Sociology and Service Learning at Loyola

Service learning is a term used to describe efforts to link community service to the academic curriculum. It is a broad, nebulously defined term which at times includes academic endeavors.such as internships, needs assessments and participatory action research (Marullo, !996). A more narrow .usage, and the usage promoted by its advocates, refers to the process through which students participate in organized service activity for academic credit to meet identified community needs and reflect on that service to further their understanding of course material (Bringle and Hatcher, 1994 ). And, as Marullo (1996) has pointed out, when service learning activity is done properly, it should provide students with an increased awareness of civic responsibility, promote their moral development, and help them to analyze the causes and consequences of social problems (Honnet and Poulsen, 1989; Levison, 1990). This has led Marullo to describe service learning as a pedagogy that offers a crucible for learning that enables students to test theories with life experiences, and forces upon them an evaluation of their knowledge and understanding grounded in their service experience (Marullo, 1996)

Child Care Needs of Welfare Recipients In Maryland\u27s Welfare Reform Program

Legislation mandating participation of welfare recipient parents in education and employment and training programs has created increased demand for provision of child care. Providing the most appropriate care for this unique population depends, ideally, on its needs and preferences. This study examines child care needs and preferences of a sample of participants in Maryland\u27s welfare reform employment and training programs. Although care by a relative is most widely used by these respondents, it is not clear that this is the type of care preferred by the majority of respondents. This has important implications for policy decisions regarding child care funding

Broadening Access to the Courts and Clarifying Judicial Standards: Sex Discrimination Cases in the 1978-1979 Supreme Court Term

During the 1978-79 Term of the Supreme Court, sex discrimination continued to be an area of active judicial concern, with the Court deciding eight cases alleging unlawful sex discrimination. The purpose of this note is to present the Court\u27s holdings and its rationale in these decisions, to analyze the significance of the decisions in view of the Court\u27s past rulings, and to suggest possible implications for future sex discrimination cases

Gendered biographies :the Czech state-socialist gender order in oral history interviews

A large collection of autobiographical life story material available in oral-history data is used to examine how women and men of different socio-political groups (workers, intelligentsia, dissidents, and communist functionaries) narrate their lives in the time of state-socialist Czechoslovakia. Of particular interest is what these narratives imply for an understanding of the state-socialist gender order. The analysis combines quantitative (the frequency of word co-occurrences) and qualitative (a hermeneutic reading of text fragments) approaches. The results provide evidence that empirically supports what has previously been suggested in the literature: there was an interdependence of private and public spheres, with the family sphere differing in importance for women and men. Additionally, the discursive density and arrangement of these spheres in the life stories differs according to sociopolitical groups, and a third sphere, which we have labelled ‘politics’, emerges for some groups. The fi ndings reveal insights into the relationship between the gender order and the life course through a narrative articulation of life stories of different social groups in Czech state-socialist society.1077110