Deep Ecology's contributions to social work: A ten‐year retrospective

Besthorn FH. Deep Ecology's contributions to social work: A ten‐year retrospective In the last decade, a new generation of social workers have made great strides incorporating environmental awareness into their theoretical formulations and practice modalities. This is a welcome development for a profession often conspicuously absent in the emerging international consensus that Earth's capacity to support life is in deep trouble. Beginning in the 1980s and 1990s, a few intrepid North American social workers began to raise the alarm concerning the scope and extent of environmental decline. Several social work scholars implored the profession to play a more active role in raising ecological awareness and take a seat at policy and practice forums debating environmental issues. Deep Ecology, founded by the late Norwegian philosopher Arne Naess, offers a comprehensive philosophical framework upon which social work might draw in the development of its conceptual orientations. This article examines the current manifestations of Deep Ecology as a philosophy and socio‐political movement. It briefly assesses the evolution of social work's nascent interest in the natural environmental, examines historical precursors influencing Deep Ecology, reviews several key concepts of Deep Ecology, discusses ongoing applications of deep ecological ideas to several disciplines and suggests how deep ecological ideas might help inform social work's understanding of social justice.     

On operations research and value conflicts

The paper addresses the question of how operations research (OR) ought to handle decision problems that involve value conflicts. First, we note that early OR was considered essentially value free within the OR community, with a mechanistic systems perspective, although some voiced concern that an analyst should not detach herself from the consequences of her work. Then we propose a value conflict scale, which we use to assess the conflict levels in a small sample of OR applications. We then turn to value identification. In practise, organizational value statements include many kinds of values, and we discuss how values can be sorted out according to ethical categories, which helps in identifying consequentialistic decision criteria. The next question is how values can be enacted in a decision process. We review findings in neuroscience, which indicate that intra-personal decision-making takes place in a field of tension between deliberation and affect. The implication is that low level conflicts may leave decision-makers too cold for values to be enacted and therefore want infusion of emotion. On the other hand, emotions in high-level conflicts may run too high to give reason a chance. Emotions, therefore, need to be tempered and this can be achieved through at least two strategies: a focus on consequences rather than virtues and rules and discourse ethics. These are the subjects of the two last parts of the paper. We conclude by proposing five ethical rules for OR analysis of value conflicts. An analyst should not regard herself as being detached from the decision that are made, should be conscious that good decision-making requires temperate emotions that balance affect and deliberation, should promote focus on consequences, should promote the view that stakeholders have intrinsic value; they should not be treated instrumentally and should encourage fair processes to identify stakeholder values.     

Measuring the effect of sex preference on fertility: The case of Korea

Preferences for male or female children or a balanced number of sons and daughters are common throughout the world. The dominant preference is for male offspring, particularly in less developed countries. Strong son preference is often tempered, however, by a desire to have at least one child of each sex. In more developed countries a balance preference is more common, often together with a strong preference for the first child to be a son. Although it is usually assumed that sex preference can substantially influence fertility, some analysts argue that the effect is negligible. An intermediate position is taken by those who say that sex preference may not have much impact at high fertility levels, but that as average family sizes begin to fall, sex preference will become a more important factor in fertility decisions. Despite the keen interest that has been shown in sex preference, there is surprisingly little empirical evidence of its effects on fertility. Moreover, much of the research in this area is methodologically weak. The measures that have been used in the past have been subject to a number of criticisms that call their results into question. This paper proposes a new measure of the effect of sex preference on fertility that avoids many of the problems inherent in other methods. The measure is based on widely available survey data on the sex composition of children and can be used with any measure of fertility or family planning. It can handle any type of sex preference and does not assume a linear relationship between sex preference and fertility.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)     

Career Constraints of Observant Jews

This article reviews factors operating to limit the employment and career progression of observant Jews. Specific religious practices that could hamper upward mobility, as well as mistaken perceptions of these practices by superiors and coworkers are discussed. Additional reasons for possible discrimination against observant Jews and supporting research are reviewed. The potential role of the career counselor and human resources professional in aiding the observant Jewish client is discussed.     

Female labour force activity and the sex differential in mortality: Comparisons across developed nations, 1950–1980

In this paper, we examine the macro-level relationship between female labour force activity and the sex differential in mortality among developed nations. Discrimination, protection, and null relationship hypotheses are tested using aggregate data for 18 high income nations over seven time points from 1950 to 1980. High levels of female labour force activity — controlling for a variety of general social conditions — increase the longevity advantage women have over men. In some models the effects are immediate; in other models the effects occur after a substantial lag; but in no cases are there harmful effects for women's longevity. Also important for the differential are consumption of cigarettes and alcohol, and the level of income inequality in a society.     

Couple dynamics and attributions when one partner has an acquired hearing loss: implications for couple therapy

We discuss the communication difficulties that many couples face when one partner has a hearing loss. We also discuss the role of attribution theory in understanding the marital distress of these couples. Finally, we offer interventions to support better communication between couples facing the challenges of hearing loss.     

Resolution Search and Dynamic Branch-and-Bound

A novel approach to pure 0-1 integer programming problems called Resolution Search has been proposed by Chvatal (Discrete Applied Mathematics, vol. 73, pp. 81–99, 1997) as an alternative to implicit enumeration, with a demonstration that the method can yield more effective branching strategies. We show that an earlier method called Dynamic Branch-and-Bound (B&B) yields the same branching strategies as Resolution Search, and other strategic alternatives in addition. Moreover, Dynamic B&B is not restricted to pure 0-1 problems, but applies to general mixed integer programs containing both general integer and continuous variables.We provide examples comparing Resolution Search to enhanced variants. We also show the relation of these approaches to Dynamic B&B, suggesting the value of further study of this neglected approach.