Four Months to System Change

Abstract

This paper discusses the process through which students in a Community Intervention class brought about change in university policy to recognize Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday as a university holiday. It includes tactics and strategies used to influence decision makers, to educate the community, and to empower the minority community on the campus. It discusses important lessons for students including the political nature of system change, issues of power and stratification, and the impact of successful tactics on the opposition. This project was able to bring about change in a system that was unwilling to change. In today's social climate, that is often what social workers must do. Experiencing the process of system change during the educational process allows for the lessons of one class to be applied to larger systems of service delivery in professional practice.     

The Internet and Demystifying Power Differentials

Abstract

Over the course of the past three years, a group of women residents of a forty-five-year-old public housing project have struggled with the housing authority to participate in the revitalization of that project. This article examines the emergence of a “critical consciousness” and action on the part of these women as a consequence of their going on-line on the Internet with their own home page. This article also looks at the historical and social context of their relationship with the local community and the housing authority as well as the women's ultimate challenge to the housing authority's sense of “exclusive” possession and use of information and data.     

Preparing Community Health Workers for Their Role as Agents of Social Change: Experience of the Community Capacitation Center

Current efforts to better integrate Community Health Workers (CHWs) into the health and social service systems are promising, but may be less effective if they fail to support the role of CHWs as social change agents. The way CHWs are trained influences the roles they play. In this article, we review the literature on CHW training and summarize lessons learned to date. We describe how the Community Capacitation Center in Oregon uses a combination of content, methodology, and values to prepare CHWs to make an optimal contribution to health. Recommendations for CHW training programs and policy makers are provided.     

采油厂劳动管理机制创新的管理学分析

长庆油田采油一厂长期以来致力于劳动组织形式、劳动管理模式、劳动用工机制的改革与创新,形成了一种集科学性、合理性和可操作性于一身的劳动管理新机制,为石油企业人力资源管理水平的提高做出了应有的贡献。     

Challenging Misconceptions about Organizing Women into Unions

In many countries, women are the fastest growing group of unionized workers. As unions scramble to restore their flagging membership, women become central to the process of union membership renewal. Yet survey data collected from union organizers in Canada show that unions are only partially meeting women’s demand for union representation, in large part because of gender bias in union organizing practices. To develop this argument, this article offers data analysis that challenges four popular misconceptions about women and unions which contribute to gender bias in union organizing practices. These misconceptions are: women are less likely to support unions than men; high rates of unionization in the public sector rather than women themselves explain the high rates of union growth amongst women; small workplaces are a particular barrier to organizing women and women are more passive and avoid conflict, therefore reducing their likelihood of withstanding a hostile organizing drive. Having challenged these misconceptions, the article concludes with a discussion of the many ways in which union organizing practices are gender biased. Issues discussed range from the limited number of women hired as organizers to the tendency of unions to target small male‐dominated workplaces for organizing, over women‐dominated workplaces, in spite of the latter’s greater likelihood of success.     

对新世纪高等学校的若干新认识

在新的世纪里,高等学校将面临多种机遇和挑战,为此需要对大学的理念作出新的诠释.该文从系统论的角度对新世纪高等学校的职能、组织结构、体制以及评价问题进行了初步分析,提出了一些有待进一步探讨的观点.     

钱学森开拓系统科学的四个阶段

将钱学森开拓系统科学的进程划分为四个阶段:系统工程学科的创建,思维科学和系统工程结合,开放复杂巨系统的提出,系统科学体系的构建;同时,论述了各个阶段的标志、产生背景和主要进展。     

中国国有企业股份制改造的问题与对策

国有企业股份制改造是我国推行现代企业制度的重点和难点,本文在理论分析和调查研究基础上,针对所揭示的国有企业股份制改革中一系列问题提出了相应对策。     

管理新理念与高等职业技术教育管理

管理主义、组织模糊理论、人性假说等新理念,对创新高等职业技术教育管理理念具有重要意义。在高等职业技术教育管理中,应加强产出控制,以顾客为导向,以市场为导向,通过职业化实现高效化;承认高等职业技术教育的复杂性、模糊性与多样性特点,在管理制度上体现灵活性、应变性,给学生更多的自主性与选择性;同时,人的经济性、社会性、复杂性等特点,决定了高等职业教育管理必须强调制度化和规范化,实施自律式、民主参与式管理,在管理过程中注重创新和执行过程中的权变。     

Crumbling Ivory Towers: Academic Organizing and its Gender Effects

The under‐representation of women at the top of the academy is a persistent and fascinating issue, mostly analysed as a result of women's choices or as an issue of personnel management. In this article, the focus is on the functioning of universities as social institutions, where gender is ‘done’ in a specific way. We analyse how the structural, cultural and procedural arrangements of academic organizing constitute gender relations and are specifically interested in the social construction of scientific quality. The ‘normal’ standards for scientific quality reflect the traditions of the natural sciences, with the Olympus as dominant image: the excellent scientist as lonely hero at the top, far distanced from everyday practices. This conception reflects a hegemonic position privileging masculinity. Alternatively, in an Agora model, science is not an autonomous institution, but becomes a societal practice tightly bound with other societal practices concerning the production, transmission, translation and exchange of knowledge. The scientific ideal of the Agora entails greater public accountability, social responsibility and transparency. This model reflects to a certain extent the scientific activities and achievements of female scientists, and we expect that gender will be done differently in it. In our view, the integration and mainstreaming of gender issues within the academy will serve as a strong impetus to the necessary modernization of academia and academic organizing. But this implies a critical reflection on the social constructed nature of any conception of ‘quality’.