Ergonomics analyses of five joineries located in Florianópolis-SC, using the LEST Method

Considering the goal of Ergonomic Work Analysis to establish, from the point of view of workers, safe, healthy, comfortable and efficient environments, this study propose to analyze the work situation of machine operators at five joineries from Florianópolis-SC. For this, it was applied the LEST Method to evaluate the task made by the operators, considering the physical, cognitive and organizational work environment. As results, it was identified the main ergonomics problems of these workstations, presenting an ergonomic diagnosis and their implications on health and safety of workers. As result, it was concluded that the main ergonomics problems at joineries are related with noise, with constant load of weight and with the postures taken. Besides these problems, others were diagnosed, for example, the pressure for workers to comply strictly the task stipulated and also the poor training and capacity of workers.     

Distribution of local plant knowledge in a recently urbanized area (Campeche District,Florianópolis,Brazil)

All over the world, coastal villages are changing rapidly due to the increasing pressures from tourism and urbanization. In this study we investigate ethnobotanical knowledge of current residents of Campeche District, a coastal area that has undergone a rapid process of urbanization, related to 13 native plant species. We also discuss how residents understand and conceptualize the term ‘restinga’, which corresponds to the areas of native vegetation still found at the study site. We interviewed 176 residents in four strata according to time of residence in the district: 0–9 years, 10-19 years, 20-29 years and +30 years, corresponding to the periods of most accentuated demographic growth in the area. Psidium guajava and Eugenia uniflora were the most known, recognized and used plants by respondents. Plant recognition, naming and known uses are strongly correlated; yet there was no difference related to the age of respondents. The only stratum with significant differences in the number of plants named, known and used is the +30 year of residence time, not related to the age of respondents. Explanations given by respondents for the definition of ‘restinga’ were grouped into: vegetation, physical space and ecosystem. Most answers associated ‘restinga’ to vegetation. Knowledge on local flora is affected by the increased amount of migrants and the rapid urbanization in the district during the last 30 years.     

‘Back to our Roots?’ Re-visiting psychoanalytically-informed baby and young child observation in the education of student social workers

While there is a well-established literature on psychoanalytically-informed baby and young child observation in social work education, little has been published recently. This paper reviews the rationale for its use, evaluating its impact on students’ learning in the light of contemporary policy and practice contexts facing social work education. Analysis of feedback gained from a recent cohort, identifies three ways in which learning through baby and young child observation contributes: firstly, students encounter and learn about the complexity of child development from the direct experience of observing and secondly, observing facilitates the development of important skills for practice; students’ ‘use of self’. Thirdly, through observing, students describe how they develop the capacity to take-up and sustain a professional role. Well-structured teaching and learning through observation is therefore shown to provide a rigorous, theoretically-grounded contribution to the training of university-based social work students entering this complex and challenging professional field.     

Teacher–child relationships in the context of poverty: the role of frequent school mobility

Children's relationships with their teachers are critical for classroom-based learning, but children growing up in poverty may be at risk for lower-quality relationships with teachers. Little is known about how changing schools, one poverty-related risk, affects teacher–child relationships. Using growth curve models that control for a host of other poverty-related risks, this study explores the association between children changing schools frequently (defined as three or more school moves) between preschool and third grade and the quality of their relationships with their teachers over these five years in a low-income, ethnic-minority sample. Children who frequently moved schools were reported to be less close to their teachers in third grade and experienced steeper declines in closeness than children who did not change schools frequently. Moreover, the effects of frequent school mobility at third grade were robust to other poverty-related risks, including residential mobility, parental education risk, family income, and single-parent households. Changing schools was unrelated to children's conflict with teachers. We discuss these findings in the context of policies that support students’ transitions when changing schools.     

Parental involvement in the development of a culture‐based school curriculum

This study focuses on parental involvement in Sámi schools when developing a culturally sensitive school curriculum. The research recognizes a number of competing and complementary interests that play a role when constructing structures and policies in curriculum development. Two Sámi schools in Sweden with 115 pupils, their parents and 27 teachers were included in a longitudinal three‐year study. Interviews, school visits, videotapes and document analysis were used to gather information. The results indicate the invisible existence of culture‐based school practice and curriculum texts. The lack of contact among homes, schools and community culture was obvious. Parents and teachers expressed an interest in developing a culture‐based local curriculum through a process of reflecting on and creating an education incorporating the past, the present and the future. The study showed that parents, pupils and teachers experienced increased awareness in culture‐based schoolwork. The study pointed to a desire for cooperation between home and school in the development of a culture‐based school curriculum and a school practice supported by a culturally responsible teacher.     

Ignoring the elephant in the room? Assessing the impact of the European Union on the Development Assistance Committee's role in international development

This article studies the impact of the European Union (EU) on the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) of the Organisation for Economic Co‐operation and Development (OECD). While the literature thus far has focused on the external challenges for the DAC's role in international development, this study argues that the EU should be taken into account as well. By focusing on the cases of policy coherence for development and the concessionality of official development assistance (ODA) loans, we show that the EU poses a structural challenge for the DAC's role in international development given the strong overlap in membership between both institutions and the Union's changing nature as a development actor.     

Reshaping Southern history: Studies in the development of Agrarian capitalism in the nineteenth‐century South∗

The Reshaping of Plantation Society: The Natchez District, 1860–1880. Michael Wayne. Baton Rouge, La: Louisiana State University Press. 1983. xiv, 226 pp. £22.95.

White Land, Black Labor: Caste and Class in Late Nineteenth‐Century Georgia. Charles L. Flynn, Jr. Baton Rouge, La.: Louisiana State University Press. 1983. xiv, 196 pp. £17.90.     

Rural young people in regional development—the case of Finland in 1970–2000

In view of the crucial role of young people in society, especially as far as the future of sparsely populated rural areas is concerned, an analysis is made of absolute and relative changes in the 15–24-year age cohort in Finland and their effects on demographic and regional structure, employing GIS methods. The main material for this consists of georeferenced population data based on 1×1 km grid squares produced by Statistics Finland for the period 1970–2000. An example is taken of one rural municipality where the georeferenced data were supplemented with qualitative interview material obtained in 1999. The results show that the number and proportion of young people in the population of Finland have declined since 1970, although not consistently, at the same time as the total population has continued to increase. The dichotomy between the sparsely populated rural areas and the built-up areas has been accentuated by a distortion of the population structure and gender ratio, in that the young people, and particularly young women, have been inclined to move into the growth centres and to the more densely populated areas in general. The georeferenced data clearly point to a worsening regional imbalance in the areal distribution of population in Finland, although the interview material suggests that the young people still living in the countryside do not regard their position as hopeless but are prepared to weigh up their future on the basis of the alternatives open to them.     

Growing Up in the Limelight—Issues raised by the case of a“child star”

FOR 10-year-old Ma Yuge, being interviewed by China's biggest television network was no different from talking to her best friend. Standing barefoot on her bed, Yuge pointed at the map of the world on the wall and said with a serious air, Traveling all over the world is only the first step. My goal is to become China's first female astronaut.     

Back to the future? From pragmatic approaches in the social sciences to the development of the patchwork theory

The debate on the function of the social sciences in complex societies, and more generally of the role of knowledge, leads necessarily to a discussion on pragmatism. The gap between theoretical approaches and empirical research still exists and has even widened, in part as a result of the use and abuse of social science knowledge in politics and by the media. However, the academic system is equally to blame for this. Mutual ignorance and scholastic fights are barriers against openness, creative and imaginary thinking. The structures and the practices of the academic system reinforce this trend. Pragmatism aims at overcoming these cleavages by looking at commonalities between different approaches rather than by disputing their validity. It aims at a comprehensive understanding of the process of knowledge production and at the productive use of results. Defining itself in this tradition, the patchwork theory goes beyond the traditional pragmatic approaches: it catches part of the reality of social phenomena from a certain perspective that allows for an overview without having the full picture. Methodologicall, the approach guided by patchwork theory emphasizes the relevance of stakeholders’ knowledge and citizen science, and calls for public participation and democratic access to the production and use of knowledge in a discursive manner.     

The Continuing Legacy of the Communist Legacy? The development of family policies in Poland and the Czech Republic

This article compares family policies in Poland and the CzechRepublic in order to explain why the two countries have differentpolicies. Previous studies are right to claim that post-communistfamily policies are basically going in a refamilialist directionthat gives mothers a greater incentive to return to the home,but they tend to neglect the important differences that existbetween countries. Although previous studies were correct toemphasize the role of the anti-feminist communist legacy inexplaining this trend toward re-famialilization, it is a country'seconomic-institutional legacy that goes the farthest in explainingthe differences in policies.     

Ideas in action: the politics of Prussian child labor reform, 1817–1839

This article explains the political origins of an 1839 law regulating the factory employment of children in Prussia. The article has two aims. First, it seeks to explain why Prussia adopted the particular law that it did. Existing historical explanations of this particular policy change are not correct, largely because they fail to take into account the actual motivations and intentions of key reformers. Second, the article contributes to theories of the role of ideas in public policymaking. Ideas interact with institutional and political factors to serve as motivators and as resources for policy change. As motivators, they drive political action and shape the content of policy programs; as resources, they enable political actors to recruit supporters and forge alliances. I offer a theory of the relationship between ideas, motivation, and political action, and I develop a methodological framework for assessing the reliability of political actors’ expressed motivations. Further, I explain how political actors use ideas as resources by deploying three specific ideational strategies: framing, borrowing, and citing. By tracing how different understandings of the child labor problem motivated and were embodied in two competing child labor policy proposals, I show how the ideas underlying reform had significant consequences for policy outcomes.     

Diaspora and development? Nigerian organizations in London and the transnational politics of belonging

Through a particular focus on the politics of belonging, I explore in this article the extent to which London‐based Nigerian organizations perform the progressive role expected of them in globalizing discourses of diaspora and development. The interplay between national and sub‐national, geo‐ethnic visions of belonging and development has fundamental implications for viability of the Nigerian state. In the ways they mobilize identity ‘abroad’ and make transnational interventions at ‘home’, London‐based Nigerian diaspora organizations can reproduce a pervasive and insidiously divisive politics of belonging that is widely seen to undermine the Nigerian project. However, these organizations and their transnational interventions can also transcend the ethnicized boundaries of belonging to articulate and pursue visions of Nigeria's national development. While they are involved in the politics of belonging and the progress of ‘home’ in ways that are clearly much more ambivalent than globalizing discourses of diaspora and development might hope, their potential for contributing to a unified and prosperous Nigeria should not be dismissed.     

Who will change the “baby?” Examining the power of gender in an experimental setting

We conduct an experiment designed to test the impact of a gender-loaded frame on the distribution of labor between care and market work. In an unframed tre     

The effect of family structure on parents’ child care time in the United States and the United Kingdom

We use time-diary data from the 2003 and 2004 American Time Use Surveys and the 2000 United Kingdom Time Use Study to estimate the effect of family structure on the time mothers and fathers spend on primary and passive child care and on market work, using a system of correlated Tobit equations. Our results indicate that estimates are sensitive to the inclusion of a common household factor that controls for selection into family type. Estimates from the selection-controlled models indicate that single parents in both countries spend more time in child care than married or cohabiting parents, perhaps in part to compensate for the missing parent, but that there is no difference in the time allocation of married and cohabiting parents. There are substantial cross-country differences, however, as single parents in the U.S. work more than other parents and single parents in the U.K. work less.

Are college students more disturbed today? Stability in the acuity and qualitative character of psychopathology of college counseling center clients: 1992-1993 through 2001-2002

Are clients at college counseling centers more disturbed today than they were 5, 10, or 20 years ago? Since the mid-1980s, counseling center personnel have consistently perceived student clients as more distressed or reported acutely distressed clients as more prevalent than they did 1, 3, or 5 years ago. Only 3 studies employing a systematic, data-based methodology have addressed this question. Two researchers used different actuarial measures of the acuity or character of client pathology and concluded that current student clients are not more disturbed than were earlier ones. One researcher used clinical judgments rendered at the end of therapy and concluded that current students were more distressed. Using the Personality Assessment Inventory, the author found the actuarially determined quantitative and qualitative indices of pathology unchanged for 3,400 counseling center clients seen during 10 consecutive years. Over the same period, the use of medications increased fivefold. An actuarial measure of client distress appears crucial to both accurate diagnosis and treatment and to the adequate preparation of future counseling center professionals.     

Needs assessment of youths in residential child care in Portugal / Evaluación de necesidades de jóvenes en acogimiento residencial en Portugal / Evaluación de necesidades de jóvenes en acogimiento residencial en Portugal

Residential child care in Portugal is the most common protection measure in cases of family separation, since family foster care is still very rare. However, little is known about the needs of these children and young people. The purpose of this study is to describe the profile of adolescents close to legal adulthood who are in residential care, comparing it with a Spanish sample. The sample is composed of 345 young people aged 16 to 17 on whom information has been collected regarding their history of protection, family background, schooling, mental health and offending behaviour. A Spanish sample was selected as a comparison group (N = 384). The results reveal the complexity and special seriousness of the profile of young people in residential care in Portugal compared to a Spanish sample, highlighting a high presence of mental health problems and especially suicidal behaviours. Given these results, efforts should be focused on developing specialized residential care programmes adapted to the specific needs of these young people.