure decisions.

My research shows that this disrupts the social contract between the citizens and the government of Nigeria and creates an opportunity for corruption.

The World Justice Project estimates that corruption has cost the Nigerian economy more than US$550 billion since 1960. And a report by the accounting firm PwC shows that corruption in Nigeria could cost up to 37% of the nation’s GDP by 2030 if it’s not dealt with immediately.

I am an economist whose research focuses on poverty and corruption reduction. In a recent paper, I show how secrecy fuels corruption in the management of Nigeria’s finances. I set out how citizen monitoring and digital engagement can enhance transparency and accountability.

I also identify some obstacles to making this a reality in Nigeria. These include technical capacity limitations, weak enforcement mechanisms, and political resistance.

To overcome these challenges, the government must invest in digital infrastructure. Fostering civic engagement and independent oversight, too, can ensure sustained accountability and effective implementation.

Budgetary secrecy and corruption in Nigeria

The Open Budget Survey is produced by the International Budget Partnership. It provides the main global assessment of budget accountability in the world and evaluates:

• public participation: formal and meaningful opportunities for the public to engage in the national budget process

• oversight: institutions such as the legislature, national audit office and independent bodies

• transparency: comprehensive budget information, made available to the public in a timely and accessible manner.

Nigeria performed poorly in the 2023 survey. It scored 19/100 in public participation, 61/100 in oversight, and 31/100 in transparency. It ranked 92 out of 125 countries. This was below several African peers and the global average of 45.

This marks a decline from 2021. Nigeria scored higher then in public participation (26) and transparency (45), while oversight has remained unchanged.

The drop is largely due to the government’s failure to publish key fiscal reports on time. These include in-year reports and mid-year reviews.

The source of the problem

My research found that government budgetary secrecy and corruption in Nigeria have historical roots. They stem from the era of colonial taxation, when colonialists collected taxes but didn’t invest in the people’s wellbeing.

But these bad practices have intensified since independence. About 47% of Nigeria’s 232.68 million people live in multidimensional poverty. This is a clear sign that Nigeria is not spending its resources wisely. Development, job creation and service delivery are all lacking.

My research found that even when funds are budgeted, secrecy facilitates fraud in a number of ways.

The first way is through vaguely specified budgeted projects. Many projects are listed without quantity or location. They use terms like “empowerment and sensitisation” or “provision of infrastructure”.

Secondly, through the budgeting of non-beneficial initiatives. Nigeria’s approved federal budget for 2025 included US$1.5 billion for health, US$2.5 billion for education and US$1.7 billion for agriculture. However, a whopping US$17 billion was allocated for the presidency.

Thirdly, through inflated figures for budgeted items. For example, the purchase of a car for ₦375 million (US$278,000).

Fourth, through the under-delivery and abandonment of projects.

Nigeria’s budgetary corruption is reinforced by a complex three-tier system of budgeting at the federal, state, and local government levels.

• At the federal level, the budget is prepared by the executive (president and ministries). It is coordinated by the Budget Office, approved by the National Assembly, and enacted as the “Appropriation Act”. However, limited and delayed fiscal disclosures enable budget padding, vague allocations, and weak expenditure tracking.

• At the state level, budgets are prepared by governors and state ministries. They are approved by the State Houses of Assembly, focusing on state needs. However, inconsistent publication of budgets and reports at this level makes it difficult to monitor spending and creates room for misallocation.

• At the local level, budgets are prepared by local government officials. However, they are heavily influenced by state governments and approved by local councils. Here, a lack of financial autonomy and state control over funds leads to diversion, ghost projects, and minimal accountability to citizens.

The solution

The Nigerian government says it also has an Open Treasury Portal that provides transparency in its budgeting system. My research shows that this platform also suffers from technical glitches, incomplete data, and low enforcement.

BudgIT, a Nigerian civic technology organisation, uses data visualisation and storytelling to try to make the government budget more accessible to citizens, but its impact is also limited by insufficient data availability.

Advances in information technology make it possible for Nigeria to build a real-time online government budget system that the public can access and monitor. This would cover financial statements and reports across federal, state and local governments. Nigerians could also use a system like this to vote on projects the government should focus on.

South Korea has a similar model. Known as the Digital Budget and Accounting System (dBrain), it is a fully integrated system for budget planning, execution and monitoring of government finances across agencies in real time.

Another country, Georgia, has an e-budget transparency system. It provides real-time budget execution data and is integrated with the goverment’s e-procurement and treasury systems.

The US also has the USAspending.gov service, which tracks federal spending in real time and provides publicly accessible and searchable data on what the federal government spends.

Importantly, real-time online budget monitoring enables quick detection of corruption, but its effectiveness depends on clear and consistently enforced penalties.

What needs to be done

An online government budget system which the public could monitor would improve transparency and accountability in Nigeria. Technologies such as Enterprise Resource Planning systems and Integrated Financial Management Information systems enable real-time budget tracking and integrated financial management. Blockchain can further strengthen transparency through secure records. Also, cloud computing can improve accessibility and data security.

Data analytics and AI can enhance forecasting, automate monitoring, and improve decision-making. This would make budgeting more efficient, transparent and responsive.

The Nigeria Tax Administration Act has introduced a digital tax system requiring Nigerian taxpayers to keep accurate transaction records.

The Nigerian government aims to use this to improve efficiency, accuracy and transparency in its tax system. The government should implement a similar system for all its own financial transactions.

Tolu Olarewaju does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Across Africa and beyond, education systems are shifting to curricula designed to build critical thinking and problem-solving skills.

Competency-based curricula put learners at the centre. They are meant to prepare students for a rapidly changing world, where success depends on the ability to adapt, think critically and solve complex problems.

Unlike traditional curricula, which often emphasise covering content and memorising facts, competency-based curricula focus on how students apply what they learn in real-world situations. For example, instead of simply recalling scientific definitions, students might be asked to use a concept to explain how diseases spread.

Much of the discussion around this shift in education has focused on familiar challenges, including teacher preparedness, availability of learning materials, and how faithfully the curriculum is implemented.

While these factors are important, they do not fully explain why reforms often fall short of their intended goals, particularly in improving how students learn and develop competencies.

In a recent study I co-authored, published in Discover Education, we reviewed evidence from different countries, including Ghana, Kenya and Vietnam, about what is undermining learner-centred education. We found that the main constraint to reforms in teaching is assessment systems. Teaching and testing systems are mismatched. While curricula promote skills like critical thinking and problem-solving, national exams want learners to memorise facts and follow routine procedures. So that’s what teachers concentrate on.

The misalignment is holding students back from success: being able to apply what they learn in real-world situations. This ability is essential for further education, employment and everyday decision-making.

Exams shape what counts

In our study, we set out to understand why learner-centred reforms, which are central to competency-based education, often fail to produce meaningful changes in classroom practice. We reviewed research and policy evidence from multiple countries across Africa, Asia and beyond, focusing on how national assessment systems interact with curriculum reforms.

We found a pattern: high-stakes exams do more than assess learning; they shape what teachers teach and what students focus on.

Our analysis shows that this creates a “double bind” for teachers. They are expected to promote critical thinking and problem-solving, while also preparing students for exams that reward recall and procedural accuracy. In practice, this often leads to surface-level reforms. New methods are introduced but teaching remains focused on memorisation.

In many African countries, examinations such as the West African Senior School Certificate Examination and Kenya’s National Secondary School Exams exert strong pressure on teachers.

Read more: Ghana’s colonial past and assessment use means education prioritises passing exams over what students actually learn – this must change

As a result, learning narrows to what can be tested. This limits the impact of reform.

In effect, exams become the real curriculum, regardless of what official documents say.

Rethinking what assessment does

The stakes are high.

If competency-based education is to succeed, assessment systems need to be rethought, not just adjusted at the margins.

This does not mean abandoning national exams. Rather, it means redefining what they are designed to measure.

Read more: Should Kenya abolish all school exams? Expert sets out five reasons why they’re still useful

Assessment should focus less on what students can recall and more on what they can do with what they know. This could include tasks that require analysis, problem-solving and application in real-world contexts.

It also means moving beyond a single high-stakes test. Combining national examinations with school-based assessments (such as projects or portfolios) can provide a more complete picture of learning.

The challenge is to do this in ways that remain fair, reliable and scalable across entire education systems.

A practical way forward

In our study, we propose a practical way to address this misalignment. We call it the LEARN model (Learner-centred assessment design; Evidence of competence; Adaptive to context; Reflective and feedback oriented; Nationally relevant and scalable). It offers a system-level framework for policymakers and education systems to redesign assessment so that it supports curriculum reforms.

Read more: Ghana’s high school system sets many students up for failure: it needs a rethink

The model is built around five ideas:

• designing assessments that reflect how students learn, using tasks that require applying knowledge rather than simple recall

• focusing on evidence of competence rather than recall, emphasising what students can do with what they know

• allowing flexibility to adapt to different classroom and national contexts

• integrating feedback into assessment so that it supports learning, instead of just measuring it

• ensuring that systems remain nationally relevant while still being practical to implement at scale.

The model shifts the focus from standardising test formats to aligning what is assessed with what matters.

Our model shows it is possible to balance two goals that are often seen as competing: maintaining national standards while supporting meaningful learning.

Frank Quansah does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu, popularly known as Bobi Wine, is a Ugandan music star and political leader currently in exile. Framing his movement as a “people power” struggle by young Ugandans for democratic transition, he is a vocal critic of the regime.

After a disputed election in January won by long time ruler Yoweri Museveni, his home was besieged by soldiers, and he managed to escape with the help of his supporters. He fled to the US.

Before politics, Bobi Wine was known as a musician. He is one of east Africa’s major artists, having built a huge fan base with his socially conscious reggae and dancehall songs.

Read more: Bobi Wine’s decision to flee Uganda points to a shrinking landscape for opposition politics

During his recent tour of Harvard University, where he met students and members of the Ugandan diaspora, I had the opportunity to talk with him. As a scholar of African literature, I was keen to know about the stories and ideas that sustain his conviction.

Listening to him was a reminder that political imagination is often rooted in artistic and intellectual traditions. He continues to draw on some of these traditions as he navigates the demands of public life.

Tinashe Mushakavanhu: You come from Kampala, a city that was once a gathering place for African writers and intellectuals. Which writers – Ugandan, African, or beyond – have most influenced your thinking?

Bobi Wine: (Nigerian novelist) Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart. It was the first book I ever read cover to cover, and it made me fall in love with African writers. I was also inspired by writers like (Kenyan author and academic) Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, and (Ugandan surgeon and author) Tumusiime Rushedge.

Of course, I must add that we do not have that same space anymore, because many of our writers face repercussions. Recently, a great writer called Joe Nam was gunned down in his house after he published a book called The Day Museveni Goes: Reflections, Questions, Fears, Hope. We strongly believe it was because of the book.

Dr Olive Kobusingye’s book The Correct Line? Uganda Under Museveni was also banned. She is sister of the opposition stalwart Kizza Besigye.

Read more: Ngũgi wa Thiong’o and the African literary revolution

So it is tough. I mean, you cannot find these works anywhere, but the revolutionary and stubborn spirit keeps leading us to where we want to go, and keeps us giving all we have, even when we might otherwise have given up. It keeps us speaking even when it is dangerous.

And also, online has helped a great deal, people can now get books from the internet. Writers have been constantly targeted and killed, and this goes back to the days of Idi Amin, when writers were brazenly persecuted and killed. I was, and will continue to be, influenced by great writers and great books.

Tinashe Mushakavanhu: You studied theatre; who are your favourite playwrights?

Bobi Wine: My favourite playwrights include (Nigeria’s) Wole Soyinka and all my teachers at Makerere.

Read more: Wole Soyinka at 90: writer and activist for justice

Tinashe Mushakavanhu: As a graduate of Makerere University in Uganda, home to the historic 1962 Conference of African Writers of English Expression, how do you see yourself in relation to that literary legacy? Are there Ugandan writers whose work you feel particularly connected to today?

Bobi Wine: Today, it is not only about writers and literature; it has largely broadened. It is about poets, comics, visual artists, singers, and especially rappers, who are the philosophers of the people.

I always wanted to be a writer myself, but studying our people taught me something: they don’t read as much as before – they listen, they dance, they gather around sound. So I meet them where they are, in the studio, on the stage, on the dance floor, and that’s where I deliver my message.

Tinashe Mushakavanhu: Is there a book or books you find yourself returning to, one that continues to offer new meaning at different moments in your life; perhaps one that is always in your carry-on bag or on your bedside table?

Bobi Wine: Betrayed by My Leader, written by John Kazoora, one of (Ugandan president Yoweri) Museveni’s former comrades, who also died under suspicious circumstances. He writes about the hope and disappointment of the armed struggle that brought Museveni to power. He was a grounded man; he was a revolutionary. It is this book that touches me most deeply. It shows me the pain of trust, but also reminds me of what can happen.

Tinashe Mushakavanhu: As both a political leader and a musician, how do you see the relationship between music, literature and political expression in your work?

Bobi Wine: Music and literature are not separate, they move together. Historically, they go back to the days of slavery, the days of colonialism, the days of the armed resistance against dictatorship, music has always carried the message.

It is art, it is music, it is the recital of powerful ideas and spoken word that carries memory, protest and truth. It is the most effective way of carrying messages from one generation to another, from one group to another, from one region to another. So you can’t separate them.

No wonder art is now also being used against the people, to the extent that artists are bought and paid for. They’re compromised to change their values. I am a musician, and my music is banned in Uganda. Why? Because of the effectiveness of music.

Tinashe Mushakavanhu: Finally, if you were to create a short playlist to accompany a reading list – songs that speak to the same themes as the books that inspire you – what would be on it?

Bobi Wine:

Three Little Birds – Bob Marley

Buffalo Soldier – Bob Marley

Soweto (Say No to Apartheid) – Peter Tosh

Everything is Gonna Be Alright – Bobi Wine

Freedom – Bobi Wine

They Don’t Care About Us – Michael Jackson

Gimme Hope Jo’anna – Eddie Grant

Tinashe Mushakavanhu does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

What kind of education best helps students learn math?

In the province of Ontario, the most recent provincial standardized results (2024–25) show modest improvement in elementary mathematics achievement, but overall performance remains uneven, particularly in the junior grades.

Provincially, 64 per cent of Grade 3 students met the provincial standard, up from 61 per cent the previous year. In contrast, only 51 per cent of Grade 6 students met the standard, indicating that about half of students are not yet achieving expected levels by the end of the junior division.

Student attitudes toward mathematics also decline with age: while 67 per cent of Grade 3 students reported liking mathematics, this dropped to 48 per cent in Grade 6.

These results suggest gradual recovery following COVID-19 pandemic disruptions, but they also point to the necessity for more work to be done for both teachers and students to develop a deeper understanding of the 2020 math curriculum. This curriculum incorporated new priorities like social–emotional learning, coding, mathematical modelling and financial literacy.

Read more: 6 changes in Ontario’s not-so-basic new elementary math curriculum

My research has examined Ontario math education taught by generalist elementary school teachers in dialogue with Chinese mathematics instruction taught by specialist math teachers. Grounded in this work, I believe we should firstly be proud of Ontario math education instead of criticizing it.

This research was part of a partnership grant project from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, with education researchers Shijing Xu and Michael Connelly.

Dialogue between teachers

In our research with a “Sister School Network” project, generalist elementary teachers from a Windsor, Ont. public school and mathematics specialist teachers from a Chongqing, China primary school participated in monthly online knowledge-sharing meetings.

At the meetings, teachers shared and compared curriculum. They offered demonstrations on topics such as fractions, multiplication and estimation, and discussed student learning and parent engagement.

From 2016 to 2019, Xu and I co-ordinated these monthly exchanges and organized visits of Canadian teachers to Chongqing as well as Chinese teachers’ visits to Windsor.

Other sister schools that are part of Xu and Connelly’s project include Shanghai-Toronto, Shanghai-ChangChun and Windsor-Beijing.

Special education, professional autonomy

Chinese mathematics specialist teachers deeply appreciated the strengths of Ontario’s generalist model — particularly the comprehensive learning support provided to students with diverse needs and the high level of professional autonomy granted to teachers.

One Chinese participant with more than 20 years of mathematics teaching experience reflected:

“I wish we could have a special education support system like in Canada.”

Such perspectives highlight a key strength of Ontario’s elementary generalist system — one that educators in the province can take pride in. In an interview I did with mathematics education researcher Christine Suurtamm, whose research has engaged international perspectives on mathematics education and Canadian teachers’ practice, Suurtamm noted:

“I think the idea that we have great faith in teachers’ professional judgment to work with a curriculum, and to determine the best way to sequence and select the kinds of activities that address the curriculum expectations and meet their students’ needs, is a real benefit to our students in Ontario. I think that is something we should be proud of.”

Value of working with a specialist

In my study, a Grade 5 Canadian teacher also appreciated the opportunity to co-plan and co-teach with a Chinese mathematics specialist teacher. In interviews, the teacher emphasized a deep appreciation for this collaborative approach and expressed the hope that Canadian schools could provide more structured opportunities for such professional collaboration.

In my interview with Suurtamm, she also noted it would be worthwhile if Ontario teachers had more time to develop their math lessons in collaboration with other teachers.

In 2023, Ontario announced funds to double the number of school mathematics coaches. Research about how and where the coaching model has been implemented, how teachers are relying on it and its real effects in the classroom would help gain insight into the efficacy of this approach.

Challenges with Ontario math education

My research also suggested ways Ontario mathematics education might learn from Chinese mathematics learning.

Two key challenges emerge in Ontario mathematics teaching. First, teacher collaboration is limited. Unlike Chinese mathematics specialists who routinely engage in co-planning, lesson observation and collective reflection, Canadian generalist teachers have few structured opportunities for sustained collaboration, despite a clear desire for it.

Second, the consolidation of mathematical learning seen in Ontario is relatively weak. One Chinese math specialist teacher described teaching mathematics as a dynamic balance between Fang (放) — encouraging open exploration and the use of multiple strategies — and Shou (收) — a structured consolidation phase. In this phase, key ideas are clarified, connections are synthesized and methods are formalized.

Ontario educators and policymakers may consider these insights in ways that are responsive to local situations.

Curriculum and approaches evolve

Overall, my collaborative research views improving mathematics teaching and curricula as an ongoing and progressive process.

As Suurtamm notes, curriculum changes should be approached as an evolution rather than a revolution. Changes build thoughtfully on existing foundations rather than seeking to replace them wholesale.

Before pursuing new directions, it is important to reflect on and recognize the strengths that already characterize Ontario’s mathematics education system.

Chenkai Chi receives funding from SSHRC Doctoral Fellowship, Ontario Graduate Scholarship and Mitacs Globalink Fellowship.

For decades, psychology and neuroscience have suggested that if humans and animals naturally try to make as little effort as possible, it is because putting in the effort is not enjoyable.

Another possible interpretation: is that it’s not the actual effort that individuals avoid, it’s the effort wasted – effort that leads you nowhere or whose benefits do not justify putting in the effort. This vision is explored in a recent article I co-wrote with Roy Baumeister at Harvard University, Guido Gendolla at the University of Geneva, and Michel Audiffren from the University of Poitiers and published in 2026 in Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews.

Let me explain:

How did we come to pinpoint that it’s effort-wasting that people avoid rather than actual effort?

To support our thesis, we conducted a critical, two-pronged synthesis of the scientific literature. First looking at child development. We thought that, if the effort was intrinsically unpleasant, effort rejection should be observed very early in development.

Infants and young children do not show any spontaneous aversion to effort: they engage in it freely, associate pleasure with satisfaction, and only learn how to spare their efforts gradually. The example of 10-month-olds is particularly striking: after watching an adult persevere in a difficult task, they themselves redouble their efforts to solve a problem.

Later on, at around 6 years old, children smile more after achieving something difficult than when something is easy – as if the acutal resistance involved added value to their success. If effort were intrinsically aversive, none of this would be possible.

Secondly, we focused on studies of the “least effort principle” in animals and adults. The preference for the least costly path in terms of effort emerges only when the rewards are strictly equivalent – and disappears as soon as the benefits justify the investment.

Better still, several studies show that people prefer to actively engage in a task rather than remain passive, and that busy people are happier than idle people, even when they are forced to be active.

Why is this so important?

This shift in perspective is transforming our understanding of human motivation. It makes it possible to solve what some call the “paradox of effort”: if there is indeed a biological law of “least effort”, then how can we explain why millions of people voluntarily engage in demanding activities such as extreme sports, learning an instrument, lengthy studies – and find them enjoyable?

If effort is perceived as a neutral cost (i.e. neither positively nor negatively balanced), comparable to spending money, then it becomes logical that people agree to put in the effort when it pays off.

This approach reinstates human beings as agents capable of evaluating and making decisions, rather than as an organism perpetually battling against a biological repulsion to action. It also makes it possible to better distinguish between ordinary situations of disengagement – when faced with something deemed unfavourable – and pathological cases, where a real aversion to effort may arise.

In the second case, such resistance to effort is based on well-identified neurobiological mechanisms, notably a reduced activity of the dopaminergic system.

Dopamine plays a central role in motivation in this respect: it strengthens the sense of reward and stimulates the pursuit of goals. When dopamine is lacking, effort becomes truly unpleasant and the desire to engage withers away.

What should be the next steps for this research?

Several questions remain open.

It is still unclear in what conditions some people develop a real aversion to effort and which neurobiological mechanisms are involved. Dopamine function is often cited, but research has mainly focused on situations involving external rewards. However, few studies examine the intrinsic motivations behind actually seeking effort for the sake of it.

One practical question still stands: what if, rather than seeking to make tasks less burdensome in schools, at work, and in care sectors – we primarily sought to make them more justified and useful in the eyes of those who are required to do them? This could make all the difference.

The Research Brief is a short, three-minute take on interesting academic work with context and commentary from the academics themselves.

A weekly e-mail in English featuring expertise from scholars and researchers. It provides an introduction to the diversity of research coming out of the continent and considers some of the key issues facing European countries. Get the newsletter!

Nathalie André ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.

When delegates gathered for COP30 in Belém, Brazil in November 2025, they scrutinized various sectors of the global economy for their contributions to rising greenhouse gases. Agriculture, aviation, steel, cement — all were on the table. One topic not discussed was war.

This isn’t a minor oversight. Militaries are significant contributors to greenhouse gas emissions. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has generated an estimated 311 million tonnes of what’s known as CO₂ equivalent, comparable to the combined annual emissions of Belgium, New Zealand, Austria and Portugal. CO₂ equivalent is the metric used to compare the warming impact of various greenhouse gases to carbon dioxide.

Recently published research calculated that the first 15 months of Israel’s war in Gaza generated more than 33 million tonnes of CO₂ equivalent, comparable to the combined 2023 annual emissions of Costa Rica and Slovenia.

In February 2026, Israel and the United States launched a war against Iran, joining a long list of other conflicts where emissions go uncounted in global inventories.

These are massive emissions, and they are generated with no formal mechanism to record, report or attribute them, and no accountability for the climate costs that affect people in conflict zones and far beyond.

A recent article by Neta Crawford, a researcher with the Cost of War project at Brown University, highlights how armed forces, militarization and war fuel climate change. She argues that military emissions and conflict-related emissions remain undercounted, even though they undermine efforts to mitigate climate change.

The military emissions gap

Estimates suggest militaries and their supply chains account for approximately 5.5 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions, which is enough to make them the world’s fourth largest emitter if counted as a country. And that figure only covers peacetime.

This is what researchers call the military emissions gap: the difference in emissions between what governments report and what their armed forces actually emit.

The problem starts with the rules. Under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), countries have been exempt from fully reporting military emissions since the Kyoto Protocol negotiations in the 1990s. The United States successfully lobbied for the exclusion on national security grounds.

The 2015 Paris Agreement introduced voluntary reporting. However, as a 2025 briefing from the Conflict and Environment Observatory and Griffith University made clear, the result is a system that is “patchy, incomplete or missing altogether.”

The top three military spenders — the U.S., China and Russia — either submit no data or incomplete, non-disaggregated figures. This is a structural blind spot that excludes one of the most carbon-intensive sectors from meaningful accountability.

What wars cost the climate

Crawford’s study on Gaza provides a comprehensive account of the war’s full carbon cycle. It found that direct combat emissions — jets, rockets, artillery, military vehicles — account for just 1.3 million of the 33.2 million tonnes of CO₂ equivalent.

The vast majority, more than 31 million tonnes, are projected to come from the reconstruction of destroyed infrastructure: nearly 450,000 apartments, over 3,000 kilometres of roads, schools, hospitals and water systems. Rebuilding what war destroys is, climatically speaking, the biggest act of war of all.

A report on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine by the Initiative on GHG Accounting of War found that direct combat emissions constitute 37 per cent out of total emissions between February 2022 and 2026. The war has ignited thousands of fires in forests and wetlands, accounting for 23 per cent of its total carbon footprint.

Russia’s attacks on electrical infrastructure have further released sulphur hexafluoride, a greenhouse gas 24,000 times more potent than CO₂, from high-voltage switching gear. And the rerouting of civilian aircraft around Ukrainian and Russian airspace has added an estimated 20 million extra tonnes of CO₂ equivalent compared to pre-invasion flight paths.

In Iran, it is estimated that the U.S.-Israel war has unleashed over five million tonnes of CO₂ equivalent — largely from infrastructure destruction and energy-related impacts.

None of this appears in any country’s reports on emissions to the UNFCCC.

What needs to change

In July 2025, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) delivered an advisory opinion establishing that states have binding obligations to assess, report and mitigate harms to the climate system. In a separate declaration, ICJ judge Sarah Cleveland stated that those obligations extend to harms resulting from armed conflicts and other military activities.

The UN General Assembly has called for Russia to compensate Ukraine for all damages resulting from its invasion. When wars of aggression are launched, the emissions generated in fighting them, surviving them and rebuilding belong on the aggressor’s carbon ledger. When Russia invaded Ukraine, it generated a climate debt on behalf of the entire planet. The same can be said of other aggressors.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is the UN body responsible for assessing the science related to climate change. The IPCC is currently in its seventh assessment cycle, with reports expected in late 2029.

This assessment cycle must include a dedicated report for conflict emissions covering infrastructure destruction, fighting and post-conflict reconstruction. The UNFCCC must make reporting military emissions mandatory and develop a framework for attributing conflict emissions under its Enhanced Transparency Framework.

Civil society and academia have already done the hard work of showing it can be done. Organizations like the Conflict and Environment Observatory have built methodologies from scratch, using open-source data. The science exists. What’s lacking is the political will to enshrine it in global climate governance.

The richest countries spend roughly 30 times more on their armed forces than they contribute in climate finance to developing countries. Global military spending has reached a record $2.7 trillion. This is more than the total $2.2 trillion invested globally in clean energy in 2025.

As conflicts proliferate, the world is committing to an ever-larger unaccounted carbon liability. The climate finance gap is also likely to get worse as countries cut international development aid to direct funds to higher military spending.

Every degree of warming we are trying to avoid is undermined by wars. Accounting for conflict emissions is a vital way to make climate science whole.

This article was co-authored by researchers who are part of the Accelerating Community Energy Transformation initiative: Curran Crawford, Basma Majerbi, Madeleine McPherson (University of Victoria) and Samaneh Shahgaldi (Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières).

Tamara Krawchenko does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated and brought into focus the ongoing disproportionate burden on mothers when it comes to household logistics, child care and financial inequity. It also revealed just how deeply embedded and structurally reinforced that burden is.

When labour that had previously been a shared social responsibility shifted into individual households, the load fell mainly to women. But perhaps even more important is that the true impact of this burden was invisible — even to women themselves.

Data over three years, from 2020 to 2023 — the height of the pandemic — laid bare the reality of a poorly scaffolded social structure. What had been seen as informal or “natural” for women to take on was, in fact, an uneven distribution of labour and responsibility.

That reality has clear economic effects. Canadian women earn approximately 69 per cent of the average salary of men. Mothers’ salaries also decrease by 49 per cent in the year after a child is born and 34 per cent 10 years later, while fathers’ salaries are largely unaffected.

This disparity — often referred to as the motherhood gap or child penalty — increases over time, crosses generations and is rooted in how societies value and distribute care work.

Studying families during COVID-19

Even before the pandemic, women were often responsible for the majority of housework and child care.

This was the status quo when COVID-19 arrived, as social isolation regulations increased family mental-health concerns while simultaneously decreasing social support.

Between January 2021 and August 2023, qualitative data was collected through semi-structured interviews and focus groups that included 113 people — social work students and professionals from King’s University College at Western University’s School of Social Work and the local school board — to examine the impact of COVID-19 on families who participated in the first three years of our Support and Aid to Families Electronically (SAFE) program.

Participants were asked how families were impacted during COVID-19 and the associated restrictions. We did not expect the disproportionate cost of these increased household responsibilities to be invisible.

Our social systems position women, particularly mothers, as the primary load-bearing point, shouldering a concentrated burden within families. When the already inadequate scaffolding of social structures is removed, as it was during COVID-19, the pressure is too concentrated. Policies, social expectations and workplace culture reinforce these imbalances.

Inequality hiding in plain sight

There were stories of mothers juggling working from home with children’s daily needs, balancing in-person work without child care and facing unemployment and financial peril. After each story, and among other questions, we asked if they thought any of this was related to their gender.

Overwhelmingly, the women said, “No.”

The unequal burden of the COVID-19 pandemic on women was evident in the new roles they were required to undertake, the stress associated with these roles and the psychological and emotional impact of these increased expectations.

However, the concentrated weight of this load was not recognized by those bearing it.

The participants in our study did not identify the stories they shared — of job loss, of being an in-home caregiver (daycare provider, food preparer, entertainer, social support) or of providing mental-health case management and support when everything, including in-school learning, closed — as being connected to the fact that they are women.

The responses revealed how deeply gendered expectations are internalized, framed as circumstance or coincidence rather than inequality.

For example, some of the women said they took on more of the household burden simply because they happened to be the ones who were home during the day, while others said they took on more because they were the one working outside of the home during the day. One participant said:

“Whoever was at home dealing with [our] three children, [they’re] not really doing any of the household stuff. And that just happened to be my husband who was always home. [I would] come home [after having] worked, I now deal with kids and dinner, and then I’m also doing all of the household things. This was burdensome, but I don’t really think it was because I [am a woman].”

Even when the cost of this burden was clear, the fact that it was gendered remained hidden. Another said:

“I don’t think I closed down the business because of being a woman. It was just a lot to handle. It was just draining on a day-to-day.”

It was understood that if women are unable to bear the load, foundational social structures could fracture, as one mother observed:

“My mental health had the greatest impact on the mental health and emotional regulation of the entire household.”

The cost of ignoring the burden

There are profound positives to motherhood, and conceding the need for equity and balance does not contradict them. Rather, acknowledging the disproportionate responsibilities related to household well-being, child care, education and financial equity validates women’s struggle to keep up. It also challenges internalized dominant messages for all of us.

The mental health and educational impact of COVID-19 on children, youth and families will be longstanding. The impact on parents, particularly mothers, will be ongoing.

Only once we truly acknowledge this disproportionate burden can we discuss how these expectations fail everyone, particularly during times of structural instability.

Until caregiving and emotional labour are recognized as shared social responsibilities, rather than private obligations borne disproportionately by women, crises like COVID-19 will continue to deepen existing inequalities.

Jane E. Sanders received funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council grant number 430-2021-00162.

When Canada abstained from a recent vote at the United Nations on a resolution recognizing the transatlantic slave trade as the gravest crime against humanity, the decision may have appeared cautious, even procedural.

It was neither.

Abstention, in this situation, is not neutral position. It’s a firm stance — one that carries legal, political and historical consequences.

A vote about legal meaning, not just history

At first glance, the resolution might seem symbolic; a statement about a past atrocity with a moral status that’s already globally accepted. But in international law, recognition is never merely descriptive. It helps define legal norms and the scope of responsibility.

The category of “crimes against humanity” has evolved significantly since its early articulation at the Nuremberg Trials in the 1940s. What began as a response to the atrocities of the Second World War has developed into an important pillar of international criminal and human rights law.

Identifying the transatlantic slave trade as the gravest crime against humanity isn’t simply restating history. It situates that history within the legal architecture that governs how we understand atrocity, responsibility and redress today.

The resolution passed with 123 votes in favour. The United States, Argentina and Israel voted against it, while 52 states abstained, including the United Kingdom, Canada and all European Union member states, including Spain.

By abstaining, Canada did not opt out of a symbolic gesture. It declined to participate in shaping the legal meaning of one of international law’s most significant categories.

The myth of absention as neutrality

In multilateral diplomacy, absention is usually framed as a middle ground; a way to avoid taking sides. But in practice, especially in process of creating legal norms, absention can function as a form of resistance.

Votes at the UN General Assembly are part of how international norms are consolidated, clarified and sometimes contested. When states abstain from resolutions that seek to expand or develop those norms, they signal hesitation about the direction of that particular legal development.

Canada’s absention therefore raises questions about alignment. It places the country neither among those states affirming a stronger legal characterization of the slave trade nor among those openly opposing it. Instead, Canada now occupies a position of ambiguity — one that may reflect concerns about legal implications, including potential claims for reparations.

But ambiguity isn’t without impact. In the politics of international law, declining to affirm a legal norm can slow its consolidation and weaken its force.

Why recognition still matters

If the transatlantic slave trade is widely acknowledged as a profound injustice, why does formal recognition matter? Because recognition is tied to how harm is measured, narrated and addressed.

Efforts to grapple with the legacies of slavery increasingly involve questions of quantification, of loss, of dispossession and of enduring inequality. Legal recognition, including reports of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and the 2001 Durban Declaration and Programme of Action, shapes these process by establishing what counts as a harm of the highest order and therefore what kinds of responses are justified.

This is particularly evident in ongoing debates about reparations, where claims are often grounded in the characterization of slavery and the slave trade as crimes against humanity. Without clear and consistent recognition, these claims face higher legal and political barriers.

In this sense, the resolution isn’t only about the past. It’s about the frameworks through which historical injustice is made visible in the present.

A choice with consequences

Canada has long positioned itself as a supporter of international human rights and the rule of law. Abstaining on the UN’s slavery resolution is at odds with that self-perception.

States may have reasons to be cautious in endorsing specific resolutions about legal responsibility. But those reasons should be clearly stated and open to scrutiny.

Absention avoids that scrutiny. It allows states to sidestep difficult questions about history, law and accountability while maintaining the appearance of neutrality.

But there is no neutral ground in the recognition of crimes against humanity. There are only choices about what to affirm, what to resist and what to leave unresolved.

Canada has made one such choice. It should be prepared to explain it.

Julie Ada Tchoukou does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Next week’s budget will contain cutbacks to the concessional treatment of electric vehicles (EVs) that will save the government $1.7 billion over the budget period.

Announcing the changes to the Fringe Benefit Tax (FBT) exemption for EVs, Treasurer Jim Chalmers and Energy Minister Chris Bowen said the new rules would encourage manufacturers to offer EVs to the Australian market that were more affordable and cheaper to run.

The phased-in reductions will move to a permanent 25% discount of FBT for these cars. They won’t affect existing leases.

Under the changes:

• in phase one, the existing discount will continue until the end of March next year. Under this discount there is no fringe benefit tax on eligible EVs.

• in the second phase, between April 1 2027 and April 1 2029, the full FBT discount will apply only for EVs costing up to $75,000. During this phase, vehicles costing more than $75,000 but below the luxury car tax threshold will receive a 25% discount on their payable FBT.

• from April 1 2029, all EVs below the luxury tax threshold will receive the 25% discount on FBT.

Eligible vehicles will continue to be exempt from import tariffs.

Chalmers and Bowen said in a statement: “The electric car market has rapidly matured since we came to government, and these changes will ensure our tax settings are still suitable”.

In March nearly 23% of new cars were electric or plug-in hybrids. This was up from less than 2% in May 2022. The ministers said the strongest uptake of the EV tax cut was happening primarily outside the inner cities.

They said the tax changes had been informed by the Electric Car Discount Review, released on Tuesday.

This review was required under legislation.

Chalmers on Monday said the budget “will begin a year of ambitious reform,” after last year’s election “began a year of delivery”.

“The budget will be calibrated for the conditions, but it will also still be consistent with our ambitions.”

Chalmers said that final elements of the budget “are still landing with a bit over a week to go”.

There were also very substantial elements already announced, including on defence, urgent care clinics, hospitals, aged care, the NDIS, the fuel tax cuts and other policies.

The treasurer said there were some major pressures on the budget coming from the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, indexation, natural disasters and higher yields on debt.

He said in some years, revenue would be down because of slower growth and a higher exchange rate. In other years revenue would be up a bit less than had been speculated.

The budget would see a big emphasis on “budget sustainability, and that does mean more savings”. This would be “our most responsible budget yet.

"There will be more savings, there will be more spending restraint, we will save more than we spend and we will bank the upward revisions to revenue as well.”

“There will be more dollars in savings than dollars in revenue upgrades.

"There will also be more dollars in savings than dollars in tax reform.

"The point that I’m making there is that savings and spending restraint is doing a lot of the heavy lifting” in this budget.

Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

At a time when remote work is increasingly up for debate among companies, it remains an often underestimated lever for fostering open innovation. This article examines how initiatives designed to encourage collaborative work outside the workplace can contribute to the development of open innovation.

Open innovation traditionally refers to purposive inflows and outflows of knowledge across firm boundaries. Through various collaborations with external entities, firms will be able to be more innovative and accelerate their product development process whatever their sector. Our latest research explores the reasons why remote working is frequently undervalued as a means of open innovation.

Companies, both large and medium sized, operating in various sectors tend to use co-working spaces and makerspaces to support their open innovation initiatives.

This approach is particularly relevant in cases where co-working spaces and makerspaces function as “open labs”. They offer a physical location that acts as a symbolic totem place, an innovation-driven community, and a set of services (incubators, coaching, etc.) that promote experimentation across a variety of specific subjects.

Some companies send their employees to these open labs, where they become affiliated coworkers within the open lab communities. These affiliated workers spend varying amounts of time there, from a few days a week to regular full week residency over several months or even years. Although affiliated coworkers represent only a small proportion of open lab residents, they have a specific profile, driven by individual motivations such as curiosity and open mindedness, as well as organisational targets set by their employer.

Exploring hubs where innovation thrives

From the firms’ perspective, regularly sending employees to work in open labs reflects the diverse opportunities to foster open innovation strategies.

Remote working in open labs can be divided into three categories that each contribute to the development of firms’ open innovation initiatives in a different way:

1) Remote working for fostering a new innovation culture

Open labs give affiliated workers the opportunity to develop new innovative work practices and workplace behaviours. In open labs, people interact on the basis of reciprocity mechanisms, use various creative methods, and engage in rapid prototyping activities. Learning by doing enables affiliated workers to acquire new creative skills as well as new representations of innovation. These experiences give them confidence in their ability to play an active role in collective and innovative processes. When they go back to their offices, they in turn, help spread a new innovation culture within the workplace.

• For three years, French bank Société Générale sent more than 1,000 employees per year from its business hubs based in the greater Paris area to various open labs located in Paris to learn new innovative practices. Société Générale employees benefited from residency programs at La Paillasse, Makesense or liberty living lab where they worked on innovative projects during several weeks.

• Makesense Space offers co-working spaces and supports intrapreneurship programs for large companies. Its team supports intrapreneurs who have the opportunity to work within Makesense co-working space, and become “embedded” in Makesense’s community of innovators.

2) Remote working for finding new partners, ideas, and expertise

By regularly sending knowledge workers on short stints at open labs, companies can access new ideas and expertise that enrich their projects. This enables affiliated workers to become embedded in open lab communities that are characterised by heterogeneous expertise and collective creative projects. These environments allows them to explore new topics in depth and gain fresh insights for exploratory activities.

• In France, a number of large construction and transport companies such as Eqiom and SNCF work with ICI Montreuil. ICI Montreuil is both a makerspace and a co-working space dedicated to the crafts and creative industries. The ICI Montreuil’s community is made up of artisans from 50 different types of crafts and creative industries who are able to support the development of new original tools and products.

• Electrolab is another example illustrating original relationships with private actors. Electrolab is a hackerspace that contributes to developing new technologies based on the hacking ethos. Its community is made up of engineers, unemployed people, students, researchers, artists, etc. All members of the open lab share the same value of developing technologies based on hacking principles. Medium sized companies are also welcome. They have the opportunity to participate in the community’s activities and harness new creative ideas and ways of developing new technologies.

3) Remote working as a way of managing collaborative multi-partner projects

Firms increasingly need to develop multi-partner collaborations to explore user-centric innovations and address emerging societal challenges such as environmental sustainability. For companies, it is becoming essential to reconcile different perspectives: technological development, economic value and environmental issues. They must identify new partners and design new ways of operating and doing business.

Sending employees to work inside open labs can be an effective way to manage multi-partner projects. Open labs provide a neutral space that encourages out of the box thinking. As affiliated workers, employees don’t just come to the open lab for meetings and brainstorming sessions; they stay there one, two, or three days per week over several months to work on dedicated collaborative projects.

Collaborative remote working respectively helps employers to remain project-centred and accelerate the innovation process. It also increases their ability to adopt new collaborative practices when working off-premises. TUBA in Lyon, specialising in urban project development and Liberté Living Lab in Paris are hubs that have attracted interest from large companies such as Roche, ENGIE, Société Générale who design collective experimentation projects for smart cities or healthcare. Employees from these firms go there on one or two day per week placements over a three month period to work on dedicated collective projects.

Keeping collaborative work environment options open

The contribution of remote working to open innovation has been barely formalised by companies, even though many of them are already implementing such initiatives.

These practices help address the human element behind open innovation challenges, particularly in terms of skills, culture, and collaboration.

When companies reduce remote working, they may also deprive themselves of valuable opportunities to strengthen their capacity to manage open innovation.

As our results in the EU-backed Remaking project show, remote working can be an opportunity to build experiences beyond corporate physical boundaries to foster companies and organisations’ capacity for innovation.

A weekly e-mail in English featuring expertise from scholars and researchers. It provides an introduction to the diversity of research coming out of the continent and considers some of the key issues facing European countries. Get the newsletter!

Valérie Mérindol a reçu des financements de BPIfrance pour mener cette recherche.

Paris School of Business a reçu un financement de la Commission européenne pour le projet Horizon "REMAKING" (G.A. Nº 101132685).

Alexandra Le Chaffotec ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.

Much has been written about Denmark’s consistently high scores in global happiness rankings, so it might not come as a surprise that Denmark is also rated the best place to raise children, according to U.S. News and World Report. The small Scandinavian nation also scores near the top for child well-being, a measure of physical health, mental health, education and social relationships.

Government policies like generous parental leave, robust public investment in education and universal healthcare have certainly played a role in these rankings. Danes also score high on social trust, with 74% of Danes agreeing that most people can be trusted, whereas only 37% of Americans say the same.

But another factor could be contributing to Danish children’s well-being: They’re often encouraged to take part in risky, unstructured play.

This might seem at odds with a parent’s desire to do what they can to keep their kids safe. But as a native of Denmark and a psychologist, I’ve explored how the country’s hands-off parenting style may be one key to raising more resilient, self-reliant kids.

The benefits of unstructured play

Danes have two words for the English word “play.” There’s “leg,” which refers to unstructured play; and “spille,” which is used for games or activities with pre-established rules, such as playing soccer, chess or the violin.

Each type of play has benefits. But studies have shown that unstructured, spontaneous play requires more compromise and creativity, since kids have the freedom to change or make up the rules. Children learn to take turns and work through problems – skills that are harder to develop when adults step in or when the rules are predetermined.

Then there’s risky play, a form of unstructured play that involves exciting activities with a possibility of physical injury. On a playground, this might mean climbing tall towers, going headfirst down a slide or roughhousing. Off the playground it might involve building a fire, swimming, biking or using tools like saws, hammers and knives.

Norwegian early childhood education researcher Ellen Beate Hansen Sandseter pioneered the study of risky play. She’s explored its evolutionary functions – specifically, how it helps children become competent, independent adults. Other researchers have shown that risky play boosts mental health by teaching children to be more resilient and manage their emotions.

Positive risks vs. negative ones

When it comes to risky play, it’s useful to distinguish between positive risks and negative ones.

On a playground, a positive risk is a challenge that a child can recognize and decide to take. They can weigh if they want to try a zip line, or determine when they’ve reached their limit while ascending a climbing net for the first time. The goal is for the child to explore boundaries and learn to manage emotions like fear and anxiety. Sure, there’s the risk of scrapes and bumps. But success can breed more self-confidence.

A negative risk, on the other hand, is a danger that the child does not have the experience or knowledge to foresee. Using playground equipment that has rotted wood, wielding a tool like a drill without proper instruction or swimming in rapids could lead to serious accidents without any learning benefits.

Many playgrounds in Denmark are designed to encourage positive risks. The country has become known for its junk playgrounds, the first of which was created during World War II. These are play areas built with discarded tires, boards and ropes instead of fixed equipment. Kids are often given access to tools so they can build structures and remake the space on their own terms.

The point ultimately isn’t to put kids in harm’s way. It’s to let them explore on their own, test their limits and try new things.

The competent child

Of course, no parent wants to see their child get injured. But research suggests that Danish parents and American parents have distinct perceptions of risk – and different thresholds for what they consider dangerous.

One study compared U.S. and Danish mothers’ reactions to pictures showing a child engaged in 30 different types of play, such as sledding, biking, using a saw to cut wood and climbing a tall tree. It found that Danish mothers, on average, were more likely to say that they would be comfortable with their own child in these situations. In subsequent interviews, Danish mothers were also more likely to talk about practicing risky activities with their kids, such as how to use tools. (One described how she showed her 5-year-old to use an axe to chop wood.)

In fact, Danish daycares often teach children how to use a sharp knife, with some handing out knife diplomas once children have learned the skill. Learning how to ride a bike, meanwhile, can be practiced on what are known as “traffic playgrounds,” which have child-sized streets, bike lanes, traffic lights and signs.

This difference in risk tolerance could stem from differences in parenting approaches. Danish parents see their children as innately competent, meaning they trust their ability to navigate risks and challenges. Adults, in turn, try to create environments for these natural competencies to flourish; they work to encourage cooperation instead of using control.

In contrast, American parents are more likely to see kids as vulnerable and in need of protection. Mental health is a major concern, with 40% of American parents extremely or very worried that their child will suffer from anxiety or depression at some point, according to a 2023 Pew Research Survey. Somewhat ironically, kids who have less independence are more likely to have mental health challenges.

When permissiveness goes too far

Letting kids take the lead can work well, but sometimes they can’t see or anticipate certain risks.

Danish youth, for example, drink more alcohol than their European peers. A recent survey showed that almost 7 out of 10 Danish ninth grade students had consumed alcohol in the last month, and 1 out of 3 had been drunk in the past month. One study found that Danish parents who are stricter about alcohol consumption are less likely to have teens who frequently drink. Danish culture, overall, has a very permissive attitude toward drinking alcohol, so those parents are few and far between.

Furthermore, Danish 10-year-olds have among the highest rate of smartphone ownership in the world, even as studies have shown that smartphone ownership among children is associated with higher rates of depression, stress and anxiety, as well as less sleep.

But these statistics don’t relate to risky play, which even emergency physicians and nurses champion. Instead, they show how permissive parenting styles can sometimes have negative effects.

The benefits of risky play – like learning to tolerate failure, distress and uncertainty – aren’t just important parts of being a kid. They’re important parts of being human.

Marie Helweg-Larsen has received funding from the National Institutes of Health.