Social Policy Commons^™

April Roundtable: Introduction

Human Rights & Human Welfare

An annotation of:

“A World Enslaved" by E. Benjamin Skinner. Foreign Policy (March/April) 2008.

Sozialpolitik Nach Verursacherprinzip : Beispiele Der Anwendung Aus Arbeit, Gesundheit, Sucht, Schule Und Wohnen, Isidor Wallimann

Books

Sozialpolitik nach Verursacherprinzip explores the application of the polluter pays principle to a variety of social policies. It specifically examines possibilities in labor, health, addiction, education, and housing policies.

Moving Forward: Tackling Stigma In A Tanzanian Community, Laura Nyblade, Kerry Macquarrie, Gideon Kwesigabo, Aparna Jain, Lusajo Kajula, Fausta Philip, William Henerico Tibesigwa, Jessie K. Mbwambo

HIV and AIDS

The International Center for Research on Women, the Muhimbili University College of the Health Sciences, the Population Council, and Family Health International conducted an evaluation of a community-based effort to reduce stigma surrounding HIV infections in a peri-urban community in Tanzania. Results presented a mixed, but hopeful, picture for a way forward in tackling stigma at the community level. Tackling stigma requires that the individuals tasked with doing this undergo personal change. Programs can start by focusing stigma-reduction efforts on a smaller, more manageable geographical area and adding specific anti-stigma components to their portfolio of activities. Engaging community opinion leaders …

Low-Wage Workers Really Feel The Squeeze, Randy Albelda

Economics Faculty Publication Series

In the United States, it has been generally assumed that those who held a steady job could make ends meet but in today’s labor market nothing could be further from the truth. Workers in low-wage jobs can face double jeopardy: insufficient income to cover their basic needs and lack of access to job-related benefits to supplement their earnings. Public work supports — programs to help families fill basic needs such as health care, child care, food, and housing — can fill the gaps, and for many, they do. Still, in Massachusetts close to one out of every four individuals in …

Rural Superintendents: How Do Wyoming Rural Superintendents View And Respond To The Challenges Brought About By External Demands On Their Schools?, Jeanne L. Surface

Faculty Books and Monographs

Very little is known about how superintendents respond to and view the challenges brought about by increasing external performance demands on their schools. This important study uses a multi-case study format to create portraits of five rural superintendents, the challenges they face, and their responses to those challenges. The participant perceptions were organized into five themes: declining enrollment, isolation, board and community relations, celebrated accomplishments, and rural schools in contrast with urban or suburban schools. The superintendents were most proud of changes they had made to improve instruction in their districts. They spoke of challenges with bringing professional development to …

Assessment Of Maine's Long-Term Care Needs Baseline Report: Demographics And Use Of Long Term Care Services In Maine, Stuart Bratesman Mpp, Julie T. Fralich Mba, Karen Mauney, Catherine Mcguire Bs, Louise Olsen, Jasper Ziller

Disability & Aging

In 2006, the Office of Elder Services requested the assistance of the Muskie School in developing an assessment of long term care service use in Maine. This report provides baseline information on the demographic characteristics, participant characteristics and service use trends for people accessing long term care services in this State.

For purposes of this report, we have excluded people with MR/DD. Long term care services do not include community support services for people with mental illness.

In this report, long term care services include:

• Nursing Facility Services
• Private Non-medical Institutions
• Consumer Directed Attendant Services
• Day Health Services
• Elder and …

Shaping The Future Of Southern Nevada Conference Key Points, Ron Smith

Shaping the Future of Southern Nevada: Economic, Environmental, and Social Sustainability

General summary of key points raised at the conference

Cracking Silent Codes: Critical Race Theory And Education Organizing, Celina Su

Publications and Research

Critical race theory (CRT) has moved beyond legal scholarship to critique the ways in which “colorblind” laws and policies perpetuate existing racial inequalities in education policy. While criticisms of CRT have focused on the pessimism and lack of remedies presented, CRT scholars have begun to address issues of praxis. Specifically, communities of color must challenge the dominant narratives of mainstream institutions with alternative visions of pedagogy and school reform, and community organizing plays an important role in helping communities of color to articulate these alternative counter-narratives. Yet, many in education organizing disagree with CRT's critique of colorblindness. Drawing on five …

Expanding Homeownership Opportunity Ii: The Softsecond Loan Program, 1991-2006, Jim Campen

Gastón Institute Publications

This report provides data on lending by the SoftSecond Loan Program during the most recent three-year period (2004-2006) as well as over the sixteen-year life of the program. The Mortgage Lending Committee of the Massachusetts Community & Banking Council (MCBC) has had a special interest in the SoftSecond program since its inception and has carefully monitored the performance of its loans. The report updates an earlier report prepared for MCBC by the present author in 2004: Expanding Homeownership Opportunity: The SoftSecond Loan Program, 1991-2003. Detailed information about the origins and evolution of the program, and about the details of …

Collaborative Success And Community Culture: Cross-Sectoral Partnerships Addressing Homelessness In Omaha And Portland, Patrick T. Mcnamara

Student Work

This dissertation explores the impact of community culture on the success of cross-sectoral collaboratives addressing homelessness in Omaha, Nebraska, and Portland, Oregon. A comparative case study approach is used to build theory about how the environment helps to make conditions conducive or challenging to collaboration between government, business and nonprofit organizations. The concept of community culture is operationalized by including three interrelated factors - social capital, community power, and political history - to assess the two cities. Omaha is a model of a private sector community culture, high in bonding social capital, where central control of decision making and elite …

The Voting Rights Act And The Election Of Nonwhite Officials, Pei-Te Lien, Dianne M. Pinderhughes, Carol Hardy-Fanta, Christine M. Sierra

Publications from the Center for Women in Politics and Public Policy

Voting Rights Act (VRA) is one of the most important—if not the most important—public policies developed over the last half century to increase access to the U.S. political system for people of color. The VRA also provides an important context for understanding the ascension of nonwhite groups into the elected leadership of the nation (Browning, Marshall, and Tabb 1984; Davidson and Grofman 1994; Menifield 2001; Mc-Clain and Stewart 2002; Segura and Bowler 2005; Bositis 2006). This essay assesses the present-day significance of the VRA for the political representation of communities of color by examining the implications of majority-minority districts and …

Business Ethics, Social Responsibility And Aids In Workplaces In Zimbabwe, George Tichaona Dzimiri

Loma Linda University Electronic Theses, Dissertations & Projects

Understanding AIDS policies and programs small and medium businesses implement to combat the epidemic at workplaces enhances effective collaboration and the harnessing of appropriate resources among interested stakeholders. Knowing the nature of ethics, business principles and human rights elements helps create a framework for reflecting, formulating and developing appropriate and efficacious policies. This interpretive study analyzes the policies and programs businesses apply to fight AIDS among their employees. It also examines the ethics and human rights elements shaping and determining these policies.

The sample of 1066 is comprised of urban small and medium businesses drawn from the Zimbabwe National Chamber …

A Seat At The Table? Racial/Ethnic & Gender Diversity On Corporate, Hospital, Education, Cultural & State Boards, Carol Hardy-Fanta Phd, Donna Stewartson

Publications from the Center for Women in Politics and Public Policy

As part of its larger Diversity Initiative, the McCormack Graduate School of Policy Studies at UMass Boston has undertaken a number of projects. The first was a public opinion survey conducted around the time of the November 2006 elections. The report, Transformation and Taking Stock: A Summary of Selected Findings from the McCormack Graduate School Diversity Survey, included a comprehensive look at race relations in the Commonwealth at a time of significant transition—demographically and politically. This report was followed by A Benchmark Report on Diversity in State and Local Government, which focused on the percentage of positions filled …

Triangulating Social Capital Measurement For Turnover Research: Applications To The U.S. Military, Frederic W. Lunas

Theses and Dissertations

In the United States, and around the world, social capital is becoming an intriguing new focus for slowing the declining sense of community and community trust. This strengthening focus on social capital in empirical study has great potential for an important role in U.S. public policy, as policy changes focused on increasing social capital may decrease turnover.
Yet, according to researchers, not enough sufficiently tested empirical measures of social capital exist. Combining several existing measures should provide a theoretically informed measurement of social capital for turnover research with application to the U.S. Military. Within this context, this thesis incorporated survey …

Upaya Meningkatkan Kualitas Derajat Kesehatan Lingkungan Melalui Perubahan Perilaku Kesehatan, Wiriasto Herry Septiadi

Jurnal Ilmu Kesejahteraan Sosial

The change sanitation behaviour is one efford to increase the healthy quality of the environment. The hygiene disposal excreta is one activities to develop quality for healthy environment. Disposal excreta have relatation with human behaviour/habits. The bad sanitation behavior and unsaniter condition from sanitation services could make environment polution. Based on that condition, one efford to enhance the quality of the environment is by changing sanitation behaviour.

Peran Pesantren Dalam Penghapusan Kekerasan Terhadap Perempuan, Bunda Sri Sugiri

Jurnal Ilmu Kesejahteraan Sosial

Pesantren is one of educational institution which base on religion. Program Interagency Network for Prevention of Violence against Women (VAW) is an innovation to increase the function of Pesantren as a service institution for woman violence victim. The main focus of this program is designing a center of Perlindungan bagi Wanita (Puspita), a women's crises center base on Pesantren. Pesantren set as a center of advocating for woman, because Pesantren has a very strategist task in doing various change in society. However we realized that Pesantren has no distribution yet and also in effort for preventing violation on woman, especially …

Pendidikan Seksualitas Untuk Anak Melalui Pemasaran Sosial Sebagai Salah Satu Upaya Pencegahan Child Sexual Abuse, Sari Viciawati

Jurnal Ilmu Kesejahteraan Sosial

Children empowerment through sex education can prevent children from sexual abuse. Sex education absolutely can be more efective for children if it is given earlier by parents. The problem is their parents often do not know what the importance of sex education. Although parents know that sex education is important, they do not want to do it because they still feel embarrassed. To fulfill the needs of parents to deliver knowledge about sex education is one of the effort to prevent child sexual abuse, a seminar had been held in this action research. After joining the seminar, there were many …

Penindasan (Bullying) Di Sekolah, Dwi Amalia Chandra Sekar

Jurnal Ilmu Kesejahteraan Sosial

The aim of this article is to give some information and attempt to raise awareness about behavior problem among children in or around the school in terms of abuse or intimidation (bullying). School as intitution, gives knowlege and skill to develop positive self-potential for students cannot be completedly reached. For the children who became the victim, schools are no longer can give them feeling secure and hapiness. School bullying occured long time, but there is only small attention from school, parents, communities, because they considered it as a normal behavior dan become tradition in school. Bullying can bring fear and …

New Directions In Workforce Development: Do They Lead To Gains For Women?, Susan R. Crandall, Surabhi Jain

New England Journal of Public Policy

In order to achieve gender equality, it is critical to resurrect women’s interests as a driving force in the formulation of workforce development policies and programs. Current workforce strategies are centered on helping economically disadvantaged individuals gain employment in high demand industries that offer opportunities to earn family-sustaining wages. Yet many of these high-growth industries consist of male-dominated occupations, which provide lower earnings and advancement potential for women. Because women continue to be channeled into lower-paying fields, demand-driven workforce policies may result in lower earnings for women. To address gender biases, increased emphasis should be placed on selecting jobs that …

Walking The Maternal Tightrope: Work And Family In America, Roxanne A. Donovan, Andrew L. Pieper, Allison N. Ponce

New England Journal of Public Policy

In the last few decades, an unprecedented number of women with children have entered the U.S. workforce. The ability to negotiate the roles of parent and employee is important to the health and financial well-being of these women and their families, but institutional and social barriers impede the process. Using the empirical and theoretical literature on women and work, this article examines these barriers. The authors address the impact of cultural ideals, psychological processes, and public policy on the maternal work-family balance. Several changes that would help create an atmosphere supportive of balance are explored, including increased support for shared …

A Benchmark Report On Diversity In State And Local Government, Carol Hardy-Fanta Phd

Publications from the Center for Women in Politics and Public Policy

The Pipeline to Public Service Initiative asked the McCormack Graduate School’s Center for Women in Politics & Public Policy at the University of Massachusetts Boston to ascertain the racial diversity in state and local government. The project had the following three goals:

--To identify the race (and gender) of those holding top-level positions filled through gubernatorial appointments, e.g., secretaries, commissioners, directors, deputy commissioners/directors, and undersecretaries, in the Commonwealth’s executive offices and major departments.

--To compile the same information for members of the most influential boards and commissions in the Commonwealth filled through gubernatorial appointments.

--To assess the diversity of elected …

Some Thoughts On China's Sexual Revolution: Sexuality And Social Change In Contemporary China, Sun Zhongxin

Center for LGBTQ Studies (CLAGS)

The last two years saw several changes in the public discourse around sex and sexuality in China. So what are some of the most controversial sex-related topics to be raised in China recently?

Transcending Boundaries To Improve The Food Security Of Hiv-Affected Households In Rural Uganda: A Case Study, Katharine Coon, Jessica Ogden, John Odolon, Anthony Obudi-Owor, Charles Otim, James Byakigga, Peter Spebanja

HIV and AIDS

A case study conducted in Tororo, Uganda found that a partnership between TASO, an AIDS service NGO and agricultural extension, was successful in helping HIV-affected communities improve food security. This Horizons study reports that four participatory training workshops developed through the alliance resulted in improved management capacity and more collaborative organizational structures among the district partners. This in turn created the conditions for the AIDS community workers and other field partners to work more effectively together with farmers’ groups at the local level to identify and address constraints to food security.

Development And Confirmatory Factor Analysis Of The Community Norms Of Child Neglect Scale, Rebecca Goodvin, David R. Johnson, Sam A. Hardy, Michelle Graef, Jeff M. Chambers

Center on Children, Families, and the Law: Faculty Publications

This article describes the development of the Community Norms of Child Neglect Scale (CNCNS), a new measure of perceptions of child neglect, for use in community samples. The CNCNS differentiates among four subtypes of neglect (failure to provide for basic needs, lack of supervision, emotional neglect, and educational neglect). Scenarios ranging in seriousness for each subtype were presented to a large community sample (N = 3,809). Confirmatory factor analyses indicated that a four-factor model provided a better fit to the data than did a model specifying only one overall neglect factor, suggesting this sample distinguished among the four subtypes of …

Letter From The Executive Director, Paisley Currah

Center for LGBTQ Studies (CLAGS)

Heterosexuality is under attack--not by the authors of a new "I hate straights" broadsheet, not by vacationers in Provincetown, but by state judges in the US. In August, New York's highest court ruled that the New York State Constitution "does not compel recognition of marriages between members of the same-sex." Their reasoning? In part, the decision declared, because opposite-sex relationships are "often too casual," and thus result in the production of children by "accident or impulse." And so, "unstable relationships between people of the opposite sex present a greater danger that children will be born into or grow up in …

Hubungan Antara Pendidikan Seksual Yang Didapat Melalui Orang Tua, Peer Group Dan Media Massa Dengan Perilaku Seksual Remaja : Studi Kasus Pada Smu "X" Jakarta, Dini Handayani

Jurnal Ilmu Kesejahteraan Sosial

Adolescent’s sexual behavior can be controlled to be inactive by providing sexual education to them. From 215 adolescenst,63.3% seldom receive sexual education from their parent. There’s 76.7% respondents get sexual education through peer group. 68.8% respondent admits that receive frequent sexual education through mass media. There’re 77.7% respondents are sexually inactive. Liveliness depends on various activities and also its intensity. There’re 22.3% respondents never having courtship. 3.3% respondents, who have motived in courtship, have sexual activity before married. From relation between variables, the respondents who seldom receive sexual education have possibility consider 0.83 more sexually active than the respondents who …

Dampak Pemasyarakatan Buku Kesehatan Ibu Dan Anak Terhadap Perilaku Kesehatan Komunitas Saran, Isbandi Rukminto Adi

Jurnal Ilmu Kesejahteraan Sosial

The Health condition has been recognized as one of the indicators of the welfare condition in one community. In relation to that assumption, this article will describe the condition of mother and children in such areas in Indonesia which related to the Official Development Assisstance (ODA) programme which had been introduced by the Japan International Cooperation Agency. The Maternal and Child Health (MCH) handbook programme had been undertaken for about 10 years and has shown different results in many different areas in Indonesia. This article will show the effect of the MCH handbook programme to the mother’s child health behaviour …

Redistribusii Tanah Dalam Usaha Pengetasan Kemiskinan Masyarakat Petani:Simulasi Sistem Informasi Geografis Dalam Kegiatan Redistribusi Tanah Di Wilayah Provinsi Kalimantan Tengah, Sofyan Cholid

Jurnal Ilmu Kesejahteraan Sosial

Nowadays the land use problem couldn’t be solved as we expected. However, it becomes more complicated in line to the increasing of various development and community activities. These activities require some efforts in managing human settlement in the case of land ownership. The very significant limitation and fundamental in executing settlement of authority and ownership of land is there’s no factual and actual data, either from object and subject land reform aspect. According to this study, poverty alleviation through land reform pattern is much assisted with exploiting a SIG technology because the analysis of capacities and ability the data in …

Kajian Tentang Kecerdasan Emosi Dalam Perusahaan, Wahyudi Wahyudi

Jurnal Ilmu Kesejahteraan Sosial

Emotional quotient determine worker’s efficacy, because it could guide the worker’s motivation in their work. Emotional quotient could guide the worker for their maximal performance, learning new skill, working with team, adaptation for changes, challenge and stress. Without emotional quotient the worker will hard to manage his emotion and relation with their colleagues. Through understanding about emotional quotient the worker could improve their ability in learning and developing their relation between their colleagues. Some experts have studied about emotional quotient, they are: Daniel Goleman, an expert in academic psychologist who explained that, emotional quotient has two competences, which is personal …

Latino Shelter Poverty In Massachusetts, Michael E. Stone

Gastón Institute Publications

There were about 121,000 Latino-headed households in Massachusetts in 2000 – nearly 5% of all households, an increase from 3.5% in 1990. The median annual income for Latino-headed households was $27,400 in 2000. About one-third of Latino households had annual incomes of less than $15,000; one-third had between $15,000 and 40,000; and one-third had incomes of $40,000 or more. The median Latino household size was 3 persons. 78% of Latino-headed households rented housing, and only 22% were homeowners.