Promise and Limits

2020 ◽  
pp. 41-68
Author(s):  
Joe William Trotter

The Urban League of Pittsburgh not only exposed inequality in the labor and housing markets and worked to strengthen the economic foundation of the black community. It also revealed the depths of racial disparities across virtually every aspect of the city's institutional life and vigorously pushed to improve African American access to all categories of human and civic resources and social services. Accordingly, even as it struggled with its own internal class and gender biases and conflicts, the Pittsburgh branch increasingly merged its civil, human rights, and social service agenda to address such inequities.

2021 ◽  
pp. 232949652110478
Author(s):  
Paige Kelly ◽  
Linda Lobao

Sociologists have long studied poverty across localities. Yet, little research focuses on local governments and the social services they directly provide to those in-need. Researchers concerned with the US welfare state note that localized administration of social programs creates geographic variability in provisioning and potential for status-based discrimination, such as racism, to influence policy. This paper addresses two questions: (1) To what extent does local need influence counties’ provision of social services? (2) Does the provision of social services vary according to which social group is most in-need? Conceptually, we break ground by placing spatial inequality research on local disparities into dialogue with sociology’s welfare state tradition. Using novel data for 1,600 county governments across the nation, we find that local need as measured by the poverty rate is related to greater social service provisioning, suggesting governments’ responsiveness. However, provisioning is unequal when the level of need is disaggregated among social groups, race/ethnicity, and gender. Higher poverty among whites is associated with greater provisioning of social services. This study showcases possible means by which unequal patterns of social welfare support emerge and reveals the potential role of local governments in perpetuating inequalities by privileging some groups’ need more than others.


Author(s):  
Christy Finsel ◽  
Mae Watson Grote ◽  
Margaret Libby ◽  
Cathie Mahon ◽  
Margaret S. Sherraden

This essay explores the enormous potential of social service organizations to contribute to people’s financial well-being. It is informed by the work of four pioneering organizations that use a racial- and gender-equity lens to advance financial well-being. It explores five strategies: (a) embedding financial development into social services; (b) focusing on youth transitioning to adulthood; (c) partnering with asset coalitions to expand financial opportunities; (d) partnering with financial institutions; and (e) developing fintech with equity. These approaches hold promise to help address the racial wealth gap and improve financial security.


REGIONOLOGY ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 933-955
Author(s):  
Margarita V. Vdovina

Introduction. Women predominate among the employees in the social service sector, they occupy various positions and perform relevant functions, but the specifics and problems of their work have not been sufficiently studied. Based on the materials of the conducted sociological survey, the article analyzes how social workers perform the main work tasks, how well they manage to combine professional role functions with family ones, which contributes to their satisfaction with their work. Materials and Methods. The applied research, conducted by the author in the autumn of 2020 in Moscow, used official documents, statistical data, her own sociological survey, and a comparative analysis of the results of secondary empirical studies. 107 employees of state social service organizations took part in the survey, almost equally representing the management staff, specialists, and ordinary employees. This made it possible not only to generalize various status and gender positions regarding the role of women in the implementation of social service in the relevant institutions, but also, based on the results of the analysis, to suggest possible ways to improve the professional qualifications of female employees for more effective implementation of their work functions. Results. A comparison of the responses of representatives of different status and gender groups showed that the range of professional functions of the object of this research is quite wide: from the head to the service personnel, from working with documents to providing specific social services to various groups of people in need or in a difficult life situation. At all the levels, women are represented in accordance with their professional and personal qualities. However, according to the self-assessment, combining professional and family responsibilities is most difficult for a female senior or middle-level manager. Discussion and Conclusion. The author proposes to create conditions for optimizing the workload, for preventing physical fatigue and emotional burnout of women providing social services, as well as for effective combining their professional roles with family ones, and for professional development. The article will be useful to employees providing social services, those who specialize in the field of gender issues of employment, senior personnel of the social protection system of the population at the regional level, teachers engaged in further vocational education.


1995 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-51 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Watkins ◽  
Anne McCreary Juhasz ◽  
Aldona Walker ◽  
Nijole Janvlaitiene

Analysis of the responses of 139 male and 83 female Lithuanian 12-14 year-olds to a translation of the Self-Description Questionnaire-1 (SDQ-1; Marsh, 1988 ) supported the internal consistency and factor structure of this instrument. Some evidence of a “positivity” response bias was found, however. Comparison of the Lithuanian responses to those of like-aged Australian, Chinese, Filipino, Nepalese, and Nigerian children indicated the Lithuanians tended to report rather lower self-esteem. The Lithuanian males also tended to report lower self-esteem than their female peers. Interpretation of the results are considered in terms of reactions to the recent upheavals in Eastern Europe, stable cultural dimensions, and possible cultural and gender biases in the items of the SDQ-1.


2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 70-93
Author(s):  
Celeste Hawkins

This article focuses on findings from a subgroup of African-American male students as part of a broader qualitative dissertation research study, which explored how exclusion and marginalization in schools impact the lives of African-American students. The study focused on the perspectives of youth attending both middle and high schools in Michigan, and investigated how students who have experienced forms of exclusion in their K–12 schooling viewed their educational experiences. Key themes that emerged from the study were lack of care, lack of belonging, disrupted education, debilitating discipline, and persistence and resilience. These themes were analyzed in relation to their intersectionality with culture, ethnicity, race, class, and gender.


Author(s):  
J. Curtis McMillen ◽  
Danielle R. Adams

Social service settings offer numerous complexities in their staffing, consumers, and payer mix that require careful consideration in designing dissemination and implementation efforts. However, social services’ unique access to vulnerable populations with health problems may prove vital in efforts to improve the health status of many of our citizens and reduce health disparities. While a number of well-developed, blended dissemination and implementation models are being used in social service settings, they all require additional documentation, research, and field experience. Nonetheless, the lessons learned in the social services may help organizations in other sectors better implement health interventions with complex consumers in complex settings.


Author(s):  
Jane Caputi

The proposed new geological era, The Anthropocene (a.k.a. Age of Humans, Age of Man), marking human domination of the planet long called Mother Earth, is truly The Age of the Motherfucker. The ecocide of the Anthropocene is the responsibility of Man, the Western- and masculine-identified corporate, military, intellectual, and political class that masks itself as the exemplar of the civilized and the human. The word motherfucker was invented by the enslaved children of White slave masters to name their mothers’ rapist/owners. Man’s strategic motherfucking, from the personal to the planetary, is invasion, exploitation, spirit-breaking, extraction and toxic wasting of individuals, communities, and lands, for reasons of pleasure, plunder, and profit. Ecocide is attempted deicide of Mother Nature-Earth, reflecting Man’s goal to become the god he first made in his own image. The motivational word Motherfucker has a flip side, further revealing the Anthropocene as it signifies an outstanding, formidable, and inexorable force. Mother Nature-Earth is that “Mutha’ ”—one defying translation into heteropatriarchal classifications of gender, one capable of overwhelming Man, and not the other way around. Drawing upon Indigenous and African American scholarship; ecofeminism; ecowomanism; green activism; femme, queer, and gender non-binary philosophies; literature and arts; Afrofuturism; and popular culture, Call Your “Mutha’ ” contends that the Anthropocene is not evidence of Man’s supremacy over nature, but that Mother Nature-Earth, faced with disrespect, is going away. It is imperative now to call the “Mutha’ ” by decolonizing land, bodies, and minds, ending rapism, feeding the green, renewing sustaining patterns, and affirming devotion to Mother Nature-Earth.


This volume reframes the debate around Islam and women’s rights within a broader comparative literature. It examines the complex and contingent historical relationships between religion, secularism, democracy, law, and gender equality. Part I addresses the nexus of religion, law, gender, and democracy through different disciplinary perspectives (sociology, anthropology, political science, law). Part II localizes the implementation of this nexus between law, gender, and democracy, and provides contextualized responses to questions raised in Part I. The contributors explore the situation of Muslim women’s rights vis-à-vis human rights to shed light on gender politics in the modernization of the nation and to ponder over the role of Islam in gender inequality across different Muslim countries.


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