The Charter of Rights and the Ad Hoc Lobby: The Limits of the Success

The political significance of women's lobbying efforts to affect the wording of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms is assessed in this paper. The author proposes that the women's lobby worked within government defined terms of reference, and its success was limited to strengthening the federal government's commitment to legal equality rights for women. In the process, the Ad Hoc Committee which led the lobby modeled its tactics on those of traditional pressure groups, and not on the consensual tactics of many feminist groups.Dans cette communication, l'auteur examine l’importance politique des efforts des groupes féministes exerçant des pressions afin d'obtenir des droits pour les femmes a l’intérieur de la Charte des Droits et Liberté. Ces groupes ont accepté les limites établies par le gouvernement fédéral. Leur succès était de consolider les droits d’égalité déjà accepté par le gouvernement fédéral. Présentement à développer les tactiques, le Comité ad hoc sur la Constitution a adopté des tactiques traditionnels plutôt que les tactiques féministes

Voluntary Affirmative Action. Does it Work?

À l'été 1984, on a adresse au hasard à un échantillon de 750 entreprises des villes jumelées Kitchener-Waterloo un questionnaire de deux pages destine à mesurer leur comportement et leur participation à des programmes de promotion sociale. Le questionnaire fut rempli par 126 d'entre elles, soit 17 pour cent de l'ensemble. L'étude portait sur la promotion sociale du personnel féminin. On y demandait aux répondants quelle était la distribution des employés selon le sexe dans leur établissement, leur compréhension du sens de la promotion sociale et leur participation aux programmes de promotion sociale.On y décelait la présence de ségrégation sexuelle dans la plupart des entreprises des répondants. Il y avait une concentration de femmes dans le travail de bureau et d'hommes dans les emplois de production et de direction. On y trouvait peu d'indices que cela était attribuable à des penchants personnels favorisant les hommes ou les femmes pour des types particuliers d'emplois. Cependant, on y remarquait une certaine discrimination systémique, comme la tendance à embaucher le personnel par promotion interne ou contact personnel. Les répondants estimaient que moins d'un tiers des vacances à l'intérieur de leur firme était comble en utilisant la publicité externe. De plus, il apparaissait clairement que les procédés d'embauchage variaient selon la nature du poste. Ces constatations sont importantes quand il s'agit de mettre au point un programme de promotion sociale efficace. En premier lieu, elles indiquent que l'insistance du gouvernement à lutter contre la discrimination systémique est adéquate. Deuxièmement, elles font ressortir la nécessité de programmes flexibles qui tiennent compte des différences dans les procédés d'engagement selon les divers types d'emplois.Pour ce qui est du succès des programmes existants de promotion sociale, l'enquête démontrait clairement que la confiance des gouvernements dans la participation volontaire à leurs programmes n'a pas été une réussite. Parmi les entreprises redondantes, il n'y en avait que 23 pour cent qui identifiaient la promotion sociale comme remède propre à résoudre le problème des femmes et des minorités. En d'autres mots, le message des gouvernements en matière de promotion sociale n'avait pas atteint le groupe vise. De plus, 34 pour cent des répondants étaient sous l'impression fausse qu'ils favorisaient la promotion sociale la confondant avec de meilleures pratiques commerciales, la création d'emplois et l'égalité des chances. De l'analyse d'ensemble de cette enquête, on peut tirer les conclusions suivantes. D'une façon plus significative, il apparait que peu d'employeurs comprennent véritablement la notion de promotion sociale. Beaucoup de ceux qui estiment en comprendre la signification sont dans l'erreur. En outre, il y a peu de compréhension des barrières qui bloquent l'emploi des femmes dans des postes non traditionnels. Enfin, les informations qui peuvent être transmises par les gouvernements aux sièges sociaux des grandes entreprises ne se rendent pas toujours dans les succursales. Ces conclusions aident à expliquer l'absence de progrès dans la suppression de la ségrégation au travail. Elles soulèvent de sérieuses questions sur la valeur d'une approche volontaire au problème de la promotion sociale.The study focuses on affirmative action programs for women employees and seeks to measure attitudes offirms and their participation in such programs

Accuracy of an acoustic location system for monitoring the position of duetting songbirds in tropical forest

A field test was conducted on the accuracy of an eight-microphone acoustic location system designed to triangulate the position of duetting rufous-and-white wrens (Thryothorus rufalbus) in Costa Rica\u27s humid evergreen forest. Eight microphones were set up in the breeding territories of 20 pairs of wrens, with an average intermicrophone distance of 75.2±2.6 m. The array of microphones was used to record antiphonal duets broadcast through stereo loudspeakers. The positions of the loudspeakers were then estimated by evaluating the delay with which the eight microphones recorded the broadcast sounds. Position estimates were compared to coordinates surveyed with a global-positioning system (GPS). The acoustic location system estimated the position of loudspeakers with an error of 2.82±0.26 m and calculated the distance between the male and female loudspeakers with an error of 2.12±0.42 m. Given the large range of distances between duetting birds, this relatively low level of error demonstrates that the acoustic location system is a useful tool for studying avian duets. Location error was influenced partly by the difficulties inherent in collecting high accuracy GPS coordinates of microphone positions underneath a lush tropical canopy and partly by the complicating influence of irregular topography and thick vegetation on sound transmission. © 2006 Acoustical Society of America

Dataset associated with "Seeking congruity for agentic women: a longitudinal examination of college women's persistence in STEM"

Those interested in using these data are encouraged to contact Dr. Paul Hernandez ([email protected]) and Dr. Emily Fischer ([email protected]) for more information. Data Contacts: Paul R. Hernandez (primary), [email protected], 979-464-9229 Emily V. Fischer, [email protected], 970-491-8587.Survey data were collected via the online Qualtrics survey system twice yearly in the fall and spring semesters from fall 2015 through spring 2019. This repository contains the data file associated with all surveys utilized in the analyses presented in this research article.Format of Data Files: Data files are in .csv format. Files can be opened by most software (e.g., Notepad, WordPad, Excel) – anything that can read a comma delimited ASCII text file. Here, the file name is "Dataset." In addition, a codebook accompanies the data file. The codebook contains the variable names, variable labels, and value labels for all variables contained within the "Dataset.csv" file.An abundance of literature has examined barriers to women's equal representation in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields, with many studies showing that STEM fields are not perceived to afford communal goals, a key component of women's interest in future careers. Using Goal Congruity Theory as a framework, we tested the longitudinal impact of perceptions of STEM career goal affordances, communal and agentic goals, and their congruity on persistence in science from the second through fourth years of college among women in STEM majors. We found that women's intent to persist in science were highest in fall of their second year, that persistence intentions exhibited a sharp decline, and that eventually leveled off by their fourth year of college. This pattern was moderated by perceptions of agentic affordances in STEM, such that women with higher perceptions of agentic affordances experienced smaller declines. Similar to prior research, we found that higher perceptions of communal goal affordances in STEM consistently predicted higher persistence intentions. Finally, we found an agentic goal-affordance congruity interaction, such that higher perceptions of agentic affordances in STEM predicted higher persistence intentions; however, the positive relationship was stronger for women with higher agentic goals. We conclude that because STEM fields are stereotyped as affording agentic goals, women who identify interest in a STEM major during their first year of college may be drawn to these fields for this reason, and may benefit from perceptions that STEM affords both communal and agentic goals.Funding for this work was provided by the National Science Foundation through grant number DUE- 1431795, DUE-1431823, and DUE-1460229

Networks and Mechanisms of Interdependence: Theoretical Developments Beyond the Rational Action Model

There is interdependence when the actions of an individual influence the decisions (and later actions) of other individuals. This paper claims that social networks define the structure of that range of influence and unleash a number of mechanisms that go beyond those captured by rational action theory. Networks give access to the ideas and actions of other individuals, and this exposure determines the activation of thresholds, the timing of actions, and the emergence of contagion processes, informational cascades and epidemics. This paper sustains that rational action theory does not offer the necessary tools to model these processes if it is not inserted in a general theory of networks. This is especially the case in the context opened by new information and communication technologies, where the interdependence of individuals is acquiring greater empirical relevance

Role modeling is a viable retention strategy for undergraduate women in the geosciences

Gender diversity leads to better science; however, a number of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines, including many geoscience subdisciplines, show a persistent gender gap. PROmoting Geo- science Research, Education, and SuccesS (PROGRESS) is a theory-driven role modeling and mentoring program aimed at supporting undergraduate women interested in geoscience-related degree and career pathways. This study is unique because it is being conducted in a long-term applied setting, rather than as a laboratory exercise. We compare female STEM majors in PROGRESS to a matched control group (N = 380) using a longitudinal prospec- tive multisite quasi-experimental design. College women in PROGRESS par- ticipated in a mentoring and role-modeling weekend workshop with follow- up support, while women in the control group participated in neither the workshop nor the follow-up support. PROGRESS members identified more female STEM career role models than controls (60% versus 42%, respectively), suggesting that deliberate interventions can develop the networks of under- graduate women. Undergraduate women that participate in PROGRESS have higher rates of persistence in geoscience-related majors (95% versus 73%), although the rates of switching into a geoscience-related major did not differ across groups. More strikingly, we also find that the persistence of undergrad- uate women in geoscience-related majors is related to the number of female STEM career role models they identify, as their odds of persisting approxi- mately doubles for each role model they identify. We conclude that our ability to retain undergraduate women in the geosciences will depend, in part, on helping them to identify same-gender career role models. Further, the suc- cess of PROGRESS points to steps universities and departments can take to sustain their students’ interest and persistence, such as hosting interactive panels with diverse female scientists to promote the attainability and social relevance of geoscience careers

Pathophysiology and Management of Chest Wall Pain after Surgical and Non-Surgical Local Therapies for Lung Cancer.

Chest wall pain syndromes can emerge following local therapies for lung cancer and can adversely affect patients quality-of-life. This can occur after lung surgery, radiation therapy, or percutaneous image-guided thermal ablation. This review describes the multifactorial pathophysiology of chest wall pain syndromes that develop following surgical and non-surgical local therapies for lung cancer and summarizes evidence-based management strategies for inflammatory, neuropathic, myofascial, and osseous pain. It discusses a step-wise approach to treating chest wall pain that begins with non-opioid oral analgesics and includes additional pharmacologic treatments as clinically indicated, such as anticonvulsants, serotonin and norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors, tricyclic antidepressants, and various topical treatments. For myofascial pain, physical medicine techniques, such as acupuncture, trigger point injections, deep tissue massage, and intercostal myofascial release can also offer pain relief. For severe or refractory cases, opioid analgesics, intercostal nerve blocks, or intercostal nerve ablations may be indicated. Fortunately, palliation of treatment-related chest wall pain syndromes can be managed by most clinical providers, regardless of the type of local therapy utilized for a patients lung cancer treatment. In cases where a patients pain fails to respond to initial medical management, clinicians can consider referring to a pain specialist who can tailor a more specific pharmacologic approach or perform a procedural intervention to relieve pain

Construct-level predictive validity of educational attainment and intellectual aptitude tests in medical student selection: meta-regression of six UK longitudinal studies

Background: Measures used for medical student selection should predict future performance during training. A problem for any selection study is that predictor-outcome correlations are known only in those who have been selected, whereas selectors need to know how measures would predict in the entire pool of applicants. That problem of interpretation can be solved by calculating construct-level predictive validity, an estimate of true predictor-outcome correlation across the range of applicant abilities. Methods: Construct-level predictive validities were calculated in six cohort studies of medical student selection and training (student entry, 1972 to 2009) for a range of predictors, including A-levels, General Certificates of Secondary Education (GCSEs)/O-levels, and aptitude tests (AH5 and UK Clinical Aptitude Test (UKCAT)). Outcomes included undergraduate basic medical science and finals assessments, as well as postgraduate measures of Membership of the Royal Colleges of Physicians of the United Kingdom (MRCP(UK)) performance and entry in the Specialist Register. Construct-level predictive validity was calculated with the method of Hunter, Schmidt and Le (2006), adapted to correct for right-censorship of examination results due to grade inflation. Results: Meta-regression analyzed 57 separate predictor-outcome correlations (POCs) and construct-level predictive validities (CLPVs). Mean CLPVs are substantially higher (.450) than mean POCs (.171). Mean CLPVs for first-year examinations, were high for A-levels (.809; CI: .501 to .935), and lower for GCSEs/O-levels (.332; CI: .024 to .583) and UKCAT (mean = .245; CI: .207 to .276). A-levels had higher CLPVs for all undergraduate and postgraduate assessments than did GCSEs/O-levels and intellectual aptitude tests. CLPVs of educational attainment measures decline somewhat during training, but continue to predict postgraduate performance. Intellectual aptitude tests have lower CLPVs than A-levels or GCSEs/O-levels. Conclusions: Educational attainment has strong CLPVs for undergraduate and postgraduate performance, accounting for perhaps 65% of true variance in first year performance. Such CLPVs justify the use of educational attainment measure in selection, but also raise a key theoretical question concerning the remaining 35% of variance (and measurement error, range restriction and right-censorship have been taken into account). Just as in astrophysics, ‘dark matter’ and ‘dark energy’ are posited to balance various theoretical equations, so medical student selection must also have its ‘dark variance’, whose nature is not yet properly characterized, but explains a third of the variation in performance during training. Some variance probably relates to factors which are unpredictable at selection, such as illness or other life events, but some is probably also associated with factors such as personality, motivation or study skills