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Pension Power: Unions, Pension Funds and Social Investment in
Canada, Isla Carmichael, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005,
pp. 219.Isla Carmichael has been writing about union pensions for a decade.
Over the past ten years, she has examined different aspects of union-based
pension funds and labour-sponsored investment, including fiduciary
responsibility, the role of union pension trustees, social accounting,
collateral benefits and economically targeted investment. In this book,
she brings together these, and other, arguments to make a case for the
greater involvement of unions in directing and investing pension funds,
not only to provide benefits to union members but also to shape economic
growth and community development. Her analysis is comprehensive and her
argument is persuasive.

This article explores the ways in which age and gender intersect to shape the workplace experiences of first-year Canadian social workers. The researcher conducted in-depth interviews with nine early-career (0.6–3.7 years post-bachelor of social work [BSW]), young adult (aged 23.9–32.9) social workers in Alberta, Canada, to understand their experiences in the first year of practice after completing the BSW; this article addresses the themes relating to age and gender. The methodology used in the study was hermeneutic phenomenology. Findings include negative conceptualizations of young social workers, meanings related to age and gender, use of evocative language to communicate positionality and practice values ("little girls" and "bitching up"), and feminized constructions of social work. Implications for social work education, practice, and research are discussed.

Social assistance programmes are making a strong comeback after social policy analysts had predicted their demise, as is the use of the budget standards approach to identifying poverty and to establishing the generosity of social assistance benefits. Using the example of Botswana, this article highlights some pitfalls in using the budget standards approach in social assistance schemes, and especially the parsimonious help the poor can expect from this approach. It suggests, however, that conventional explanations for the increasing popularity of social assistance, such as economic constraints and the pathologizing of the poor, are not universal. Greater attention needs to be given, therefore, to the context of poverty rather than to the customary focus of poverty studies on measuring poverty "objectively".

AbstractIn this paper, we seek to advance an updated concept of social space that integrates the multilayer and dynamic statistical network methods currently at the disposal of social network researchers. We demonstrate the analytic value of the new concept of social space that we propose with the help of an illustrative analysis of an organizational field involving organizations' external and internal decisions that congeal into a multilevel system of action that shapes the space of possibilities for other participants in the field. Through these internal and external decisions, organizations seek certain positions in their social space while simultaneously modifying that social space over time. We conclude by arguing that network researchers' choices of goodness-of-fit statistics should reflect a consideration about the dimensions of social space of most interest to the nodes involved.

Al iniciar el siglo XXI Colombia enfrenta grandes retos en materia de protección social. Los problemas del sistema, en términos de calidad e indicadores de salud pública, han propiciado un intenso debate en la academia y la opinión pública en el cual se ha hecho evidente la presencia de grandes sectores sociales desprotegidos en el marco de un modelo poco protector. No obstante, los dilemas contemporáneos no son contingentes, más bien descansan en una historia de largo plazo de desprotecciones e instituciones fragmentarias e ineficaces. Atendiendo a ello, esta tesis pretende hacer un análisis histórico de los procesos sociopolíticos por media de los cuales cobró forma el sistema de protección social moderna en Colombia entre 1946 y 1993. En ella se rastrea el desarrollo de tres formas de protección social: asistencia en salud, seguridad social y política para la familia, comenzando con la creación del ICSS, bajo un regimen de acumulación de ISI, hasta la expedición de la ley 100 de 1993, modelo sujeto a las exigencias de la financiarización. Empleando fuentes primarias y secundarias, y desde un enfoque que articula categorías de la teoría de la regulación y sociologia histórica, se da cuenta de la textura de la protección social colombiana, intentando responder por que, si en un primer momenta las tendencias mundiales apuntaban en dirección a la integración de servicios a cargo del Estado, y luego hacia la inserción de la salud en el mercado, Colombia tomó en cada momento un camino particular que explica la situación actual. / Abstract By early 21st century, Colombia faces big challenges regarding social protection. The system's problems, in terms of quality and public health indicators, have propitiated an intense debate within academy and public opinion in which the presence of big social sectors unprotected in the frame of a slightly protective model have become evident. Nevertheless, the contemporary dilemmas are not contingent; instead, they rest in a long-term history vulnerabilities and fragmentary and ineffective institutions. Focusing on this, this thesis tries to do a historical analysis of the sociopolitical processes by which the system of social modern protection was formed in Colombia between 1946 and 1993. We trace the development of three forms of social protection: health assistance, social and political security for the family, beginning with the creation of the ICSS, under a regime of ISI accumulation, until the issuance of the law 100 of 1993, a model subject to the financing requirements. Using primary and secondary sources, and from an approach that articulates categories of the regulation theory and historical sociology, we account for the the social Colombian protection texture, trying to answer why, if in a first moment the world trends were oriented towards the integration of services at the expense of the State, and then towards the insertion of the health into the market, Colombia took in every moment a particular way that explains the current situation. ; Maestría

Building on its predecessor, The International Handbook of Social Impact Assessment, this important new book outlines current developments in thinking in the field of Social Impact Assessment (SIA). It introduces and advances the theory and practice of SIA, and illustrates that a generational shift in the way socioeconomic studies and community participation is undertaken is required. The expert contributors - leading SIA practitioners - make recommendations for future improvement, taking an integrated approach to impact assessment and focusing on the goals of development rather than on 'prote