Social class,social disadvantage and child health

SUMMARY. The examination of the contribution of social factors to child health status by linking mortality and morbidity to social class as defined by parental occupation is critically reviewed. An alternative approach to examining links between health and social factors is proposed that consists in defining several basic environmental needs of children that must be met to ensure their health status is optimised. For each basic need (housing, income, diet, quality of affectionate care etc.) it is proposed that minimal criteria or a ‘bottom-line’ be set below which it should be generally agreed that an unacceptable level of disadvantage exists. The approach is described in outline, but to a sufficient degree to demonstrate that it is already feasible in some respects, although clearly many details would need to be worked out in others     

News and political consensus: C.B.C. television and the 1983 British election

Cet essai propose une analyse structurelle des elections britanniques de 1983 dans les téléjournaux anglophones de Radio-Canada. Nous voulons circonscrire la relation entre les éléments présents et exclus du discours. Ceci, de trois façons: par l'interprétation de sondages d'opinion, par la representation des partis politiques, et par le traitement de la chose économique dans la compagne électorale. Le discours opère idéologiquement de façon à recréer le consensus autour du leader conservateur, Margaret Thatcher, et ignore comment l'émergence d'un troisième parti important incarnè la fragmentation du spectre politique. C'est ainsi que la perspective du consensus perd sa légitimité.
This paper provides a structural analysis of English-language CBC television coverage of the 1983 British election. It focuses on the relationship between the significant presences and absences in the discourse in three ways: the interpretation of the opinion polls, the representation of the political parties, and the assessment of the economic issues in the campaign. It argues that the discourse functioned ideologically to re-consensualise the political situation around the Conservatives and their leader, Margaret Thatcher. In this respect, it overlooked the ways in which the emergence of a major third party pointed to the fragmentation of the political spectrum, and thereby put into question the legitimacy of such a consensual perspective.     

On the Contingent Valuation of Safety and the Safety of Contingent Valuation: Part 1-Caveat Investigator

This article reports the results of two studies aimed at testing and refining a procedure for estimating willingness-to-pay based monetary values of safety using the contingent valuation method. In spite of the fact that respondents were given the opportunity to discuss various safety issues and key concepts in focus group meetings held in advance of individual interviews, and were also given ample opportunity to revise their responses in the light of the overall pattern of these responses, the results show clear evidence of extensive and persistent insensitivity to the scale and scope of the safety improvements that were specified in the contingent valuation questions, as well as vulnerability to framing effects. This clearly casts serious doubt on the reliability and validity of willingness-to-pay based monetary values of safety estimated using conventional contingent valuation procedures.     

CYBERNETICS AND MACROECONOMICS

A full estimate of the effects of cybernetics and control systems engineering on economics would be premature if not impossible at this time. The relevant literature is at most twenty-five years old and its ultimate impact remains uncertain; thus conclusions are at best tentative. However, one can identify sources of inspiration and main participants as well as apparent trends. Axel Leijonhufvud has referred to the introduction of control engineering into aggregate analysis by Tustin, Phillips, and others in the 1950s as “the Keynesian Revolution which did not come off.” One purpose of this paper is to explore Leijonhufvud's observation. What stopped monetary and macroeconomic theorists from picking up the Tustin-Phillips lead and making the control-theoretic approach an integral part of economic analysis? Historians of economics writing a few decades from now may be able to provide a proper answer. But a few speculations can be offered now.     

Context and Contiguity in Survey Questionnaires

Previous experiments have shown an order effect for two adjacentitems, one concerning the admittance of American reporters toRussia and the other concerning the admittance of Communistreporters to the U.S. The experiment reported here found thatthis effect remained when the two items were separated by aseries of 17 other unrelated questions.     

The reification of ethnicity and its political consequences in the north*

Cet article traite des moyens par lesquels les autochtones de Yellowknife contrôlent leurs identités ethniques à l'carintérieur des contraintes imposées par le pouvoir qui est à l'carorigine ainsi que le pouvoir Euro-canadien, et il explique et analyse en détails les conséquences politiques qui en découlent. II est mentionné que, d'carapres le précepte ethnométhodologique, nous créons continuellement les faits sociaux que nous croyons découvrir. This paper deals with the means whereby native peoples in Yellowknife manage their ethnic identities within constraints imposed by their biographies and Euro-Canadian power, and explicates the political consequences of this management. It is informed by the ethnomethodological precept that we continually create the social facts we think we discover.     

Social Work and General Medical Practice: Personal Accounts of Three-year Attachment

Summary In the area of social worker-general practitioner collaborationmuch has been written about conflict of roles, differing functions,avenues of accountability, and problems of distributing scarceresources. This paper suggests that if the two professions areto work more comfortably with one another, then it is imperativethat both also share the despair, hopelessness, anxiety andanger that are the occupational hazards of each. Ways are suggestedin which doctor and social worker can look at the pain theirpatients are suffering to the benefit of the patient and theiro working relationship.