Special Interests and/or New Right Economics? The Ideological Bases of Reform Party Support in Alberta in the 1993 Federal Election*

La faveur croissante que connaît le Parti réformiste auprès du public est d'ordre à transformer la scène politique canadienne. Dans le présent article, les auteurs soutiennent que les conditions du succès du Parti réformiste tiennent à des facteurs globaux, dont on peut égale-ment observer l'existence au cours des années 1980 et 1990 dans d'autres démocraties industrialisées avancées: la crise des dépenses de l'état-providence et la renaissance du conservatisme attenante. Néanmoins, si la crise fiscale a établi les conditions qui ont rendu possible la mise sur pied du Parti réformiste, ce sont surtout les traits populistes du projet qui lui ont attiré les votes. L'analyse des données d'un sondage de 1994 à l'échelle de la province de 1'Alberta met en lumière une différence prépondérante entre les individus qui ont reporté leur voix sur le Parti réformiste et ceux qui sont restés fidèles à leur parti: la conviction que certains groupes (special interests), exercent trop d'influence sur la politique du gouvernement. The recent growth in public support for the Reform Party has the potential to transform the Canadian political landscape. This paper argues that the conditions for Reform's success are broader factors also observed in other advanced industrial democracies in the 1980s and 1990s, namely the crisis of welfare-state expenditures and the attendant resurgence of conservatism. But while the fiscal crisis established the conditions that made Reform possible, it has been the populist elements of its project that have provided the strongest attraction for voters. Analysis of 1994 province-wide survey data from Alberta indicates that the belief that certain “special interests” have too much influence on government policy best differentiates those individuals who switched their allegiance to the Reform Party from those who maintained their previous party loyalties.     

Educating Women: Gender Inequalities among Canadian University Graduates*

Dans le présent article, les auteurs proposent une analyse comparative des revenus et du chomage dliommes et de femmes diplômés universitaires entre 1978 et 1988. Les résultats montrent que le sexe continue d'exercer une influence importante sur ces données; le rapport global hommes-femmes est en effet passé de 84% a 91%. Seule une petite partie de l'écart des revenus peut s'expliquer par des différences entre les hommes et les femmes au regard du recrutement sur le marché du travail. Les auteurs considèrent ces résultats révélateurs de la ségrégation entre les hommes et les femmes, et que celle-ci mène à des différences dans les cheminements de carrière. De plus, pour l'avenir, ils prévoient que, tandis que l'écart des revenus continuera probablement de diminuer, les formes d'inégalité entre les diplômés seront peut-ôtre de plus en plus marquées, surtout que l'écart des revenus est en déclin parmi les cohortes récentes. This paper compares male versus female income and unemployment for three cohorts of university graduates between 1978 and 1988. Results show that gender became a weaker predictor of these outcomes, with the female-male earning ratio growing from 84% to 91% over this period. Nonetheless, a notable wage gap remained in later cohorts, and for one cohort income disparities widened with time in the labour market. Moreover, only a relatively small portion of the earnings gap could be attributed to male-female differences in market endowments. The authors interpret these results as illustrating gender segregation within occupations that result in disparate earning trajectories. Also, it is suggested that while the wage gap will likely continue to shrink, future patterns of inequality among graduates may become increasingly uneven, especially since real wages are declining among recent cohorts.     

Culturally Competent Parenting: A Test of Web-Based Training for Transracial Foster and Adoptive Parents

This study tested a web-based parenting course called FosterParentCollege.com (FPC) Culturally Competent Parenting (CCP) for transracial foster and adoptive parents. Research indicates that transracial children, whose parents practice culturally competent parenting, have positive outcomes. A mixed methods pretest posttest treatment and control group design were implemented to determine if there was a difference in parent scores on openness to cultural receptivity after completing the course in comparison to parents assigned the control group. Cultural receptivity is defined as the effort that parents are willing to put forth to learn about CCP. Additionally, parents who participated in the treatment course completed 2-month follow-up interviews on self-reported application of techniques. Results of the study showed that parents enrolled in the treatment course had significantly higher scores for openness to cultural receptivity after completing the course than before. Themes identified in follow-up interviews indicated parents' efforts to learn more about CCP.     

Resisting Neoliberalism from within the Academy: Subversion through an Activist Pedagogy

Teaching and learning in the neoliberal academy means that educators in non-market-oriented departments, such as social work, face several constraints and challenges when trying to implement an anti-oppressive, social justice focused curriculum. This article considers challenges that can arise with an introductory social work course in the current context of neoliberalism, especially when open to both social work and non-social work students. With a particular focus on larger class sizes, the use of precarious labour and the depoliticization of the classroom, the authors use an inductive, reflective approach to analyse observations made about shifts in the behaviour and engagement of students in the course. The authors surmise possible explanations for these shifts, considering changes made to the substantive content and pedagogical practices of the course. Through this process the authors propose that these changes represent an ‘activist pedagogy’ which may offer potential for anti-oppressive education with students both inside and outside social work. As such, the authors propose ‘activist pedagogy’ as a possible way to resist and subvert the neoliberal educational paradigm and to better integrate the principles and practices of social justice and anti-oppressive social work into the classroom.     

Estimating the Probability of Human Error by Incorporating Component Failure Data from User-Induced Defects in the Development of Complex Electrical Systems

This article proposes a methodology for incorporating electrical component failure data into the human error assessment and reduction technique (HEART) for estimating human error probabilities (HEPs). The existing HEART method contains factors known as error-producing conditions (EPCs) that adjust a generic HEP to a more specific situation being assessed. The selection and proportioning of these EPCs are at the discretion of an assessor, and are therefore subject to the assessor's experience and potential bias. This dependence on expert opinion is prevalent in similar HEP assessment techniques used in numerous industrial areas. The proposed method incorporates factors based on observed trends in electrical component failures to produce a revised HEP that can trigger risk mitigation actions more effectively based on the presence of component categories or other hazardous conditions that have a history of failure due to human error. The data used for the additional factors are a result of an analysis of failures of electronic components experienced during system integration and testing at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. The analysis includes the determination of root failure mechanisms and trend analysis. The major causes of these defects were attributed to electrostatic damage, electrical overstress, mechanical overstress, or thermal overstress. These factors representing user-induced defects are quantified and incorporated into specific hardware factors based on the system's electrical parts list. This proposed methodology is demonstrated with an example comparing the original HEART method and the proposed modified technique.