bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Context and Rationality In Mezirow's Theory of Transformational Learning
Authors: Clark M. Carolyn , Wilson Arthur L.
Published: March 2007

Transformational learning is fundamentally concerned with construing meaning from experience as a guide to action. In his theory of perspective transformation, Mezirow presents a significant conceptualization of that process, but it is flawed in one major aspect: It fails to account for context. We examine the absence of context in the theory itself, then focus on the decontextualized form of rationality that underlies the process of critical reflection central to perspective transformation. Finally, we propose a contextualized view of rationality which maintains the essential link between meaning and experience.
Developing Criteria for Formal Theory Building in Adult Education
Authors: Brookfield Stephen
Published: March 2007

This paper proposes basic epistemological, communicative and critically analytic criteria for the development of formal theory in adult education. Epistemological criteria focus on the ways in which the categories of knowledge comprising a theory are judged to be intellectually sound. Communicative criteria focus on the necessity for a theory to communicate its tenets clearly to practitioners. Critically analytic criteria refer to the manner in which a theoretical effort invites and exemplifies the critical scrutiny of its central propositions.
Church and the Laity Among Jews
Authors: Sklare Marshall
Published: March 2007

Judaism is an ethnic church with all born Jews who have not converted to another religion having equal religious rights whatever the extent of their commitment to Judaism. A distinctive religious configuration in the Jewish community results from this fact as well as from the lack of separation in Jewish tradition between the obligations of laity and clergy. While membership in the household of Israel and in its religion is a hereditary right and obligation, membership in a particular congregation is an act of conscious affiliation. Congregations have become increasingly influential in the Jewish community as they have ceased to limit their concerns to religious worship and study by adults of Jewish sacred texts. Contemporary congregational programs include a wide variety of activities with special emphasis on religious education for children. One manifestation of the expansion of the synagogue is its greater utilization in the fund-raising drives for general Jewish causes. The impact of congregational affiliation and activity upon the congregant, especially upon the level of religiosity and ritual observance, is yet to be measured. It is apparent that both in Reform, in Conservatism, and in Orthodoxy the attitudes and life patterns of the laity depart markedly from ideal norms.
The Problem—Rational and Effective Allocation of Resources
Authors: Healy Kent T.
Published: March 2007

The determination of workable and satisfactory bases for the pricing of services poses the most complicated and critical problem in the transportation arena. The various facets of cost analysis have much to offer in resolving the problems inherent in pricing. The present pattern of government regulation of rates, handed down from the precompetitive period, needs thorough modification to establish some general standards for the greater use of cost bases for rates. An entirely different type of problem involves the persistent pressure from unions on all types of carriers to increase wage rates and fringe benefits and to make working arrangements and rules harder for the companies to bear. The lack of union responsibility toward maximizing labor productivity to minimize costs and toward adjusting services in line with changing technology and user demands is one of transportation's growing problems. The critical problems of government-provided transportation f acilities—waterways, highways, airways, and ports—involve both relationships between different types of transportation and the criteria for determining the investment in such facilities. The uncertainties in allocation of costs for particular uses and the difficulties in finding objective bases for determining user charges have contributed to leaving actual decisions on user taxes, charges, and investment in the political arena. These problems limit the rational and effective allocation of resources in the transportation field.
American Education and the Developing Areas
Authors: Thompson Kenneth W.
Published: March 2007

Attention to the problems of international educa tion has received impetus from the policies of the Johnson Ad ministration and the International Education Program of 1966. Legislation is pending before both Houses of Congress as the United States prepares to reassess its position and involvement in the area of educational assistance to the developing nations. At this juncture, therefore, it is timely to review the changing patterns of international education. Whereas once the em phasis was on thousands of foreign students ourneying to this country, now attention is shifting to the work of American pro fessors who take up residence in foreign institutions around the world. Another change, which results from the gradual emer gence of stronger local institutions, is a shift in emphasis from undergraduate to graduate education in the United States. Be cause of these changes in the patterns of international educa tion, a third new component is emerging which must be encour aged and expanded. There is increasing need for a cadre of American professors with the experience and outlook appropri ate for teaching abroad. Experience in the private sector with international education has proved the value of the following principles: (1) careful assessment of the potential of a given foreign institution, its leadership, and its goals; (2) concentra tion on a few subject areas where the type of assistance needed is explicit and can be made available; (3) continuity of support to avoid abandoning a program in midstream; and (4) need for a career service of men engaged in assistance to developing institutions abroad. The knowledge which can be drawn from the various areas of educational co-operation may help the new public programs and the continuing private ones in the years ahead.
The World Impact of American Technology
Authors: Harvey Bartlett
Published: March 2007

The enormous success of American technology is the envy and imitation of the world. Some products of high technology, such as Dichloro - Diphenyl - Trichloralethane (DDT) and the inoculation "gun" have made a signal contribu tion to the foreign-assistance program, but, for the most part, goods financed by the Agency for International Development (AID) are of kinds readily available from other sources. A significant share of the assistance program consists of technical assistance aimed at implanting modern technology in recipient countries. Most of this, however, is focused on the develop ment of educational and other supporting institutions, rather than a direct transfer of technique to practitioners. Since American technology is a product as well as a cause of a high- wage economy, it is often inappropriate to the typical low-wage, less-developed country situation. Thus, the most valuable as sistance we can provide is to help recipients to establish those conditions of opportunity, incentive, support, and guidance that will lead their own innovators to develop their own technology. The growth of savings-and-loan associations and mortgage markets in Latin America and the ferment of locally organized, centrally supported rural activity in East Pakistan appear to be examples of this procedure.
The American Family in India
Authors: Useem Ruth Hill
Published: March 2007

In India, overseas American men under govern ment, business, missionary, and cultural-exchange sponsorship typically are married. Although their wives perform many of the same functions abroad as at home, the cultural, social, and physical contexts are quite divergent. In addition, their "de pendency" and "representational" statuses mean that family life and work life of husbands are closely intertwined. There are three areas which are unusually productive of family stresses early in the overseas assignment which ramify into the effectiveness of the primary employee: unavailability of housing and protracted stays in hotels; difficulties in inter acting with servants because of the gross cultural, social, and linguistic disparities between the American wife and house hold employees; and illness precipitated by high exposure to hazards for which they have not yet developed routinized health practices. Wives, the local American communities, and the organizational sponsors have developed reasonably satis factory "third-cultural" solutions which in time are utilized by most families to meet these stress-producing circumstances. A fourth area, inadequate educational facilities for children, because it is least subject to individual resolution or even the action of a single organization, remains a major obstacle in the retention of American fathers most qualified for work roles in India, especially as their children approach the secondary school age.
American Higher Education Now and in the Future
Authors: Mayhew Lewis B.
Published: March 2007

American higher education plunged from the heights of public regard and support during the late 1950s and the 1960s to a precarious position characterized by de creasing levels of financial support and public and political dis dain. This shift in fortune was in part produced because higher education had achieved so much that its leaders con vinced themselves and the larger society that the nation's col leges and universities had become the pivotal institution in society. Thus the future of higher education must be pon dered in the context of its present relatively low estate and by considering several imperatives. The future will really be decided by how those imperatives are treated. They are: to deploy resources more effectively; to accommodate new kinds of students; to maintain diversity; to invent ways to govern large collegiate systems; to plan simultaneously for three dec ades, each of which will be different with respect to the condi tions for higher education it will produce; to determine the nature of undergraduate education; and to reorder the priority assigned to graduate education. As these are resolved, a future can be epitomized thusly: sober realism, parsimony of claims, and more economical management of a large, complicated, and still influential social institution.
The Economics of Higher Education
Authors: Daniere Andre
Published: March 2007

Over the last ten years, economists dealing with higher education have shifted their emphasis from the study of "rates of return" and optimum size of the social investment in education to the analysis of its distribution among different social groups. In the process, they have re-examined the role of education in determining positions in the labor hierarchy and have come to question some of their earlier measures of the eco nomic productivity of higher education. Their studies of dis tribution have brought them close to areas traditionally culti vated by sociologists. Their primary contribution, however, is in the comparison of alternative modes of financing higher education with reference to stated objectives of equity or equal opportunities.
A Letter to Black Educators in Higher Education
Authors: Wilcox Preston
Published: March 2007

One cannot be both Black and in higher educa tion in white America. Current higher education is either irrelevant to or has negative consequences for Blacks, in cluding the exploitation of the miseries of nearby residents. The Blacks in white institutions are agents of the Estab lishment. My own experiences at various colleges and uni versities taught me this lesson. Integration and student busing are misleading issues. The problem is to keep Blacks from "walking the white line." Only wholly Black institu tions will create a new definition of Black education in white America.
The Liberal Synthesis in American Higher Education
Authors: Bressler Marvin
Published: March 2007

The much abused terms conservatism, liberal ism, and radicalism are ambiguous, but they serve to organize meanings about social thought and education. The conserva tive's fondness for restraint, stability, hierarchy, competition, and achievement values are linked to his conception of the social functions of higher education, governance, and student life. Radicalism, in both its Marxist and anarchist versions, has challenged the prevailing conservative orthodoxy. Lib eralism has tried to synthesize competing conservative and radical views of social ethics and education. It embraces both freedom and order, stability and change, morality and pragmatism, equality and hierarchy, competition and identifi cation with the victim. The implications of the liberal syn thesis are specified for equality of educational opportunity, pluralism, academic reform, and the "marketplace of ideas."
Equality and Conflict
Authors: Boulding Kenneth E.
Published: March 2007

The pursuit of equality is likely to be frustrated unless there is better knowledge about the processes in society which increase or diminish it. There are severe conceptual difficulties in defining inequality; ultimately, they always in volve some sort of evaluation, especially in regard to those social variables which are subject to strong evaluation, such as status, income and virtue. Equality must be defined in dynamic, whole-life terms. Cross-sectional measures at a moment of time are extremely misleading. If all young people were poor and all old people were rich, society would look very unequal; however, everyone might have equal income over their whole life. The major dynamic process which pro duces inequality is inheritance not only of capital, but of culture and status. Inheritance laws and the grants economy, especially the tax system, are important in the dynamics of equality. Historically, much inequality is created by con quest and revolution. What tends to produce equality is a rise of integrative power—that is, the development of an extended and intense sense of community. This is most visible in the national state. World equality depends on the develop ment of a sense of world community.
Drug Abuse, Congress and the Fact-Finding Process
Authors: Susman Ralph M.
Published: March 2007

This article concerns Congress, its fact-finding process and its legislative efforts designed to deal with problems related to narcotic and drug abuse. In essence, it examines the perspective within which Congress has defined and has attempted to solve the "drug problem" and traces the manner in which the law enforcement and criminal justice bureaucracy gradually came to be the principal architects and purveyors of drug control legisla tion. It also addresses the matter of public accountability and bureaucratic and congressional performance relative to fact-finding and the policy formulation process. Lastly, it provides an assessment of what is required of Congress if it is to undertake more rational and responsible action in reference to the problems of drug use and abuse.
Social Security and Social Welfare Indicators
Authors: Merriam Ida C.
Published: March 2007

The proportion of its total resources that a society devotes to social welfare is a useful general measure related to social policy. In fiscal 1976, the United States spent 21 percent of Gross National Product (GNP) for public social welfare programs, including health and education as well as social insurance (the largest segment) and assistance. Program developments, inflation, population growth, and the level of economic activity affect trends. The United States spends relatively less for social security than most industrial countries. Income maintenance programs now touch most families in the United States. More than 90 percent of all persons over age 65 get social security benefits. The extent of social security protection for survivors and disabled persons, the relative importance of private pensions, social security benefit replacement rates (the relation to previous earnings), and the income situation of aged persons are reviewed. There is brief reference to sickness insurance, unemployment insurance, and public assistance. Some possible directions of future change are noted. The interweaving of social welfare objectives and systems into the fabric of modern life cannot be undone. The attempt to develop clearer indicators of need and accomplishment is worth pursuing.
Continuing Trends in Health and Health Care
Authors: Wilson Ronald W. , Feldman Jacob J. , Kovar Mary Grace
Published: March 2007

Current trends in health and health care that were identified in Social Indicators, 1976 are discussed, including the recent and, in some cases, dramatic declines in mortality, increases in health expenditures, increases in health resources, and changes in health habits. These trends are compared with strikingly similar trends identified almost a half a century ago by The Research Committee on Social Trends established by President Hoover. The significance of the current data and some of their possible causes and implications for the future are addressed, as well as some of the potential pitfalls in interpreting the data.
The Danger Zone: Academic Freedom and Civil Liberties
Authors: Slaughter Sheila
Published: March 2007

This paper examines the way "corresponding rights and duties" surrounding academic freedom were negotiated between professional associations and organizations of university managers and trustees. The subject is approached through an analysis of the American Association of University Professors' (AAUP) major documents on academic freedom. In general terms it is argued that American academics, as intellectuals dependent on their employing institutions, have consistently sacrificed individuals and substantive principles in order to gain compliance for procedural safeguards from university officials for the profession as a whole. Restitution or reinstatement were not serious issues: the goal of the AAUP was a uniform personnel policy recognizing tenure. Even this goal was difficult to achieve. To win its acceptance, professors effectively traded civil liberties for job security.
The Indian Academic: An Elite in the Midst of Scarcity
Authors: Chitnis Suma
Published: March 2007

Indian academics constitute the third largest academic community in the world. As university graduates in a country in which 70 percent of the population is illiterate, and as heirs to one of the most ancient traditions of learning, they are a highly privileged elite. As guardians of the intellectual and political formation of youth in one of the world's largest democracies and developing nations they hold a unique position of influence and power in the Third World. This paper describes the situation, the functioning, the satisfactions, and the frustrations of these academics in the context of development.
New Directions in Foreign Language Study
Authors: Thompson Richard T.
Published: March 2007

The Report of the President's Commission on Foreign Language and International Studies concluded that "Effective leadership in international affairs ... requires well-trained and experienced experts. But the hard and brutal fact is that our programs ... are both currently in adequate and actually falling further behind. This growing de ficiency must be corrected if we are to secure our national objec tives as we enter the twenty-first century." There is an aware ness on the part of the education leadership of this country that the study of foreign languages has been neglected, and that there is no longer any place for the posture that English is sufficient to conduct the bilingual business of an inter dependent world. The results of a number of studies that out line the relevant policy questions confronting us are presented and discussed. From the myriad of recommendations con tained in the several recent reports three first steps are suggested: (1) encourage every elementary and secondary school in the country to offer a full sequence of instruction in at least one language; (2) from this broader base begin a process of "winnowing" whereby the students with superior talent are identified and (3) encouraged to pursue further serious study in bilingual schools or international high schools.
Communications Technology and Land Use
Authors: De Sola Pool Ithiel
Published: March 2007

At the turn of the century, telecommunications had a centripetal effect on the topography of cities. It encouraged the separation of offices from factories and the consequent concentration of offices downtown. Thus telecommunications led to urban concentration. By the middle of the century, a more flexible and universally available telecommunications technology was used to escape urban concentration, with both homes and work places moving out of the city's center and even into exurbia. In that period, the effects of telecommunications were predominantly centrifugal. In the future, a still more malleable communications technology is likely to give people more choice in how they use it. Until now, each of the trends and effects noted for communications could be simultaneously noted in transportation. Now, however, in the prospect of an energy shortage, one of the very likely uses of telecommunications may be to overcome some consequences of high energy prices. Most particularly, improved telecommunications may be used to offset the centripetal pressure for achieving energy savings by renewed urban concentration.
Changing Views on Town Planning in Great Britain
Authors: Cowan Robert , Macdonald Kelvin
Published: March 2007

This article takes a critical look at the British planning system and the way it operates today. It has the reputation of being the best in the world, but it is widely misunderstood and misused. The present British government is trying to make planning less effective and far-reaching in the name of the need for national economic revival. Some of the planners on the defensive argue that the need and potential for planning is as great as ever. But there is no cause for complacency as the system has not been working smoothly. A long-running debate about the desirable degree of control over minor development will be quietened when the government passes new legislation on the subject. But the basic issues remain unresolved. Public participation in planning has been fashionable, but many planners are now disappointed by it. In pursuing quantity rather than quality of response from the public, the efforts of planners to involve people in preparing plans have been misdirected. Public inquiries have become an important part of the planning system, but the public is being tricked into thinking that it has a real opportunity to influence decisions when in fact it does not. Gradual changes in the nature of public inquiries are making them widely misunderstood.
Benefits and Obstacles to Appropriate Agricultural Technology
Authors: Evenson Robert E.
Published: March 2007

Most forms of agricultural technology have not been transferred from developed to developing countries. This is particularly true of technology of the biogenetic type. Plants and animals interact with the soil and climate environments in which they live. Natural selection pressures produce highly varieagted species and types of plants and animals, each suited or appropriate to an environmental niche. Modern plant breeding methods have only partly overcome the sensitivity of biological material to environments. Environmental interactions play a lesser role in biochemical and mechanical technology in agriculture. Research programs to improve agricultural technology accordingly require a high degree of targeting to local environmental conditions. In some cases new technology, as in the improved "green revolution" wheat and rice varieties, is initially adapted to a wide range of environments. Improvements on the initial high-yielding varieties have tended to be more narrowly adapted. Agricultural research programs serving relatively small regions have been successful in undertaking adaptive research to develop region-specific improvements to varieties developed in international centers in the developing countries.
Technology Transfer to Developing Countries: Implications of International Regulation
Authors: McCulloch Rachel
Published: March 2007

Technology imports are central to the economic performance and development prospects of poor nations. However, while imported technology has helped some nations to achieve rapid industrialization, critics have pointed to a host of actual and potential abuses in the laissez-faire transfer process. As early as the 1960s, developing countries began to adopt national policies regulating technological imports, with particular attention to transactions with Northern multinational corporations. Some of the same nations have led a drive within the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development to establish an international code of conduct governing North-South technology transfer. This article examines motives for and probable consequences of an international code, focusing on the implications of international policies toward technology transfer for the effectiveness of existing national regulation.
Relationships between Early Childhood Groups in Three States
Authors: DUANE EDWARD A. , BRIDGELAND WILLIAM M. , STERN MARK E.
Published: March 2007

The state-level services arena for the young child has been subjected to little systematic study, especially that focused on early childhood policy people themselves. Using analysis from state kindergarten through twelfth grade educational policymaking, the present effort focuses on the interaction patterns among key policy groups in three states: Michigan, California, and New York. Respondents include people within state agencies, nonagency governmental people, and early childhood specialists. The findings suggest that agency and interest groups are cooptative and that proprietary child care providers are the most active participants in policymaking.
The Federal Courts under Siege
Authors: MATHIAS CHARLES McC.
Published: March 2007

Pending in Congress, as there have been in earlier Congresses, are various proposals to limit the jurisdiction of federal courts or otherwise curtail their power through various organizational or procedural changes. In this article, Senator Charles McC. Mathias, Jr., of Maryland, discusses the various efforts to curb the federal courts, focusing on current proposals and offering criticisms of them on both constitutional and policy grounds.
Inflation: A Blessing or a Curse?
Authors: GREBLER LEO
Published: March 2007

Inflation has generated large wealth shifts among the various population groups involved in housing. The most significant shift is a gain of mortgage borrowers at the expense of lenders and savers. Homeowners, however, have not profited as uniformly as is widely believed, and landlords have generally suffered a sharp decline of net operating income. The severe cycles in residential building since the early 1970s reveal the destabilizing impact of inflation. The housing sector as a whole obtained a disproportionate share of total credit, but its growth and quality improvement did not accelerate apace. Credit expansion without equivalent expansion of real capital illustrates one of the striking maladjustments during inflation. Under a new regime of sustained price stability, housing will still be exposed to prolonged aftereffects of the inflation, notably the reconstruction of a shattered mortgage finance system. The recent trend toward larger and more luxurious dwellings will give way to leaner products. Whether the viability of the rental sector can be restored remains questionable. Under continued or renewed inflation, however, the prospects for housing are far worse.
The Coming Crunch in Rental Housing
Authors: DOWNS ANTHONY
Published: March 2007

Is there a rental housing shortage? Not yet, but one may arise soon—especially in fast-growth areas. Rental housing still accommodates over one-third of all U.S. households, with eight out of nine rental units provided by private owners. Yet recent moves of many better-off households to homeownership have shifted the composition of renters toward higher fractions of the poor. Residential rents have lagged behind living costs for 20 years. Even so, investing in rental units has been kept profitable by tax shelter and other factors. Higher real capital costs will weaken most of these factors in the 1980s, while making homeownership more difficult. This will raise demands for rental housing. But developers will not supply much more until rents rise or interest rates fall. Hence rents will soon begin rising rapidly, penalizing the poor. Rent controls would aid them at first but would only aggravate shortages in the long run. A better policy would be letting rents rise enough to motivate developers to build new units, while aiding the poor through a nationwide housing voucher program. This could be paid for by moderately reducing existing tax benefits enjoyed by more affluent homeowners.
The Presidency and Political Change
Authors: SELIGMAN LESTER G.
Published: March 2007

At a time when the president is attempting a drastic change in economic policy, it is appropriate to examine the development of his role in economic policy. As in so many other aspects of the modern presidency, the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt is the watershed. He expanded the president's role as economic policymaker in an unchallenged executive response to the crisis of the Depression. The institutionalization of that role was a process involving several stages that unfolded in succeeding administrations. One stage was the role's definition and legitimation by Congress in the Employment Act of 1946, which defined a new governmental commitment to economic intervention to achieve maximum employment. The same act created the Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) and placed it in the Executive Office of the President. Since then, the CEA has played a vital part in economic policy. Its importance contributed to a train of economic policy staff agencies that grew as the president's economic policy role expanded with the emergence of such new problems as economic growth, poverty, inflation, stagflation, and foreign economic policy. Throughout this evolution, a constituency of economic policy crystallized, which contributed to the institutionalization of the president's role. President Reagan's efforts to reverse economic policy direction may be difficult, because some of the political institutional supports his predecessors could rely on have undergone considerable change and are now problematical.
Refugee Resettlement in the United States: Policy and Problems
Authors: ZUCKER NORMAN L.
Published: March 2007

Federal refugee resettlement policies and programs, like admission policy, developed in an ad hoc, reactive way. Federal involvement in resettlement started out modestly as aid to Cubans, grew enormously with aid to the Indochinese, and continued to grow even more with a catchall program for Soviet and other refugees. Over the years, the private nonprofit voluntary agencies became institutionalized as the private-sector link between admissions and local resettlement. The Refugee Act of 1980 was an attempt to design a coherent and comprehensive refugee admission and resettlement policy. The act will have to be periodically considered for reauthorization, and it is clear that while the goal of successful economic and social integration of the refugee into American society is universally agreed upon, the modes of resettlement are controversial. Resettlement problems for policymakers, host communities, and refugees remain.
Health Care for the Poor
Authors: ALTMAN DREW
Published: March 2007

In the 1980s the convergence of a number of factors is causing government at all levels, industry, and labor to plan or initiate major reductions in health spending. Important among these are rising health care costs, a troubled national economy, mounting federal deficits and state revenue shortfalls, and the philosophical course and domestic policy of the Reagan administration. In this context government has been rethinking its capacity to finance health services for the poor, and new and sometimes controversial arrangements for delivering these services are being developed. The dilemma government officials face now is how to cut costs while still assuring that quality medical services are available. This article focuses on what these new policy developments and arrangements are and whether the significant gains in access and in health achieved over the past 20 years will be sustained. Because truly sweeping reforms are unlikely, whether government will maintain earlier commitments and established arrangements for financing and delivering health services to the poor will be worked out piecemeal over the next several years.
Reducing Short-Range Nuclear Systems in Europe: An Opportunity for Stability in the Eighties
Authors: HIRSCHFELD THOMAS J.
Published: March 2007

Assumptions about European security that have sustained the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) alliance since the 1950s are coming apart. Although steady Soviet force improvements continue, many European observers no longer see the Warsaw Pact as an overwhelming conventional force. Some think new conventional weapons technologies could hold the line; others just worry less about the danger of invasion. Strategic parity among superpowers has called NATO's flexible-response strategy into question, just as growing minorities have begun to ask whether nuclear weapons have become more menace than deterrent, thereby inhibiting nuclear weapon modernization plans. Arms control has lost credibility as a solution because there has been so little in contrast to the pace of weapons development and deployment. Some new, orderly pattern that restores support for NATO defense and credibility to the arms control process is badly needed. One way to begin is to draw down tactical nuclear arsenals on both sides, which could reduce the risk of nuclear war in Europe, enhance conventional strength, and support the Strategic Arms Reduction Talks and intermediate-range nuclear forces negotiations.
The Human: Alien in the Robotic Environment?
Authors: MILLER ROBERT J.
Published: March 2007

The development of robotics, combined with computers, poses a problem even more critical in some respects than the loss of jobs. A new system is evolving, transforming the workplace environment but with ramifications beyond the workplace. Design of environments suited to the logic of robotics, given smart machines, need not consider humans as critical elements in the system. Modification of human environments raises questions of human adaptability and the nature of the man-machine relationship.
Workers, Unions, and Industrial Robotics
Authors: WEEKLEY THOMAS L.
Published: March 2007

The concerns of organized labor pertaining to technological changes have been vastly misunderstood. Labor organizations are well aware of the need for new technology and the reactions of their members. This article is offered in the hope that users and manufacturers of automated equipment may gain first-hand insight into the attitudes and concerns of organized labor and the worker affected by advanced technology. Specific worker attitudes are presented, along with various concerns of workers and labor organizations. Suggestions are offered, along with information outlining current programs designed to cope with the problem of an ever-increasing demand for goods, an ever-increasing population and work force supplied by a decreasing number of job openings.
Is Deindustrialization a Myth? Capital Mobility versus Absorptive Capacity in the U.S. Economy
Authors: BLUESTONE BARRY
Published: March 2007

The current debate concerning the necessity and propriety of establishing an industrial policy for the United States turns, to a significant extent, on the question of whether the nation is undergoing deindustrialization. Using data on aggregate trends in manufacturing employment, Robert Z. Lawrence and others at the Brookings Institution claim that despite widespread plant closings during the 1970s, most employment loss was cyclical in nature and not permanent. In this article, new evidence on individual industries and regions is explored to test again the deindustrialization thesis. The conclusion of the current study is that while aggregate manufacturing employment has remained constant over the past decade, substantial permanent job losses have occurred in key basic industries and in particular regions of the nation. These employment losses pose a serious problem because the economy generally fails to provide comparable jobs in other sectors that can absorb the workers who become displaced.
The Human Response to Plant Closures
Authors: ROOT KENNETH
Published: March 2007

How do displaced workers cope with job loss? Is the adjustment of workers confronting a shutdown today different from the adjustment of those who were put on the shelf in the mid-1970s? Comparison of longitudinal data from a Mason City, Iowa, meat-packing shutdown in the mid-1970s with responses to similar items from workers displaced when a major automotive supplier firm in Wisconsin closed in 1980 and from respondents who lost their jobs in farm-manufacturing and meat-processing closures in Des Moines, Iowa, in 1981 indicate that job loss is still the plight of the individual worker and his or her immediate family. Workers continue to cut back on expenses, extend their informal network of relatives and friends for employment possibilities, and, where possible, send a spouse into the work force.
Structural Change: Consequences and Alternatives
Authors: GONÄS LENA
Published: March 2007

Swedish plant-closure research has evolved from the study of individual, community, and regional consequences to the evaluation of political measures taken, evaluation of future consequences, and the development of counterproposals and alternatives to plant closures and cut-backs. What is occurring in the development of the Swedish manufacturing industry today is not only a decrease in employment and the total number of places of employment, but also a rapid change of production technology stimulating capital-intensive and concentrated production. This article takes up examples from the Swedish food and glass industry. There are several laws that govern plant closures and production cutbacks. The Swedish Codetermination Act has given the trade union new rights to information and negotiation before decisions are made. However, the law still reserves for the employer the right to decide. The article concludes with a discussion of the possibilities to form union counterproposals with examples from the Swedish Food Workers Union's industry policy program.
The Evolution of Centripetal Fraternalism: The Soviet Union and Eastern Europe
Authors: SAR MARCIN
Published: March 2007

The author comments on the dynamics of Moscow's effort to reconcile its pursuit of control over Eastern Europe with its interest in a viable Eastern Europe, one that is stable and capable of self-sustaining development. Although Moscow has always exercised control in military matters, it allowed some Eastern Europeans economic independence in the 1970s. Changing circumstances in the 1980s, however, have caused the Kremlin to rethink its relationships with its Eastern European “satallies”— half satellites, half allies. Moscow faces dilemmas in areas such as energy, agriculture, the Eastern European states' relations with the West, economic reforms occurring in Eastern Europe, and integration within COMECON. How Moscow resolves these dilemmas lies at the core of its future relationships with Eastern Europe. Other important factors include the lessons learned from Poland, East Germany's evolving relationship with the Federal Republic of Germany, and China's growing economic and political initiatives vis-à-vis Eastern Europe.
Migration Policies of Sending Countries: Perspectives on the Turkish Experience
Authors: SAYARI SABRI
Published: March 2007

During the 1960s and early 1970s, Turkey participated heavily in the process of labor migration from the Mediterranean basin to Western Europe. In addition to the policy preferences of advanced industrial European states and the demand for jobs in Europe by large numbers of Turks, Turkey's migration policies played a significant role in the expansion of the migratory flow. Turkish policymakers sought to use labor migration abroad to fulfill several objectives such as reducing unemployment and increasing the volume of foreign-exchange reserves through remittances. The migration of Turkish workers to Western Europe produced some significant results concerning these primary objectives. The policy of exporting workers, however, has also had important unintended consequences and problems for Turkey.
Campaign Finance: The System We Have
Authors: BARONE MICHAEL
Published: March 2007

The United States has developed a hybrid system of campaign finance regulation, with rules custom-crafted for different political situations and with unanticipated loopholes that need plugging. The largest loophole is soft money. The public financing systems enacted for presidential contests and for New Jersey's and Michigan's gubernatorial elections cannot easily be adapted to cover the various kinds of congressional elections. Although our current system is complex and has some obvious defects, it is generally defensible.
American Public Opinion and U.S. Immigration Policy
Authors: HARWOOD EDWIN
Published: March 2007

American attitudes toward both legal and illegal immigration tended to be highly restrictionist during the first half of the twentieth century. Both legislative and executive-branch policy supported this restrictionist outlook up until the 1940s, when a gradual liberalization of immigration policy toward refugees began to occur because of foreign policy requirements and the onset of the cold war. Although only a very small percentage of Americans have advocated increasing the number of immigrants, the percentage who felt that the numbers should be decreased began to decline during the 1950s and 1960s. Liberalization of public opinion and governmental policy occurred. During the past 15 years, however, public opinion and government policy began to diverge. Because of economic and other problems, Americans became more restrictionist toward immigrants, at least when surveyed by public opinion polls. But the government has difficulty implementing a more restrictionist policy for a variety of reasons, among them the strong lobbying efforts of pro-alien activist groups combined with American ambivalence toward the plight of immigrants as individuals.
Financing Urban Development: The Joint Efforts of Governments and the Private Sector
Authors: DeSEVE G. EDWARD
Published: March 2007

As urban areas look forward to future development, the primary question that confronts leaders is how to finance immediate plans. The economy of urban areas has been shifting to service and technology industries. As a result, governmental leaders are being asked to consider and finance increasingly complex development projects that, although public in nature, have a highly private character. The public sector is beginning to use the concepts of risk and reward analysis and is prepared to make equity investments to stimulate the kind of investment it wants. Conversely, the private sector is beginning to learn how to deal effectively with state and local governments. Private developers are recognizing the critical role that public services play in the success of a project and increasingly are willing to pay the cost of such services directly. The cost and benefits to the community are becoming part of the calculus of development. The future of urban development finance rests on the willingness of developers and governments to recognize their joint dependencies. The benefits of well-conceived and well-executed development are great enough to be shared by both parties.
Public-Private Partnerships for Neighborhood Renewal
Authors: AHLBRANDT ROGER S.
Published: March 2007

The city of Pittsburgh is used as a case study in this article to show how an older industrial area has been able to maintain healthy neighborhoods despite a significant transformation in its economic base and more than three decades of population loss. The particular elements of Pittsburgh's approach that are generalizable to other industrial cities include strategies that are flexible enough to be tailored to the unique needs of individual neighborhoods; comprehensive strategies that include housing, community development, infrastructure, and institution-building elements; significant involvement of the private and nonprofit sectors, thereby leveraging public resources; and a commitment to increasing the capacity of local groups to respond to their own needs. A key ingredient of neighborhood renewal in the Pittsburgh model is the strong leadership provided by the city government. This is particularly crucial to the development and maintenance of many of the public-private partnerships that have formed the core of the city's neighborhood strategy.
The House of Umoja as a Case Study for Social Change
Authors: FATTAH DAVID
Published: March 2007

The House of Umoja began in the 1960s as a response to violence among gangs of youths in Philadelphia. Umoja provides for black gang youths altruistic, extended-family values based on African culture. These values neutralize antisocial feelings and lead to feelings of self-esteem. Young men are influenced by peers and older people whom they respect to complete their educations and obtain legal labor market employment. The Umoja model has been judged successful in reducing individual and gang violence. Replications now are under way. Transfer of the model from one setting to another depends in no small part on obtaining staff who can work with youths in hostile street settings. The model should not and does not depend on one charismatic individual, however.
State Constitutional Law in Comparative Perspective
Authors: DUCHACEK IVO D.
Published: March 2007

Can the existence and modifications of state constitutions be viewed as being among the nourishing fountains of federalism? A comparative analysis suggests two caveats. While in the United States and Switzerland both the birth and subsequent modification of state constitutions confirm a two-way traffic in federal practices between federal and state governments, in other systems, though labeled “federations,” state constitutions rarely reflect political assertions of regional autonomy from below. Instead, subnational constitutions in such federations may only represent a unitary or dictatorial delegation of some administrative powers to territorial subunits, a delegation that can easily be revoked by the central government. On the other hand, due to a federal political tradition, federal practices may flourish in some unions whose territorial components lack indigenous subnational constitutions, as in Canada and Australia.
Peace Studies as Education for Nonviolent Social Change
Authors: WEIGERT KATHLEEN MAAS
Published: March 2007

One of the goals of peace studies is to nourish a commitment to nonviolent social change. To accomplish this, it is imperative that teachers educate accordingly, both in what they teach and in how they teach. This article explores that idea by examining the key terms: “education,”“nonviolence,” and “social change.” First, definitions of the word “education” are examined, and it is argued that peace studies is education that is liberal and liberating. This leads to a discussion of the concept of nonviolence, which is presented in terms of three issues: violence and human nature, structural violence, and personal commitment to nonviolence. Finally, the concept of social change is examined in its relationship to the notion of power, to the importance of envisioning a better world, and to the importance of group action. Two models of social change are offered. Finally, classroom examples are provided that illustrate ways in which both content and pedagogy can contribute to the goal of education for nonviolent social change.