Book reviews

Qualitative Sociology -     

Have Times Changed? Career Barriers and the Token Woman Manager

This paper explores the relevance of Kanter's early work on the numerical distribution of women in organizations for an understanding of the position of highly qualified women managers today. Despite the progress that women managers have made over the last twenty years, various consistencies stubbornly remain, particularly concerning the impact of the gender mix of the organization on women's progress and experience of career barriers. The results of this research on the nature of these barriers and how they vary with the numerical distribution of women are presented and discussed.     

Loss,role change and values

While helping professions view loss and bereavement as psychosocial processes, their major focus has been on psychological management. Relatively little attention has been spent in dealing with the role change that loss incurs, especially its negative value dimensions, which is as much a part of the mouring process as psychological change. Social work is uniquely suited to connect role change as an experience of value to ego in helping the bereaved individual regain a new sense of self. Case illustrations with illuminate the dialectical structure of this interaction. They will also identify the kinds of adaptive tasks the client faces and the helping strategies the social worker employs.     

Do Marriage Preparation Programs Really Work?: A Canadian Experiment*

This paper reports on the development, implementation, and evaluation of an innovative marriage preparation program. The program used a small discussion-group format, had pre- and post-wedding sessions, and emphasized the importance of communication patterns and conflict resolution. It was hypothesized (1) that spouses who took part in such a program would be less likely to engage in destructive conflict with each other than those who had not taken part; and, (2) that spouses who took part in the program would seek assistance in solving either individual or marital problems more readily than those who did not take part. The data supported both hypotheses.