Poetry Can Help: The Work of Kenneth Koch

Summary Living in an institution at the end of one's life can be a verysad and drab affair—even soul-destroying. This articlelooks at an experiment by a poet in teaching poetry writingto a group of people in a nursing home who were old and ill.The poet shows how poetry made them happier and gave them alively interest and sense of achievement in doing somethingthey had never done before, enabling them to look at the thingsaround them with fresh eyes. He believes that poetry is an artform that many kinds of people can learn to enjoy and practiseindividually and in a group, opening up as it does a world ofdelight previously unimagined.     

Children in Need: Definition, Identification and Support

Correspondence to Dr Matthew Colton, Department of Social Policy and Applied Social Studies, University of Wales, Swansea, Singleton Park, Swansea SA2 8PP. Summary This paper examines the way in which local authorities operationalizethe concept of need contained in Part III of the Children Act1989. Findings from an empirical study conducted by the authorssuggest that difficulties are being encountered in operationalizingneed, and that these difficulties stem from an inherent contradictionbetween the all-embracing spirit of the Act and current politicaland social realities. The paper identifies key dilemmas in theimplementation of Part III of the Children Act and highlightsconflicts facing social services departments.     

The News Media in Children's Political Socialization

The research reported examines the impact of the news mediaas an agent of political socialization on children's politicalknowledge, their attitudes toward political parties and electoralsystems, and their activities relative to politics. Childrennews media use and level of political knowledge function asprimary sources of causal effects for each other. They are consistentlymore important in their effects on the attitudes and types ofparticipation studied in this research than are the parentaland educational system socialization indicators or the structuralvariables of grade and gender.     

Obscenity Reactions: Toward a Symbolic Interactionist Explanation

It is suggested that there is a syndrome of reactions elicited by stimuli people define as obscene and that these reactions can be explained within a symbolic interactionist framework. More specifically, it is argued that they are reactions to the denial or destruction of a person's ability to achieve and/or maintain an identity that is socially acceptable to him within a particular situation.     

Corporate Social and Financial Performance: The Role of Size,Industry, Risk,R&D and Advertising Expenses as Control Variables

This article investigates the role of commonly specified control variables in moderating the relationship between corporate social performance (CSP) and corporate financial performance (CFP). In addition, there are separate measures for positive (strengths) social actions, and for negative (concerns) social actions. The results support the positive relationship between CSP and CFP. The best model, as determined using factorial analysis of variance, is one which has the following control variables: size, industry, risk, and research and development expenditures. In examining the CSP/CFP relationship, researchers must control for these variables, in order to properly specify the model.     

TEACHING TOOLS EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING IN THE UNDERGRADUATE CLASSROOM: TWO EXERCISES

We describe two classroom exercises which can be used to reinforce undergraduate students' understanding of (1) production and cost concepts and (2) the concept of economic scarcity. In the first exercise, students use their experience in producing "widgets" in a single variable input environment to derive a wide range of production and cost data. In the second exercise, students use their experience in producing two goods under various allocations of a fixed set of resources to generate a production possibilities frontier. The resulting links between concept and experience enhance students' understanding of these important concepts.     

ON THE TABLETOP IMPROVEMENT EXPERIMENTS OF JAPAN

Originally conceived by Frank and Lillian Gilbreth, the “tabletop improvement experiments” have been used in Japan since 1925 to teach important principles of continuous improvement. The experiments, designed for classroom use, communicate their lessons in a striking and memorable way. The work-related experiments categorize the sources of resistance to change and show how to neutralize them. The process-related experiments sharpen understanding of where the biggest opportunities for process improvement usually lie. Surprisingly, the experiments are hardly known in the West. We describe all of them and document their history for the first time.