Why We Need to Embrace People-Centered Policies

中国处在发展模式转型、体制深层次转轨和全方位对外开放的关键时期。在这样一个剧烈变革的时期,不仅过去长期积累的深层次矛盾会显现出来,而且还会出现新的矛盾和不稳定因素,并与原有的矛盾相互交织在一起,这使得经济社会的系统性风险加大,或者说使得经济社会的脆弱性加剧,应对这些挑战需要以人为本的社会政策。以人为本作为科学发展观的核心,其意义在于解放思想,使人们从GDP崇拜中走出来。落实以人为本的科学发展观,则需要一个漫长的过程。     

What Do We Know about the Family?

Over the years we have spoken and written a great deal about universal pedagogical education, about the search for new forms and methods for educators to work with families, and we have been drawing inferences from a variety of sometimes brilliant and interesting experience. But can we claim today that the school has accomplished much in the way of pedagogical enlightenment of parents, or exerting influence on the family? It would take a great deal of boldness to do so. What is wrong here? Isn't it a fact that, while attempting to influence the family, we fundamentally know nothing about it—except, perhaps, whether it is a "drinking" family or a sober one? Yet statistics make very clear that more and more offenses are being committed by adolescents who come from families that are considered well off. Hence, this well-being must be illusory, and it is essential that we study the family more comprehensively and in depth, that we figure out what is important to teach parents. Considerable help in this regard can be provided by special studies that are being carried out at the Institute of Sociological Research, USSR Academy of Sciences. In this article we acquaint readers with this research.     

“We Just Happen to Live Here”

Abstract

This article is written more like a conversation with the reader rather than a strictly academic piece. The purpose is to share from a more personal perspective the unique circumstances and challenges faced by two social workers in Oregon as they grappled with the Death with Dignity Law. The law has been in effect for six years and a May 2004 decision from the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court allowed the law to remain a legal end-of-life option. Each writer has a unique voice on the process of social work involvement in practice, research, and policy since the law was originally passed in 1994.     

Relative Risk Aversion: What Do We Know?

The relative risk aversion measure that represents the risk preferences of a decision maker depends on the outcome variable that is used as the argument of the utility function, and on the way that outcome variable is defined or measured. In addition, the relationship between any two such relative risk aversion measures is determined by the relationship between the corresponding outcome variables. These well-known facts are used to adjust several reported estimates of relative risk aversion so that those estimates can be directly compared with one another. After adjustment, the significant variation in the reported relative risk aversion measures for representative decision makers is substantially reduced. JEL Classification: D81     

Labor Shortages:Should We Take Precautionary Measures?

While people generally worry about unemployment and the pressures on employment in China, the relationship between supply and demand in the labor market has quietly shifted in the opposite direction. First, shortages of migrant workers occurred in coastal areas in 2004 and have not yet been alleviated. Even in some central provinces     

‘We the People’ versus ‘We the Heads of States’: the debate on the democratic deficit of the European Union

The Eurozone crisis has rekindled the debate on the democratic deficit of the European Union (EU). In this paper, the debate is reconsidered by contrasting the modus vivendi of ‘We the People’ in the USA with the modus vivendi of ‘We the Heads of States’ in the EU. It is demonstrated that many of the solutions to the alleged democratic deficit focus on how more voice can be given to ‘We the People’ on the input side, but that this goes against the functional logic of the EU system, thereby undermining its ability to govern. Instead, we argue that more attention should be given to how to increase output legitimacy, and a number of proposals are put forward. Such a reshuffling of the analytical focus is the best way forward to escape the current impasse in the debate on how to ‘fix’ democracy in the EU.     

Poverty and Pediatric Palliative Care: What Can We Do?

It has been recognized that families of children with life-limiting health conditions struggle with significant financial demands, yet may not have awareness of resources available to them. Additionally, health care providers may not be aware of the socioeconomic needs of families they care for. This article describes a mixed-methods study examining the content validity and utility for health care providers of a poverty screening tool and companion resource guide for the pediatric palliative care population. The study found high relevance and validity of the tool. Significant barriers to implementing the screening tool in clinical practice were described by participants, including: concerns regarding time required, roles and responsibilities, and discomfort in asking about income. Implications for practice and suggestions for improving the tool are discussed. Screening and attention to the social determinants of health lie within the scope of practice of all health care providers. Social workers can play a leadership role in this work.     

How Do We Understand Partnership Working? Experiences from a Telecare Project

Implementing telecare requires experience and knowledge from different disciplines and sectors; business, technology and care. The uptake of telecare has been slow, which is assumed to be caused by difficulties in co‐operation within telecare partnerships. This article presents a new approach to improve understanding of telecare partnerships. The approach builds on theories of trust and partnership working and is informed by rational choice theory. Within this article the approach is applied to recent experiences from a telecare project in Norway, to demonstrate how different ways of interpreting the complex social interactions in telecare partnerships yield new insight and understanding. Examples from the Norwegian project illustrate how different understandings of actions and choices affected trust and caused either improved or deteriorated co‐operation in the partnership. The partners that were able to develop trust through a common evaluation of the problems co‐operated better. However, when partners lacked or had insufficient knowledge, either of each other or of the situation, this led to disparate understandings that threatened trust and affected further co‐operation. The new approach presented here is helpful in analyzing and understanding the actions of different partners within a telecare partnership and identifying why things worked well or went wrong. The approach may have wider relevance for other partnerships.     

Where Should We Look for Mental Representations? On the Need for Epistemic Ethics

Recent scientific studies of consciousness reveal the challenges involved in striking the proper balance between concrete fact and abstract theory. Christof Koch believes he is on the road to a scientific understanding of consciousness because he has a research paradigm which appears to create solvable puzzles. Unfortunately, work in other areas of neuroscience reveal that these puzzles rely too heavily on Aristotelian common sense to account for the unique nature of connectionist processing. William Ramsey claims that biological versions of traditional theories of representation, of the sort embraced by Koch, Fodor, and others, are so inadequate that we should give up all attempts to create high level abstract theories about human cognition. I argue, however, that what is needed is more abstract theorizing, not less. The intelligible entities described by Dynamic Systems Theory should be seen as embodiments of mental representations. These embodiments are physical in the sense that they are comprehensible in terms of modern physics, even if they are not material items that can be directly perceived.     

The Dilemma of Ethnic Political Theory in Huntington’s Who Are We?

Samuel P. Huntington published his new book Who Are We? The Challenges to America's National Identity in 2004. This may be called a miniature version of his "Clash of Civilizations," i.e., the "clash of cultures" in America. The earlier work tries to answer the question of "who are we" and how we should respond to challenges against the background of Western civilization,     

Giving Courts the Information Necessary to Implement Limited Guardianships: Are We There Yet?

A retrospective analysis of written court records and audiotapes of court testimony for adult guardianship cases in 2 Kentucky counties was conducted. Two hundred forty clinical assessments were reviewed for 80 court petitions. The purpose of this research was to learn how interdisciplinary assessment teams contributed to the guardianship process for older adults. Guardianship assessments and court testimony were reviewed to explore the comprehensiveness of reports to the court, the consideration of less restrictive alternatives, and the use of limited guardianships. Recommendations are given for ways in which social workers can improve information given to the courts and advocate for elders in this situation. The role of social work in this national phenomenon is discussed.     

When Can We Expect the Unexpected? Predicting Educational Attainment When it Differs from Previous Expectations

Individuals' expectations are strong predictors of their behaviors; educational expectations predict enrollment in postsecondary education. Yet in many cases, a youth's previous educational expectations are not met or are exceeded. This study examines correlates of educational expectations and unexpected educational attainment using longitudinal data from Monitoring the Future, a U.S. national study. Demographic characteristics, educational experiences in high school, and other risk and protective factors were related to expectations for educational attainment during high school. Logistic regressions indicated that high school curriculum, average grades, educational aspirations, and parents' educational level were particularly strong indicators of youth not meeting their expectation to graduate from a 4-year college, or graduating from college despite expecting not to graduate by age 25/26. We discuss the implications of unexpected pathways in terms of discontinuity during transitions and consider the implications for improved educational and career counseling during high school .     

Gender and Health Inequalities: What Are They and What Can We Do About Them?

The subject of gender and health inequalities is contested territory in health policy, research and practice. Yet there is a dominant approach which I describe as a form of technocratic rationality. Its application imposes significant limitations because it represents the problem of gender and health in terms of measurable sex differences in relation to health service access and health outcomes. In doing so, it fails to address and explain the social dynamics that generate the problem. I propose an alternative approach that originates in Australian women's health policies of the 1980s. These emphasised the inequalities between men's and women's participation in mainstream health policy, planning, management and delivery of services, and women's concomitant marginalisation. Recent sociological study offers support for this perspective suggesting that the endogenous organisational dynamics (or logics) within public health institutions provide a better way of understanding what the problem of gender inequalities in health is, and how we might fix it.     

Multiculturalism or Cosmopolitanism: How Can We Describe and Understand the Diversity of the World?

过去数十年来, 多元性的文化、社会和政治图景演变甚巨; 然而我们却仍未找到 一种话语来描述、界定、理解、解释和研究当代世界的超级多元性。关于多元性的社 会思想和政治行动大多受制于民族主义方法论和多元文化主义框架; 然而, 对此应该 提出质疑。和民族主义方法论相对的世界主义方法论, 是观察多元性问题富有前景的 视角。另外, 对规范的、哲学意义上的“世界主义”和作为一种结构现象及社会科学 研究项目的“世界化”进行区分是非常必要的。我们可以把哲学及规范意义上的世界 主义与世界性社会科学结合起来, 构建一种世界性的现实主义。

关键词: 超级多元性 民族主义方法论 多元文化主义 世界主义 世界化

Over the last decades the cultural, social and political landscapes of diversity are changing radically, but we do not even have the language through which contemporary superdiversity in the world can be described, conceptualized, understood, explained and researched. Many of the social thoughts and political actions on issues of diversity are now dominated by methodological nationalism and multiculturalism which, however, have to be called into question. As opposed to methodological nationalism, methodological cosmopolitanism is a promising lens through which to look at questions of diversity. And it is essential to draw an essential distinction between “cosmopolitanism” in a normative philosophical sense and “cosmopolitanization” as a structural phenomenon and as a social scientific research programme. Philosophical and normative cosmopolitanism can be combined with cosmopolitan social science to create a cosmopolitan realism.