Family values and public policy: a venture in prediction and prescription

1972 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alvin L. Schorr
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Public Policy ◽  
Family Structure ◽  
The United States ◽  
Family Values ◽  
American Family ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Relative Safety ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Structure And Activity

Ideology and public policy are so intimately related that they may only with difficulty be seen separately. This essay attempts to view one kind of ideology, American family values, and predict the manner in which they will affect public policy and be altered by public policy. Whatever its intrinsic hazards, prediction for the last quarter of the century affords relative safety for a few years anyway. The term ‘family values’ is used broadly here to encompass objectives that are professed for families in the United States as well as patterns of family structure and activity to which, by practising them, we show attachment. I begin with a brief review and commentary upon the relationship between family values and public policy to date, concluded with some comments on the role that social scientists and reformers might play. Discussion of the future follows, with one further prescription.

Time’s Up! Shorter Hours, Public Policy, and Time Flexibility as an Antidote to Youth Unemployment

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katherine Eva Maich ◽  
Jamie K. McCallum ◽  
Ari Grant-Sasson
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Public Policy ◽  
Labor Market ◽  
Youth Unemployment ◽  
The United States ◽  
Employment Relationships ◽  
Gig Economy ◽  
Hours Of Work ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Work Scheduling

This chapter explores the relationship between hours of work and unemployment. When it comes to time spent working in the United States at present, two problems immediately come to light. First, an asymmetrical distribution of working time persists, with some people overworked and others underemployed. Second, hours are increasingly unstable; precarious on-call work scheduling and gig economy–style employment relationships are the canaries in the coal mine of a labor market that produces fewer and fewer stable jobs. It is possible that some kind of shorter hours movement, especially one that places an emphasis on young workers, has the potential to address these problems. Some policies and processes are already in place to transition into a shorter hours economy right now even if those possibilities are mediated by an anti-worker political administration.

The Relationship Between Productivity Changes and Poverty in the United States

1995 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. J. Hayes ◽  
D. J. Slottje ◽  
M. L. Nieswiadomy ◽  
E. N. Wolff
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Public Policy ◽  
Productivity Growth ◽  
Policy Implication ◽  
The United States ◽  
Macroeconomic Variables ◽  
Empirical Results ◽  
The Relationship

This paper examines the relationship between poverty and changes in productivity and other macroeconomic variables. It is not assumed that the relationship is unidirectional from productivity to poverty. Specifically, the hypothesis is that there may be bi-directional causality between poverty and changes in productivity. The empirical results suggest that feedback does exist between productivity and poverty. The clear public policy implication is that measures intended to affect productivity growth or poverty must be designed simultaneously.

Public opinion and public policy in the United States

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Saundra K. Schneider ◽  
William G. Jacoby
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Public Policy ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
The United States ◽  
Aggregate Level ◽  
The Public ◽  
Democratic Responsiveness ◽  
Policy Attitudes ◽  
Policy Field ◽  
The Relationship

In a properly-functioning democracy, public opinion should not only be correlated with, but also a major determinant of, public policy. Is that the case in the United States? In this chapter, we address that question by covering the major lines of empirical research on the relationship between American public opinion and public policy. We begin with early work that emphasized the limits of popular thinking about government, creating the apparent need for democratic elitism in governmental action. More recent literature includes perspectives from the public policy field, and research on democratic responsiveness at both the national and state levels. Major lines of work emphasize the existence of rational public opinion at the aggregate level which ‘smooths out’ the inconsistencies that may exist within individual policy attitudes. Seminal studies have considered both the degree of correspondence between opinion and policy (i.e., ‘the rational public’), and models that specify how policy responds to opinion (thermostatic responses and the macropolity). Recent methodological innovations have led to new insights about democratic responsiveness in the American states. Our general conclusion is cautiously optimistic: Policy generally does follow the contours of citizen preference, but elites also have opportunities to shape manifestations of public opinion.

Personality, Ideology and World View: A Comparison of Media and Business Elites

1985 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-49 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stanley Rothman ◽  
S. Robert Lichter
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Max Weber ◽  
World View ◽  
The United States ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Business Elites ◽  
Business Executives ◽  
Similarities And Differences ◽  
The Relationship

For some time we have been engaged in a large scale study of various leadership strata in the United States. Our goal is to clarify similarities and differences in background, ideology and personality among members of such strata. We are also interested in the relationship between these variables and the manner in which members of different leadership groups perceive ‘reality’. This article reports preliminary findings on two groups – leading business executives and top level journalists. Our work has been partly informed by hypotheses developed by social scientists as diverse as Max Weber, Harold Lasswell, Joseph Schumpeter, S. M. Lipset, Alvin Gouldner, Jurgen Habermas, Irving Kristol, Daniel Bell and others.

How disunity matters to the history of cybernetics in the human sciences in the United States, 1940–80

2020 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 12-35
Author(s):  
Ronald Kline
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Human Sciences ◽  
Talcott Parsons ◽  
Herbert Simon ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Cybernetic Model ◽  
First Order ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Relationship

Rather than assume a unitary cybernetics, I ask how its disunity mattered to the history of the human sciences in the United States from about 1940 to 1980. I compare the work of four prominent social scientists – Herbert Simon, George Miller, Karl Deutsch, and Talcott Parsons – who created cybernetic models in psychology, economics, political science, and sociology with the work of anthropologist Gregory Bateson, and relate their interpretations of cybernetics to those of such well-known cyberneticians as Norbert Wiener, Warren McCulloch, W. Ross Ashby, and Heinz von Foerster. I argue that viewing cybernetics through the lens of disunity – asking what was at stake in choosing a specific cybernetic model – shows the complexity of the relationship between first-order cybernetics and the postwar human sciences, and helps us rethink the history of second-order cybernetics.

Public Opinion and Religion: Environmental Attitudes in the United States

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jason M. Pudlo
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Environmental Attitudes ◽  
Religious Affiliation ◽  
The United States ◽  
Environmental Action ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Environmental Behaviors ◽  
International Context ◽  
Religious Networks ◽  
The Relationship

The study of the relationship between religion and attitudes on the environment is a growing area of academic inquiry and combines research from political scientists, sociologists, and religious historians. Researchers in this area seek to better understand how religion influences attitudes on the environment or environmental policy and if religion motivates environmental action or behaviors. Key to this area of study is defining what religion is and deciding how to measure environmental attitudes. Is religion identified through religious affiliation, religious beliefs, religious networks and communication, or other criteria? Relatedly, are environmental attitudes understood as support for particular environmental policies, willingness to sacrifice to protect nature, or personal environmental behaviors such as recycling? Social scientists have attempted to answer these questions through an overview of key works in the study of religion and the environment in the United States. For additional perspective, these works are placed into their religious and international context to show where, if at all, religiously motivated environmental attitudes in the United States differ from those around the world.

The Vulnerability of the United States to Enemy Attack

1954 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 190-208
Author(s):  
Carl Kaysen
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Public Policy ◽  
The United States ◽  
Foreseeable Future ◽  
Social Scientists

Wars and rumors of wars are always with us. Today, and for the foreseeable future, they include the prospect of heavy enemy attack on the cities of the United States, a prospect which creates problems in public policy never before faced. It is the purpose of this article to sketch some lines of research which will be useful in understanding and dealing with these problems, and which are of a character that can be undertaken by academic social scientists and discussed in public.

scholarly journals Citizenship and Military Service in Italian-American Relations, 1901-1918

2008 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 353-376
Author(s):  
Bahar Gürsel
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Public Policy ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Military Service ◽  
The United States ◽  
Social Experience ◽  
Central Issue ◽  
Italian Americans ◽  
Italian American ◽  
The Relationship

Conflicts over citizenship and military service became a central issue in Italian-American relations in the early twentieth century. The United States and Italy founded their concepts of citizenship on two different bases, jus soli and jus sanguinis. As a consequence of this difference and the swelling number of Italian immigrants naturalized in America, the two governments' policies about naturalization and military service collided until 1918. The Italian government's policy put Italian Americans' loyalty to the United States in jeopardy, especially for men who wished to return to Italy for business or educational purposes. Thus, the study of Italian Americans' experiences in the context of the policies of both countries illustrates a key aspect of the relationship between the United States and Italy, both in terms of social experience and public policy.

Abusive Men's Use of Children to Control Their Partners and Ex-Partners

2007 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 54-61 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marisa L. Beeble ◽  
Deborah Bybee ◽  
Cris M. Sullivan
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Intimate Partner Violence ◽  
Partner Violence ◽  
Emotional Abuse ◽  
The United States ◽  
Intimate Partner ◽  
Anecdotal Evidence ◽  
Multiple Variables ◽  
The Relationship

While research has found that millions of children in the United States are exposed to their mothers being battered, and that many are themselves abused as well, little is known about the ways in which children are used by abusers to manipulate or harm their mothers. Anecdotal evidence suggests that perpetrators use children in a variety of ways to control and harm women; however, no studies to date have empirically examined the extent of this occurring. Therefore, the current study examined the extent to which survivors of abuse experienced this, as well as the conditions under which it occurred. Interviews were conducted with 156 women who had experienced recent intimate partner violence. Each of these women had at least one child between the ages of 5 and 12. Most women (88%) reported that their assailants had used their children against them in varying ways. Multiple variables were found to be related to this occurring, including the relationship between the assailant and the children, the extent of physical and emotional abuse used by the abuser against the woman, and the assailant's court-ordered visitation status. Findings point toward the complex situational conditions by which assailants use the children of their partners or ex-partners to continue the abuse, and the need for a great deal more research in this area.

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