Faith-Based and Community Initiative

Abstract

President Bush's Executive Orders to establish Centers of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives have encouraged the use of faith-based organizations (FBOs) as service providers in a range of federally funded programs. New federal rules and regulations are removing barriers so that FBOs can participate in these programs. Yet, there is no centralized information system that accumulates data related to performance standards or outcome measures. This article analyzes the scope and scale of services provided by FBOs and the diverse approaches to studying the outcomes from these services.     

Male routes to a teaching career: motivations,market constraints and gender inequalities

The aim of this paper is to contribute to our understanding of the gender influence on teaching choice. We analyze a large-scale national representative sample of Italian teachers. The choice to teach seems to be more a long-term pathway for women, following their personal values and interest in the intrinsic and altruistic values of teaching. Men, instead, show a more adaptable pattern of choice: chance and switching career played a relevant role in determining their ending up in teaching. ‘Males in a feminized environment’ present an intermediate profile, characterized by stronger constraints due to previous studies and consequent weak labor market opportunities. Our analyses support the idea that men found their pathways to gaining satisfaction from the occupation of teaching, thanks to its flexibility. This is an ambiguous result from a gender perspective: reassuring but also worrying, considering that the adaptation could contribute to the reproduction of gender inequalities within the teaching profession.     

Enabling Informed Consumer Choice in the Long-Term Care Insurance Market

ABSTRACT

Provisions in the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) may increase private long-term care insurance sales without imposing substantially more stringent consumer-protection features. The ability of consumers to make informed choices when purchasing this complex product is examined in light of these changes. Data were collected through detailed examinations of policies and interviews with industry experts, insurance companies, agents, consumer groups, and regulators. Because of the complexity of this product, the goals of expanding consumer choice and ensuring that consumers are able to make informed decisions often work against each other. Mechanisms are discussed through which the government can facilitate informed choice and improve consumer protection. The authors contend that, because the government is providing tax incentives that encourage consumers to purchase the product, it has the responsibility to ensure that consumers understand the long-term care insurance they purchase.     

Employment Conditions in the Senegalese Horticultural Export Industry: A Worker Perspective

The rapid transformation of the agri‐food sector in developing countries has created rural off‐farm employment opportunities, especially for women. There is growing concern about worker welfare and employment conditions in agri‐food and export sectors, but empirical evidence on this issue is scant. We analyse contractual preferences of female workers in the horticultural export sector in Senegal. We use a discrete choice experiment to assess women's preferences for a labour contract and employ a latent class model to capture preference heterogeneity. We find that women have a high willingness to accept a labour contract in the horticultural export industry, and that differences in preferences for contract attributes can be explained by women's empowerment status.     

Unequal transitions: Selection bias and the compensatory effect of social background in educational careers

Previous studies have shown that social background inequality differs among educational transitions and it is stronger for those transitions that involve a higher risk of social demotion. This paper focuses on two processes that may account for part of the observed differences in social background inequality across educational transitions. First, it studies how the family of origin might compensate for a ‘false step’ in the early stage of young people's educational careers. This compensatory effect of social background can be described as the likelihood of having ‘a second chance’ for unsuccessful educational transitions. Second, it focuses on two unobserved factors that might potentially bias the effect of social background across educational transitions. These are the students’ unobserved cognitive and non-cognitive skills and their unobserved anticipated choices of dropping out of the education system. Two issues – the compensatory effect of social background and selection bias in educational transitions – are addressed by estimating a probit model with sample selection for the transition to post-compulsory education in Spain.     

Trust,uncertainty and identity in health-related decision-making: the role of key professionals

There is a growing literature examining the way service users make choices in the context of complex and frequently changing forms of welfare provision and increasingly personalised services in England. Despite criticisms of the individualistic, consumerist assumptions underpinning these policies, little is known about the relational contexts of individuals’ lives and the role of professional support in choice-making. Drawing on interviews with ‘key professionals’, identified by service users as having played a crucial role in recent important choices, this paper explores how these choices are made with the support of those who are trusted to provide assistance. Placing ‘key professionals’ at the centre of the analysis, the distinct experiences of people with fluctuating and sudden-onset health conditions are examined. The analysis highlights the particular value of relationships that pay close attention to transitional health identities and the co-production of health-related decisions.     

从《苍蝇》看萨特存在主义文学

萨特从开始创作就表现出对人的困境的思考,随着他思想认识的深化,逐渐转向探求改善人的困境.戏剧<苍蝇>是萨特存在主义文学由追求个体自由向崇尚全人类自由的深层次发展.     

北京市轨道交通产业发展研究——以丰台聚集区为例

丰台区是北京市和全国轨道交通产业的主要聚集区。本文以丰台区为例,分析其轨道交通产业的发展现状,以及具有的优势和劣势。提出了强化科技合作,增强产业创新能力;优化产业链,塑造产业特色;推动产业集群,提升产业竞争力;深化产业互动,实现区域产业升级等对策建议。     

论袁世凯设置内蒙古三特别区（热河、察哈尔、绥远）的启示

民国初年,为加强对边疆的控制,稳定北洋军阀统治,除了加强对内蒙古王公的笼络外,为加强对内蒙古各盟旗的控制,袁世凯政府采取了两项重要措施,一是在北京政府下设立蒙藏事务机构,一是在内蒙古设置热河、察哈尔、绥远三特别区。三个特别区组成了内蒙古地方行政机构,对于稳定北洋军阀的统治有着不可忽视的重要意义。本文意在就三特别区的设置进行一些思考。