Where’s the Community in Community, Work and Family? A Community-based Capabilities Approach

Community is a key dimension in the work–family interface as highlighted by the recent Covid-19 pandemic. Yet it is critically understudied by much work–family scholarship. We highlight and address crucial barriers preventing the integration of the community concept, developing an interdisciplinary community-based capabilities approach. This approach conceptualizes three components of community: local relationships, local policies and locality (place, space and scale). Local relationships include formal and informal relationships, networks, and a sense of belonging. Dependent on the broader socio-economic context, local policies and services can provide important resources for managing these relationships and work–life situations more generally. These relationships and policies are embedded in specific geographical localities, shaping and being shaped by social action. This interdisciplinary conceptualization of community allows relational, spatial, structural and temporal aspects of community to be integrated into a more broadly applicable conceptual approach. We base this approach on the capability approach, which allows for a pluralistic work–life framework of what individuals value and do. We further argue for a conceptualization of family as community, moving towards a work–community interface. The resulting conceptual approach is useful for explaining work–life processes for individuals with and without care responsibilities, and offers a new framework for studying the social trends intensely and rapidly highlighted by the COVID-19 pandemic

Geologic Setting and Activity of Faults in the San Fernando Area, California

The faulting associated with the San Fernando earthquake of February 9, 1971, occurred in the Transverse Ranges structural province, a region noted for its strong and relatively young tectonic deformation. This is, however, the first example of historic surface faulting within the interior of that province

Heat exchange mediated by a quantum system

We consider heat transfer between two thermal reservoirs mediated by a quantum system using the generalized quantum Langevin equation. The thermal reservoirs are treated as ensembles of oscillators within the framework of the Drude-Ullersma model. General expressions for the heat current and thermal conductance are obtained for arbitrary coupling strength between the reservoirs and the mediator and for different temperature regimes. As an application of these results we discuss the origin of Fourier's law in a chain of large, but finite subsystems coupled to each other by the quantum mediators. We also address a question of anomalously large heat current between the STM tip and substrate found in a recent experiment. The question of minimum thermal conductivity is revisited in the framework of scaling theory as a potential application of the developed approach.Comment: 16 pages, 6 figure

Attitudes towards parenthood, partnership and social rights for diverse families: Evidence from a pilot study in five countries

Attitudes toward the civil and social citizenship rights of individuals in diverse family forms are underresearched. We use cross-national data from a pilot study among students in Denmark, Spain, Croatia, Italy, and the Netherlands to explore cross-country differences in beliefs about partnership, parenthood, and social rights of same-sex couples vs. heterosexual couples or married vs. cohabiting couples. The results suggest a polarization in students' attitudes between countries that appear more traditional (i.e., Italy and Croatia) and less traditional (Spain and the Netherlands), where the rights of married heterosexual couples are privileged over other family forms more so than in nontraditional countries. Moreover, equality in social rights is generally more widely accepted than equality in civil rights, particularly in relationship to parenthood rights and in more traditional countries. We discuss the implications of these findings and the implications for further research in this underexplored area of attitudinal research

Social justice and the justification of social inequalities

In this chapter, we introduce key research on social justice from an interdisciplinary social scientific perspective, focusing on questions of what (distributive justice), how (procedural justice) and who (recognition and scope). After discussing seminal theories on distributive justice (i.e., equity theory and relative deprivation), we introduce the distinction between three justice principles (equity, equality, need). We then consider central studies of procedural justice on fair process and due consideration effects. Subsequently, justice as recognition and the scope of justice are discussed as important additional forms of justice. We then shift focus towards two theories that help explain why people sometimes justify injustice: just-world theory and system justification theory, showing how striving for justice and the existence of injustice can be reconciled and at what cost