Creating and Transforming Households PDF Download

Author: Joan Smith
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521427135
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 324

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Book Description
A systematic and original approach to the intimate link between the micro-structures of households and the structures of the capitalist world-economy.

Author: Ulrich Beck
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0745690254
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
We live in a world that is increasingly difficult to understand. It is not just changing: it is metamorphosing. Change implies that some things change but other things remain the same capitalism changes, but some aspects of capitalism remain as they always were. Metamorphosis implies a much more radical transformation in which the old certainties of modern society are falling away and something quite new is emerging. To grasp this metamorphosis of the world it is necessary to explore the new beginnings, to focus on what is emerging from the old and seek to grasp future structures and norms in the turmoil of the present. Take climate change: much of the debate about climate change has focused on whether or not it is really happening, and if it is, what we can do to stop or contain it. But this emphasis on solutions blinds us to the fact that climate change is an agent of metamorphosis. It has already altered our way of being in the world the way we live in the world, think about the world and seek to act upon the world through our actions and politics. Rising sea levels are creating new landscapes of inequality drawing new world maps whose key lines are not traditional boundaries between nation-states but elevations above sea level. It is creating an entirely different way of conceptualizing the world and our chances of survival within it. The theory of metamorphosis goes beyond theory of world risk society: it is not about the negative side effects of goods but the positive side effects of bads. They produce normative horizons of common goods and propel us beyond the national frame towards a cosmopolitan outlook.

Author: Melinda Cooper
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 194213004X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 449

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Book Description
Why was the discourse of family values so pivotal to the conservative and free-market revolution of the 1980s and why has it continued to exert such a profound influence on American political life? Why have free-market neoliberals so often made common cause with social conservatives on the question of family, despite their differences on all other issues? In this book, Melinda Cooper challenges the idea that neoliberalism privileges atomized individualism over familial solidarities, and contractual freedom over inherited status. Delving into the history of the American poor laws, she shows how the liberal ethos of personal responsibility was always undergirded by a wider imperative of family responsibility and how this investment in kinship obligations recurrently facilitated the working relationship between free-market liberals and social conservatives. Neoliberalism, she argues, must be understood as an effort to revive and extend the poor law tradition in the contemporary idiom of household debt. As neoliberal policymakers imposed cuts to health, education, and welfare budgets, they simultaneously identified the family as a wholesale alternative to the twentieth-century welfare state. And as the responsibility for deficit spending shifted from the state to the household, the private debt obligations of family were defined as foundational to socio-economic order. Despite their differences, neoliberals and social conservatives were in agreement that the bonds of family needed to be encouraged — and at the limit enforced — as a necessary counterpart to market freedom. In a series of case studies ranging from Clinton’s welfare reform to the AIDS epidemic, and from same-sex marriage to the student loan crisis, Cooper explores the key policy contributions made by neoliberal economists and legal theorists. Only by restoring the question of family to its central place in the neoliberal project, she argues, can we make sense of the defining political alliance of our times, that between free-market economics and social conservatism.

Author: Ann M. Ishimaru
Publisher: Teachers College Press
ISBN: 080777815X
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 217

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Book Description
Just Schools examines the challenges and possibilities for building more equitable forms of collaboration among non-dominant families, communities, and schools. The text explores how equitable collaboration entails ongoing processes that begin with families and communities, transform power, build reciprocity and agency, and foster collective capacity through collective inquiry. These processes offer promising possibilities for improving student learning, transforming educational systems, and developing robust partnerships that build on the resources, expertise, and cultural practices of non-dominant families. Based on empirical research and inquiry-driven practice, this book describes core concepts and provides multiple examples of effective practices. “This is the most compelling work to date on school and community engagement. It will be required reading for all my future classes.” —Muhammad Khalifa, University of Minnesota “Full of practical steps that educators and administrators can and must take to build strong collaborations with families.” —Mark R. Warren, University of Massachusetts Boston “This important publication provides a way forward for educators, families, students and community members to co-create “Just Schools” by honoring, validating, and celebrating each other’s knowledge, skills, power and resources.” —Karen Mapp, Harvard Graduate School of Education

Author: Norma Gonzalez
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135614059
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 332

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Book Description
The concept of "funds of knowledge" is based on a simple premise: people are competent and have knowledge, and their life experiences have given them that knowledge. The claim in this book is that first-hand research experiences with families allow one to document this competence and knowledge, and that such engagement provides many possibilities for positive pedagogical actions. Drawing from both Vygotskian and neo-sociocultural perspectives in designing a methodology that views the everyday practices of language and action as constructing knowledge, the funds of knowledge approach facilitates a systematic and powerful way to represent communities in terms of the resources they possess and how to harness them for classroom teaching. This book accomplishes three objectives: It gives readers the basic methodology and techniques followed in the contributors' funds of knowledge research; it extends the boundaries of what these researchers have done; and it explores the applications to classroom practice that can result from teachers knowing the communities in which they work. In a time when national educational discourses focus on system reform and wholesale replicability across school sites, this book offers a counter-perspective stating that instruction must be linked to students' lives, and that details of effective pedagogy should be linked to local histories and community contexts. This approach should not be confused with parent participation programs, although that is often a fortuitous consequence of the work described. It is also not an attempt to teach parents "how to do school" although that could certainly be an outcome if the parents so desired. Instead, the funds of knowledge approach attempts to accomplish something that may be even more challenging: to alter the perceptions of working-class or poor communities by viewing their households primarily in terms of their strengths and resources, their defining pedagogical characteristics. Funds of Knowledge: Theorizing Practices in Households, Communities, and Classrooms is a critically important volume for all teachers and teachers-to-be, and for researchers and graduate students of language, culture, and education.

Author: Antony Bugg-Levine
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1118100689
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 341

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Book Description
A ground-breaking book on the transformative power of impact investing This is the first book to chart the catalytic path of this new industry, explaining how it is and can be a positive disruptive force. It shows how impact investing is a transformational vehicle for delivering "blended value" throughout the investment spectrum, giving a single name to a set of activities previously siloed in enclaves, revealing how they are linked within what is becoming a new field of investing. Written by two leaders in the growing field of impact investing, the book defines this emerging industry for participants on all sides of the funding equation (investors, funders and social entrepreneurs). Filled with illustrative examples of impact investing success stories Reveals how the field can expand in order to address the most critical social and environmental issues of our day Explores the wide-ranging applications of impact investing as well as entrepreneurial opportunities The authors do not take a normative approach to argue how investors should behave like an investment guide might but show how entrepreneurial people and institutions are already offering an integrated alternative.

Author: Minouche Shafik
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 069120764X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
From one of the leading policy experts of our time, an urgent rethinking of how we can better support each other to thrive Whether we realize it or not, all of us participate in the social contract every day through mutual obligations among our family, community, place of work, and fellow citizens. Caring for others, paying taxes, and benefiting from public services define the social contract that supports and binds us together as a society. Today, however, our social contract has been broken by changing gender roles, technology, new models of work, aging, and the perils of climate change. Minouche Shafik takes us through stages of life we all experience—raising children, getting educated, falling ill, working, growing old—and shows how a reordering of our societies is possible. Drawing on evidence and examples from around the world, she shows how every country can provide citizens with the basics to have a decent life and be able to contribute to society. But we owe each other more than this. A more generous and inclusive society would also share more risks collectively and ask everyone to contribute for as long as they can so that everyone can fulfill their potential. What We Owe Each Other identifies the key elements of a better social contract that recognizes our interdependencies, supports and invests more in each other, and expects more of individuals in return. Powerful, hopeful, and thought-provoking, What We Owe Each Other provides practical solutions to current challenges and demonstrates how we can build a better society—together.

Author: Bahira Trask
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 0387882855
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 229

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Book Description
As our world becomes increasingly interconnected through economic integration, technology, communication, and political transformation, the sphere of the family is a fundamental arena where globalizing processes become realized. For most individuals, family in whatever configuration, still remains the primary arrangement that meets certain social, emotional, and economic needs. It is within families that decisions about work, care, movement, and identity are negotiated, contested, and resolved. Globalization has profound implications for how families assess the choices and challenges that accompany this process. Families are integrated into the global economy through formal and informal work, through production and consumption, and through their relationship with nation-states. Moreover, ever growing communication and information technologies allow families and individuals to have access to others in an unprecedented manner. These relationships are accompanied by new conceptualizations of appropriate lifestyles, identities, and ideologies even among those who may never be able to access them. Despite a general acknowledgement of the complexities and social significance inherent in globalization, most analyses remain top-down, focused on the global economy, corporate strategies, and political streams. This limited perspective on globalization has had profound implications for understanding social life. The impact of globalization on gender ideologies, work-family relationships, conceptualizations of children, youth, and the elderly have been virtually absent in mainstream approaches, creating false impressions that dichotomize globalization as a separate process from the social order. Moreover, most approaches to globalization and social phenomena emphasize the Western experience. These inaccurate assumptions have profound implications for families, and for the globalization process itself. In order to create and implement programs and policies that can harness globalization for the good of mankind, and that could reverse some of the deleterious effects that have affected the world’s most vulnerable populations, we need to make the interplay between globalization and families a primary focus.

Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309324882
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 587

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Book Description
Children are already learning at birth, and they develop and learn at a rapid pace in their early years. This provides a critical foundation for lifelong progress, and the adults who provide for the care and the education of young children bear a great responsibility for their health, development, and learning. Despite the fact that they share the same objective - to nurture young children and secure their future success - the various practitioners who contribute to the care and the education of children from birth through age 8 are not acknowledged as a workforce unified by the common knowledge and competencies needed to do their jobs well. Transforming the Workforce for Children Birth Through Age 8 explores the science of child development, particularly looking at implications for the professionals who work with children. This report examines the current capacities and practices of the workforce, the settings in which they work, the policies and infrastructure that set qualifications and provide professional learning, and the government agencies and other funders who support and oversee these systems. This book then makes recommendations to improve the quality of professional practice and the practice environment for care and education professionals. These detailed recommendations create a blueprint for action that builds on a unifying foundation of child development and early learning, shared knowledge and competencies for care and education professionals, and principles for effective professional learning. Young children thrive and learn best when they have secure, positive relationships with adults who are knowledgeable about how to support their development and learning and are responsive to their individual progress. Transforming the Workforce for Children Birth Through Age 8 offers guidance on system changes to improve the quality of professional practice, specific actions to improve professional learning systems and workforce development, and research to continue to build the knowledge base in ways that will directly advance and inform future actions. The recommendations of this book provide an opportunity to improve the quality of the care and the education that children receive, and ultimately improve outcomes for children.

Author: Xiaoyan Liang
Publisher: World Bank Publications
ISBN: 1464800790
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 204

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Book Description
The World Bank has a long history of investing in China's technical and vocational education and training (TVET), dating back to the 1963 Higher Education Project, which benefited selected tertiary TVET programs in project schools. The initial World Bank projects for TVET in China were designed mostly on the national level, supporting selected institutions in multiple provinces. Starting in 2006, based on strong analytical work and increased demand from various provinces, the World Bank began a direct policy dialogue with interested provinces, and in turn started supporting provincial level projects in TVET. These include the Guangdong Technical and Vocational Education Project and the Liaoning and Shandong Technical and Vocational Education Project, both of which are currently under implementation. Located on the southwestern border of China, Yunnan is a medium-sized Chinese province with abundant natural resources and high levels of ethnic diversity. Although Yunnan is still one of the poorest provinces in China, it has experienced rapid economic growth rates over the last decade and is expected to maintain an annual growth rate of 10 percent or higher. The recent national Bridgehead Strategy has further positioned Yunnan as a strategic gateway in the Southwest region, providing tremendous new opportunities for its development. The study is aimed at facilitating policy development leading to a demand-driven, high-quality, and equitable education and training system conducive to lifelong learning. The experience of Yunnan also sheds light on skills development in China, as the analysis in this report situates Yunnan in the broader national context. The intended audience includes policymakers in the Ministries of Education, Human Resources and Social Security, Agriculture, and Finance, and the Poverty Alleviation Office and National Development and Reform Commission. The report would also be of interest to researchers and development workers interested in understanding skills development in China.