Trade Unions,Gender and Claims under Irish Employment Equality Legislation

This article examines trade union activity in representing claimants at Equality Officer investigations under the Republic of Ireland's Employment Equality Act, 1977 . This is set in the context of traditional trade union support for gender segregation in employment and the observation that trade union decision‐making bodies still tend to be heavily male dominated. Use of the Act by trade unions is shown to have been mainly reactive rather than strategic. Evidence is presented that, while some individual union officials actively supported claims, this was not necessarily typical. It is argued that this represented a lost opportunity by trade unions to push the equality agenda forward and is consistent with continuation of the patriarchal trade union tradition. The article concludes by arguing that significant change to this approach is unlikely, given current gendered patterns of trade union governance.     

Predictors of out-of-pocket medical expenditures in low-income households

From a sample of low-income households, out-of-pocket medical expenses are found to average about $25 per month. For each household, these expenses vary with annual income, type of insurance for medical care, priority of medical expenses, ethnicity, and number of ill family members. Expenses are reported for households with different socioeconomic characteristics and composition. Multiparticipation in insurance programs is shown. Fourteen percent of the survey participants say they have no insurance, public or private. Thirty-three percent participate in Medicaid.Flora L. Williams is an Associate Professor in Consumer Sciences and Retailing at Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907. She received her Ph.D. from Purdue University and includes family economic well-being, and financial problems and expenditures among her research interests.Amy Hagler received her M.S. from Purdue University in Consumer Sciences and Retailing.Mary Pritchard is an Associate Professor in the Department of Human and Family Resources at Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, IL 60115-2854. Her Ph.D. was earned at Purdue and her areas of research focus on family economic well-being and economic socialization of adolescents.Marshall A. Martin is a Professor of Agricultural Economics at Purdue University. His research addresses agriculture and food policy, and economic assessment of emerging agricultural technology.William C. Bailey is an Assistant Professor of Marketing at the University of Indianapolis, 1400 E. Hanna Avenue, Indianapolis, IN, 46227-3697. He received his Ph.D. from Texas Tech University and focuses his research on economic psychology and health care cost.     

W.E.B. Du Bois and the women of hull-house, 1895–1899

An important aspect of W.E.B. Du Bois’s professional socialization is documented; specifically, Du Bois’s professional interactions with women sociologists who practiced in social settlements, notably Jane Addams, Katherine Bement Davis, Florence Kelley, and Isabel Eaton. These women, and their research in Hull-House Maps and Papers, were facilitators and role models for Du Bois’s The Philadelphia Negro, in which Isabel Eaton was a significant collaborator. Addams, Kelley, and their friends joined Du Bois to cofound the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, an exemplar of applied sociology and Du Bois’s shared interests with the early Hull-House women. These early sociologists changed American thought and social policy and today provide a rich heritage for contemporary professionals in sociology.     

Accelerating Monte Carlo Markov chain convergence for cumulative-link generalized linear models

The ordinal probit, univariate or multivariate, is a generalized linear model (GLM) structure that arises frequently in such disparate areas of statistical applications as medicine and econometrics. Despite the straightforwardness of its implementation using the Gibbs sampler, the ordinal probit may present challenges in obtaining satisfactory convergence.We present a multivariate Hastings-within-Gibbs update step for generating latent data and bin boundary parameters jointly, instead of individually from their respective full conditionals. When the latent data are parameters of interest, this algorithm substantially improves Gibbs sampler convergence for large datasets. We also discuss Monte Carlo Markov chain (MCMC) implementation of cumulative logit (proportional odds) and cumulative complementary log-log (proportional hazards) models with latent data.     

RESOLVING ETHICAL CONCERNS IN CLINICAL PRACTIVE: TOWARD A PRAGMATIC MODEL*

A pragmatic model is proposed for use in resolving ethical concerns and dilemmas in clinical practice. It encompasses five decision bases that therapists may draw on for the kind of comprehensive analysis that is necessary for reaching a defensible decision. The decision bases are: (a) theories of ethics; (b) professional codes of ethics; (c) professional theoretical premises; (d) the sociologal context; and (e) the personal/professional identity. The model is applied to five actual cases offered by several therapist who experienced ethical concerns with them. The case analyses demonstrate the model's utility for decision making and for prevention of ethical problems.     

Secularism as a Barrier to Integration? The French Dilemma

This article focuses on the secularism debate currently taking place in France by examining how this issue impacts the integration of immigrants, particularly Muslim immigrants. Secularism is one of the key values of French Republicanism, but one which has been challenged by the establishment of a settled population of Muslim immigrants in France. The issue has been particularly highlighted by the affaire des foulards (headscarf affair), an ongoing debate over the rights of Muslim girls to wear a headscarf to secular French schools. Discussions of the principle of secularism and of its application have been even more intense in recent months with the publication in December 2003 of a report by the Stasi Commission, a commission set up by President Chirac to investigate the application of the principle of secularism, and by the passage of legislation intended to outlaw the wearing of any “overt” religious insignia in French schools. This article examines these recent developments in the context of the long‐running debate over Muslim women's right to wear a headscarf in French schools. It argues that the current focus on secularism provides evidence of the return of assimilation as a primary objective of public policy (Brubaker, 2001) and the decreasing strength of the movement in favour of the droit à la différence (right to difference). Finally, the paper argues that this has provided important obstacles to the integration of certain groups of immigrants, particularly Muslim immigrants.