Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Legislating The Family: Heterosexist Bias In Social Welfare Policy Frameworks, Amy Lind

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

This article addresses the effects of heterosexist bias in social welfare policy frameworks on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) individuals and families in the United States. It discusses the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA), the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), federal definitions of family and household, and stereotypes about LGBT individuals. It argues that poor LGBT individuals and families lack full citizen rights and access to needed social services as a result of these explicit and implicit biases.

Review Of Assessing Outcomes In Child And Family Services: Comparative Design And Policy Issues. Anthony N. Malucchio, Cinzia Canali And Tiziano Vecchiato (Eds.) Reviewed By Sherill Clark., Sherrill Clark

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Anthony N. Maluccio, Cinzia Canali and Tiziano Vecchiato (Eds.) Assessing Outcomes in Child and Family Services: Comparative Design and Policy Issues. Hawthorne, NY: 2003. $49.95 hardcover, $24.95 papercover.

Intimate Partner Violence And Use Of Welfare Services Among California Women, Rachel Kimerling, Nikki Baumrind

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

The current study is a population-based investigation of the association between past-year exposure to intimate partner violence (IPV) and current welfare use, while also accounting for the effects of other violence experienced in adulthood and symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). These data indicate that acute exposure to intimate partner violence is significantly over-represented among women currently on welfare. However, it appears to be a woman's cumulative exposure to interpersonal violence and associated symptoms of PTSD that are uniquely associated with welfare participation. These data highlight the prevalence of violence against women and its consequences for this population. Results suggest …

Cleavage In American Attitudes Toward Social Welfare, William M. Epstein

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Opinion polls probing both the narrow and broad senses of social welfare among Americans indicate hardly any substantial differences over crucial social sentiments among a variety of groups with at least theoretically divergent interests: rich and poor, men and women, blacks and whites, a variety of ethnic groups, union and nonunion households. The items mainly concern the provision of welfare to the poor through AFDC, now TANF, and Food Stamps but also cover OASDHI. Consistently over more than sixty five years of systematic opinion polling, there is an astonishing consensus, so large in fact that it may undermine any effort …

The Differences In Performance Between Large And Small Organizations In Mental Health Settings, Randy Parker

Dissertations

The quantitative part of this study examined the relationship between organizational size and staff performance in mental health group home settings.The data from two hundred and sixty-two group homes from small, medium, and large umbrella organizations were examined. The results of independent third party evaluations were compared across these umbrella organizations. Evaluations measured compliance and performance mandated by federal health and safety regulations.

The qualitative part of this study involved on-site interviews with group home staff from various organizations at various professional levels which scored either a low or a high number of errors. A qualitative analysis was conducted to …

The Relationship Between Locus Of Control And Nutrition Health Status Among Adult Wic Participants, Damita Jo Zweiback

Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between locus of control orientation and the nutrition health status of adult WIC participants in Michigan. The locus of control variable is defined as the degree to which an individual perceives reinforcement or outcomes as contingent upon his or her own behavior. It ranges from internal to external. Internal locus of control is the individual's belief that s/he is an actor and can determine one's fate within limits. External locus of control is the person's belief that s/he is controlled by forces outside of one's self (Lefcourt, 1976; Koger, 1999). …

The Practice Of The Commons, Roger A. Lohmann

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

This paper

This paper lays out some of the basics of a language-based, person-centered, or agentic model of practice for nonprofit organizations, voluntary action and philanthropy within the emerging domain of commons theory. Six principles are identified for the practice of commons. Two threats to the production of common goods - bureaucratization and colonization of the life world - are discussed and evaluated as limitations of the practice of commons.

What's In A Name? Keeping The Va In Arnova, Roger A. Lohmann

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

As the name suggests, Voluntary Action (VA) was one of the constituent interests in the formation of ARNOVA. The popularity of nonprofit organizations (NO) among researchers, scholars and students threatens to overwhelm the scholarly interest in voluntary action. Yet, this latter topic is both more interesting theoretically and more important to larger questions of democracy and local and national community and therefore needs to be preserved and protected.

Leaving Welfare: Challenges In A New Economy, Gregory Acs, Pamela Loprest

Employment Research Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Saving Capitalism From Itself: Whither The Welfare State?, Mimi Abramovitz

New England Journal of Public Policy

The U.S. welfare state has been under attack from both sides of the aisle since the mid-1970s. Using the lens of history, the following pages will argue that neither the rise of the welfare state in the 1930s nor the current attack were merely accidental. Instead, each was a response to a particular crisis of profitability because the institutional arrangements that had created the conditions for profit-making in the prior fifty years had deteriorated. The policies no longer worked for the powers-that-be and had to be “reformed.”

The Economic Context: Growing Disparities Of Income And Wealth, Chuck Collins

New England Journal of Public Policy

In the last few years, poverty rates have remained constant in the New England states. The effort to reduce poverty in New England and the United States has been thwarted by trends of growing income and wealth inequality. Since the late 1970s, the real incomes for the majority of U.S. households have remained stagnant or fallen. During the same time, asset ownership has become dramatically more unequal, and the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few has increased. The causes of this accelerated inequality are complex, but underlying the picture are a series of rule changes, both public …

Essay On Community, Hubie Jones

New England Journal of Public Policy

Family and community are human organisms that are the bedrock of any society. They provide the sustenance, values, direction, and protection that make it possible for individuals who live in a defined location to prosper and thrive singularly and collectively. Community is the social structure that mediates between the individual resident and the state and private elites, guiding social transactions between these different worlds to advance and protect the interests and needs of individuals and groups within neighborhoods or local communities.

Interrupted Progress: Forty Years Of Child Poverty, Deborah Weinstein

New England Journal of Public Policy

In the last forty years since the beginning of the war on poverty, the condition of poor children has improved and the percentage of children living in poverty has declined. Children and their families made the greatest gain when there was a good economy and an increase in government supports. But when such investments shrink, as they have in recent years, progress is impeded. Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) must be reauthorized by Congress. The legislation now under discussion does not encourage states to replicate programs that have increased work and family income and helped children.

What Kind Of Labor Market Awaits Low-Income Workers?, Françoise Carré

New England Journal of Public Policy

This essay highlights changes in the context of the labor market for low-income people, particularly mothers. It briefly reviews labor market trends and policies. It then highlights the challenges faced by such workers. The essay argues for a shift in thinking and policy advocacy to encompass the world of work, and its domination by business imperatives and language, and thus better represent poor people’s concerns in the policy world.

Child Care: Four Decades Of Growth And Change, Bruce Hershfield, John Sciamanna

New England Journal of Public Policy

Child care has grown and changed over the past four decades. The federal government now has two major early education programs, Head Start and the Child Care and Development Block Grant. Although Head Start was enacted in 1965 and has had mostly bipartisan support, it took the federal government until 1990 to enact a national child care program. Massachusetts, led by an active advocacy community and strong leadership in the state legislature, has been a leader among states in support for child care funding and policies. It is its support for strong licensing, periodic increases in reimbursement rates, parental choice, …

Shelter Poverty: The Chronic Crisis Of Housing Affordability, Michael E. Stone

New England Journal of Public Policy

This paper examines housing affordability in the United States over the past three decades using the author’s concept of “shelter poverty.” The major findings are as follows: The number of shelter-poor households has been over 30 million since the early 1990s, an increase of more than 70 percent since 1970. Among families with children, rates of shelter poverty are much higher, and over the past several decades have risen faster, than among households with just one or two persons. Nearly half of all renter households are shelter-poor, victims of low incomes and rising rents; most low-income renters are headed by …

When They Need Help The Most: Public Services For Immigrants, Miren Uriarte, Phillip Granberry

New England Journal of Public Policy

Ending unauthorized immigration is at the heart of current federal initiatives in both immigration and social policy. The intertwining of these two areas of policy is nowhere clearer than in the 1996 passage of both the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA), better known as Welfare Reform, and the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA). Immigration status became a key point of differentiation in access to public benefits as cutbacks were instituted with the stated goal of curtailing undocumented immigration. The denial of public benefits to limit unauthorized immigration has a disproportionate impact on those groups …

When Half The Neighborhood Is Missing, Gus Newport

New England Journal of Public Policy

Local nonprofits too often compete with each other for power, turf, and funds. The author, formerly director of the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative, advocates for a collaborative process that engages the local community in defining and executing new initiatives. Governance for the good of the people must rely on sound research, sound principles and values, and the understanding and support of the community.

Challenging The Policy Establishment, Alice O'Connor

New England Journal of Public Policy

Among the many challenges community action faces after four decades, none cuts more deeply into its central mission than the political and ideological transformation reflected in the rise of the conservative right. Based on a potent combination of grass roots and institutional organizing, coalition-building, ideological mobilization, and inter/intra party politics, the right-wing takeover has empowered a political and policy establishment that is hostile not only to the ideas that animated the War on Poverty but to the very idea of public action against social and economic inequality. While this transformation has kept community action on the defensive, confronting the challenge …

Challenges To Multiculturalism, Jorge Capetillo-Ponce

New England Journal of Public Policy

An anti-bilingual education referendum was offered to citizens of Massachusetts in November of 2002. The referendum read, in part, “The current state law providing for transitional bilingual education in public schools will be replaced with a law requiring that, with limited exceptions, all public school children must be taught English by being taught all subjects in English and being placed in English language classrooms.” The University of Massachusetts Gaston Institute analyzed the results of that referendum, here reported on by Jorge Capetillo-Ponce.

Community Action In Massachusetts, Jim Canavan

New England Journal of Public Policy

Evaluates the contribution of community action agencies (CCA) in alleviating poverty in Massachusetts from its creation during the term of former U.S. President Lyndon Johnson until 2004. Description of the programs to the poor offered by CCAs; Operation of CCAs across the state; Affordable housing offered by the CCAs.

Ideas Of Reform: Like Buddhist Souls, Peter Marris, Martin Rein

New England Journal of Public Policy

In 1967 Martin Rein and Peter Marris wrote an important book exploring the projects leading to the development of community action and related programs of the Great Society. In it they describe reform as a diffuse process in which preferences clash and evolve. Purposeful reform rarely has the intended consequences. The selection below is taken from the concluding remarks of their book, The Dilemmas of Social Reform, copyright University of Chicago Press, and is reprinted here with permission.

The Empty Promise, Elaine Werby

New England Journal of Public Policy

This article reviews the federal role in providing rental housing for low-income households. It suggests that reliance on the private market has characterized the variety of programs designed to meet the housing needs of this population group. Despite some progress, millions of low-income households still lack stable, secure housing that they can afford, and the major current program of rent subsidies is under attack.

A Portrait Of Asian Americans In Metro Boston, Paul Watanabe, Michael Liu, Shauna Lo

New England Journal of Public Policy

The Asian American population of metropolitan Boston has grown rapidly and in extraordinary numbers. This article describes the great variety within the population with the purpose of fostering effective analysis, policy making, and service delivery.

The Nonprofit Sector And The Will To Change, Pablo Eisenberg

New England Journal of Public Policy

A greater portion of our nonprofit activities in the future will have to be devoted to policies and actions that can produce constructive change. The extraordinary problems of our society as we enter the twenty-first century — poverty, racism, environmental degradation, lack of health protection, declining trust in governments — can only be tackled by strong policy work, advocacy, and citizen mobilization. The author outlines seven challenges that nonprofits need to address including promoting democracy, strengthening government, asuring public accountability, redefining the nonprofit sector, reforming philanthropy, developing new leadership, and engaging institutions of higher learning in promoting democracies and communities. …

Foreword, Elaine Werby, Donna Haig Friedman

New England Journal of Public Policy

Interspersed throughout this issue are Voices of Community Action — the voices of executive directors, board members, and staff. Some are personal reflections; others describe their work or tell of the struggles of those who live with poverty. All speak to the commitment of service and change, to personal development and growth, and to the worth of their work. Their stories are 10 matched in the testimony of those who have received services or participated in community action programs. All of these stories bear witness to the importance of what happens on the front lines among leaders, board members, staff, …

The Community Action Principle: Subjects Not Objects, Barney Frank

New England Journal of Public Policy

Deals with the impact of community action programs in the international and domestic economic policies. Influence of political participation on the application of democratic principles in politics; Background of economic policies by former U.S. Presidents regarding the free enterprise system; Relevance of community action on the formulation of international economic policies.

Moving Target: The Dilemma Of Serving Massachusetts Poor Families, Randy Albelda

New England Journal of Public Policy

While Community Action Agencies’ original mission of serving the poor has changed little over the last three decades, government commitments to the poor, the population of poor individuals and families, and women’s economic expectations have changed considerably. This article documents the trends in family structure, women’s employment patterns, and poverty policies in Massachusetts between 1970 and 2000. The increase in poor, single-mother families and poverty policies that emphasize employment present dynamic challenges for Community Action Agencies (and others who serve the poor), but also create some new organizing opportunities.

Devolution: The Retreat Of Government, Judith Kurland

New England Journal of Public Policy

Devolution as practiced in much of the world is decentralization of program authority and responsibility to achieve greater administrative efficiency or program standards. Devolution as practiced by the Bush administration and the Republican Congress is not that, nor is it a diminution of federal power and the strengthening of states’ rights. Rather, it is a radical restructuring of government to prevent the expenditure of funds for traditional Democratic programs of the New Deal and the Great Society, and to prohibit states from being either more generous in social programs or more stringent in regulating industry than this administration desires.

The Road To Universal Health Coverage In Massachusetts: A Story In Three Parts, John E. Mcdonough

New England Journal of Public Policy

In 1988, the Massachusetts Legislature passed a new law, a “play or pay” employer mandate, requiring all employers with six or more workers to provide health insurance coverage for their employees. A few years later, with Medicaid identified as a “Budget Buster,” the Weld administration sought deregulation as the way to cut costs and expand access by establishing MassHealth, which dropped the employer mandate and expanded Medicaid, and eventually distinguished Massachusetts as the state with the greatest percent of covered citizens. But MassHealth enrollment has declined as premium costs have risen, and the Uncompensated Care Pool is once again faced …