On social work and what gender has got to do with it

Living in gendered societies makes it necessary to take into account the specific ways in which social problems and social issues affect the lives of women and men, girls and boys. Not only are social problems and social issues very often gender biased; this is also true for the professions dealing with these problems and issues, and for the training programmes for professions like social work. Sociological analysis of society and philosophical understanding of a good life are permeated by gender-specific perceptions -- often without those involved being aware of them. Furthermore, social policies reinforce gender-specific biases because they are based on gender-specific (i.e. male) standards. Gender as an analytical category has been brought into scientific and public discourse by feminist theoreticians and activists making women -- and thus also men -- visible with regard to structure and subject issues. The development of gender theory and research highlights the significance of gender arrangements to understand social phenomena and to support gender-equality ways of thinking and policies. At the same time, men and women are not only confronted with gendered structures, but via socialization processes and personal development they also reproduce these gender differences in their daily lives by 'doing gender'.     

It takes two to tango: the integration of people with disabilities into society

The concept of integration is not well defined. It not known how people with disabilities experience integration. In this study qualitative methods were used. The aim of the article is to define a model of successful integration based on the perspectives of people with disabilities and people within their social environment. Integration consists of five elements: functioning ordinarily without receiving special attention, mixing with others that are not disabled, taking part in society, trying to realize one’s potential and directing one’s own life. Integration is obtained through a process of interaction between a person with a disability and society. This process is influenced by personal, societal and support factors. The individual with a disability and society have a mutual responsibility with respect to integration.     

The Chinese-speaking Muslims (Dungans) of Central Asia: A Case of Multiple Identities in a Changing Context

Chinese-speaking Muslims, called Dungans in Central Asia and Huizu in China, were forced to migrate to present-day Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan at the end of the nineteenth century. They reconstructed their identity through interrelations with local populations and the soviet categorisation of nationality. But after 1991, their status has being gradually destabilised owing to the changes in economic, social and political rules as well as citizenship regulations in these countries. They have to readapt to the new situation created by the independence of the three former Soviet Republics, which has challenged their unity.     

Analyse biographique du travail féminin

Cet article montre comment l'application d'une méthode d'analyse biographique d'interaction à un domaine où l'interaction paraît évidente — activité féminine et fécondite — ouvre des perspectives nouvelles. En effet, les limites qui apparaissent lors de cette analyse conduisent les auteurs à conclure que ce n'est pas en raffinant les méthodes mais plutôt la collecte que l'on parviendra à progresser dans ce domaine. Le problème des interactions de l'activité et de la fécondité semble mal posé avant même le recours à la méthode. Cela justifie la nécessité de saisir le travail féminin comme concept unifié ne dissociant pas la sphère domestique et la sphère rémunérée. Cela conduit les auteurs à dégager quelques principes de collecte mieux adaptés aux préoccupations récentes dans ce domaine: des données biographiques sur le travail féminin. L'interaction collectée à sa source se prêterait alors à une analyse biographique plus révélatrice que celle qui confronte deux processus sans en évaluer les modalités changeantes.This article demonstrates how life event history analysis applied to the interaction between fertility and female economic activity can lead to new perspectives in the analysis of this complicated relationship. The authors identify limits to the analysis of the interaction given the anticipatory nature of behaviour. They conclude that progress in this field requires not the refinement of methods but rather a fundamental change in the approach to the data collected. If fertility and employment are considered separately, a problem is created even before the methods of analysis are applied. They recommend a conception of women's work as a whole, a conception that does not dissociate domestic and paid work. The authors go on to identify ways of improving the relevance of data collection to contemporary issues in the life history analysis of women's work. They argue that data on the interaction, collected at its source, would yield a more revealing life history than that which sees domestic work and paid work as separate spheres, and fails to take account of changes in their relationship.     

Constrained allocation problems with single-peaked preferences: An axiomatic analysis

We introduce a new class of problems that contains two existing classes: allocation problems with single-peaked preferences and bankruptcy problems. On this class, we analyze the implications of well-known properties such as Pareto optimality, strategy-proofness, resource-monotonicity, no-envy, equal treatment of equals, and two new properties we introduce, hierarchical no-envy and independence of nonbinding constraints. Unlike earlier literature, we consider rules that allow free-disposability. We present characterizations of a rule we introduce on this domain. We relate this rule to well-known rules on the aforementioned subdomains. Based on this relation, we present a characterization of a well-known bankruptcy rule called the constrained equal awards rule. Received: 22 June 2000/Accepted: 21 March 2002 This paper is based on the first chapter of my Ph.D. thesis submitted to the University of Rochester. I wish to thank my advisor, William Thomson, for helpful comments and suggestions.     

On the logic of common belief and common knowledge

The paper surveys the currently available axiomatizations of common belief (CB) and common knowledge (CK) by means of modal propositional logics. (Throughout, knowledge — whether individual or common — is defined as true belief.) Section 1 introduces the formal method of axiomatization followed by epistemic logicians, especially the syntax-semantics distinction, and the notion of a soundness and completeness theorem. Section 2 explains the syntactical concepts, while briefly discussing their motivations. Two standard semantic constructions, Kripke structures and neighbourhood structures, are introduced in Sections 3 and 4, respectively. It is recalled that Aumann's partitional model of CK is a particular case of a definition in terms of Kripke structures. The paper also restates the well-known fact that Kripke structures can be regarded as particular cases of neighbourhood structures. Section 3 reviews the soundness and completeness theorems proved w.r.t. the former structures by Fagin, Halpern, Moses and Vardi, as well as related results by Lismont. Section 4 reviews the corresponding theorems derived w.r.t. the latter structures by Lismont and Mongin. A general conclusion of the paper is that the axiomatization of CB does not require as strong systems of individual belief as was originally thought — onlymonotonicity has thusfar proved indispensable. Section 5 explains another consequence of general relevance: despite the infinitary nature of CB, the axiom systems of this paper admit of effective decision procedures, i.e., they aredecidable in the logician's sense.     

Approximations of rational criteria under complete ignorance and the independence axiom

Rational decision making under complete ignorance, a limit case of uncertainty, is defined. Through a concept of approximation, a meaning is given to a criterion almost possessing a property. Rational criteria depend almost on the sole bounds of the outcome range of each decision, they are almost continuous, they can almost possess a transitive indifference relation; however, under Savage's Independence Axiom, this last property restricts possible criteria to those which can be approximated, at least partly, by either the Maximin or the Maximax criterion.     

Determinants of Organizational Flexibility: A Study in an Emerging Economy

This paper examines the processes of organizational adaptation and competitiveness of firms in an emerging economy. The study is set in the Argentinian context of the 1990s when a combination of economic and political change triggered a massive change in the competitive context of indigenous firms. Two highly flexible firms and two less‐flexible firms are studied from the pharmaceutical and edible oil industries and longitudinal data are supplied to explore the determinants of organizational flexibility in those organizations.