Suchergebnisse

First published in 1985, most chapters in this book were first prepared for and discussed at a monthly research seminar series on Hearing Loss in Adulthood during the 1983-1984 academic year. As a whole this book shines a light on the experience of hearing-impaired people, particularly the loss of hearing in later life.

The affirmative action plan, employment records, and personnel practices of the National Bank of Greenwood, employing 138 persons in the Indiana town of 20,000, were subjected to a grueling inspection by Labor Department staff for more than two years starting in 1979. The staff changed frequently, repeatedly demanded more and different information, and then rejected what it had demanded. "We feel," the bank president said, "that... [the Labor Department] has taken over... [our] personnel function." Such ordeals have often occurred, especially when contractors were developing personnel records to meet the complex and often unrealistic government affirmative action requirements. Setting aside the manifest incompetence and unreasonableness of Labor staff, the experience reflected the conflicting goals of bank and Labor officials. The bank sought to treat all applicants and employees fairly; Labor, to increase the number of women and minority employees, especially in better-paid jobs.

Affirmative action in higher education has sought to increase the number of women and minority students and faculty in most educational fields, levels, and ranks. Voluntary measures to recruit black students and faculty began in the 1960s, before the government, in the early 1970s, imposed elaborate requirements to promote the employment of women and minority faculty. Women's groups pressing to change admission and employment practices they judged discriminatory have made far greater gains than blacks. In the last decade, Asians have also done surprisingly well as graduate students, faculty, and research staff in the sciences and engineering. The higher-educational status of blacks remains troublesome. In small part, this reflects many black students' preference for the professions over graduate school and academic life; in larger part, the consequences of slum life and schools.

Reviews legal anti-discrimination measures for racial minorities, women, and the disabled in education, employment, and politics; focus on US in the 1980s-1990s; 17 articles. Partial contents: Hispanics, affirmative action, and voting, by Linda Chavez; The drive for racially inclusive schools, by Abigail Thernstrom; Work for Americans with disabilities, by Walter Y. Oi; Positive action for women in Britain, by Margery Povall.

Most federal policy research & the practice of most policy research institutes have been dominated by naive scientism which tends to obscure actual issues. This scientism has become a dogma & an obstacle to understanding actual social problems. An approach is needed which places specific factors in broad social & historical contexts, rather than arbitrarily isolating certain of them for qualification. This practice tends to obscure the actual interests being served by policy research through a curtain of supposed 'objectivity'. Actually, most research institutes have tight control over the views espoused & tend to shut out alternatives to their accepted doctrines. The claims to represent the 'public interest' are essentially meaningless; a meaningful alternative would be a defined fairness doctrine requiring open disclosure of findings, & imposing other standards governing policy research. Such a doctrine could allow a new level of professionalism in policy research, & could be the basis for more precise IRS rules governing nonprofit research into social issues. Modified HA.

Data show that soc sci'ts increasingly have been employed by the US gov & its bur'cies. The soc sci style of thinking & circumlocutory expressions--methodical, generalized, humorless, pedantic--is admirably suited to that of the bur'cy. Too many soc sci'ts try to play God to society. The role of the sci'ts & intellectuals in gov is explored. Their knowledge can promote or clog understanding. A theory that neither discerns nor conceives of the molten forces lodging beneath the mantle of society is clearly superficial & thinking which insists that contemporary soc, econ, & pol'al problems can be solved by computer models & answers to multiple choice questions is simplicistic. It is asked "From what unhuman source does the soc sci'st derive the superior rationality that is more apparent to him than to his fellow citizens? Hath he not hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions?" His knowledge may be great but often his common sense & sense of community seem diminished. Soc facts approximate points on a nautical chart of a restless sea with shifting shoals, tides & weather. The deepest ignominy of the soc sci'st is not his aspiration but his failure to divine the meaning of events. M. Maxfield.