Suchergebnisse

James Ryan, a prominent and learned law professor at the University of Virginia (and a former colleague of mine there), has produced a scholarly, well-written, and exhaustively researched book on education policy, Five Miles Away, A World Apart. The problem with the book, quite simply, is that Ryan ignores reality. A clearer example of "educational romanticism" would be hard to imagine. Although Ryan does not call wary suburban parents racist, elitist, or just plain selfish, he dismisses resistance to system-wide integration as irrational and unfounded. The issue of how demographic jiggering will affect well-functioning schools is absolutely central to the merits and the realpolitik of his proposal, and well-off suburbanites fear of compromising their children's education is clearly a pivotal impediment to his proposals adoption. His cavalier treatment of this urgent topic is by far the weakest part of this book. Adapted from the source document.

A review essay on books by (1) Ann Fessler, The Girls Who Went Away: The Hidden History of Women Who Surrendered Children for Adoption in the Decades before Roe v. Wade (Penguin Press, 2007); & (2) Rosanna Hertz, Single by Chance, Mothers by Choice: How Women are Choosing Parenthood without Marriage and Creating the New American Family (Oxford U Press, 2006).

condemn single parenthood and teen pregnancy, expect middle-class standards of sexual discretion, insist upon refinement in speech, dress, and manners, and unequivocally banish traces of punk and ghetto culture.

Considers the issue of whether recent welfare reforms indicate any basic transformation in notions of quality, citizenship, & the role of the state, contending that no such alteration has taken place. Rather, reform itself is a reaction to shifts in social conditions & practices. The crucial changes pertain to conventions about family formation, womens roles, reproductive options, & motherhood. These shifts, not a refutation of the conditional reciprocity model itself, are responsible for the changes in US welfare policy. Tables, References. K. Coddon

Wax reviews Promises I Can Keep: Why Poor Women Put Motherhood Before Marriage by Kathryn Edin and Maria Kefalas and American Dream: Three Women, Ten Kids, and a Nation's Drive to End Welfare by Jason DeParle.

The recent surge of women and mothers into the workforce has generated a call for changes that make it easier to combine employment with family life. Because neoclassical economic theory assumes that existing workplace structures are efficient, suggestions for reform have encountered resistance on the grounds that familyfriendly reforms will prove costly for firms and society as a whole. In particular, so-called "accommodation mandates," which require employers to extend benefits like paid leave and job protection to parents, have been attacked as potentially inefficient and as harmful to those they are designed to help. This article challenges the suggestion that existing arrangements maximize social welfare and that family-friendly reforms will undermine efficiency. Using dynamic game-theoretic models, it explains how management-worker interactions can get stuck in equilibria that generate less wellbeing overall than more family-friendly alternatives, and it shows how family-friendly arrangements may be difficult to maintain despite their potential for making everyone better off. The article speculates on measures that might foster the adoption and stability of family-friendly workplace forms.

The recent surge of women & mothers into the workforce has generated a call for changes that make it easier to combine employment with family life. Because neo-classical economic theory assumes that existing workplace structures are efficient, suggestions for reform have encountered resistance on the grounds that family-friendly reforms will prove costly for firms & society as a whole. In particular, so-called "accommodation mandates," which require employers to extend benefits like paid leave & job protection to parents, have been attacked as potentially inefficient & as harmful to those they are designed to help. This article challenges the suggestion that existing arrangements maximize social welfare & that family-friendly reforms will undermine efficiency. Using dynamic game-theoretic models, it explains how management-worker interactions can get stuck in equilibria that generate less well-being overall than more family-friendly alternatives, & it shows how family-friendly arrangements may be difficult to maintain despite their potential for making everyone better off. The article speculates on measures that might foster the adoption & stability of family-friendly workplace forms. 44 References. [Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications Inc., copyright 2004 The American Academy of Political and Social Science.]