Public Sector Reform and Women's Work in Poland: ‘Working for Juice,Coffee and Cheap Cosmetics!’

The debate on the transformation of work in east central Europe has concentrated on the restructuring of employment in manufacturing to the detriment of any discussion of the transformation of work in the service and public sectors, where the majority of women are employed. Moreover, while it is frequently recognized that women have been hit hard by job loss and unemployment, less attention has been paid the changing experiences of women in work. This article looks at the profound impact of market‐driven reforms in the Polish health and education sectors implemented in the late 1990s, and considers their implications for women and their work. It reports on interviews with a cross‐section of women workers in schools and hospitals and with trade union leaders at both the national and branch level. The impacts of the reforms and the experiences of women workers are discussed through the themes of changing employment levels, the restructuring of working conditions, job security, wages, training, and the double burden of balancing domestic and work lives. The general findings are that although the impact has been highly uneven between workplaces and regions, in general women have experienced an intensification of work and deteriorating working conditions. Their personal lives are not only more stressful due to the pressure at work, but also the double burden of paid and domestic work has increased due to the marketization of public provision. In both sectors, the response to reform has been widespread and militant industrial action, which has gained considerable political attention. We therefore also focus on how women have contested change, both passively and actively, through trade unionism and other political practice.     

The Case of Rosie: An Adlerian Response

This response is based in the perspective of Individual Psychology, especially in addressing Rosie's stated sense of failure in each of the three life tasks identified by Alfred Adler (1964) as confronting all human beings and defining the requirements for successful adaptation. These are (a) the social task of friendship and making one's place in the community; (b) the task of love and sexuality; and (c) the task of work. Each of these is dictated by the social character of human being, and is seen as ineluctable, given the way humankind's successful evolution was secured by the capacity for language, the revering of social-sexual bonds, and the exchange of goods and services through the division of labor.     

What Role Has the Law Played in Getting Rid of Racism in the Lives of Children?

SUMMARY. It is only relatively recently that a detailed knowledge of how the Race Relations Act 1976 works in practice has made it possible to use it more effectively - to eliminate that element of racism - discrimination. The later Children Act 1989 and its accompanying Guidance, in requiring a heal authority, (when making a decision about a child for whom it is responsible), to take account of the child's religious persuasion, racial origin and cultural and linguistic background establishes a framework to promote equality of opportunity and to counter the learning of racist attitudes. This paper attempts to identify the role of these two Acts in getting rid of racism in children's lives. Knowledge of both Acts will empower parents and professionals' to be able to challenge discrimination and identify anti-racist practice.     

'Different' but not 'exceptional': Canada's permeable fordism

Cet article explique que le Canada n'a pas vécu la periode d'après guerre de la même façon que des autres pays industrialisés. L'état providence canadien et les politiques keynesiennes ont été moins soutenus par un système de partis fondé sur les classes sociales que par les institutions fédérates. Cette difference dans les politiques économiques n'est pas vraiment une 'exception' - comme beaucoup d'analystes de l'économie politique l'ont pensé. Si on applique l'approche de la régulation à la française, en y ajoutant le concept d'un 'paradigme' qui organise les relations sociales du fordisme au Canada, on voit que ces politiques de I'après guerre sont seulement 'differentes'. La crise de fordisme au Canada s'est caracterisé davantage par la crise de ce paradigme, qui était au coeur du système fordiste, que par une crise du système des partis.
This paper argues that Canada did not experience a postwar settlement similar to those of other advanced industrial socities after 1945. The Canadian welfare state and other Keynesian-style macroeconomic policies were not sustained by a class-divided party system but implicated, instead, the institutions of federalism. This difference in the politics of Canaian economic policy no longer appears exceptional, as so much of the new Canadian political economy argues, if we bring to bear the theoretical perspective of the French regulation approach and add to that approach the concept of a 'paradigm' which orders the social relations of fordism in Canada. It was this paradigm which entered into crisis along with production-based relations in the 1970s. The crisis of fordism in Canada, given the particularities of the fordist paradigm, is, then, a crisis of the political arrangements of federalism more than it is one of the party system.     

Women's satisfaction with their breast prosthesis: what determines a quality prosthesis?

The aim of this study is to determine what factors constitute a quality prosthesis and ascertain which factors affect prosthesis satisfaction. Sixty-four women who received full funding for their prosthesis and 38 women who received their hospital's usual funding were recruited. Women rated the information provided about breast prostheses very highly, with 85% reporting that it was "very good" or "excellent." Satisfaction was significantly associated with how well the prosthesis fit (1 week, p = .001; 3 months, p = .01), level of comfort (3 months, p=.005), and appearance of the prosthesis when worn (6 months, p = .001). Quality was significantly associated with how well it fit (1 week, p = .001; 3 months, p = .001), how natural it felt (1 week, p = .001; 6 months, p = .01), the weight of the prosthesis (3 months, p = .003), and appearance when worn (6 months, p = .03). The results will be used to improve women's access to a quality prosthesis.     

Backlash against the inclusion of students with learning disabilities in higher education: Implications for transition from post-secondary environments to work

Individuals with learning disabilities (LD), the largest group of people with disabilities in the United States, are attending college in greater numbers than ever before. Post-secondary training is critical for individuals with LD to make successful transitions into a changing and ever more demanding world of work. Research indicating that college faculty are willing to provide requested accommodations to students with LD suggests that they are increasingly likely to experience successful post-secondary outcomes, and therefore improve their vocational prospects. However, college students with LD and the accommodations they receive have recently garnered some highly critical press. These portrayals may portend problems in higher education for students with LD, who must self-identify and make specific accommodation requests to faculty in order to receive the instruction and testing environments that they require to succeed. Efforts to ensure that the LD label is not ubiquitously applied and that college faculty attempt to separate the idea of merit from achievement and implement instructional practices to better meet the educational needs of students with and without LD are recommended.     

Tools for Comparative Analysis of Alternatives: Competing or Complementary Perspectives?

A third generation of environmental policy making and risk management will increasingly impose environmental measures, which may give rise to analyzing countervailing risks. Therefore, a comprehensive analysis of all risks associated with the decision alternatives will aid decision-makers in prioritizing alternatives that effectively reduce both target and countervailing risks. Starting with the metaphor of the ripples caused by a stone that is thrown into a pond, we identify 10 types of ripples that symbolize, in our case, risks that deserve closer examination: direct, upstream, downstream, accidental risks, occupational risks, risks due to offsetting behavior, change in disposable income, macro-economic changes, depletion of natural resources, and risks to the manmade environment. Tools to analyze these risks were developed independently and recently have been applied to overlapping fields of application. This suggests that either the tools should be linked in a unified framework for comparative analysis or that the appropriate field of application for single tools should be better understood. The goals of this article are to create a better foundation for the understanding of the nature and coverage of available tools and to identify the remaining gaps. None of the tools is designed to deal with all 10 types of risk. Provided data suggest that, of the 10 types of identified risks, those associated with changes in disposable income may be particularly significant when decision alternatives differ with respect to their effects on disposable income. Finally, the present analysis was limited to analytical questions and did not capture the important role of the decision-making process itself.     

Mother-child relationships of mothers living apart from their children

Mothers' perceptions of mother-child relationships when mothers lived with or apart from their children were examined. Interviews and questionnaires were employed with 16 custody mothers and 17 noncustody mothers. Relationships of custody mothers with the children were more positive and less hostile and mothers felt they had gained in the parental role. Noncustody mothers reported more negative, hostile, and nonexistent relationships with their children. Noncustody mothers had less contact with sons than daughters and overall less contact with children than was reported for noncustody fathers. The results were discussed in terms of a complicated set of agendas on the parts of mothers, fathers, and children, all of which were thought to contribute to the more negative noncustody mother-child relationships. Further research is needed to assess the perceptions of all family members in these complex situations.This research was supported in part by a grant from the College of Home Economics Research Institutes, Texas Tech University.     

The Marginal Utility of Information: Its Effects upon Decision-Making*

This paper specifies how the importance or marginal utility of information can change as a function of both its amount and evaluation. Three simple mathematical models are presented: each describes a different relation between decision-making and the amount and evaluation of information available to actors. The model which best describes the data suggests that it cannot be assumed that information of the same type necessarily has the same weight or utility for actors' decision-making.