The Australian Disability Rights Movement Lives

The Australian Disability Rights Movement is surviving despite funding threats to advocacy programmes. The integral relationship of advocacy funding to the Australian Disability Rights Movement is outlined. A brief history of the Australian Disability Rights' Movement is given, and whether this is a new social movement, or not, is discussed. The role of Women With Disabilities Australia is outlined.     

Co-production and Service Quality: The Case of Cooperative Childcare in Sweden

This article compares results from a study of service quality in cooperative and municipal preschools. The parent cooperative and municipal childcare represents two different schools of thought with regard to service quality. The municipal services have a strong tradition of professionalism in which user participation is not allowed to interfere with the qualified work performed by trained professionals. The parent cooperatives have another tradition in which service quality is developed in a dialogue between users and staff while they co-produce the services together. The former tradition is the dominant one in the Swedish welfare state while the latter is an exception. The conclusion of the article is that service quality is better in the parent cooperative childcare in spite of the widespread assumption in Sweden that service quality is close to synonymous with professionalism.     

服务经济的内涵、特征及其发展趋势

服务经济是经济社会发展到高级阶段的产物,是以提供服务产品为核心的经济形态。＂服务化＂、＂融合化＂、＂网络化＂、＂高端化＂、＂两极化＂是服务经济的形态特征,服务业占主导地位是服务经济的结构特征,稳定增长是服务经济的运行特征,集聚发展是服务经济的布局特征,对制度环境和综合配套环境要求更高是服务经济发展的环境特征。当前服务经济发展的趋势是：从初级向高级发展,从传统向现代发展,从非生态化向生态化发展。体验经济可能成为服务经济发展的高级形态。     

高职教育技能硬实力探析

高职教育技能硬实力和文化软实力共同构成了高职教育的综合实力。技能硬实力是高职教育的有形物质力,是"物质生产力"。技能硬实力体系主要包括:基本技能力、专业技能力、综合技能力和创新技能力。高职教育技能硬实力的发展策略主要包括:师资队伍是关键、专业建设是核心、硬件建设是基础、实训建设是保障。     

The Influence of Social Media on the Enterprise Marketing

The starting point of social media derives from social networking, which is the most popular way to communication is E-mail. The essence of the Internet is the connection of computers. The E-mail address of the remote mail transfer problem, yet it is also a widespread Internet application, and it is also the starting point of social networking. BBS is another one big step, theoretically achieves to publish information to the group and all the people can take part in it.     

The crisis in psychology

The crisis of psychology is not in the lack of psychologists or lack of literature being produced. It is in the poor development of our understanding of human life, the science itself, and the relationship of the science to the world. Three senses in which there has been loss, subject matter, method, and mission, are discussed. The loss with respect to subject matter is associated with the systematic denial of the self-evident fact that mentation, at least in the form of decisions, plans and goals, is essential to human conduct. The loss with respect to method is based on the uncritical acceptance of the assumption that the psychological is readily revealed by applying statistical methods to aggregated measures of behavior. The loss with respect to mission is manifested in the separation of modern psychology from its classical association with political science, and the task of designing the social order so that it is in harmony with human nature. The historical role of psychology in promoting the unfortunate idea that the main purpose of education is to fix responses rather than to enlighten and liberate is indicated.     

The Crisis in Psychology

The crisis ofpsychology is not in the lack of psychologists or lack of literature being produced. It is in the poor development of our understanding of human life, the science itself, and the relationship of the science to the world. Three senses in which there has been loss, subject matter, method, and mission, are discussed. The loss with respect to subject matter is associated with the systematic denial of the self-evident fact that mentation, at least in the form of decisions, plans and goals, is essential to human conduct The loss with respect to method is based on the uncritical acceptance of the assumption that the psychological is readily revealed by applying statistical methods to aggregated measures of behavior. The loss with respect to mission is manifested in the separation of modem psychology from its classical association with political science, and the task of designing the social order so that it is in harmony with human nature. The historical role of psychology in promoting the unfortunate idea that the main purpose of education is to fix responses rather than to enlighten and liberate is indicated.     

The Family Economic Strain Scale: Development and Evaluation of the Instrument with Single- and Two-Parent Families

The purpose of this study is to develop an instrument to measure economic strain in single-parent and two-parent families. The Family Economic Strain Scale (FESS) originally contains 25 items. Thirteen items is adapted from previous research and 12 are developed for the study. The FESS is pilot tested using data from a sample of 59 single-mother, 12 single-father, and 164 two-parent families. Factor analysis reveals that the instrument contained one 13-itein dimension that is highly reliable (.92). The construct validity of the measure is evaluated using three hypotheses and data from a second study involving 30 single-mother, 30 single-father, and 30 two-parent families. ANOVA and standard multiple regression are used for the analyses. All three hypotheses are supported and variance accounted for is substantial. The FESS is a highly reliable and valid instrument that will be of value to researchers examining perceived economic strain in single-parent and two-parent families.     

对我国利率市场化改革的思考

利率市场化是过去几年、并将是未来一段时期我国金融市场发展的主线之一。所谓利率市场化,就是建立起以供求为基础的利率市场化决定机制,进而引导金融资源合理配置。我国利率市场化改革是一个逐步实现并不断完善的过程。不同程度的利率市场化,其要求的条件并不完全相同。利率市场化越深入,其对配套改革的要求就越严格。利率市场化的条件实现,既是资金市场运行环境的真实转变,也是伴随利率市场化逐步成熟完善的过程。     

Living will: Ruminations of an economist

The typical living will is an awfully imperfect instrument for doing what it is supposed to do. This paper is one economist's attempt to make sense of living will. The foray takes one deep into the domain of mainstream economics. The paper concludes that, despite its shortcomings, living will makes good economic sense and its future is bright.     

Ethnicity,immigration process and short-term occupational mobility

The relationship between the ethnic characteristics of immigrants to the United States and their occupational mobility in the short term is explored. The data concern the period 1965-1970 and are taken from the 1970 census. The results indicate that race and sociocultural distance have important effects on occupational mobility. The study also shows that if educational status is controlled, the performance of Asian immigrants is more similar to that of blacks or Hispanics than it is to that of whites. (summary in FRE, SPA)     

CHALLENGES TO EU POLITICAL INTEGRATION AND THE ROLE OF DEMOCRATIZATION1

The European Union project of political integration faces three main challenges. The first concerns the constitutional make-up of the European Union as a political system. Key here is the role of subsidiarity and the question of statehood. The second challenge has to do with the opportunity structures for participation in a multilevel and supra-national context of governance. The third challenge is that of political identity. In the contemporary political debate, the first of the above challenges is discussed almost exclusively in terms of institutional mechanisms, the third in terms of symbolic identification based on culture and language. Opportunity structures for participation are thought to matter as a means of legitimacy or, alternatively, in terms of political acceptability. The underlying assumption is that policy is mainly a matter of technocratic management and politics a question of identity. This is the key problem of the contemporary discourse regarding European integration and the EU democratic deficit.     

Mediation with Separated Parents: Recent Research 2002–2007

Mediation is increasingly being used to attempt to resolve conflicts between parents following divorce and separation. The article considers the problems faced by the mediator and how mediation can sometimes take the place of hostile litigation. The value and objective of mediation is to create harmony where there is disharmony. This naturally affects not only the adults but children from the relationship. The manner in which mediation is conducted varies with the mediator. One method found to be successful is discussed.     

A mathematical model of Athenian democracy

It is shown that the representative capacity of democratic institutions selected by lot (=lottery), as it has been practiced in Athens in 594–322BC, is quite high. For this purpose, People’s Assembly, Council of 500, Committee of 50 with its President, juries, and magistrates are evaluated with indicators of popularity, universality, and goodness. The popularity is a spatial characteristic of representativeness, the average percentage of the population whose opinion is represented on a number of questions. The universality is a temporal aspect of representativeness, the frequency of cases (percentage of questions) when the opinion of a majority is represented. The goodness is the specific representativeness, that is, the average group-represented- to-majority ratio. In particular, it is shown that the size of Athenian representative bodies selected by lot was adequate to guarantee their high representativeness. The background idea is the same as in Gallup polls of public opinion and in quality control based on limited random samples.     

Dialectic of information? A response to Taylor

This paper is a response to Paul Taylor's review article of the book Critique of Information. The book's main thesis is that critique in the information age must be immanent critique. Taylor reproaches this for neglecting the necessity of a transcendental for critique. The response accepts this criticism. However, it rejects Taylor's aporetic notion of critique. Instead, a dialectical notion of critique is proposed. Like all dialectics this informational dialectic is one of materiality and idea. The major difference in the information age, however, is that there is a tendency for the material and the ideal to fuse in information itself. Thus the critique of information, it is argued, is a sort of immanent dialectic. This notion of critique is illustrated with reference to media art and metadata. Throughout there is an engagement with Taylor of the political implications of such critique.     

The recent migrations of Belize,Central America

The impact of recent international migration in Belize is examined. The predominance of emigration to the United States, particularly by blacks, is noted. Immigration is primarily from Guatemala and El Salvador. The implications of these population movements for the ethnic composition of the population are considered.     

Young people’s everyday political talk: a social achievement of democratic engagement

Everyday political talk is an important democratic activity. Research on young people has focused on the role of talk in political socialization. The overall question in this study is: What encourages or impedes young people to participate in everyday political talk? Politics has been described as a potentially unsafe topic. The study investigates young people’s own experiences of conversations in families, peer groups, and social media. The study applies a social interactional approach and understands political talk as a social achievement, related to norms and the management of self-identities. It is based on a multimethod approach comprising individual interviews, group interviews, and diaries. The group consists of 23 high school students (aged 17–18). The results show that the engagement in political talk is sensitive to the social settings. Norms make political topics expected or best to avoid. The family and peer groups are potentially important context for friendly talk, argumentations, exploration of opinions, and identities. The participants are in general more reluctant to express opinions in social media. The fear of face-threatening responses is one important aspect. The study suggests that political talk is an activity in which young people express, reveal, and carefully manage political self-identities.     

财政信息公开：上海推进透明化政府建设的突破口

推进上海透明化政府建设的关键是政府信息公开,政府信息公开的突破口是财政信息公开。财政信息是政府的核心信息,集中、综合地反映政府的全部活动,是市民最为关心的政府信息。财政信息公开相对简单易行,同时也是反腐败最有力的手段。上海政府信息尤其是财政信息的公开,可分三个阶段确定目标,分步实施。     

Independence, Dependence, Interdependence: some reflections on the subject and personal autonomy

A sociology of disablement needs to redefine the meaning of independence. In Western industrial societies, independence is associated with being able to do things for oneself, to be self-supporting and self-reliant. The paper attempts to show that some of our understanding of independence is influenced by views of the subject and personal autonomy stemming from the Enlightenment philosophy. The main target of the paper is to show that the modernist view of the subject is inadequate. What is missing is the notion of interdependence. The paper suggests an understanding of the subject that recognises the human condition as one of interdependence. It is argued that a reformulation of the subject as both embedded and embodied, bears better to a sociology of disablement.