Class struggle in campaign finance? Political action committee contributions in the 1984 elections

Pluralist and class-based theories offer alternative hypotheses about the political behavior of organized interests in the United States. Using network methods and data on political action committees' (PAC) contributions to congressional candidates in the 1984 elections, we identify interest groups with politically similar behavior in an attempt to assess these perspectives concerning elites in the United States. The analysis includes corporate, labor, membership association, and nonconnected PACs. Counter to pluralist expectations, we find just two large groups—one primarily business oriented and the other primarily labor/public-interest oriented. Our findings thus support a class-based interpretation of the nature of organized interests. These findings are framed in terms of the meaning of unity and fragmentation.     

Sponsored Social Change in a Public Housing Project

Federal and local pressures have given rise to a hybrid organization that brings together disparate groups from the public and non-profit sectors to address complex social problems. This article examines one such organizational emergence of state-affiliated sponsorship. Based on data from a multi-method case study, we find that not only do members of the sponsoring organization use legitimate authority structures, existing laws, and social norms to reproduce their power, they do so with a state mandate that privileges their expertise and processes.Parts of this paper were prepared while the third author, Beth A. Rubin, was on leave to serve as Director, Sociology Program, National Science Foundation. The views expressed in this paper do not necessarily reflect those of the National Science Foundation. P. Denise Cobb is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice Studies at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. This research reflects one part of Cobb's dissertation research that addresses how organizational actors from unequal social positions define a collective agenda and whose interests prevail when there is a lack of consensus. Her current research further examines the emergence of the university-community partnership form. She has published related work in Administration & Society and previously in Qualitative Sociology. Jon Shefner is Associate Professor of Sociology and Director of the Global Studies Interdisciplinary Program at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville. He is co-editor, with Patricia Fernandez-Kelly, of Out of the Shadows: Political Action and the Informal Economy in Latin America (2006: Pennsylvania State Press). He is currently working on a book examining the impact of globalization and democratization on the mobilization and well being of Mexico's urban poor. Beth A. Rubin is Professor of Management and Adjunct Professor of Sociology at University of North Carolina-Charlotte. Rubin publishes on economic and workplace transformation, labor unions, homelessness and social policy and social theory in leading academic journals. Her current research is on organizational commitment in the context of the new economy, inequality and industrial restructuring, organizational and workplace restructuring and time in organizations, the latter of which is represented in the forthcoming book, Research in the Sociology of Work: Workplace Temporalities, that Rubin is editing.     

Book reviews

L. Keeble and B.D. Loader (eds) Community Informatics. Shaping Computer-mediated Social Relations (London: Routledge, 2001), pp. 388, ISBN 0-415-23112-4 (pbk) £18.99.

H. Dreyfus, On the Internet: Thinking in Action (London: Routledge, 2001), pp. 136, ISBN 0-415228-077 (pbk).

D. Miller and D. Slater, The Internet: An Ethnographic Approach (Oxford and New York: Berg, 2000), pp. 217, ISBN 1-8S973-389-1 (pbk) £14.99.     

Assessing Family Outcomes: Psychometric Evaluation of the Beach Center Family Quality of Life Scale

There is currently a lack of reliable scales with which to assess the construct of family quality of life, particularly for families who have children with disabilities. The current work presents 2 studies, including a total of 488 families with children with disabilities, which were conducted to complete the development of a scale to assess family quality of life. The measure was refined through confirmatory factor analyses into 25 items that assess 5 domains of Family Quality of Life: Family Interaction, Parenting, Emotional Well‐Being, Physical/Material Well‐Being, and Disability‐Related Support. Each subscale was found to be unidimensional and internally consistent. An initial examination of test‐retest reliability and convergent validity is also presented. Implications for future research, scale use, and policy are discussed.     

Urban Air Quality in North-East England: Exploring the Influences on Local Views and Perceptions

We set out to explore potential influences on public views about urban air quality in two different, but geographically close, districts in North-East England via a postal survey. The neighborhoods surveyed were chosen to contrast material deprivation, proximity to industry, and two districts (Teesside and Sunderland), and the respondents within them were contrasted by their gender, age, and illness status. The strongest influences on views about local air quality were found to be proximity to industry, residence in Teesside, and, to a lesser extent, age and illness status. This suggests that neighborhood characteristics play an important role in shaping public perceptions of air quality.     

What Do the Published Figures Tell Us about Homelessness in Australia?

This paper is in two parts. An introductory section discusses the housing market in Australia in order to emphasise the fact that homelessness is not simply an individual experience. It is also a structural phenomenon driven by economic imperatives beyond the control of those most affected. The bulk of the paper is devoted to a discussion of the published figures on the level of homelessness in Australia, gathered by the national Census and by the data collection agency for the Supported Accommodation Assistance Program (SAAP), the nation's main program for combating homelessness. Some problems with those figures as they are reported by the SAAP data collection agency are discussed, in particular, the under‐estimation of the level of unmet demand for accommodation. The paper concludes with a comparison between the Census and the SAAP figures, which indicates that policies for alleviating homelessness are far from achieving their aims.     

Beyond Study Abroad: A Human Rights Delegation to Teach Policy Advocacy

Advancement of human rights is a core competency in the social work curriculum. Presented is a model to teach policy practice from a human rights perspective based on a violence-against-women delegation visit to Guatemala. Postdelegation policy advocacy responses included White House and State Department briefings on the problems, including femicide. Case examples of witnessed testimony about human rights violations, including rape, femicide, and human trafficking, reflect the unique and dynamic nature of social work practice in a global context. We link Council on Social Work Education core competencies in policy practice and human rights to experiential learning strategies used by the delegation and derive lessons learned to advance human rights education for the profession.     

Family members’ experiences and management of resident-to-resident abuse in long-term residential care

ABSTRACT

Objectives: Resident-to-resident (RRA) abuse is increasingly recognized as a significant problem in long-term residential care.Families have a constant presence in this setting, yet their inclusion in research about RRA is minimal. The purpose of this study was to examine family members’ experiences and management of RRA. Methods: The methodology was critical ethnography.Twelve family members participated in in-depth interviews and 56 hours of participant observation were conducted. Data were analyzed thematically. Results: The main themes illuminate families’ experiences of RRA in a context that largely normalizes it.In the absence of formal supports, families developed a range of management strategies, ranging from passive to active intervention.Organizational factors, such as staffing levels and mix, and the physical environment also contributed to RRA. Discussion: Families are actively managing RRA in long-term residential care. Policies and programs, including educational supports, should be developed to validate and support families.     

Good Mothers,Bad Mothers

This paper reports on an analysis of representations of child abuse in English-language newspapers in Malaysia. Certain media images of mothers recur: bad mothers who are unable to protect their children; and good mothers, who are feminine representatives of a maternalised national government which is charged with interceding on behalf of abused children. Mothers implicated in child abuse are harshly judged by the maternalist regime. Our findings resonate with previous feminist analyses of child abuse but manifest differently in a non-Western, non-Christian context. In Malaysia, motherhood plays a crucial role in nationalist political culture; women and mothers carry increasing economic, social and political burdens in the rapidly modernising state. Fathers are largely marginal or absent in media reporting of child abuse, while mothers are represented as fully responsible for the care of children, particularly when problems occur. The media's blaming of child abuse on social changes while valorising traditional families reflects a conservative, patriarchal perspective, occluding discussion of the contexts of child abuse and thus mitigating against comprehensive solutions.