Advancing human rights through constitutional protection for gays and lesbians in South Africa

As a consequence of the 1994 adoption of a justiciable Bill of Rights in South Africa, with an equality provision prohibiting discrimination on the ground of sexual orientation, a coalition of gay and lesbian organisations set about implementing a progressive agenda of gay and lesbian rights litigation. In striking down the offence of sodomy, the Constitutional Court established a jurisprudence of gay and lesbian rights to equality, dignity and privacy that proved to be the foundation for significant litigation around family law issues. Subsequent to the sodomy judgement, the Court has ruled that same-sex couples who are in permanent life partnerships should be entitled to the same rights as married couples to immigration, employment benefits, custody and adoption of children. Despite the extensive equality jurisprudence of the Court, it is still uncertain whether it will rule in the future in favour of same-sex marriage or in favour of a civil union/domestic partnership model.     

Feelings of power in a corporate society

One aspect of the well-being of individuals in society is the extent to which they feel that they have the power to affect their well-being within the society. Coleman (1973b) specifies such a feeling of power as a function of the ability to control events in those arenas of action which are of high interest to the individual. In advanced societies, control of resources has shifted into the hands of corporate actors so that those arenas of action which are of interest to corporate actors are dominatd by corporate actors rather than individual persons. The following proposition can therefore be deduced: persons interested in the arenas of action of interest to corporate actors will have lower feelings of power over their well-being than will persons predominantly interested in arenas of action of little or no interest to corporate actors. Using a national probability sample of households in the United States, this proposition is assessed both directly and after controlling for confounding influences of exogenous concepts. The proposition can be rejected as erroneous unless respondent differences in socioeconomic states are controlled. Respondent differences in major demographic characteristics do not greatly affect the proposition.     

The Enduring Significance of Racism: Discrimination and Delinquency Among Black American Youth

Prominent explanations of the overrepresentation of Black Americans in criminal justice statistics focus on the effects of neighborhood concentrated disadvantage, racial isolation, and social disorganization. We suggest that perceived personal discrimination is an important but frequently neglected complement to these factors. We test this hypothesis with longitudinal data on involvement in general and violent juvenile delinquency in a sample of Black youth from a variety of communities in 2 states. We examine the direct effects of concentrated disadvantage and racial isolation and the direct and mediating effects of social organization, support for violence, and personal discrimination. Consistent with our hypothesis, perceived personal discrimination has notable direct effects on both general and violent delinquency and is an important mediator between neighborhood structural conditions and offending; moreover, its effects exceed those associated with neighborhood conditions.     

Where It's At! The Role of Best Friends and Peer Group Members in Young Adults' Alcohol Use

We examined the hypothesis that best friends and members from a broader peer group would not differ in the amount of influence they have on young adults' alcohol consumption and that what counts would be the mere presence of drinking peers in a given context—irrespective of the type of relationship such peers would have with the target young adult. Data were used from a naturalistic observation study that was conducted in a “bar‐lab” among 221 young adults aged 18–25 years. Both hierarchical and multilevel regression analyses showed that group effects (i.e., average group levels of alcohol consumption) explained young adults' drinking. When taking into account these group effects, best friends' alcohol consumption in the bar‐lab was a nonsignificant predictor of young adults' alcohol use—although best friends' questionnaire‐assessed drinking did predict alcohol consumption in the bar‐lab.     

The perceptions of human resource development professionals in Taiwan regarding their working relationships with subject matter experts (SMEs) during the training design process

While the literature supports the importance of establishing a relationship between designers and subject matter experts (SMEs) in the training design process, this approach is not followed in all global practices. The purpose of this study was to identify the perceptions of human resource development professionals in Taiwan regarding their working relationships with SMEs. The respondents of the study were HRD professionals who worked in high-tech companies located in a science park in Taiwan. The study found that a significant relationship exists between the ability to work with SMEs and current ability in the training design process among HRD professionals who had worked with SMEs. This study provides implications for the professional development of HRD practitioners and HRD practice in Taiwan companies. Cross-cultural issues are discussed to explain inconsistencies between the results and US-based perspectives on the training design process.     

New Governance and the Case of Activation Policies: Comparing Experiences in Denmark and the Netherlands

This article explores the importance of new forms of governance in active labour market policies (activation) in two countries: Denmark and the Netherlands. Drawing on research with key stakeholders in these countries, we analyse how new governance, and particularly processes of contracting-out and localization, have found expression in recent reforms to activation. We conclude that localization and contracting-out may have a future role to play in the development of more locally responsive and individually focused services. But both countries have encountered problems in promoting joined-up services through local jobcentres, while contracting-out has not always led to the tailored, individually focused services envisaged by policy-makers. In both countries, there are also concerns that the restriction of the Public Employment Service to a 'gatekeeping and signposting' role will lead to inconsistencies in the quality of services, exposing the most disadvantaged to greater social risk.     

Implications of Eurocentrism for Social Work Education: Trivialization vis-à-vis Skin Color

The significance of skin color among people of color and its relative absence in social work literature is arguably attributed to Eurocentrism. Eurocentrism defines human reality via Eurocentric norms, ideas, values and perspectives. Evidence of Eurocentrism in social work is contained in its literature priorities, skin color litigation, brown racism and skin bleaching. Demonstration of the aforementioned social pathologies involving skin color pertaining to people of color is a critical, existential phenomenon. If social work is to remain viable and be sustained in the future, it must conform to the dictates of changes in the population. That will require a commensurate adjustment and a willingness of its intelligentsia to accommodate skin color and other alternative views relative to education and practice.     

A characterisation of logistics networks for product recovery

Recovery of used products is receiving much attention recently due to growing environmental concern. Efficient implementation requires appropriate logistics structures to be set up for the arising goods flow from users to producers. We investigate the design of such logistics networks. As a basis for our analysis we review recent case studies on logistics network design for product recovery in different industries. We identify general characteristics of product recovery networks and compare them with traditional logistics structures. Moreover, we derive a classification scheme for different types of recovery networks.