The Diversity Functions of Organizations That Confront Oppression

ABSTRACT

The twentieth century history of three identity movements is reviewed with reference to their approach toward their oppressors. The African American movement, the Women's Movement, and the Lesbian-Gay-Bisexual Movement appear to follow similar paths from accommodation-assimilation, to normative confrontation, disruptive confrontation, separatism, introspective self-help, and pluralistic integration. It is hypothesized and demonstrated that these paths are evolutionary, as each stance appears to encourage conditions for the next stage. The paths are not linear, however, and it is the movement as a whole, not any one organization that is evolutionary. Social workers have distinct roles to play in each stage.     

Factors That Influence Willingness to Help the Homeless

Homelessness is an ongoing challenge for many families and individuals. Many struggle to meet their basic needs for food, clothing and shelter. Unfortunately, we know very little about the people who directly help homeless people meet these needs. The present study examines the relationships between empathy, religion, household income, political orientation, gender, race, and people's expressed willingness to assist the homeless. Results demonstrate a strong and consistent link between empathy and willingness to help. Moderately consistent associations are found for religion and race. Limitations, suggestions for further research, and for practical application are discussed.     

Factors That Influence Willingness to Help the Homeless

Homelessness is an ongoing challenge for many families and individuals. Many struggle to meet their basic needs for food, clothing and shelter. Unfortunately, we know very little about the people who directly help homeless people meet these needs. The present study examines the relationships between empathy, religion, household income, political orientation, gender, race, and people's expressed willingness to assist the homeless. Results demonstrate a strong and consistent link between empathy and willingness to help. Moderately consistent associations are found for religion and race. Limitations, suggestions for further research, and for practical application are discussed.     

Works Councils and Organizational Performance

Most studies on the effects of works councils simply analyze whether their mere presence contributes to firm performance. This study seeks to offer a contribution to the literature by adding, to date, largely unexplored potential contingencies: the attitudes of Dutch top managers and works councils as to the functioning of the latter, in bad vis-à-vis good times. The overall conclusion from our probit analyses is that the way in which management and works councils interact, and hence the way in which codetermination is implemented, makes all the difference to the firm’s economic position. Our most compelling finding relates to the role of management: a positive attitude of managers toward the works council is positively associated with organizational performance, both in the private and the public sector. In the private sector, this result is even reinforced in times of reorganization.     

Identifying Family Factors That Predict Children's Adjustment to Divorce

In order to provide a means for identifying children at risk for socio-emotional dysfunctions, an inventory was developed based on a systemic analysis of factors influencing their divorce adjustment. A conceptual model resulted from a thorough review revealing five general sources of variation with regard to children's post-divorce adjustments. Items were empirically developed and analyzed in each of the five conceptual areas. Items that discriminated between well and poorly adjusted children as well as "well" and dysfunctional families were retained for the inventory. The study involved a factor analysis of the selected items to test the original model and produced four general factors related to children's divorce adjustment.     

Factors That Differentiate Distressed and Nondistressed Marriages in Army Soldiers

Data from U.S. Army soldiers (N = 697) were analyzed to determine the factors that differentiate distressed from nondistressed relationships. Results show that most soldiers had relationship satisfaction scores that categorized them as nondistressed. In addition, soldiers in dual-military marriages had relationship satisfaction scores similar to those of soldiers in military-civilian marriages. Finally, several variables including rank, relocation status, relationship length, and relationship status differentiated distressed from nondistressed relationships. Implications for intervention programming and future research directions are discussed.     

Factors That Influence Persistence in Science and Engineering Career Aspirations

The author investigated students' persistence regarding career aspirations in science and engineering (SE) professional careers as a function of race and sex. In a nationally representative sample of 8th graders, persistent racial minority and female students were compared with nonpersistent racial minority and male students regarding their self‐concept, parental involvement, socioeconomic status, and academic achievement. Men were more likely than women to persist in SE career aspirations. Persistent students scored higher than did nonpersistent students on all of the variables studied. Academic proficiency and math self‐efficacy were 2 of the strongest predictors of persistence in SE careers.     

Works Councils and Firm Productivity in France

This paper utilizes establishment-level data to explore the impact of works councils on firm productivity in France. A variety of empirical techniques is employed, including fixed effects and regression discontinuity designs, to identify this impact. We estimate the works council effect on productivity in union and nonunion settings, and investigate the extent to which alternative forms of worker voice and information sharing might substitute for the works council’s impact in production. We find no evidence of a positive impact of works councils on firm productivity in any of our results, and some limited evidence of a negative effect in some of the findings. There is no indication that estimated impacts on productivity vary with union status. However, a notable finding is that worker voice and information-sharing human resource practices are prevalent in French firms regardless of works council status, and are found to have positive and statistically significant effects on firm productivity.     

Impact of Sector Councils: A Canadian Institution

Sector Councils in Canada are a form of non-union representation that have been described as “unique in the world” and they represent approximately half of the workforce in Canada. Their impact on 44 workplace and human resource practices of firms is estimated from a worker-firm matched data set, the Workplace and Employee Survey, for the years 1999–2006. Surprisingly, Sector Councils were significantly associated with positive outcomes for only 4 of the 44 outcome measures and with negative outcomes for 28 of the outcome measures, while 12 of the relationships were statistically insignificant. Possible explanations for this surprising result are provided.     

Factors That Facilitate Relationship Entry Among Married and Cohabiting African Americans

This article examines whether social class differences influences low-income, married and cohabiting African Americans to realize that they are in a “coupled” relationship. To determine the extent to which social class influences the assessment of “couple” status in these partnerships, we examined the qualitative responses of 30 cohabiting and 31 married African Americans to a question regarding the specific event in their relationship that made them realize they were a couple. Qualitative analyses of the data resulted in four delineated themes: (1) relationship marker, (2) affection/sex, (3) having or rearing children, and (4) time and money. Supporting qualitative data are presented in connection with each theme. The sociological aspects of income on African American romantic relationships are also discussed.     

Factors That Impact a Social Worker's Capacity to Supervise a Student

With sector constraints and higher education economic imperatives increasingly impacting the provision of social work field education, university programs lack an understanding of the factors that enable or prohibit field educators’ capacity to provide placements. Despite the significance of field education in the curriculum, it remains unclear what the experiences and motivations of field educators are to provide universities with student placements. This research addresses this gap through surveying 101 field educators that attended statewide Victorian field education training. Results indicated that although field educators recognised the benefits of supervising students, workload relief, additional training, and further student placement preparation by the university were emphasised as the primary factors that would enable them to respond positively to placement requests. Payments for placements did not necessarily ameliorate these issues nor guarantee the provision of more placements. The implications of these findings for universities and the field are discussed.     

The Effective Grassroots Association II: Organizational Factors That Produce External Impact

Grassroots associations are locally based, significantly autonomous, volunteer-run, formal nonprofit groups that manifest significant voluntary altruism as a group. They use the associational form of organization and thus have an official membership of volunteers who perform all or nearly all of the work done in and by these nonprofits. This report reviews some of what is known about how grassroots associations achieve external impacts (impacts on their environment). The preceding issue of this journal (volume 9, issue 4) contains a similar review article for internal impact (impact on members). The method used is a comprehensive literature review.     

Identifying Practice Components of Youth Councils: Contributions of Theory

Social workers are involved in numerous efforts to engage youth in programs, communities, and civic life. One potential strategy has focused on engagement and empowerment of youth through the form of youth councils. Multiple theoretical frames have characterized the scholarly literature. This has limited the conceptual coherence of the field. In this paper, we report empirical data on the operation of several youth councils. We analyze the data to identify the implicit frameworks in use and apply the data from our study to sort practice components within frameworks. This effort is designed to improve conceptualization of youth councils, to inform the development of councils, and eventually to improve outcomes of councils.     

Workload of Social Work Academics and Factors That Contribute to Time Spent on Research

This study delineated academic work type and time by examining data from a cross-sectional survey of social work academics (N=392) in relation to their perception of universities’ expectations of workload, actual workload, and factors that contribute to time spent on research. Findings revealed a disconnect between what academics perceived universities expected of them and the actual amount of time they spent on teaching, service, and research. Holding a PhD, teaching fewer classes, and being employed by a university with a PhD program explained 32% of the variance in academics’ time spent on research. The findings point to the need to rebalance the workload expectations across teaching, service, and research. Strategies for supporting workload requirements are provided.     

Psychosocial Factors That Contribute to HIV/AIDS Risk Behaviors Among Young Black College Women

Sustainable consumption is one of the most recent challenges in the field of education. This is the reason why a great number of international institutions have formulated strategies to foster more sustainable consumption. In Greece, certain educational programs have gradually begum to implement a policy aiming to sustainable consumption in the field of the new curriculum of studies for primary school. The intent of this study is to highlight the need to consider the pupils' consumer habits and behaviors in the purchase and management of products and services in reference with modern consumption patterns. Specifically, the aim of this article is to identify the pupils' sustainable and unsustainable practices, considering their personal dimensions of everyday living, and giving a particular meaning to consumer education in Greece.     

Factors That May Influence Parent Treatment Decision Making for Young Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

ABSTRACT

The number of interventions available for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) has expanded greatly in recent years, although relatively little is known about the factors that influence family caregivers as they make treatment decisions for their children. This study involved a statewide survey of parents of young children with ASD to examine the relative weights of the factors that influenced their treatment decisions. Results suggested that caregivers rely on their own intuition for much decision making, although selected professionals are also influential. Implications for professionals working with children with ASD and their families are discussed.