民间慈善:妇女参与社会活动的有效途径--立足于宋朝的考察

在中国民间慈善发展史上,宋朝是一个极为活跃的时期,其中,妇女的贡献亦是不容忽视的.诸如赈饥救荒、济贫恤穷、扶弱解困、公益事业等方面,都活跃着众多妇女的身影.从这些行动的广度和深度来看,妇女所参与的民间慈善活动已超越了作为男性配角的从属地位而具有了独立的主体性.从这些行动的动机来看,除了带有强烈的宗教色彩之外,妇女通过参与民间慈善活动而获得了参与社会的权力无疑也是一个重要动力.     

Managing Conflicting Roles: A Qualitative Study with Female Faculty Members

The interface and transactions between the roles individuals need to play in their family and employment environments are a source of both positive and negative stressors for women, their employers, and family members. Drawing on interviews with female faculty members working in three types of higher education institutions in Michigan, the paper first suggests that female faculty members’ current employment-household management is influenced by past decisions. In addition, the complexity of their family and employment careers positively and negatively influences their lives.     

The importance of social circumstances for Swedish women's subjective wellbeing

The importance of social circumstances for middle-age women's general subjective wellbeing (SWB) was investigated in a representative sample of Swedish women, aged 43 (N = 369). The results showed non-existent to moderate relationships between a number of social circumstances variables and general SWB. The strongest relationship was found between marital status and global life satisfaction. Being off work because of illness and household income were the strongest predictors of negative affect. A moderate relationship was found between a cumulated social disadvantage index and SWB, indicating that extreme differences in this index were related to fairly large differences in SWB. In person-oriented analyses, social circumstances were compared between women with a typical profile of generalised low SWB and women with a typical profile of generalised above-average SWB. The results indicated stronger relationships between SWB and the cumulative disadvantage index and unemployment than was the case in the variable-oriented analyses. When personality factors were controlled for, they eliminated nearly all relationships between the social circumstances variables and SWB, except for those between global life satisfaction and marital status or unemployment.     

Remarriage,Unmarried Cohabitation,Living Apart Together: Partner Relationships Following Bereavement or Divorce

Substantial proportions of people enter into new partner relationships after bereavement or divorce. Nowadays in Europe, unmarried cohabitation and living‐apart‐together relationships are frequently opted for at repartnering. Drawing on the Netherlands’ Living Arrangements and Social Networks survey of men and women aged 55 to 89 years (N = 4,494), this article explicates the determinants that lead widowed or divorced people to enter into old and new types of partner relationships. Cox proportional hazard regression analyses revealed that age at most recent union dissolution, the number of partner dissolutions, working during and after the most recent union dissolution, and other demographic variables are important in weighing the pros and cons of different types of living arrangements.     

Earning Their Keep and Keeping What They Earn: A Critique of Organizing Strategies for South Asian Women in the Informal Sector

It is now widely understood that the needs of women workers in the informal sector are not met by the conservative practices of labour organizations and trade unions. While the contribution of women to the economies of developing countries is critical, women rarely find employment in the regulated unionized sectors of these countries, and are found instead in overwhelming numbers in the sector that is variously termed ‘unorganized’, ‘unprotected’, ‘unregistered’ or ‘informal.’ This article addresses the situation of women in the informal economy in South Asia. The author explores the major challenges and opportunities facing women in their efforts to organize and mobilize for change. She also provides a critical analysis of the different types of interventions adopted by the state and civil society organizations in South Asia to empower women in the informal sector. The author concludes with an attempt to identify the mix of interventions and strategies most needed for different social, political and economic circumstances.     

The Impact of Human Factors on Ab Initio Pilot Training

This article examines critically the power effects of a branch of psychology called Human Factors within the context of commercial aviation. A review of the aviation literature highlights the significance of Human Factors and its relevance to the recruitment and training of ab initio pilots. However, research in the field is criticized for failing to account for existing power relations and the potential effects of a new discursive format. This article uses the concept of discourse associated with Michel Foucault to analyse empirical data from interviews with individuals involved in ab initio pilot training at a European flying college. The analysis illustrates how staff at the training college use the rhetoric of Human Factors to enhance their own contribution and status, without fundamentally changing existing practices. Although this reinforces existing power relations, the Human Factors discourse also potentially empowers a different set of management employees. By illustrating the conflicting values and interests of two sets of managers and trainers at the college, the article is able to demonstrate the negative effects of the new discursive format on male ab initio pilots. It also discusses attitudes to female pilots, contributing to the debate about the ability of management discourses to promote gender equality within commercial organizations.     

Reporting bad results: The ethical responsibility of presenting abused women's parenting practices in a negative light

The purpose of this paper is to present and analyse the ethical dilemmas involved in presenting research findings that describe abused women's parenting practices in a negative light. The study was based on data collected by in‐depth interviews for the purpose of examining the turning point among 20 Israeli abused women who refused to live with violence and took active steps to stop it while staying with the perpetrator. Overall the analysis indicated successful survival stories but the women's parenting practices became questionable. This raised dilemmas as to how to present such findings and what are the ethical implications related to interventions with abused women.     

Aetiology of anorexia nervosa in Hong Kong: a social work qualitative inquiry

This paper reports the results of a qualitative inquiry into the aetiology of anorexia nervosa in Hong Kong. These results are part of our main research project about family treatment and families with a daughter suffering from anorexia nervosa. This present qualitative study adopts a multiple case study approach (n = 8) and employs a multiple‐source data collection method, involving pre‐ and post‐family treatment interviews, clinical observations of the participants during the treatment sessions and home visits, as well as detailed field notes. The findings indicate that there are biological, psychological, socio‐cultural and familial interpretations of the aetiology of anorexia nervosa. This study challenges the dominant discourse on anorexia nervosa in Hong Kong, which states that the root of the disease lies in a desire for slenderness and beauty, and suggests instead that the aetiology of anorexia nervosa can be discovered only if approached from the systems level. Implications for social work practice are highlighted.     

Substitution in statutory and voluntary support for relatives of older people

This study investigates the relationship between statutory and voluntary activity in the field of support to family carers of older people in Sweden. The relationship is considered in regard to substitution theory. A survey was conducted comprising 80 local authorities and 358 voluntary organisations. All the local authorities and about a third of the voluntary organisations arranged support activities. The number of activities varied substantially across the municipalities. However, correlation analysis found no significant relationship between local authority and voluntary activity, even though both sometimes arranged the same kinds of activities. In other words, this study finds no support for substitution theory. On the contrary, it shows that a higher level of voluntary activity is found in municipalities where the local authority cooperates with or supports voluntary organisations.     

Poor Mothers and Habits of Hiding: Participatory Methods in Poverty Research

Poor mothers have long‐standing habits of hiding their lives in response to punitive authorities and stigma. We identify practices of hiding daily life, and we describe participatory research approaches for and ethical concerns in learning more about poor women's critical insights and survival strategies.