Opposition to gender-sensitive development. Learning to answer back

Opposition to gender-sensitive development policies can arise within the very development agencies charged with implementing the policies. Agencies may maintain that policies on equality for women are unnecessary because development is concerned with improving welfare in general. This can be refuted by referring to the literature which points out that failure to address the specific needs of women means their exclusion from the development process. Agencies may argue that women's equality is a political rather than a developmental issue. This is countered by the fact that the "Forward-Looking Strategies" define women's development, equality, and empowerment as intertwined processes. Agencies may say that promoting women's equality constitutes undue interference in a country's internal affairs. This is wrong because aid programs should not be supported in countries which do not support women's rights. Agencies may claim that they must work within the existing laws and policies of a developing country. This is partly correct, but the point must be limited because policies and laws may be "given," but they are not fixed. An agency may state that they have no business seeking or promoting change in existing social and customary practices. This is wrong where such practices stand in the way of development and because any development project is by definition a social and economic intervention. Agencies may consider their policy on women an inappropriate imposition of Western ideas. This is wrong because international conventions place a concern for women's rights on a level with a concern for human rights. Finally, agencies may maintain that women in developing countries do not desire equality with men. While it may be true that women accept their subordinate position, this does not offset issues of human rights and equal development. Oppressed women may be very silent; given the opportunity, they generally have a great deal to say.     

10‐Month‐Olds Visually Anticipate an Outcome Contingent on Their Own Action

It is known that young infants can learn to perform an action that elicits a reinforcer, and that they can visually anticipate a predictable stimulus by looking at its location before it begins. Here, in an investigation of the display of these abilities in tandem, I report that 10‐month‐olds anticipate a reward stimulus that they generate through their own action: .5 sec before pushing a button to start a video reward, they increase their rate of gaze shifts to the reward location; and during periods of extinction, reward location gaze shifts correlate with bouts of button pushing. The results are consistent with the hypothesis that the infants have an expectation of the outcome of their actions: several alternative hypotheses are ruled out by yoked controls. Such an expectation may, however, be procedural, have minimal content, and is not necessarily sufficient to motivate action.     

When is a goal rational?

In decision theory goals are usually taken as given inputs to the analysis, and the focus is on finding the most efficient means to achieve the goals. But where goals are set with the purpose of achieving them, it is important to know what properties they should possess in order to be successful (or achievement-inducing). Four such properties (or rationality criteria) are discussed, namely that goals should be precise, evaluable, approachable and motivating. Precision and evaluability are epistemic properties that concern what the agent may know. Approachability is an ability-related property that concerns what the agent can do. Motivity is a volitional property that concerns what the agent wants to do. Goals may satisfy the rationality criteria to a greater or lesser extent. Some goals are achievement-inducing mainly because they guide action towards the end-state well, others mainly because they motivate the agent to act towards the realization of the end-state.     

Fragile: handle with care. Protecting babies from harm

Babies can often place demands on their carers which at times can feel unbearable. Parenting is the most difficult task that most people undertake, and yet it is also the one for which most receive little to no training. Parents under stress may be reluctant to ask for help, often adopting the belief that they should instinctively know what to do. Some professionals may also share this view, which may mean that they are less able to identify and support families who are struggling. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Social work and resettlement

Summary

This paper describes counselling in a social work agency that provides hostel accommodation for single homeless women, and works to resettle them into permanent accommodation. Given that the Barclay Report described the practice of social work as made up of the two elements of counselling and social care planning, the paper explores the way counselling is influenced when carried on in an agency with a specific ‘social care’ function. This is contrasted with counselling in agencies that offer a counselling service alone. Examples will be given of people using an attachment to a hostel, and to a worker, as they cope with change and make psychological growth. The power of such workers can only be exercised if they are true to the agency function, and gear their interventions to the task of resettlement. If workers do this they may find that as well as resettling people into accommodation, they are resettling them into life.     

How public relations professionals can use food labels as effective communication tools

Food product labels impact everyone's quality of life. Today, informed consumers may attempt to read label contents—especially if they have medical concerns that require limitation of calories, sodium and fat in their diets. Unfortunately, even though these contents are listed, they could be difficult to read because of “graphic problems.” This is an unnecessary problem that can be eliminated by applying knowledge of typography and technology.This study utilized a panel of graphic arts education experts who reviewed suggested Food and Drug Administration (FDA) label guidelines. If the panel participants thought that “graphic problems” exist in the guidelines, they were asked to make suggestions to indicate how food labels could be prepared more effectively—at no additional cost.     

Colonialism,Disability, and Possible Lives: The Residential Treatment of Children Whose Parents Survived Indian Residential Schools

This article performs an institutional autoethnography of working in a residential treatment center, proposing a moral economy in which the exaltation of white nondisabled professionals is tethered to the denigration of disabled Aboriginal children. It describes how resident and staff resistance, respectively, can be taken up so as to facilitate the smooth continuity of the status quo. And it raises questions about everyday institutional practices such as physical restraints, behavior modification, and life-skills curricula, suggesting they may not do what they are intended to do and may instead wither away knowledge and skills that residents had cultivated before their “intake.”     

Finding disturbances in on-farm biogas production

When implementing innovations, disturbances are very likely to take place. Disturbances are undesirable because they can lead to unwanted outcomes, such as economic losses and work overload to workers. However, they can be powerful opportunities for learning and re-designing innovations. Here, we will present activity theoretical tools for analyzing disturbances in a way that they could be used as learning opportunities. We illustrate the proposed tools by analyzing a disturbance that took place during the implementation of a project of biogas production. By interpreting the disturbance process with a network of activity systems, we found that on-farm disturbances were formed as ruptures, innovations and asynchronies originated in other activity systems. This finding suggests that disturbances are outcomes of the functioning of networks, rather than simple results of failure of individuals or technical devices. The proposed tools could be used in interventions to help practitioners and ergonomists to recognize the systemic and networked nature of problems, and therefore, realize that they may require the collaboration of actors from different activities. In this sense, disturbances may be turned into opportunities for learning and developing innovations. We conclude by discussing how the method could be used in ergonomic design and intervention.     

Measuring the Effect of System Size on the Administrative Occupations of Macro Systems: A Reappraisal

Abstract

Organizational theory and empirical research suggests that the size of a system is an important determinant of its administrative sector. In this perspective, the key occupations that provide coordination and integration are as follows: (a) managers and administrators since they provide decision-making, (2) professional and technical experts because they evaluate information flows critical for decision-making, and (3) clerical workers since they contribute written messages resulting in communication. Recent research demonstrates that this approach may be successfully extended to more macro systems such as counties, cities, states and nations. In applying this theory, we argue that the size/administrative occupation relationships can be more completely understood than in previous studies by focusing on the detailed suboccupations found in each of the three broad occupation categories. Data from the fifty American states in 1970 indicate that the relationship between size and suboccupations may be positive, negative, or statistically non-significant depending on which suboccupation is examined. The paper concludes that administrative occupations are affected by size in a much more complex way than previously reported.     

The use of the dream in the promotion of ego development

Two functions of dreams, described but not stressed by Freud—the dream as a way of remembering early childhood experiences and the dream as an attempt to master painful stimuli—are considered in this paper in terms of their significance in the treatment of patients whose preoedipal developmental difficulties have resulted in distortions or deficiencies in psychic structure. By providing access to that period of life before semantic communication a time of profound developmental import, certain dreams can illuminate critical experiences of that period. They may lead to the discovery of positive experiences which can be utilized as a starting point for the fostering of more positive object representations or they may lead to the understanding of early traumatic experiences which can be dealt with retrospectively in the therapeutic situation.     

Working on the front-line: risk culture and nursing in the new NHS

Nursing and midwifery are increasingly marked by risk and uncertainty under the dual impact of patient consumerism and organisational accountability. The omnipresent character of risk in health work means that it is particularly difficult to manage. Since the practice decisions of today may only be known as problems in the future, risk can never really be forestalled. This means that it is very difficult to close-off risk, but nonetheless imperative to try. Drawing on research conducted in two hospital trusts, this paper explores the strategies that nurses and midwives use in an attempt to colonise the future and protect themselves in the risk culture of the new NHS. It will suggest that although the self-protective strategies that emerge may enhance quality of patient care, they can also generate defensive practices which are in the interests of neither nurses and midwives nor patients.     

Effects of Filter Questions in Public Opinion Surveys

Extending previous work, the authors find that the wording ofa filter question can make a significant difference in the percentageof "don't know" (DK) responses elicited by an item, especiallywith topics that are more abstract or less familiar to surveyrespondents. They also find, however, that the content of anitem can have a substantial, independent effect on DK or "noopinion" responses, regardless of how the filter question isworded. In general, it appears that the less familiar the issueor topic, the greater the increase in DK responses producedby adding a filter. Even more important, the analysis showsthat filtering can in some instances dramatically affect theconclusions a pollster would draw about the distribution ofpublic opinion on an issue. Indeed, such effects may occur moreoften than has previously been suspected, though the circumstancesunder which they emerge remain elusive. The authors suggestthat such effects may become amenable to analysis by probingrespondents about "what they had in mind" as they answered thequestion.     

Attitudes of Mexican Americans toward irregular immigration

This inquiry focuses on the attitudes of 314 Mexican Americans toward issues relating to current US immigration policy. Telephone and personal interviews were conducted in Hidalgo and Travis counties, Texas, with Mexican-Americans. Virtually all respondent groups oppose an increased rate of immigration, consider illegal immigration to be an important problem, support stricter enforcement of immigration laws, and believe that undocumented workers take jobs no one else wants. Half of the respondents identify illegal immigration as a regional rather than a personal problem. At the same time, the data suggest significant differences in both direction and intensity of attitudes between Mexican Americans of different generations, income, occupational levels, and region. There is general opposition to the requirement of a national identity card, but widespread support for penalizing employers of undocumented workers and for granting amnesty to undocumented workers. These findings allow an examination of the extent to which the Mexican American leadership, which has been overwhelmingly opposed to the Simpson-Mazzoli bill, accurately reflects the views of the Mexican American people. The leadership and the population at large agree on 2 of the 3 issues, amnesty and the national identity card, but disagree on employer sanctions. 1st, it may be that the leadership holds the kinds of jobs for which undocumented workers are unlikely to compete, so they may not feel threatened. 2nd, they may feel that instituting employer sanctions will create incentives for employers to discriminate in their hiring practices against all Latino-looking job applicants. Non-elite Mexican Americans who support employer sanctions may believe that the only way they can compete for jobs is to make it impossible for elites to be hired. Both groups appear to fear that, regardless of the specifics of immigration reform, Mexican Americans are likely to encounter increased discrimination in the job market.     

Mobile locations: construction of home in a group of mobile transnational professionals

Abstract How do professionals constitute their homes under conditions of extensive mobility? The study is based on interviews with professionals working for an international organization who are chronically mobile. Despite their high mobility, they describe little difficulty constructing homes. Home can best be understood here not as a fixed location, but as a set of relationships, to both humans and non‐humans. There are elements of spatial proximity, but also of distance, and homes may be defined by both objects present and excluded. They may be a focal point, but at the same time part of a heterogeneous network that spans localities as well as binds past and present. Home is therefore territorially defined, but only as an extended network rather than as a bounded location.     

Sleep interventions for the treatment of depression

Sleep disturbances are common in depressed patients. Insomnia may predate the onset of major depression, increases the likelihood of a depressive relapse, and is associated with an impaired response to treatment. Benzodiazepine drugs may have inherent antidepressant effects; thus, these and other sedative-hypnotic drugs can be beneficial for treating insomnia in depressed patients and may enhance the overall effectiveness of antidepressant drugs. Sedating antidepressant drugs are used for treating primary insomnia, but their sleep-promoting effects have been demonstrated primarily in depressed patients. Several second-generation antipsychotic drugs are used in low doses to promote sleep, but they also have inherent antidepressant effects. Cognitive-behavioral therapy targeting insomnia can effectively enhance the response to antidepressant medication. Sleep deprivation, which is also associated with a transient antidepressant effect, is difficult to use in routine clinical practice but might be an appropriate strategy for treatment-resistant forms of depression.     

Investments in young children among low-income families

This article examines low-income parents’ monetary investments in their young children, asking how low-income families are able to afford spending on children. We investigate parental spending on child care and on goods in the home that may provide enrichment for young children. We find little evidence that households make spending trade-offs for either type of good. Instead, our results suggest that low-income households that can afford child care may be poor only temporarily and that they spend primarily when they are unable to avoid doing so because of family work patterns. For enrichment goods, parental education is a stronger predictor of spending.     

Women shaping participatory research to their own needs

Participatory research should be guided by the needs and interestsof those involved and what they are willing and capable of doing,at that point in time, in order to address oppressive circumstances.A deeply wounding oppression many women experience is that ofmale-perpetrated physical and sexual violence. Women participatingin participatory research aimed at their needs may steer itin the direction of opening up a safe, emotionally supportivespace where they can talk about what they have experienced.The impetus might be encouraged by facilitators who are seenas trustworthy and as seriously guided by the needs of the womeninvolved. The focus at this point then, for these women, maynot be on practical planning, even in response to male violenceagainst women, but on the need to be listened to and believed,which, ultimately, can support a woman's ability to participatein community development activities and planning.     

Civicness and Civility: Their Meanings for Social Services

Civicness and civility are discussed as intertwined notions. To the degree they flourish, societies can be seen as civil societies. Providing some reflection on them may make a difference to the usual civil society and third sector debates. These concepts are not based on or confined to a specific sector like the third sector; basically all social sectors can contribute to and be marked by them, depending on their constellations and interplay. Therefore, a mediating public sphere and democratic governance have a key role to play. However, beyond an overlapping consensus, civicness and civility can mean different things and the dominant meanings change over time. This is discussed with respect to changing discourses on welfare as they have crystallized in the field of social services. Despite the contested meanings of civility and civicness shown here, introducing these points of reference could help to enrich concerns with the quality and overall designs of personal services in a civil society.     

Disentangled,decentred and democratised: Youth Studies for the global South

Youth Studies’ theories often assume universal generalisability despite rarely making the global South, or its youthful populations, ontologies, values and politics the focus of research. This paper grapples with the idea of a Youth Studies ‘for’ the global South, questioning whether theories/approaches that centre on the global North can be usefully applied in the global South, how and for what purpose. After describing two mainstream domains of Youth Studies scholarship, questioning how they may become applicable to Africa, Latin America and developing countries in Asia, we explicate the geo-politically situated nature of knowledge production. We ask how theories that originate elsewhere can be adapted and put to work in new contexts, contributing towards a Youth Studies that enhances the lives of youth on the global periphery. In Southern sites urgent material challenges dominate young people's lives, requiring theories that are able to analyse the multi-dimensional contextual constraints youth experience. Knowledges can be useful regardless of where they originate, but only when they become intentionally entangled in local realities and are adapted accordingly. We argue, however, that a Youth Studies for the global South needs to demonstrate its relevance beyond applying theories to new local sites. It should be able to say something more general about the human condition. In the current conjuncture of economic instability, we believe that contexts where youth have had to adapt, hustle and survive in precarious conditions for an extended period of time might demonstrate something unique about the human condition, but only if we make these places the focus of our research gaze. The paper concludes with suggestions to enable a Youth Studies for the global South, one which may contribute to this emerging field more effectively through intentional strategies of disentangling, decentring and ultimately democratising the field.