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.     

On the preservation of copula structure under truncation

The author characterizes the copula associated with the bivariate survival model of Clayton (1978) as the only absolutely continuous copula that is preserved under bivariate truncation.     

Asian Women,Job Training and the Social Organization of Immigrant Labor Markets

This paper examines the entry of Asian immigrant women into a gendered labor market via government-funded job training programs. The focus is on the intake processing of clients into an employment training program operated by a community based organization. The study reveals that women's family responsibilities and the cultural capital they bring function to screen them into or out of training programs and ultimately shape their location in the workforce. The study thus draws attention to how race, class, and gender enter into the organization of Asian immigrant women into the labor market. This investigation is based in institutional ethnography (Smith 1987), a research strategy which displays how activities in a particular setting are coordinated with more extended forms of social organization. The study shows that the overriding concern with successful placement in a job as mandated by government regulations is a critical factor in selecting the women for these programs.     

The majority legal status of women in southern Africa: implications for women and families

Women in many countries of southern Africa do not have majority status or have only recently gained this right. Majority status grants individuals adult legal status and the right to bring matters to court, own and administer property, have legal custody of children, and contract for marriage. This article summarizes the legal status of women in Botswana, Lesotho, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. Lack of majority status contributes to the ongoing risk of poverty for women and makes them overly dependent on men. Compounding the situation in these countries is the presence of a dual legal system. Improving the situation of women and their families involves targeting changes in the legal system, influencing implementation of laws, educating women about their rights, and giving women needed support to seek their legal rights. The legal status of women must be viewed in the context of historical changes in the economic, educational, political, and cultural developments of society.The research for this paper was conducted during her previous faculty affiliation with the University of Michigan, School of Social Work. Her research interests include the impact of social change on women and families, rural mental health services, and health and mental health linkages. She received her Ph.D. from Rutgers University and her M.S.W. from the Columbia University School of Social Work.Her research interests are gender, work and family, culture and power, social transformations in rural and peri-urban communities, critical education, women and community politics, history of women, family and kinship issues, and community-based program development and evaluation. She received her M.S.W. from Dalhousie University, Halifax.     

De minimis and equity in risk

Indices and orderings are developed for evaluating alternative strategies in the management of risk. They reflect the goals of reducing individual and collective risks, of increasing equity, and of assigning priority to the reduction and to the equity of high risks. Individual risk is defined as the (random or non-random) level of exposure to a danger. In particular the role of a lower negligibility level is investigated. A class of indices is proposed which involves two parameters, a negligibility level and a parameter of inequality aversion, and several interpretations of the indices are discussed. We provide a set of eight axioms which are necessary and sufficient for this class of indices, and we present an approach to deal with partial information on the parameters.     

Homework and domestic work

This study assesses two competing theories about the extent to which homework—paid work in the home—helps integrate work and domestic roles for men and women. Contrasting male and female homeworkers with their counterparts working outside the home, it supports some aspects of both the resource and role overload theories, but predominantly the role overload perspective. Homeworkers, especially in the working class, experience less interference between job and family life, but perform more housework and child care. They have no more leisure time nor greater marital satisfaction than those working outside the home, but receive more family assistance with their paid jobs, suggesting that they combine tasks from their first and second shifts. Working at home does not break down gender roles in domestic life. Despite time saved from commuting, male homeworkers perform no more housework than comparable men working outside the home. Thus, the gender division of unpaid household labor is not simply a matter of resources or spatial logistics.An earlier version was presented at the meetings of the Eastern Sociological Society, Providence, Rhode Island, April 1991.     

20世纪40年代海派女作家张爱玲与施济美作品风格比较

20世纪三、四十年代上海文坛除了左翼小说的活跃、繁盛外,还有与其形成鼎足之势的海派小说。这个这文学流派中,40年代涌现出大批优秀的女性作家,在这批"小姐作家"中最有影响力的是张爱玲和施济美。张爱玲的小说更多表现的是人生的无奈,任何诗意的东西在张爱玲这里都是荡然无存的。而施济美的小说却始终保持着对理想、爱情、信念不懈的追求。     

巴赫金对话理论的人文精神

本文企图在更为广阔和统一的思想语境里对话性地诠释巴赫金思想的精髓。多样性的巴赫金思想并非散沙一盘,对话理论及其人文精神是它的精髓。巴赫金终生徜徉在哲学、语言学、社会学和诗学各人文学科领域,而其中心工作就是建构自身的对话理论,他以之贯串于所有的人文学科各领域的研究中,而人文精神是巴赫金的对话理论体现出的核心精神,对话理论在其根底上是关于人的理论,是巴赫金终生为人而斗争的理论结晶,闪耀着人文精神的光辉,它以人为对象,关心人的主体建构,关心人的存在和命运,关心人的平等和自由。就诗学来说,巴赫金的杰出之处在于,在20世纪“语言论转向”的文化语境里,他既能以复调小说理论这种对话理论的变体来阐释陀思妥耶夫斯基小说的艺术形式,又能在这种形式的阐释里以自己的人文精神深刻地理解这种艺术形式所蕴含的人道主义思想     

提高妇女素质是提高人口素质的重要保证

母亲的素质对孩子的优生优育有直接的重大影响 ,因此 ,提高妇女素质是全民族刻不容缓的任务     

实现男女平等构建两性和谐发展的社会

男女两性协调发展在构建和谐社会中有十分重要的意义,两性协调发展可促进经济、社会协调发展,有利于人的全面发展,同时女性发展得到重视,有助于从根本上提高民族素质,推动三大文明建设。但实际生活中,实现男女平等、协调发展既面临传统与现实的挑战,又面临经济全球化、城市化、工业化进程带来的机遇。本文在分析这些情况的基础上,提出解决男女协调发展的途径。