Social insurance and children: The relationship between Social Security,economic well-being,and family context among child recipients

The relationship between social insurance, which provides families protection against certain risks, and child economic security is understudied. Using the 2004 Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) matched to Social Security Administration benefit records, this article investigates the economic welfare effects of the child component of the US Social Security program. We examine how the poverty rate of child beneficiaries would change, absent Social Security income, and how heavily the family incomes of these children rely on it, by family characteristics. Our findings reveal that Social Security plays an important role in mitigating economic insecurity among children deprived of a wage-earning parent through disability, death, or retirement. Family structure, earnings, and employment status are identified as key factors moderating the effect of Social Security on child recipients’ financial circumstance.     

Schedule flexibility in hourly jobs: unanticipated consequences and promising directions

This article considers the challenge of extending conventional models of flexibility to hourly jobs that are often structured quite differently than the salaried, professional positions for which flexibility options were originally designed. We argue that the assumptions of job rigidity and overwork motivating existing flexibility options may not be broadly applicable across jobs in the US labor market. We focus specifically on two types of flexibility: (1) working reduced hours and (2) varying work timing. We first review central aspects of the US business and policy contexts that inspire our concerns, and then draw on original analyses from US census data and several examples from our comparative case-study research to explain how conventional flexibility options do not always map well onto hourly jobs, and in certain instances may disadvantage workers by undermining their ability to earn an adequate living. We conclude with a discussion of alternative approaches to implementing flexibility in hourly jobs when hours are scarce and fluctuating rather than long and rigid.     

Child poverty and family policies across eighteen wealthy Western democracies

While a good deal has been written about the potential value of family policies in reducing child poverty in Western countries, few cross-national quantitative studies have been carried out on this topic. This article uses ordinary least squares regression analysis on panel data from 18 Western democracies from 1987 to 2007 to test the significance of family policies and other welfare policies on child poverty rates. It extends existing research on the relationship between family policies and child poverty by utilizing a broader data-set in terms of time, countries, and child poverty measures. The main finding is that all three of the main family policies studied – child cash and tax benefits, paid parenting leaves, and public support for childcare – correlate significantly with lower child poverty rates. Somewhat surprisingly, disability and sickness insurance also correlates significantly with lower child poverty in nearly every model and test. These findings provide valuable insight for future research and policy-making in the area of child poverty.     

Assimilation,segregation, or integration? A teaching project examining approaches to religious and ideological diversity in the classroom

In this article, we describe the multiple phases of a project that was constructed around the real case of a young Muslim student who wished to be exempted from coeducational physical education on religious grounds. When the school refused her initial request, she decided to take legal measures which ended up in the German Federal Administrative Court. The court ultimately ruled in her favour. Her case was selected as the core ingredient for a new teaching project, which studies acculturation from different perspectives, and examines the complex balance between individual rights and societal duties, as defined by constitutional law in the Federal Republic of Germany. This case demonstrates that the majority society, represented in this study by the school, at times needs to change traditional educational policy in order to further national goals of integration; not as a compromise, but as a fair balance of interests. The project was implemented successfully as an integrated part of teacher preservice education occurring towards the end of the first academically based phase of their training.     

浅析当代大学生如何做好课堂笔记

课堂教学是学生获取知识和技能的主战场,学生做好课堂笔记对学习非常有益。要学生做好课堂笔记,师生必须共同努力,教师应备好课,讲好课,写好板书,做好PPT;学生应做好充分的准备,掌握记课堂笔记的技巧,用笔记搞好复习,巩固知识加强记忆。     

应用心理硕士与应用心理学硕士培养方案的比较

应用心理硕士作为新开设的专业性硕士学位,与学术性学位中的应用心理学硕士有相似之处。文章对西南大学应用心理硕士专业学位研究生培养方案与其应用心理学硕士学术学位研究生培养方案进行了比较,剖析了二者的异同。     

Early-life mortality clustering in families: A literature review

Research on early-life mortality in contemporary and historical populations has shown that infant and child mortality tend to cluster in a limited number of high-mortality families, a phenomenon known as ‘mortality clustering’. This paper is the first to review the literature on the role of the family in early-life mortality. Contemporary results, methodological and theoretical shortfalls, recent developments, and opportunities for future research are all discussed in this review. Four methodological approaches are distinguished: those based on sibling deaths, mother heterogeneity, thresholds, and excess deaths in populations. It has become clear from research to date that the death of an older child harms the survival chances of younger children in that family, and that fertility behaviour, earlier stillbirths, remarriages, and socio-economic status all explain mortality clustering to some extent.     

Reclaiming ourselves through Testimonio pedagogy: reflections on a curriculum design lab in teacher education

This article details one teacher preparation course centering Latin American Testimonio narratives of struggle/survival amid structural oppression for use in secondary curriculum. As our class of predominantly Latina/o students and two Latina instructors engaged Testimonio pedagogy, we fashioned a hopeful alternative to our own experiences of intergenerational oppression. While research indicates that the experiences and histories of pre-service Teachers of Color lend pedagogical strength and critical consciousness to teacher education, three Latina pre-service students highlight the ways in which Testimonio became more than a pedagogical approach. Testimonio’s collectivity, resistance, hope, and assertions of voice and dignity moved through them not as educators first but as (great-grand)daughters of oppressed though still-resilient People(s). Testimonio emboldened these Latina pre-service educators to recognize and validate their own inherited multiliteracies, (re)claim their connectedness to land, and articulate their visions for more equitable schooling. This work advances research into the essentiality of engaging race and ethnicity in K-12 and teacher education curriculum and pedagogy.     

How moral disengagement facilitates the detention of refugee children and families

Refugee children and families are a vulnerable demographic with the propensity to disrupt entrenched disparaging perceptions about immigrants. This project investigates how institutionalised moral disengagement practices [Bandura, Albert. 2002. “Selective Moral Disengagement in the Exercise of Moral Agency.” Journal of Moral Education 31: 101–119] at family detention centres facilitate the apprehension and confinement of children and families seeking asylum. Interviews with former volunteers and an analysis of news reports describing conditions at these centres reveal that moral disengagement plays a pivotal role in rationalising detention, while also enabling restrictive immigration policies and mass deportations. This occurs through the criminalisation of immigrants, suppressing details about residential conditions, and a quota capacity model. Findings are contextualised with regard to recent immigration legislations.     

邓小平四川藏区民主改革思想与实践

民主改革是20世纪中后期中国共产党采取协商方式,领导部分边疆民族地区上层人士及劳动人民,开展以废除奴隶制或农奴制、消除剥削压迫、土地改革为中心的社会改造。建国初期,邓小平等依据民主主义的任务,结合民族地区实际,提出采取协商方式、实行宽大措施开展土改的构想。再经总结,提升为民主改革（和平协商土地改革、直接过渡）,载之宪法,成为共产党的“既定方针”,改造部分民族旧社会形态。即使采取协商方式开展改革,也有可能遭到反对。针对叛乱,邓小平确定“政治争取为主与军事打击结合”的方针,组织群众,平息叛乱,保障改革、坚决改革。在改革上,邓小平及时作出指示,引导改革顺利开展,确定“发动群众、上层协商”的改革方针。“发动群众”表明改革依靠群众;“上层协商”反映用“赎买”施以改革,从而形成有中国特色的社会改造方式。文章通过对为什么要改革、怎样改革、依靠谁改革,以及如何对待叛乱的分析,阐述了邓小平对民主改革的认识,也是邓小平解决部分民族地区社会形态的理论成果。