Pluriactivity in the Moshav:: family farming in Israel

In the past several years, pluriactivity has become quite widespread among moshav farming households, especially those located within Metropolitan Tel Aviv's rural fringe. Agricultural income has been on the decline and other sources of income have appeared. This paper has a threefold aim: To identify major patterns of income sources among Moshav's households; to explain the underlying causes for choosing pluriactivity as an income-producing strategy; and to explain the reasons for the specific choice of pluriactivity patterns adopted.An analysis of the activities of moshavim¹ located in the Sharon Region indicates that the further the moshav from the metropolitan area, the greater the role of agriculture in total family income. Within a pluriactivity strategy, the main additional sources of income are wage employment and small business activity, carried out either on or off the moshav. The main factors stimulating the increase in pluriactivity are the decline in agricultural income and the desire to take advantage of vocational training. This trend is supported by other factors, such as the availability of premises for alternative uses as well as the ease of operating a business from the home.The divergence in pluriactivity patterns may indicate that the frequency of mixing agriculture with other income sources may be a temporary option adopted by households for which agriculture has been a mainstay. Those households may shift away from agriculture in the short or mid-term. We would argue that at present, for the majority of those no longer devoted solely to agriculture, pluriactivity is also aimed at helping to sustain agricultural activity. In such cases, farmers utilise the resources acquired from non-agricultural employment for investment in agriculture, including the upgrading of equipment and other assets.     

Women in Bangladesh:

Women's lives in Bangladesh are governed by a combination of religious, customary and secular law, as well as social class. In customary practice, the interaction of Islam and Hiduism in southern Asia has resulted in the adoption of the most restrictive aspects of each religion with respect to the status of women. Secular law formally recognizes equal rights for women, but undermines this recognition by special provisions which treat women as dependent legal entities. But whereas poor, rural women have few opportunities for change, middle- and upper-class women are beginning to emerge, in small but significant ways, from traditional roles.     

EAPs in Transition:

This paper is a survey report of EAP purpose and practices. One hundred and eighty-two (n = 182) randomly selected EAP practitioners responded to a questionnaire designed to measure purposes, services, staff specialties and characteristics, service users, and related background information. The findings provide an empirical evaluation of the "state of the art" of the growth, development and trends in the employee assistance field. Also, while the findings indicate that EAPs are in transition several basic functions common to all are identified.     

Homelessness in America:

Homelessness is one of the most intense social crises facing the United States since the onset of the Great Depression more than 60 years ago. Estimates of the total population of homeless are argued to range from 250,000 to upwards of three million, with a pro- jected rate of increase of approximately 24% per year. The spectrum of diversity within the population mirrors that of society in general, except that the problems are more severe, as illustrated by the difficul- ties facing the homeless mentally ill. Thirty-eight percent of the homeless are single-parent, primarily female-headed families, thus re- presenting the fastest growing segment of the population. This paper will consider the phenomenon of homeless as a contemporary social issue, and include recommendations for public policy and social response.     

Preface: Foresight in 2020: Race and Gender in the Upcoming Election

This essay introduces contributions to a special issue of Sociological Forum titled “Foresight in 2020: Race and Gender in the Upcoming Election.” All articles in the issue can be accessed at the journal’s website, https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/15737861 . They will first appear under the “Early View” tab, and later in volume 35, supplement I.     

Alcohol in Employment Settings:

No abstract available for this article.     

Commentary: Foundations in performance

In this article, I outline the principal conceptions of performance that have guided language‐oriented work on performance, where they come from, and how they relate to or diverge from one another. I consider first the undeveloped potential for performance‐oriented work in variationist sociolinguistics, and then turn to performance as virtuosic display, as developed principally in linguistic anthropology, performance as theatricality, with special attention to the analysis of the interaction order, and cultural performance as a marked, heightened event that affords a richly reflexive vantage point on culture. I conclude with a discussion of mediated performance and the productiveness of the concept of remediation in bridging the gap between co‐present performance and mediated performance.