Social Policy Commons^™

The Consideration Of Race In Child Placement: Does It Serve The Best Interests Of Black And Biracial Children?, Donna B. Mcelroy

University of Maryland Law Journal of Race, Religion, Gender and Class

No abstract provided.

Weg Von Der Armut Durch Soziokulturelle Integration : Bei Sozialhilfeabhängigkeit, Alter Und Behinderung, Jonas Strom, Matthias Szadrowsky, Isidor Wallimann

Books

A person who has to live alone is marginalized and impoverished socially and culturally. A person must be able to participate in society - through education, culture, through the inclusion in civil society organizations, family and politics. If this is achieved, it will result in the person having more opportunities to secure this social and material existence and will more slowly become financially dependent and would be dependent for a shorter period of time. This in turn means financial relief for the State. It also ensures that human rights are afforded and promotes personal development.Previous research has provided many answers …

Two Steps Forward And One Step Back: Conflict And Contradiction In Post-War Guatemala (Review Essay), Kristin Marsh

History and American Studies Articles

What are the real prospects for lasting peace and greater prosperity in post-war Guatemala? This is the central question underlying Susanne Jonas's Of Centaurs and Doves and Christopher Chase-Dunn, Susanne Jonas, and Nelson Amaro's Globalization on the Ground. As events continue to unfold for Guatemalans, these scholars tackle the very current issues of democratization, development, justice, and peace in post-war Guatemalan society. The cruel irony is that the very urgency with which these issues must be addressed belies any concrete prediction or even refined characterization of the existing situation.

Rhode Island Latinos: A Scan Of Issues Affecting The Latino Population Of Rhode Island, Miren Uriarte, María Estela Carrión, Juan Carlos Gorlier, Charles Jones, Natalie Carithers, Juan Francisco García

Gastón Institute Publications

The Latino Population has grown dramatically in Rhode Island in the last two decades. This has been particularly the case in Central Falls and Providence where Latinos make up 48% and 30% of the population, respectively. This influx has created a shift in the racial/ethnic make up of these cities and in the cultural background of large sectors of the residents.

The arrival of large numbers of persons who do not speak English and who are not familiar with the structure and practice of public services would, under any circumstance, present a challenge. But the fact that they are recent …

Impact – Information Management, Public Access, Community Transformation: Year One Evaluation Report, September 1, 2000 Through August 31, 2001, Oscar Gutierrez, John Mcgah, Donna H. Friedman

Center for Social Policy Publications

The goals of the IMPACT project are “to improve access to and delivery of human services for low-income residents, strengthen community planning and resource allocation, and enhance understanding of how data on homelessness can be gathered and aggregated on local and national levels to accurately capture the scope of the problem and the effectiveness of efforts to ameliorate it.”

The first year of the IMPACT project was one of infrastructure development in a broad sense. It involved primarily the development and modification of innovative information technology tools as well as the identification, selection and deployment of other information systems designed …

The Child Care Problem For Low-Income Working Families, Jean Kimmel

Reports

No abstract provided.

Standing Against Censorship—Again, Alisa Solomon

Center for LGBTQ Studies (CLAGS)

Good afternoon. I'm Alisa Solomon, the executive director of the Center for Lesbian and Cay Studies (CLAGS) at the City University of New York, and I'm glad to be here on behalf of CLAGS to voice our strong objection to Mayor Giuliani's so-called Cultural Affairs Advisory Commission. We at CLAGS are not fooled by the Mayor's disingenuous assertions that this committee is merely a group of concerned citizens exercising their free speech in offering him their advice, for we recognize many of the members as long-time activists in the effort to squelch dissident viewpoints and legislate their own narrow morality. …

Transitions To Adulthood In The Context Of Aids In South Africa: Report Of Wave I, Naomi Rutenberg, Cathrien Kehus-Alons, Lisanne Brown, Kate Macintyre, Anthea Dallimore, Carol E. Kaufman

HIV and AIDS

This is a prospective study of reproductive behavior and sexual health of adolescents in South Africa as well as their education and employment experiences, family and environmental conditions, and other factors in their lives that may influence their sexual behavior and choices. This report is designed to inform educators, policymakers, and the public in South Africa and beyond of the initial findings of the study, with the ultimate goal of helping to design and refine policies and programs that will improve opportunities and capacities of adolescents and may contribute to changing behaviors and choices. The report focuses on describing the …

Sola No Eres Nada, Juntas Flotamos: El Movimiento Manuela Ramos, Judith Bruce, Debbie Rogow

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

This edition of Quality/Calidad/Qualité discusses the Manuela Ramos Movement and its efforts to improve women’s health and well-being through a range of empowerment strategies in rural Peru. A joint project with USAID, named Reprosalud, demonstrates how combining the resources of an international donor with local women’s organizations allows a more organic and multifaceted family planning program to develop. Such programs can produce impressive improvements on a number of indicators, including contraceptive use.

Community Practice And The Internet, Roger A. Lohmann, John Mcnutt

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

This article examines several developments in electronic technology which appear to hold great potential for advancing human well-being and community organization and have already manifested some important portion of that potential in recent years. They are, in order of presentation, electronic communication and networking, electronic advocacy, fund raising support, geographic information systems and data base management. We conclude this brief article with a brief discussion of information poverty and the growing disparity of information haves and have-nots.

A Space For Co-Constructing Counter Stories Under Surveillance, María Elena Torre, Michelle Fine, Kathy Boudin, Iris Bowen, Judith Clark, Donna Hylton, Migdalia Martinez, 'Missy', Rosemarie A. Roberts, Pamela Smart, Debora Upegui

Publications and Research

Using our experiences as members of a participatory action research committee (from the City University of New York Graduate Center and the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility) documenting the impact of college in a maximum security prison, this essay illustrates the power of Participatory Action Research in the construction of counter stories. We raise for discussion a set of theoretical, methodological and ethical challenges that emerged from the co-production of counter stories under surveillance: the creation of a critical space for producing 'counter knowledge'; the co-mingling of counter and dominant discourses, the negotiation of power over and within research in prison, …

The New Philanthropy In The New West Virginia, Roger A. Lohmann

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

Although philanthropy is a very old concept, many authorities today see a new philanthropy, including dramatic increases in donations and the assets of foundations. Also a new West Virginia may be emerging from the past of the forest agriculture of buckskin-clad mountaineers and coal mining. This presentation examines the convergence of the new philanthropy and this new West Virginia.

Life At Grandfamilies House: The First Six Months, Alison S. Gottlieb, Nina M. Silverstein, Laney Bruner-Canhoto, Susan Montgomery

Gerontology Institute Publications

Recent reports cite estimates of more than two million children in the United States who are currently living in kinship care arrangements; 10% or approximately 200,000 of these relationships are children in foster care. Much kinship care is done by midlife and older persons who are finding themselves assuming new responsibilities associated with parenting their grandchildren, typically for a period of two years or more. This is a social phenomenon that cuts across all socioeconomic, racial, and ethnic groups. There are many challenges facing these nontraditional families including healthcare, income security, education, social support, and housing. Public and private partnerships …

On The Agenda, Alisa Solomon

Center for LGBTQ Studies (CLAGS)

This newsletter goes to press just as Millennium Mania is reaching its fever pitch. If my own dismissive attitude toward the doom-sayers turns out to be warranted, our computers have not collapsed, the sky has not fallen, and our newsletter has reached your address intact. Of course there's been more to the millennial madness than apocalyptic anxieties and mega-marketing opportunities for products and services of all sorts and sizes. The obsession with Y2K— which represents only one of the world's calendar systems, after all— has also marked the way in which a particular religious view increasingly passes for the secular …

Women And Poverty, Carlos Ani

Trotter Review

The issue regarding relationships between the status of women, economic health for all people, and social justice is a challenge in every society today. Until fairly recently, poverty and under development were assumed to put all members of affected households - men, women, and children - at an equal disadvantage. "Households" were regarded as static entities where labor and resources are pooled and equally shared. The implicit conclusion was that changes thought of as beneficial for development would be neutral in their effects on the different members of the households. Empirical evidence reveals, however, that the costs and benefits of …

Policing Diversity: Lessons From Lambeth, A. Benjamin Spencer, Michael Hough

Faculty Publications

This report describes a local initiative, Policing Diversity in Lambeth (PDL), which was developed to address the challenges of policing a highly ethnically diverse population.

The report is timely. The report of the Macpherson Inquiry into the death of Stephen Lawrence has substantially redrawn the policy landscape in relation to policing and race issues. The Home Secretary’s priorities for policing in 2000-1 emphasise the need for improved community relations. The follow-up report by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary, ‘Winning the Race Revisited’, further stressed the need for urgent action. Parallel with these developments, the 1998 Crime and Disorder Act imposed …

Race, Class, And The Distribution Of Radioactive Waste In New England, Douglas J. Anderton, John Michael Oates, Michael R. Fraser

New England Journal of Public Policy

Objective. Inequity in the distribution of environmental burdens among social groups, for example, minority and disadvantaged segments of the population, is an important topic in policy research. This research has largely focused on hazardous waste facilities and Superfund sites. Yet federal mandates to the states raise similar concerns over the social distribution of low-level radioactive waste facilities (LLRWFs). This study seeks to provide the first evaluation of equity in the distribution of LLRWFs within a state.

Methods. We use data from the 1990 Census to compare selected characteristics of tracts with low-level radioactive waste facilities to tracts without, tracts nearby …

Educational Excellence For All Children Act Of 1999, U.S. Department Of Education

Service Learning, General

The President announced that he would shortly send to the Congress the "Educational Excellence for All Children Act of 1999," his proposal to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA). This legislation reaffirms the critical role of the Federal Government in working with schools, school districts, and States to promote educational excellence for all children. Every child, parent, grandparent, and taxpayer deserves high quality public schools in their communities.

More specifically, the proposal would build on the 1994 ESEA reauthorization, which established the core principle that disadvantaged children should achieve to the same challenging academic standards as …

Academics, Advocacy, And Activism, Jill Dolan

Center for LGBTQ Studies (CLAGS)

One of the ways in which CLAGS distinguishes itself from other academically based research centers is through our firm commitment to bridging the academic and activist spheres within the larger lesbian and gay social and political communities. This Spring, we sponsored a roundtable discussion addressing arts censorship that included twenty-five academics and activists concerned about the ways in which the decrease in public arts funding on national and local levels around the country is meant to further disenfranchise lesbians, gay men, and people of color (whether or not they're lesbian or gay).

A Policy Brief: Massachusetts (T)Afdc Case Closings, October 1993-August 1997, Donna Friedman, Emily Douglas, Michelle Hayes, Mary Ann Allard

Center for Social Policy Publications

When a DTA (Department of Transitional Assistance) worker assesses whether a family's (T)AFDC (Temporary Aid to Families with Dependent Children) case will be closed, s/he decides which one of 67 different codes best describes the reason cash benefits for the household will be stopped. To carry out the analyses, we sorted all of the 67 codes into clusters of codes that logically grouped together: Cluster I, Increased Income; Cluster H, Sanctions; Cluster III, Eligible Persons Moved; Cluster IV, Fraud; Cluster V, Client Request; Cluster VI, No Longer Eligible; Cluster VII, Other or Multiple Meanings. The Appendix displays a description of …

Armut : Der Mensch Lebt Nicht Vom Brot Allein : Wege Zur Soziokulturellen Existenzsicherung, Isidor Wallimann, Susanne Schmid

Books

While the usual discussion about the poverty of the minimum financial security speaks, the authors ask what it could mean for to be living in a secure socio-cultural minimum. The fact is that poverty can be both "caused" by various forms of exclusion, as well as the socio-cultural exclusion promotes or "causes".

Differentiating Regulation Of Public And Private Institutions: A Preliminary Inquiry, Jonathan G.S. Koppell

Publications from President Jonathan G.S. Koppell

Twenty years ago, James Q. Wilson and Patricia Rachal argued that government cannot regulate itself. In an era of revived federalism, increased reliance on contractors, and proliferation of quasi-public organizations, the importance of government self-regulation is greater than ever. This paper tests an underlying assumption of Wilson and Rachal's claim: that regulation of public and private organizations can be differentiated. Employing a meta-research design, this pilot study uses existing regulatory case studies to create "regulatory relationship profiles" for public and private organizations. These profiles include information on the structure of the regulator, the intent of the regulation, the enforcement tools …

A Snapshot Of Individuals And Families Accessing Boston's Emergency Homeless Shelters, 1997, Donna Friedman, Michelle Hayes, John Mcgah, Anthony Roman

Center for Social Policy Publications

This document summarizes key findings from a survey conducted on March 19, 1997 with 338 homeless individuals and 94 families sheltered or served by 33 of 40 shelter programs in the City of Boston. The data presented in this report were collected at one point in time. Point in time data results in an overrepresentation of the "longer term" homeless, and offers limited insight regarding the structural dynamics underlying movement from homelessness to residential stability (Culhane, Lee, Wachter, 1996; White, 1996). However, it does provide a snapshot of the men, women, and children who were spending the night in a …

Shelter Poverty: Housing Affordability Among Asian Americans, Michael E. Stone

Institute for Asian American Studies Publications

Relatively little research has been conducted that focuses on the housing situation of Asian and Pacific Islander Americans (hereafter generally referred to as Asian Americans), especially on the national level. From a review of about 30 articles and reports over the past decade that examine racial/ethnic housing situations nationally, only one specifically addressed housing problems of Asian Americans (Hansen, 1986) while two others included Asian Americans along with other populations of color. Of the remaining articles, most used the terms race, racial discrimination, or segregation in their titles, yet did not include Asian Americans in the studies. Of particular note, …

Downsizing The Massachusetts Mental Health System: The Politics Of Evasion, Richard A. Hogarty

New England Journal of Public Policy

For the past three decades the topic of the proper role of state mental hospitals has been vigorously debated as a major public policy issue in Massachusetts. The state has had two runs at hospital closings: the first between 1973 and 1981, when the deinstitutionalization policy flourished, the second between 1991 and 1993, when the privatization policy was developed. In making the case for this seismic shift, a governor's special commission concluded that the state had too many hospitals for too few patients at too high a cost. This study provides a detailed analysis of the problems that beset the …

Philanthropic Partnerships: The Theory Of The Commons, Roger A. Lohmann

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

In Anglo-American traditions, the concept of a commons has historically been most frequently attached to shared land in joint use by a village or community. The common theory of voluntary action presents organized collective action as consisting of shared purposes, shared resources and voluntary participation resulting in an evolving sense of mutuality, and moral order, consisting of shared norms of fairness and participation.

Missing Links In The Study Of Puerto Rican Poverty In The United States, James Jennings

William Monroe Trotter Institute Publications

This Occasional Paper, based on a presentation to the National Puerto Rican Coalition in Washington, DC, in 1992, proposes some limitations in "quantitative-only" research focusing on Puerto Rican poverty in the United States. An overreliance on quantitative-based analysis, as well as overlooking historical and comparative data, may not allow for a full understanding and awareness of the nature and maintenance of poverty in Puerto Rican communities in the United States. While the presentation acknowledges the importance of sophisticated quantitative research, it implies that joined together with historical and comparative analysis, investigations of Puerto Rican poverty would be vastly improved. An …

An Economic Profile Of Women In Massachusetts, Randy Albelda

Publications from the Center for Women in Politics and Public Policy

This report provides a profile of women's current economic position in Massachusetts. It examines the age, race, and geographical distribution of women and girls across the state; family structure, income and poverty; and women's labor force participation, occupational and industrial distribution in jobs, and earnings. When relevant 1990s Massachusetts data are compared to national data and to Massachusetts data from the 1970s.

Women across the Commonwealth have experienced tremendous changes in their lives over the last two decades as a result of changes in the economy and family structure. For women, the changes provide new opportunities, but they also exacerbate …

The Competitive Advantage Of The Inner City: Does Race Matter?, Philip S. Hart

William Monroe Trotter Institute Publications

Following up on his important work on the competitive advantage of nations, economist Michael Porter has turned his attention to the competitive advantage of the inner city. In his work on the competitiveness of nations—a five-year study often leading trading nations—Porter found that no nation was competitive in everything. He noted that competitive success tends to concentrate in particular industries and groups of interconnected industries, or clusters.

By turning his attention on the inner city, Porter has helped to reinforce the emerging sense that it is important to concentrate on the assets of such locations rather than on their liabilities. …

Providing Quality Leadership In Roxbury: A Profile Of Leon T. Nelson, Harold Horton

Trotter Review

Poor leadership is often the cause for the inept functioning and eventual collapse of an organization or agency. This is because the leader sets the tone and to a great extent determines whether or not an organization will be viable. Leon T. Nelson, president of the Greater Roxbury Chamber of Commerce, has done his utmost to live up to the organization's motto, "Quod facis bene fac," which means doing whatever you do as well as you possibly can.

In a community that underwent drastic demographic changes during the 1970s and 1980s, when numerous businesses led the "white flight" to suburbia, …