Fathers at Work: A Ghost in the Organizational Machine

This article first provides a review of fatherhood in the gender and organization literature on work and family, and the body and (in)visibility. It observes how organizational assumptions which frame fathers as breadwinners, ignoring their paternal role, remain extraordinarily persistent because policies (no matter how long established) do not necessarily change social attitudes and behaviours. The article then draws upon original qualitative data to demonstrate how while male workers may feel valued as employees, they often feel invisible at work in their paternal role. Fathers perceive that, while family‐friendly policies might in theory be available to ‘parents’ these are in practice targeted at working mothers. The article considers why working men's paternity is so often ignored, as though fathers are a ghost in the organizational machine. A recommendation for the establishment of a fatherhood and motherhood passport is made.     

A Model of Comparative Ethics Education for Social Workers

ABSTRACT

Social work ethics education models have not effectively engaged social workers in practice in formal ethical reasoning processes, potentially allowing personal bias to affect ethical decisions.¹ Using two of the primary ethical models from medicine, a new social work ethics model for education and practical application is proposed. The strengths and weaknesses of specific extant social work and medical models are reviewed and addressed by the new model and its educational process. The development, components, and use of the social work model are detailed, and an education process example is provided.     

Carbon dioxide emissions and economic growth in the U.S.

The objective of this paper is to analyze the relationship of the carbon Kuznets curve. We discuss two potential flaws in past carbon Kuznets curve studies: one, the potential misspecification of energy consumption as a control variable; and, two, the use of vector error correction models as an empirical specification. Given these potential flaws we estimate a dynamic ordinary least squares model of monthly carbon dioxide emissions, personal income, and energy production in the U.S. from 1981 to 2003. Our results suggest that economic growth drives emissions intensities, not absolute emissions as is often implied in past studies.     

Modeling the Impact of the Affordable Care Act and the Individual Mandate on Californians

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) was designed to provide health insurance to uninsured or underinsured individuals. We used the California Simulation of Insurance Markets (CalSIM) model to predict the experience of consumers in California, who will be faced with new insurance options through Medicaid, employer-sponsored insurance, and the individual market in 2014 and beyond. We explored the response and characteristics of Californians who will and will not secure insurance coverage, with and without the “individual mandate” or minimum coverage requirement (MCR). We found 1.8 million Californians (38 %) of the 4.7 million eligible uninsured will secure coverage by 2019 with the MCR, while only 839,000 (18 % of the eligible uninsured) would obtain coverage without it.     

Reactions to Genetically Modified Food Crops and How Perception of Risks and Benefits Influences Consumers'' Information Gathering

Previous research has reported strong consumer perception that genetically modified (GM) food crops may lead to adverse outcomes in a number of different areas. This is despite the widespread promulgation of the potential benefits and opportunities ascribed to the same technology by many scientists and other experts. A computer-based information gathering and evaluation task was completed by 198 adults to assess the extent to which their initial focus on the dangers or opportunities of genetic modification, or both, could be ascribed to the manner in which they gathered information on the topic (heuristically vs. systematically). Results did not confirm the hypothesis that initial focus (risks, benefits, or both) predicted ongoing information gathering and evaluation behavior. Moreover, also contrary to prediction, most participants primarily used systematic strategies when deriving their initial position, regardless of that opinion. Participants found it difficult to achieve a balanced perspective on GM food crop, even though balanced argument, as measured by order of story selection and time spent reading, was preferred as the source of information. Perceived importance is probably the most influential variable determining information gathering about issues or events to which a level of risk is attached.     

Room to move? Professional discretion at the frontline of welfare‐to‐work

Outcomes of social policies have always been mediated by the discretionary agency of front‐line staff, processes which nevertheless have received insufficient attention in policy evaluation and in the social policy literature more broadly. This article takes the case example of the policy reforms associated with the Australian government's welfare‐to‐work agenda. Drawing on two discreet research projects undertaken at different points in the policy trajectory, the practices of social workers in Centrelink – the Commonwealth government's primary service delivery agency involved in welfare‐to‐work – is examined. Centrelink social workers have been and remain one of the core groups of specialist staff since the Department's inception in the late 1940s, working to improve the well being of people in receipt of income security. Their experiences of the recent past and their expectations of the future of their professional practice as welfare reform becomes more entrenched are canvassed. In summary, the discretionary capacity of the Centrelink social workers to moderate or shape the impact of policy on income security recipients is steadily eroding as this group of professionals is increasingly captured by the emerging practices of workfare.     

Reconsidering public relations models

This essay examines some of the methodological and conceptual problems involved in measuring public relations models. The analysis suggests that there are several contradictions between the relationship management metaphor underlying this work and how public relations models are conceptualized and measured.Drawing on examples from the historical evolution of leadership studies, the authors argue that “public relations models” need to be measured at the relational level, rather than being aggregated across publics and relational stages. They also argue that an adequate normative theory of organizational practice will have a developmental component built into it.     

Gender Differences in Charitable Giving in Great Britain

The predominant part of the literature states that women are more likely to donate to charitable causes but men are more generous in terms of the amount given. The last result generally derives from the focus on mean amount given. This article examines gender differences in giving focusing on the distribution of amounts donated and the probability of giving using micro-data on individual giving to charitable causes for Great Britain. Results indicate that women are generally more generous than men also in terms of the amounts donated. Quantile regression analysis shows that this pattern is robust if we take into account gender differences in individual characteristics such as household structure, education, and income. The article also investigates differences in gender preferences for varying charitable causes. Results are presented separately for single and married people, highlighting the very different gender patterns of giving behaviour found in the two groups.

Book reviews

The Green City: Sustainable Homes, Sustainable Suburbs by Nicholas Low, Brendan Gleeson, Ray Green, Darko Radovich. Routledge, New York (published/distributed by University of New South Wales Press, Sydney). 2005. 247 p. NZ$59.95 (paperback). ISBN 0868406937.

More than Law and Order: Policing a Changing Society 1945–92 (The History of Policing in New Zealand, Vol. 5) by Susan Butterworth. University of Otago Press, Dunedin. 2005.348 p. NZ$49.95 (paperback). ISBN 1877276995.

New Rights New Zealand: Myths, Moralities and Markets by Dolores Janiewski and Paul Morris. Auckland University Press, Auckland. 2005. 206 p., NZ$34.99 (paperback). ISBN 1869403452.

Faith, Politics and Reconciliation: Catholicism and the Politics of Indigeneity by Dominic O'Sullivan. Huia, Adelaide. 2005. 296 p. NZ$44.99 (paperback). ISBN 1869691512.

Body Work: The Social Construction of Women's Body Image by Sylvia K. Blood. Routledge, London and New York. 2005. 149 p. NZ$61.95 (paperback). ISBN 0415272726.

The Word of a Woman ? Police, Rape and Beliefby Jan Jordan. Palgrave Macmil‐lan, Houndmills, Basingstoke and New York. 2004.267 p., NZ$172.95 (hardback). ISBN 1403921695.