Healthy Barbs: Activism Confronts Mortality

Barbara Brenner, JD, was the Executive Director of Breast Cancer Action (BCA) from 1995–2010. Before that, she was a longtime activist in the anti-war movement and an attorney who, for most of her career, practiced public policy law. After she was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1993 at the age of 41, she took the helm of BCA. Under her leadership, the organization moved into a position of national advocacy—demanding research on the causes and prevention of breast cancer, including the role of industrial pollutants. Barbara started the “Think Before You Pink” campaign, encouraging people to question whether companies that display pink ribbons actually produce products that harm women's health or generate any funds to fight breast cancer. Her blog, “Healthy Barbs,” challenged readers to critique routine healthcare practices and policies. Barbara received numerous awards, including a Jefferson Award for Public Service in 2007, the Smith College Medal in 2012, and the ACLU-Northern California's Lola Hanzel Courageous Advocacy Award in 2012. Barbara had a recurrence of breast cancer in 1996. She died of complications associated with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, ALS, on May 10, 2013.     

Introduction. Ce que les écrits font au travail

As is known, large numbers of writings circulate within every kind of professional environment. As a result, there is extensive research on the formats, uses and roles of writings in work. However, the approach taken here is not to describe what is done with writings in work. The central hypothesis rests on a performative vision of writings, one that gives them the power to act, agency. It can be summed up as follows: what do writings “do” to work? Studying work through its writings is a way to connect two dimensions that are too often kept separate: situated activities on the one hand, organizational functions on the other. Indeed, writings are material and robust — though not always lasting — traces of concrete activities, and they provide a handhold for the rigorous analysis of work as close as possible to its conditions of realization. However, writings travel and circulate. They form links between workers, groups, workshops, services, firms, without which production could not take place. They stretch work beyond its source. To track them is therefore to shift the field of enquiry to moments other than the present of the observed situation, and also to other nearby, surrounding workspaces. This brings out the procedural and interactive dimensions of organizations, their integrating capacity. Exploring what writings do to work is therefore not only to place oneself at an intermediate level between situated action and organized action. For the sociologist, it is a way of connecting these two perspectives “on paper”, by embedding the analysis of the actual work in spatially and temporally broader collective actions, and by documenting organizational analysis on the basis of observed work situations. It is a way of contributing to a more extensive ecology of activity, more clearly anchored within its organizational envelope.     

Methods used to teach social work students in the field: A research report from New Zealand

This article reports the findings of research conducted in three schools of social work in New Zealand on 'methods' used to teach social work students in the field. Students were polled before the first placement ( N = 80) to find how 'effective' they rated a range of teaching methods. This was followed up by a post-placement student survey ( N = 77) to ascertain the extent to which these same methods were employed by field educators. Pre- and post-placement student results were compared with the effectiveness ratings that field educators ( N = 130) gave to each method. Field educator and student pre-placement ratings listed most methods as being effective or very effective. Post-placement student survey results suggest consistent incongruity between the effectiveness ratings given to each 'method' by field educators, and the degree to which field educators actually utilised the methods with students during the field placement. Students report that methods enabling the direct observation of their practice were amongst those least used in the field.     

关于水价成本公开的思考

解读企业实施水价成本公开的理论政策依据,剖析水价成本公开工作的现实意义和成本公开中需关注的问题,针对供水企业在开展成本公开工作中面临的任务和应采取的举措,提出相应的对策思路。     

Strategies,Action Repertoires and DIY Activism in the Animal Rights Movement

Following Tilly, this paper argues that a social movement is what it does as much as why it does it. This approach is particularly important in the case of the animal rights movement, which is often demonized as extremist and violent. Critics of the movement claim that animal activists use letter bombs, arson attacks and threats to intimidate those they see as animal abusers and that violent direct action of this kind is typical of the movement as a whole. The present paper argues that the mainstream animal movement – in the USA, the UK and Australia – is overwhelmingly non-violent and that its core strategies and tactics have two broad aims, namely to gain publicity for the movement and to challenge conventional thinking about how we treat non-human animals. This is achieved primarily by the deployment of the key tactical mechanisms of persuasion, protest, non-cooperation and intervention. These tactics may be deployed collectively or as DIY (Do-It-Yourself) activism which many grassroots animal activists – ‘caring sleuths’ to use Shapiro's apt term – seem to prefer. The paper focuses on demonstrations and pamphleteering as examples of publicity strategies or liberal governance strategies as well as critical governance strategies or interference strategies such as the hunger strike, ethical vegetarianism and undercover surveillance.     

The praxis of ethnic studies: transforming second sight into critical consciousness

This article focuses on a youth participatory action research (YPAR) program called the Social Justice Education Project (SJEP) that fostered young people of color’s critical consciousness. Their critical consciousness emerged through praxis (reflection/action) while focusing on preserving ethnic studies in Tucson, Arizona. Because the SJEP home was in ethnic studies, the youth also struggled to keep their program alive. The Arizona Department of Education claimed the program bred ‘radicals’ who wanted to overthrow the government and therefore lobbied the state legislature to ban K-12 ethnic studies in public schools. In January 2012, the ban went into effect, shutting down ethnic studies classes as well as the SJEP. Young people’s qualitative research on their struggle led to action to save the education that gave them hope for a more equitable and just world. The article addresses the praxis of YPAR, which sparks a thought process leading to the drive to take action. Observing and documenting educational injustices inspire the need to seek radical change of Self and schools. Through the reflection and action facilitated by YPAR, young people of color construct a message about the importance of ethnic studies for individual as well as social transformation.     

一种估计连续策略博弈的两阶段方法

 最近实证博弈研究的迅速发展为分析市场中的策略互动、进行政策分析与反事实实验提供了有效的工具。本文提出一种估计不完全信息连续策略博弈的两阶段方法,它可以处理私有信息的影响。第一阶段通过非参数分位数回归估计局中人的策略与期望支付函数;第二阶段利用贝叶斯——纳什均衡不等式构造模拟最小距离估计量,最终获得结构参数的估计。数值模拟显示本方法有良好的小样本表现。与现有文献的嵌套固定点方法相比,本方法不需计算均衡,极大地降低了计算量,并减轻了多重均衡的干扰。本方法既可以用于估计离散状态博弈,也适用于连续状态博弈。     

《论语》中的“勇”与子路“好勇”

君子“三达德”中的“知”、“仁”、“勇”是一个有机整体.其中,“知”即理智,“仁”属于情感,两者都需要通过一定的意志品格(“勇”)来实现.“勇”不同于“好勇”.君子之“勇”,以“义”为质,以“礼”为节,统摄于“仁”,行已有“耻”,是一种以道德理性为内涵的意志品格.     

结构变迁、怨恨集聚、共同命运与华南地区工人集体行动

在转型中国,当工人提出工资增长等诉求时,场景中个体行动似乎正在消逝,取而代之是大量的集体行动。是什么因素推动了这种行动的产生?在从个体行动到集体行动的过程中,其动员的中观和微观机制是什么?通过研究发现,社会结构变化、怨恨集聚、共同命运和宿舍空间是工人集体行动几个主要变量,其线性序列构成工人集体行动动员机制。我国人均GDP已经突破4000美元,由于社会日渐断裂,从而为工人集体行动提供了机遇;生活中的怨恨集聚为其动员提供了情感动因;集体命运在组织缺失下为集体认同动员发挥了重要作用;宿舍等公共空间为工人集体行动动员提供了独特生态环境。     

行政诉讼与刑事诉讼之间的关系及其处理

行政诉讼和刑事诉讼在一般情况下是两种相互独立的诉讼法律关系。但行政诉讼和刑事诉讼会基于不同的原因而发生交织。在两种诉讼交织的情形中又有不同的情况:一种是行政诉讼与刑事诉讼不仅交织而且冲突,在交织与冲突中有时行政诉讼是刑事诉讼的前提,有时刑事诉讼是行政诉讼的前提;另一种是行政诉讼与刑事诉讼只交织但并不冲突。对行政诉讼与刑事诉讼之间的关系,必须根据不同的情形作不同的处理。