Care: actors, relationships, contexts

ââ¬â¢Careââ¬â¢ (or ââ¬â¢caringââ¬â¢) is one of the contested concepts in the study of gender and social politics. As a concept and activity, care covers a number of different relations, actors, and institutional settings, and crosses conventional boundaries. It can pertain to family analysis, but also to labour market and welfare state analysis, to concepts and practices of work and citizenship, to issues of social inclusion and exclusion, and so forth. The article examines some of the crucial passages in the development of ââ¬â¢care thinkingââ¬â¢, viewing them not only as steps in a theoretíical process, but also as the outcome of shifts in contexts. Drawing mainly upon the Western European sociological and social policy discourses, and particularly on feminist literature, the following discusses care as a public and private responsibility, as relationships of labour, love and power, as personal responsibilities and social rights, and returns once more to considering care as a feminine dilemma

Dirbantys tėvai ir socialinės gerovės valstybė : kintanti šeima ir politikos reforma Skandinavijoje

Kintanti šeima ir politikos reforma Skandinavijoje. Norvegijos socialinių mokslų tyrinėtojos Leira Arnlaug knygaVytauto Didžiojo universiteta

Early and Late Adoption of Knowledge Products: Strategic or Institutional Behavior?

This chapter analyzes the behavior of early adopters of innovations and followers in the Dutch university sector from 1974–1993. The innovations we concentrate on are (comparable) new study programs. We formulate contrasting expectations bearing on institutional and strategic choice theory concerning the consequences for early adopters versus followers. From an institutional perspective we predict that followers are less successful measured in terms of the quality of the program, the enrollments, and fundamental changes in the program (including closing down the program). Seven chains of innovations (in total 35 new programs) are analyzed. This analysis points out that the behavior of the adopters can be seen as a combination of both strategic choice and institutional adjustment

Analyzing Organizational Change in Higher Education

In this paper an approach for studying organizational change in higher education is presented. Two theoretical perspectives on organizational change are outlined. First, a resource dependence perspective emphasising that organizational change must be understood by looking at how organizations perceive their environments. How do organizations act to control and avoid dependencies in order to maintain organizational discretion and autonomy of action? A (sociological) neo-institutional framework for studying change in higher education organizations emphasizes the cognitive and normative elements in the environment. When organizations change according to institutionalized expectations, they do so in a context of taken for granted norms and beliefs. Both perspectives represent valuable analytical frameworks that can be combined fruitfully. In addition the article focuses on one major environmental actor for higher education, the state. How do government policies and programs influence organizational change processes? With reference to both resource dependence theory and neo-institutional perspective relevant aspects of policymaking as well as characteristics of the content of policies and programs are presented. It is argued that there is a need for seeing interaction of the government with universities and colleges as located in an overall system of state steering of higher education. Four state (or governance) models have been discussed grasping different approaches to national policymaking, steering, and governance of higher education in Europe and the way these affect change processes in universities and colleges

New Social Risks and Welfare State Reforms in Norway and Spain

The NorSpaR project aims to analyse the main public policy initiatives by which Norway and Spain cope with the new social and economic challenges derived from the so-called New Social Risks (NSR). Although both countries present significant differences in their institutional settings (such as Spanish EU membership), or its belonging to diverse welfare regimes types (Norway is generally included in the Nordic regime, while Spain is part of the Mediterranean one), both countries share a common interest in addressing the aforementioned challenges while maintaining social cohesion. In the last decade, governments in both countries have tried to respond to those challenges by reforming their labour markets, adapting their unemployment schemes, as well as their gender, family and long-term care policies. The analysis covered in this project includes three areas of public policy addressing NSR. First, dependency is one of the most daunting challenges for post-industrial societies experiencing population ageing and with an increasing number of frail people in need of care. This situation is forcing governments to rethink their long-term care policies. Second, family and gender public programs need to respond to the growing difficulties of families in reconciling professional and family life. Third, in the transition to a post-industrial order, and in a context of mass unemployment, social protection systems have a renewed prominence. Along with the so-called passive policies offering financial support to the unemployed, active labour market policies are geared to put people back into work. In our analysis we try to find answers to the following questions: What are the challenges that each of these policies have been trying to address in recent years? How have these policies evolved? What kinds of reforms have been implemented, and which ones have been neglected? Have the policy goals and targets of welfare programs been modified in any significant way? Have the policy tools (services, transfers, funding or models of provision) changed? To what extent have these policies been successful in coping with social and economic problems? To what extent a social demand in favour of these changes exist? What are the main political and social actors intervening as stakeholders in these policies? Finally, what are the major similarities and differences existing between the two countries? To what extent are there policy proposals that might easily travel between them? Could they foster mutually enriching exchanges of information