A century of U.S. censuses and the language characteristics of immigrants

Since 1890, every U.S. census but one has asked about the language characteristics of the U.S. population. This almost uninterrupted data series, however, has been shaped by contemporaneous presumptions about the ties between language and ethnicity, the likelihood of proficiency in English among various subgroups, and practical constraints. I describe shifts across censuses in the phrasing of questions about language, the coding of responses, and the subpopulations for which the questions were asked and the results were published. I then describe the data generated by these items and discuss their interpretation. I conclude with a summary of the major insights and limitations of a century's worth of data.     

Playing by the Rules of the Game: Women's Experiences and Perceptions of Sexual Harassment in Sport*

Cet article explore les expériences et les perceptions ltées au harcè-lement sexuel, qui sévit parmi les athlètes féminines entraînées par des hommes, au sein de l'élite sportive, haut lieu du règne masculin. À partir des témoignages de 32 athlètes féminines, l'article se concentre sur les interprétations que font les femmes des compor-tements dont elles sont les victimes, et situe leurs expériences dans le contexte plus large de la discrimination et du harcèlement fondés sur le sexe, qui conditionnent en grande partie leur expérience du sport. L'article envisage la possibilité de remettre en question le harcèlement sexuel dans le milieu sportif en modifiant les conditions dans lesquelles les femmes pratiquent le sport. This paper explores the experiences and perceptions of sexual harassment among women athletes coached by men in the male-dominated world of elite sport. Drawing on interviews with 32 female athletes, we focus on the women's own interpretations of the behaviours they encounter, and locate their experiences of sexual harassment within the broader context of gender harassment and discrimination which shapes much of their experience in sport. We consider the possibility of challenging sexual harassment in sport by changing the terms of women's participation.     

What (a) Difference a Degree Makes: The Evaluation of the New Social Work Degree in England

After many years of debate in the UK about the need for a degree-levelqualification in social work, the arguments for a minimum degree-levelqualification were accepted. The requirements for the degreein England were developed drawing on work from a number of sources,including a benchmark statement for undergraduate degrees insocial work and focus groups with stakeholders. The new degreein England, launched in 2003, involves one extra year’sstudy; improvements in the qualifying standard for social work;and specific curriculum and entrance requirements. At the timeof launching the degree, the government department responsiblefor funding (Department of Health) commissioned a three-yearevaluation of the implementation of the new degree to establishwhether the new qualifying level leads to improvements in thequalified workforce. The aim of the evaluation is to describethe experiences of those undertaking the degree, collect theviews of the various stakeholders about the effectiveness ofthe degree and measure the impact of a degree-level qualificationon those entering the workforce. This article, written by theteam undertaking the evaluation of the England degree, exploresthe reasons for the methodological approach adopted and theissues that have arisen in setting up the research.     

Gendering Collective Bargaining: From Men's Rights to Women's Issues*

S'appuyant sur une étude de cas d'un syndicat d'employés de bureau menée pendant l'après-guerre, l'auteure examine comment les syn-dicats ont entretenu une hiérarchie sexuelle dans le monde du travail. Pendant 50 ans, la section 378 du Office and Technical Employee's Union a négocié ses conventions collectives avec la société d'électricité de la Colombie-Britannique en fonction d'une telle hiérarchisation sexuelle. Les stratégies de négotiation favorisant les privilèges des pères de famille ont progressivement fait place à une approche soi-disant neutre, approche qui a été remise en question par le féminisme syndical et les revendications visant l'égalité des sexes. À l'aube des années 1990, les revendications des travailleuses sont perçues comme étant les seules dont la reconnaissance pourrait mener à un déman-tèlement de la hièrarchie sexuelle, et pourtant, les négotiations syndicales conservent une orientation qui tend à sauvegarder les privilèges des homines. Enfin, l'auteure soulève l'ampleur des pro-blèmes entourant la lutte pour l'équité salariale. This paper explores the involvement of unions in the process of gendering work through a postwar case study of one office union. For 50 years the Office and Technical Employees' Union, Local 378, has negotiated gender hierarchies while engaged in collective bargaining at B.C. Hydro. Collective bargaining strategies favouring the rights of male breadwinners gradually gave way to assumptions about gender neutrality, which were in turn challenged by trade union feminism and the articulation of women's issues. By the 1990s women's issues were construed as the only union issues with gender-specific consequences, yet the “main business” of the union continues to reproduce male privilege. This study raises important questions for equity strategies in the workplace.     

A revised socioeconomic index of occupational status

Duncan's Socioeconomic Index (SEI), a widely used indicator of occupational ranking, is based on education and income data from the 1950 census. The major purpose of this paper is to offer a more contemporary version of this index. There are several reasons for doing so. Not only has the occupational classificatory scheme been altered, but the educational and economic characteristics of the American labor force and of specific occupational groups have changed since 1950. The two decades may also have seen a shift in the relations between the educational and economic attributes of an occupational grouping and its social standing or prestige. Second, the construction of the original SEI rested on the characteristics of the male labor force, rather than those of the total labor force. Third, in the process of updating the index, we illustrate how certain arbitrary decisions (dictated by data limitations) in the construction of the Duncan SEI served to vest the socioeconomic index with some artifactual properties. In the production of an updated version of the socioeconomic index, we use three approaches. First, we experiment with differing measures of the income and educational criteria. Second, we reconstruct the dependent variable, occupational standing, to provide a better approximation of the prestige measure used by Duncan (1961). Third, we consider the attributes of both the male and total labor forces in generating contemporary indexes of occupational status. We also compare the performance of the new socioeconomic indexes in models of occupational attainment against the performance of the original Duncan index and subsequent occupational prestige measures. The paper appends new socioeconomic indexes for detailed occupational titles based on the 1970 census classification of occupations.     

Reflective Practice in Contemporary Child-care Social Work: The Role of Containment

In recent years, there has been growing interest in reflectivepractice as an approach that acknowledges the complexity anduncertainty inherent in contemporary social work practice. Whilstattention has been paid to how reflective practice is definedand understood, less consideration has been given to the conditionsthat facilitate its development. Drawing on recent doctoralresearch, this paper suggests that a particular type of reflectivepractice—holistic reflective practice—has the potentialto encourage thoughtful and creative practice capable of addressingthe challenges of contemporary child-care practice. Findingsfrom this research indicate that for holistic reflective practiceto be facilitated, the interdependence of the practitioner,team and organizational contexts needs to be recognized. Practitionersneed to work within safe containing contexts characterized by:clear organizational and professional boundaries; multifacetedreflective forums; collaborative and communicative working practices;and open and ‘contextually connected’ managers.Drawing on these findings and theorizing them in relation toBion’s concept of containment, the paper concludes byproposing a model of containment for the promotion of reflectivepractice.     

Understanding the experience of moving a loved one to a long-term care facility:family members' perspectives

This project was designed to develop an understanding of family members' experiences of moving a loved one to a long-term care facility and to identify ways in which facilities might help ease this process. Twenty-one semi-structured interviews were conducted with family members who had recently moved a relative into one of three long-term care facilities in Southern Ontario, Canada. Several factors appeared to contribute to the overall experience of the move to long-term care and either served to impede or facilitate a positive transition for families. These factors included: the experience during the waiting process, preparation for the move, ease of the actual move, control over decisions, communication throughout the process, support from others, and family and resident perceptions and attitudes towards the move. Easing the difficult aspects of moving a loved one to a long-term care setting can be facilitated with better preparation and support from facilities and community services.