Helping Fraternity and Sorority Members Understand Ritual

This study addresses the role of fraternity/sorority rituals in the lives of undergraduate members and is based upon a qualitative study that asked the following question: Does ritual have an impact on the values and behavior of contemporary sorority women? Addressing this question requires an understanding of the role ritual ceremonies play in the fraternity/sorority experience. This research primarily examined the impact of ritual ceremonies as it related to individual behavior

Communicating with migrants: the development of language teaching and of translating and interpreting services in Australia 1945-75

This paper traces the long and sometimes tortuous process of setting up administrative structures to assist communication between the approximately 1.7 million non-British migrants who arrived in Australia between 1945-75, and the host community. The Department of Immigration was given the responsibility of facilitating these migrants' compliance with the expectation that they become 'absorbed' into the community. It perceived that this abs01ption, which it described at various times as 'assimilation', 'integration' or 'settlement', was hindered by inadequate communications. Initially, its prime objective was to develop appropriate English-language training; only later was its attention drawn by mainstream community organisations to the urgent need for interpreting and translating services. The major obstacle confronting these administrators was cultural. Much non-compliance by non­English speaking migrants with the myriad laws and regulations they were expected to obey upon entering Australia, was involuntary. They could not understand the requirements of the unfamiliar culture they had entered, and monolingual Anglo/Celtic administrators and mainstream community organisations found it difficult to understand and respond to their needs. The learning process involved in assisting large numbers of aliens along the path from migrant to settler to citizen not only caused cultural change within the responsible department, it also led to a slow but profound reconceptualisation of Australian national identity

Women and the Great Retrenchment: The Political Economy of Gender in the 1980s

Policy analysts and scholars are only now beginning the serious task of sifting through the debris of the 1980s to chronicle the impacts of policy chtinges and to evaluate the policies as well as the policymakers. The 1980s will no doubt be remembered as having produced the worst recession since the Great Depression and perhaps, more generally, as a period of economic retrenchment [Dugger 1992]. While many segments of society were affected by the restructuring inherent in Reaganomics, the impact on women merits special attention, particularly in light of demographic changes in voting behavior. It has long been understood that discemable differences exist between women and men on issues, party identification, and candidate selection. Women tend to favor less military spending and more government spending on social services, to more often identify with the Democratic party, and to vote for Democratic candidates over Republican candidates [Matlack 1987; Shapiro and Mah^an 1986; Zipp and Plutzer 1985]. In the 1980s, however, women\u27s participation rates exceeded those of men for the first time in U.S. history. Women emerged from the 1980s as a significant, although certainly nonmonolithic, electoral force

Tuettavien ja vapaaehtoisesti toimivien tukihenkilöiden kokemuksia tukihenkilötoiminnasta lastensuojelun laitosympäristössä ja perhekuntoutuksessa

Tämän opinnäytetyön tavoitteena oli saada tietoa vapaaehtoisesti toimivien tukihenkilöiden ja tuettavien kokemuksista. Vapaaehtoista tukihenkilötoimintaa järjestetään Helsingin Diakonissalaitoksen lapsi ja perhetyön lastensuojelun laitosympäristössä ja perhekuntoutuksessa. Opinnäyteyöni tilaajana on Helsingin Diakonissalaitoksen Perhetalkoot hanke. Opinnäytetyön tutkimuksen avulla haluttiin saada konkreettista tutkimustulosta kokemuksista, joita tukihenkilötoiminta tuottaa vapaaehtoisesti toimiville tukihenkilöille, kuin tuettavillekin. Menetelmänä aineistonkeruussa tässä opinnäytetyössä käytettiin teemahaastattelua. Haastatteluun osallistui kolme tukihenkilöä ja kolme tuettavaa. Tämän opinnäytetyön tulosten tarkoitus on tuoda lisää tietoa Perhetalkoot hankkeelle sen toiminnan kokemuksista ja ideoita tämän toiminnan kehittämiselle. Tutkimustuloksista selviää, että tukihenkilötoiminta on tuottanut paljon hyviä kokemuksia niin vapaaehtoisesti toimiville tukihenkilöille, kuin tuettaville. Yhdessä vietetty aika ja yhdessä tekeminen oli tukihenkilötoiminnassa tärkeää. Tämän tutkimuksen avulla saatiin vahvistus tukihenkilötoiminnan merkityksestä Perhetalkoot hankkeelle.This thesis was ordered by Helsinki Deaconess Institute´s volunteer project, Perhetalkoot The aim of the thesis was to obtain concrete information and research results about support person operations: about the experiences of volunteer support persons and those receiving support. Volunteer support operations are organized through child welfare facilities and family rehabilitation. In addition, thesis provided information and development ideas for Perhetalkoot volunteer project. The information was collected by theme interviews with participation of support persons and those supported. Research results show that the support person operations have brought a lot of positive experiences among both target groups. Joint activities and spending time together was found important. Thesis results confirm the relevance of the support operations for target groups as part of the volunteer project run by Helsinki Deaconess Institute

Gender and the political economy of knowledge

The importance of increased levels of education in improving the status of women throughout the world is well established. Higher levels of education are associated with lower birth rates, higher incomes, and greater autonomy for women. In fact, it has been argued that education is a fundamental prerequisite for empowering women in all spheres of society (Lopez-Claros and Zahidi 2005: 5). In the last third of the twentieth century, women have made particularly significant strides in many countries. For example, UNESCO reports that women’s share of enrollment in higher education in Switzerland rose from 3 per cent in 1985 to 43 per cent in 2000 and in France, women’s share of enrollment increased from 50 to 55 per cent. Women’s share in Latin American colleges and universities over the same time period rose from 43 to 47 per cent in Chile, and 44 to 54 per cent in El Salvador. In India, women’s share has risen from 30 to 39 percent. While certainly not universal, this trend towards gender balance in student enrollment is remarkably similar in a large number of industrialized countries throughout the world. The increase in the participation of women as students is now beginning to reach the highest levels of educational attainment. The Nordic Research Board (NORBAL) reports that women received 46 per cent of doctoral degrees awarded by universities in the Nordic and Baltic countries in 2005 — up from 28 per cent in 1990 (NORBAL 2005: 3). In the United States, in 2002, for the first time in American history, more American women than American men received doctorates from US universities (Hoffer et al. 2003). The increase in representation of women as students in higher education has not, however, produced a proportional increase in the representation of women as faculty. For example, in 2000, women constituted only 4.4 per cent of faculty at Austrian universities, 11 per cent of faculty at German universities, 12 per cent in Swedish universities, and 10 per cent in UK universities (Zimmer 2003: 9). In 1995, UNESCO reported that in Norway and Canada women constituted only 21 per cent of faculty, and in the US only 31 per cent of faculty (UNESCO 2005)

Empowering Social Work Faculty: Alternative Paradigms for Teaching and Learning

Based upon the emergence of alternative paradigms both inside and outside of social work education, four paradigms representing the most traditional to the most radical are presented. Each paradigm is discussed in terms of its ontological and epistemological assumptions as well as other pedagogical issues including role of the teacher, methods of evaluation and course structure. Educators are urged to use these paradigms to better understand legitimate differences between faculty, to become more conscious and deliberate in their choice of methods, to identify areas of incongruence, and to push themselves and the profession towards philosophies and methods most congruent with social work values an ethics

The Politics of Poverty in Contemporary Russia

This book provides an overview of poverty and well-being in Russia. Increasing poverty rates during the 1990s were followed by greater attention to social policies in the 2000s and increased efforts to engage people in socially oriented NGOs and ‘encourage’ them to contribute to the fulfillment of social aims. What impact did these developments have on the prevalence of poverty in contemporary Russian society? Tracing continuities from the Soviet system alongside recent developments such as the falling price of oil, economic sanctions, and changes in directions of social policy, this book explores the impact of poverty, inequality and social programmes. The author examines the agency of people living in poverty and those engaged in social policy, using official statistics, survey data and interviews from four Russian regions to explain the reasons and consequences of poverty and people’s attempts to get out of it. The approach is based on institutional theory, complemented by Amartya Sen’s capability approach highlighting the importance of agency and an institutional framework as a means for change. A timely book that will be of interest to students of contemporary Russian politics as well as those engaged in social policy issues

Paradygmat psychicznego cierpienia zwierząt w estońskim orzecznictwie sądowym i relacjach medialnych

In the European context, animal rights legislation is relying on human rights language, since it aims to protect the animals from mental suffring. The fact that a legal norm is not labelled as a human rights norm does not alter its content. This article also shows that in the Estonian judicial system the concept of animals deserving protection of their fundamental rights is accepted by default. The reasoning of court judgments indicates that the main reason for criminal sanction is the violation of animals fundamental right not to be killed or tortured. The article supports the thesis that it is clear that there is an urgent need to recognize the animal rights in legislation directly and the need of such application of these laws by courts; altogether with placing such conviction in public awareness.W prawodawstwie Unii Europejskiej regulacje dotyczące praw zwierząt tworzy się z użyciem tego samego języka, którym opisuje się prawa człowieka. Dzieje się tak, ponieważ celem tychże regulacji jest ochrona zwierząt przed cierpieniem psychicznym właściwym istotom ludzkim. W orzecznictwie estońskich sądów koncepcja podstawowych praw zwierząt jest akceptowana. Analiza treści uzasadnień wyroków wskazuje, że najczęstszą przyczyną nakładania kar jest pogwałcenie podstawowych praw zwierząt, tj. prawa do życia i wolności od tortur. W artykule postawiono tezę, że istnieje pilna potrzeba szerokiego uznania praw zwierząt, dotyczy to zarówno prawodawstwa, praktyki orzeczniczej oraz powszechnej świadomości społecznej

Women’s Responses to the Conservative Turn in Russia and Russian Social Policy

Russia has experienced a conservative turn in gender policy since the early 2000s, especially since 2012. There have been conservative trends in legislation and policies along with a deterioration of women’s rights in Russia. The conservative trend is also reflected more specifically in developments in social policy. The aim of this article is to highlight how women have experienced and responded to these policy changes. Both resistance and acceptance have been noted: during my field work I have observed four kinds of responses. The article further discusses how the conservative trend might contribute to a social marginalization of women. The theoretical framework of the article is institutional economics with an orientation to agency as the changing factor. The most relevant part of the data for this paper is composed of over 250 interviews about policies on poverty and social marginalization collected in 2010-2019 from five Russian regions with social work experts and other persons working in local formal or informal organizations, most of them women. Four of the regions are located in north-western Russia and one in the Volga region

Poverty and Women's Social Work in Russia

Although poverty in Russia has been trending downward since the early 2000s, certain worrying elements of persistent poverty are likely to continue. Women are working across networks to address social marginalization in Russia. They have been able to mobilize voluntary contributions, but stronger support from the government is needed as well. The president has promised to increase support, but evidence thereof remains to be seen. In addition, there are many potential scenarios in terms of the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on women and poverty in Russia, but it is as yet too early to evaluate the consequences