The 'New' Sociology of Empire and Colonialism

This study reviews recent sociological scholarship on empire and colonialism. The new 'imperial–colonial studies' in sociology is not a fully fledged subfield but an emerging space of inquiry that examines social forms, processes, and relations associated with imperialism and colonialism. This study sketches the main features of the new scholarship. It also situates the new sociological studies within a larger history of sociological inquiry and interdisciplinary context. Finally, it suggests that the future of sociology's new imperial–colonial studies lies not in 'sociologizing' the study of empire and colonialism but in deploying analyses of empire and colonialism to help critically reorient some of traditional sociology's limiting lenses and assumptions.     

Analysis of strategic plans to assess planning for sustainability of comprehensive community initiatives

In order to achieve the intended impact on a community, comprehensive community initiatives must sustain programs once they have been implemented. However, planning for sustainability is challenging and is rarely incorporated in the planning process of an initiative. The current study examined 19 5-year plans developed during the planning phase of the Comprehensive Strategy for Serious, Violent and Chronic Juvenile Offenders. Quantitative and qualitative methods were employed to assess the extent to which the construct of sustainability was incorporated. The plan analysis was supplemented with results from other components of the complex evaluation design implemented as part of the process evaluation of Comprehensive Strategy. Results suggested that sustainability was not accounted for during the planning phase of this initiative. The implications of these findings, including the importance of planning for sustainability in order to achieve sustainability, are discussed.     

西藏高等教育理论研究的计量学分析

运用文献资料、数理统计和逻辑分析等方法,对西藏高等教育研究的学术论文及其分布状况、作者、研究内容等维度进行计量学分析,旨在对西藏高等教育的研究现状有一个全面而客观的了解,对该领域今后的研究路径进行趋势展望.     

Migration,Household Tasks,and Gender: Evidence from the Republic of Georgia

We examine whether migration affects the gender division of household tasks and participation in leisure within origin‐country households using survey data from the Republic of Georgia. Our theoretical framework identifies two sets of mechanisms whereby migration might influence gender differences in home activities: migrant experience effects and migrant absence effects. We test for both types of effects on the probability that men and women perform gender atypical household tasks and engage in leisure activities by comparing households with and without currently absent and return migrants using probit regressions. We find evidence for both migration absence and migration experience effects on gender differences in housework and leisure. However, these effects are complex and contradictory: Generally, male migration tends to exacerbate gender differences in the sending household while female migration tends to ameliorate them.     

Biała emigracja: variegated mobility of Polish care workers

ABSTRACT

This paper analyzes migration of Polish healthcare and eldercare workers since Poland's accession to the European Union. The research indicates that while many Polish doctors, nurses, and caregivers ‘left’ Poland, they did not necessarily ‘stay’ abroad. Contemporary Polish migration has become ‘liquid’ and has often taken on a form of ‘pendulum’ or ‘circular’ migration and, in some cases, transnational commuting, especially in the early years following Poland's accession to the EU. These patterns are particularly evident among healthcare and eldercare workers whose flexible working schedules or life stages allow for retaining employment positions and households in Poland while taking short-term or prolonged leave of absence to work abroad. The research also suggests that different migration patterns are related to the characteristics of the place of migrant origin and the geographic distance or proximity of the destination countries. Residents of border towns can easily commute to cities on the other side of the frontier, while those who want to work in geographically more distant countries and cities must, by necessity, consider longer-term or permanent arrangements. The analysis of the variegated mobility of elder care workers is situated in the context of policy discussions related to care drain and care supply as well as quality of migrant care.     

小康社会的最低生活保障线

上海的最低生活保障线始于1993年,目前已覆盖全市居民。最低生活保障线可以视为一种贫困线,公平、效率和公众参与是评价其优劣的重要标准。最低生活保障线在上海的发展与其建设小康社会同步,其中面临的具体问题不少。因此,社会工作和社会福利的理论和实践工作者应该研究在上海推行不同贫困线模式所及的责任、资源和服务等细节,并应该进一步探讨借助整合模式应对各类贫困问题的基本思路。     

A three-phased local search approach for the clique partitioning problem

This paper presents a three-phased local search heuristic CPP-P\(^{3}\) for solving the Clique Partitioning Problem (CPP). CPP-P\(^{3}\) iterates a descent search, an exploration search and a directed perturbation. We also define the Top Move of a vertex, in order to build a restricted and focused neighborhood. The exploration search is ensured by a tabu procedure, while the directed perturbation uses a GRASP-like method. To assess the performance of the proposed approach, we carry out extensive experiments on benchmark instances of the literature as well as newly generated instances. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach with respect to the current best performing algorithms both in terms of solution quality and computation efficiency. We present improved best solutions for a number of benchmark instances. Additional analyses are shown to highlight the critical role of the Top Move-based neighborhood for the performance of our algorithm and the relation between instance hardness and algorithm behavior.