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Cover image of the book Lone Pursuit
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Lone Pursuit

Distrust and Defensive Individualism Among the Black Poor
Author
Sandra Susan Smith
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978-0-87154-774-3
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"Smith's research updates a long line of work that tries to understand the pattern of social supports in communities of concentrated poverty. She expands our understanding of the process by which acute deficits of human capital are converted into enduring disadvantage."
-CONTEMPORARY SOCIOLOGY

"Lone Pursuit significantly advances our understanding of the employment woes of poor African Americans, This book provides new insights on the structural, cultural, and psychological factors that contribute to the high rate of joblessness among low-skilled blacks. I highly recommend it."
-WILLIAM JULIUS WILSON, Lewis P. and Linda L. Geyser University Professor, Harvard University

"Ever since the classic work by Granovetter, we have been aware of the powerful influence of social networks in labor market matching. But the question of what prompts a network tie to take the next step-to activate on behalf of a job seeker-has rarely been investigated. In this rich and engaging volume, Sandra Smith discovers the self-defeating rules of the game among poor African American job seekers who refrain from asking their network partners to help because they expect to be rejected. Hesitation by network partners combines with withdrawal on the part of the unemployed, leading to a devastating stalemate. Smith's work is sobering, insightful, and crucial in helping scholars under stand how the matching process breaks down for thousands of would be workers in the inner city."
-KATHERINE S. NEWMAN, Forbes '41 Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs, Princeton University

"Lone Pursuit is an elegantly written and substantively rich book about the many challenges faced by poor black job seekers. Deftly navigating between structural and cultural accounts of these disadvantages, the story that emerges from Professor Smith's careful fieldwork is a subtle tale of how moral judgments about the importance of work internal to the working class African American community reflect and reinforce the values of mainstream society, and how those judgments structure the job seeking of disad vantaged blacks. This work is required reading for any serious scholar of race and inequality."
-ROBERTO M. FERNANDEZ, William F. Pounds Professor of Management, MIT Sloan School of Management

"Lone Pursuit explains the seemingly inexplicable. Building on parallel arguments in Carol Stack's classic All Our Kin-that trust and distrust infuse relations among kin-Sandra Smith extends the interpersonal to the drama of the labor market as people search for jobs and try to find 'somebody' to trust. A deeply complex and original view of social capital that shows how family and friend networks fail to facilitate job search processes in poor black communities."
-MITCHELL DUNEIER, professor of sociology, Princeton University

Unemployment among black Americans is twice that of whites. Myriad theories have been put forward to explain the persistent employment gap between blacks and whites in the U.S. Structural theorists point to factors such as employer discrimination and the decline of urban manufacturing. Other researchers argue that African-American residents living in urban neighborhoods of concentrated poverty lack social networks that can connect them to employers. Still others believe that African-American culture fosters attitudes of defeatism and resistance to work. In Lone Pursuit, sociologist Sandra Susan Smith cuts through this thicket of competing explanations to examine the actual process of job searching in depth. Lone Pursuit reveals that unemployed African Americans living in the inner city are being let down by jobholding peers and government agencies who could help them find work, but choose not to.

Lone Pursuit is a pioneering ethnographic study of the experiences of low-skilled, black urban residents in Michigan as both jobseekers and jobholders. Smith surveyed 105 African-American men and women between the ages of 20 and 40, each of whom had no more than a high school diploma. She finds that mutual distrust thwarts cooperation between jobseekers and jobholders. Jobseekers do not lack social capital per se, but are often unable to make use of the network ties they have. Most jobholders express reluctance about referring their friends and relatives for jobs, fearful of jeopardizing their own reputations with employers. Rather than finding a culture of dependency, Smith discovered that her underprivileged subjects engage in a discourse of individualism. To justify denying assistance to their friends and relatives, jobholders characterize their unemployed peers as lacking in motivation and stress the importance of individual responsibility. As a result, many jobseekers, wary of being demeaned for their needy condition, hesitate to seek referrals from their peers. In a low-skill labor market where employers rely heavily on personal referrals, this go-it-alone approach is profoundly self-defeating. In her observations of a state job center, Smith finds similar distrust and non-cooperation between jobseekers and center staff members, who assume that young black men are unwilling to make an effort to find work. As private contractors hired by the state, the job center also seeks to meet performance quotas by screening out the riskiest prospects—black male and female jobseekers who face the biggest obstacles to employment and thus need the most help.

The problem of chronic black joblessness has resisted both the concerted efforts of policymakers and the proliferation of theories offered by researchers. By examining the roots of the African-American unemployment crisis from the vantage point of the everyday job-searching experiences of the urban poor, Lone Pursuit provides a novel answer to this decades-old puzzle.

SANDRA SUSAN SMITH is assistant professor of sociology at the University of California, Berkeley.

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Cover image of the book Putting Poor People to Work
Books

Putting Poor People to Work

How the Work-First Idea Eroded College Access for the Poor
Authors
Kathleen M. Shaw
Sara Goldrick-Rab
Christopher Mazzeo
Jerry Jacobs
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$31.50
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6 in. × 9 in. 216 pages
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978-0-87154-776-7
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"The authors' concerns resonate with current state and federal policy debates to reinstate more options for education and training. This book should encourage continuing examination of these policies and further research, development, and dissemination of policies that boost education outcomes."
-POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY

"Putting Poor People to Work is the best examination so far of 'work first,' the idea that poor individuals should simply go to work as the most direct way out of poverty .... In the end, their powerful analysis reveals a disturbing duality: at the same time that many policymakers and advocates are trumpeting the value of education, public policy has decided that the poorest among us deserve not education but mere palliatives."
-W. NORTON GRUBB, David Gardner Chair in Higher Education, University of California at Berkeley

"While the Clinton administration was promoting college attendance, welfare reform 'work first' requirements were simultaneously closing off college opportunities for the poor .... This book provides an important contribution to our understanding of this policy and its extensive implications for the poor, for community colleges, and for ideas about who gets educational opportunity in the United States."
-JAMES E. ROSENBAUM, professor of sociology, education, and social policy, Institute for Policy Research, Northwestern University

"Putting Poor People to Work is an important book that describes in devastating detail how over the past decade, and almost without notice, poor women lost the fragile foothold they had gained onto the first rungs of the education ladder-access to college-that other Americans climb to economic security."
-JULIE STRAWN, senior policy analyst, Center for Law and Social Policy

Today, a college education is increasingly viewed as the gateway to the American Dream—a necessary prerequisite for social mobility. Yet recent policy reforms in the United States effectively steer former welfare recipients away from an education that could further their career prospects, forcing them directly into the workforce where they often find only low-paying jobs with little opportunity for growth. In Putting Poor People to Work, Kathleen Shaw, Sara Goldrick-Rab, Christopher Mazzeo, and Jerry A. Jacobs explore this troubling disconnect between the principles of “work-first” and “college for all.”

Using comprehensive interviews with government officials and sophisticated data from six states over a four year period, Putting Poor People to Work shows how recent changes in public policy have reduced the quantity and quality of education and training available to adults with low incomes. The authors analyze how two policies encouraging work—the federal welfare reform law of 1996 and the Workforce Investment Act of 1998—have made moving people off of public assistance as soon as possible, with little regard to their long-term career prospects, a government priority. Putting Poor People to Work shows that since the passage of these “work-first” laws, not only are fewer low-income individuals pursuing postsecondary education, but when they do, they are increasingly directed towards the most ineffective, short-term forms of training, rather than higher-quality college-level education. Moreover, the schools most able and ready to serve poor adults—the community colleges—are deterred by these policies from doing so.

Having a competitive, agile workforce that can compete with any in the world is a national priority. In a global economy where skills are paramount, that goal requires broad popular access to education and training. Putting Poor People to Work shows how current U.S. policy discourages poor Americans from seeking out a college education, stranding them in jobs with little potential for growth. This important new book makes a powerful argument for a shift in national priorities that would encourage the poor to embrace both work and education, rather than having to choose between the two.

KATHLEEN M. SHAW is chair of the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies and associate professor of urban education at Temple University.

SARA GOLDRICK-RAB is assistant professor of educational policy studies and sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and faculty affiliate of the Wisconsin Center for the Advancement of Postsecondary Education.

CHRISTOPHER MAZZEO is a New York City–based independent consultant.

JERRY A. JACOBS is Merriam Term Professor of Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania and editor of the American Sociological Review.

An Institute for Research on Poverty Affiliated Book on Poverty and Public Policy

 

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Cover image of the book Risk Taking
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Risk Taking

A Managerial Perspective
Author
Zur Shapira
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978-0-87154-767-5
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Classical economic theory assumes that people in risk situations follow a course of action based on a rational, consistent assessment of likely outcomes. But as Zur Shapira demonstrates in Risk Taking, corporate managers consistently stray from the prescribed path into far more subjective territory. Risk Taking offers a critical assessment of the relationship between theory and action in managerial decision making.

Shapira offers a definitive account of the classical conception of risky decision making, which derives behavioral prescriptions from a calculation of both the value and the likelihood of possible outcomes. He then demonstrates how theories in this vein have been historically at odds with empirical observations. Risk Taking reports the results of an extensive survey of seven hundred managers that probed their attitudes and beliefs about risk and examined how they had actually made decisions in the face of uncertainty. The picture that emerges is of a dynamic, flexible process in which each manager’s personal expertise and perceptions play profound roles.

Managerial strategies are continually modified to suit changing circumstances. Rather than formulating probability estimates, executives create potential scenarios based not only on the possible outcomes but also on the many arbitrary factors inherent in their own situations. As Shapira notes, risk taking propensities vary among managers, and the need to maintain control and avoid particularly dangerous results exercises a powerful influence. Shapira also examines the impact of organizational structure, long-term management objectives, and incentives on decision making.

With perceptive observations of the cognitive, emotional, and organizational dimensions of corporate decision making, Risk Taking propels the study of managerial risk behavior into new directions. This volume signals the way toward improving managerial decision making by revealing the need for more inclusive choice models that augment classical theory with vital behavioral observations.

ZUR SHAPIRA is research professor of management and organizational behavior at the Stern School of Business at New York University.

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Cover image of the book Beyond the Boycott
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Beyond the Boycott

Labor Rights, Human Rights, and Transnational Activism
Author
Gay W. Seidman
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$28.95
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6 in. × 9 in. 192 pages
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978-0-87154-762-0
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A Volume in the American Sociological Association’s Rose Series in Sociology

"Excellent for anyone studying social change and social movements, as well as for business leaders."
-CHOICE

"Beyond the Boycott draws on careful analysis of cases ranging across time and space from the operation of the Sullivan Principles in South Africa in the apartheid era to monitoring apparel sub-contractors in contemporary Guatemala to generate a provocative and original proposition on the effectiveness of transnational labor rights campaigns. Gay Seidman's well-argued thesis that transnational activists should focus less on corporations and 'workers' rights as human rights' and more on states and 'workers' rights as citizenship rights' is a fresh and stimulating addition to debates on transnational activism that is sure to have a lasting impact."
-PETER B. EVANS, University of California, Berkeley

"In this imaginative study, Gay Seidman explores the implications of the pivotal shift among labor advocates in the anti-globalizaiton movement from a traditional 'labor rights' discourse targeting the national state to a focus on human rights at the global level that relies on 'stateless regulation.' The three case studies reveal the potential of this new form of transnational labor activism, but also expose its limitations-most importantly the ways in which it constructs workers as victims rather than as agents of social transformation. No one else has examined the anti-sweatshop movement and corporate 'codes of conduct' with such a subtle comparative touch. Beyond the Boycott is a must read for anyone concerned about labor and globalization, for scholars and advocates alike."
-RUTH MILKMAN, UCLA

"In Beyond the Boycott, the eminent labor sociologist Gay Seidman provides an indispensable analysis of one of the most urgent questions of our time: How can labor rights be enforced in a global system now devoted to the rights of capital and commerce? By critically examining three major attempts to use the tools of 'stateless regulation,' Seidman makes a powerful argument that transnational activists should refocus their campaigns on restoring the promise of state institutions and democratic citizenship. This gem of a book will be required reading for anyone concerned about social justice in an era of globalization."
-MARK BARENBERG, Columbia University

As the world economy becomes increasingly integrated, companies can shift production to wherever wages are lowest and unions weakest. How can workers defend their rights in an era of mobile capital? With national governments forced to compete for foreign investment by rolling back legal protections for workers, fair trade advocates are enlisting consumers to put market pressure on companies to treat their workers fairly. In Beyond the Boycott, sociologist Gay Seidman asks whether this non-governmental approach can reverse the “race to the bottom” in global labor standards.

Beyond the Boycott examines three campaigns in which activists successfully used the threat of a consumer boycott to pressure companies to accept voluntary codes of conduct and independent monitoring of  work sites. The voluntary Sullivan Code required American corporations operating in apartheid-era South Africa to improve treatment of their workers;  in India, the Rugmark inspection team provides ‘social labels’ for  handknotted carpets made without child labor; and in Guatemala,  COVERCO monitors conditions in factories producing clothing under contract for major American brands. Seidman compares these cases to explore the ingredients of successful campaigns, as well as the inherent limitations facing voluntary monitoring schemes. Despite activists’ emphasis on educating individual consumers to support ethical companies, Seidman finds that, in practice, they have been most successful when they mobilized institutions—such as universities, churches, and shareholder organizations. Moreover, although activists tend to dismiss states’ capabilities, all three cases involved governmental threats of trade sanctions against companies and countries with poor labor records. Finally, Seidman  points to an intractable difficulty of independent workplace monitoring: since consumers rarely distinguish between monitoring schemes and labels, companies can hand pick monitoring organizations, selecting those with the lowest standards for working conditions and the least aggressive inspections. Transnational consumer movements can increase the bargaining power of the global workforce, Seidman argues, but they cannot replace national governments or local campaigns to expand the meaning of citizenship.

As trade and capital move across borders in growing volume and with greater speed, civil society and human rights movements are also becoming more global. Highly original and thought-provoking, Beyond the Boycott vividly depicts the contemporary movement to humanize globalization—its present and its possible future.

GAY W. SEIDMAN is professor of sociology at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

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Cover image of the book Low-Wage Work in the Netherlands
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Low-Wage Work in the Netherlands

Editors
Wiemer Salverda
Maarten van Klaveren
Marc van der Meer
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$19.95
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6.63 in. × 9.25 in. 344 pages
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978-0-87154-770-5
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"In the 'war of the models' between variants of capitalism, the Dutch economy has had good and bad publicity. There is the 'Dutch disease' that prices manufacturing out of some markets and criticisms of Dutch collective bargaining as being insufficiently centralized or decentralized. There is also much ballyhoo about the virtues of the Polder model and Dutch economic planning. By examining how the Dutch have dealt with less skilled and low-wage work, Low-Wage Work in the Netherlands illuminates how the Dutch system operates to deal with a problem that affects all economies. The depth of discussion of specific industries and workers offers more insight into how the Dutch do it than the broad generalizations that abound in analyses of the varying capitalist models."
-RICHARD B. FREEMAN, Herbert Ascherman Chair in Economics, Harvard University and Senior Research Fellow in Labour Markets, London School of Economics

"A lot has been written about the so-called Polder model, the Dutch model of consensus building, to which many of its economic successes of the 1990s have been attributed. However, little attention has been paid to the downside of this success: the strong growth of low-wage employment. This volume fills the gap by giving extensive consideration to the bottom segment of the labor market. It is unique in discussing and analyzing low-wage work at the national level as well as at the industry and the company level. It convincingly demonstrates how strong job growth may have the price of erosion of income security and job quality at the lower end of the labor market. Reading Low-Wage Work in the Netherlands is indispensable for everyone who wants to know how the Dutch Polder model really works."
-PAUL DE BEER, Henri Polak Professor of Industrial Relations, University of Amsterdam

"Any student of the low-wage labor market must at some point answer several questions. How much can institutional differences affect the strategies that firms adopt? How, in turn, can these strategies affect outcomes for low-wage workers? Is it possible to create a high road environment for low-skill employment? This fascinating study provides an in-depth analysis that helps answer such questions in industries familiar to all labor market researchers-retail, hotels, health care, call centers, and food-in the context of the 'Dutch model.' The authors weave rich case study information together with statistical data to provide a vivid tapestry of work conditions under the 'Dutch model.' Both their findings and their careful analytic approach make Low-Wage Work in the Netherlands a must read for serious labor market researchers."
-JULIA I. LANE, senior vice president, National Opinion Research Center, University of Chicago

The Dutch economy has often been heralded for accomplishing solid employment growth within a generous welfare system. In recent years, the Netherlands has seen a rise in low-wage work and has maintained one of the lowest unemployment rates in the European Union. Low-Wage Work in the Netherlands narrows in on the causes and consequences of this new development. The authors find that the increase in low-wage work can be partly attributed to a steep rise in the number of part-time jobs and non-standard work contracts—46 percent of Dutch workers hold part-time jobs. The decline in full-time work has challenged historically powerful Dutch unions and has led to a slow but steady dismantling of many social insurance programs from 1979 onward. At the same time, there are hopeful lessons to be gleaned from the Dutch model: low-wage workers benefit from a well-developed system of income transfers, and many move on to higher paying jobs. Low-Wage Work in the Netherlands paints a nuanced picture of the Dutch economy by analyzing institutions that both support and challenge its low-wage workforce.

WIEMER SALVERDA is director of the Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies.

MAARTEN VAN KLAVEREN is researcher and consultant at STZ Consultancy and Research.

MARC VAN DER MEER is director of studies at the Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies.

CONTRIBUTORS: Ria Hermanussen, Robert Solow, Wim Sprenger, Kea Tijdens, Arjen Van Halem. 

A Volume in the RSF Case Studies of Job Quality in Advanced Economies

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Cover image of the book Reforming Public Welfare
Books

Reforming Public Welfare

A Critique of the Negative Income Tax Experiment
Authors
Peter K. Rossi
Katharine C. Lyall
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6 in. × 9 in. 208 pages
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978-0-87154-754-5
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Shows what happens when a specific social policy is tried out on an experimental basis prior to being enacted into law. By providing a trial of a variety of negative income tax plans carried out over a three-year period in four communities, the New Jersey-Pennsylvania Income Maintenance Experiment was designed to observe whether income maintenance would lead to reduced work effort on the part of those who received subsidies. This book evaluates the final project reports on the experiment issued by Mathematica, Inc. and the Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin.

PETER H. ROSSI is professor of sociology and director of the Social and Demographic Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

KATHARINE C. LYALL is assistant professor of political economy and senior research associate at the Center for Metropolitan Planning and Research, Johns Hopkins University.

A publication in the Continuities in Evaluation Research series.

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Cover image of the book Beyond College for All
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Beyond College for All

Career Paths for the Forgotten Half
Author
James E. Rosenbaum
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$26.95
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6 in. × 9 in. 336 pages
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978-0-87154-753-8
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A Volume in the American Sociological Association’s Rose Series in Sociology

Winner of the 2002 Willard Waller Award for Distinguished Scholarship

"An important indictment of the failed connection between high school and post-high school opportunities for American youth ... well worth reading."
-WORK AND OCCUPATIONS

"James Rosenbaum skillfully exposes as false many assumptions about the causes of unfruitful careers among the 'forgotten half' of high school students. He draws selectively from labor economics and organizational sociology and displays the rewarding analytical power of theoretical eclecticism when applied to a complex social phenomenon. His own explanation for why so many American high school students do not succeed in the marketplace arises from insightful institutional comparisons among the United States, Japan, and Germany. But ultimately it emerges from highly creative thinking about transactions of failed communication, misplaced incentives, and unfulfilled trust between teachers and students and between schools and employers. The book is theoretically rich and empirically compelling. It offers new and thought-provoking insights into a longstanding dilemma in educating the nation's youth for productive lives, and it offers guarded optimism about the future."
-DAVID L. FEATHERMAN, University of Michigan

"Beyond College For All presents an insightful analysis of the transition from high school to work in the United States. The work is theoretically rich, distinctive in its reliance on observational, anecdotal, and survey data, and practical in its recommendations. Researchers, graduate students, educators, and employers would profit from James Rosenbaum's work."
-MAUREEN T. HALLINAN, University of Notre Dame

In a society where everyone is supposed to go to college, the problems facing high school graduates who do not continue their education are often forgotten. Many cannot find jobs, and those who do are often stuck in low-wage, dead-end positions. Meanwhile employers complain that high school graduates lack the necessary skills for today's workplace. Beyond College for All focuses on this crisis in the American labor market. Around the world, author James E. Rosenbaum finds, employers view high school graduates as valuable workers. Why not here?

Rosenbaum reports on new studies of the interaction between employers and high schools in the United States. He concludes that each fails to communicate its needs to the other, leading to a predictable array of problems for young people in the years after graduation. High schools caught up in the college-for-all myth, provide little job advice or preparation, leading students to make unrealistic plans and hampering both students who do not go to college and those who start college but do not finish. Employers say they care about academic skills, but then do not consider grades when deciding whom to hire. Faced with few incentives to achieve, many students lapse into precisely the kinds of habits employers deplore, doing as little as possible in high school and developing poor attitudes.

Rosenbaum contrasts the situation in the United States with that of two other industrialized nations-Japan and Germany-which have formal systems for aiding young people who are looking for employment. Virtually all Japanese high school graduates obtain work, and in Germany, eighteen-year-olds routinely hold responsible jobs. While the American system lacks such formal linkages, Rosenbaum uncovers an encouraging hidden system that helps many high school graduates find work. He shows that some American teachers, particularly vocational teachers, create informal networks with employers to guide students into the labor market. Enterprising employers have figures out how to use these networks to meet their labor needs, while students themselves can take steps to increase their ability to land desirable jobs.

Beyond College for All suggests new policies based on such practices. Rosenbaum presents a compelling case that the problems faced by American high school graduates and employers can be solved if young people, employers, and high schools build upon existing informal networks to create formal paths for students to enter the world of work.

JAMES E. ROSENBAUM is professor of sociology, education, and social policy at the Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern University.

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Cover image of the book Island Paradox
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Island Paradox

Puerto Rico in the 1990s
Authors
Carlos E. Santiago
Francisco L. Rivera-Batiz
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$26.95
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6 in. × 9 in. 212 pages
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978-0-87154-751-4
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"One of the year's best books on Puerto Rico." —El Nuevo Dia, San Juan

"[The authors] are highly regarded labor economists who have written extensively and intelligently in the past, and again in this volume, on Puerto Rican migration and labor markets... There isabundant statistical data and careful analysis, some of which challenges the conventional wisdom. Highly recommended." —Choice

Island Paradox is the first comprehensive, census-based portrait of social and economic life in Puerto Rico. During its nearly fiftyyears as a U.S. commonwealth, the relationship between Puerto Rico's small, developing economy and the vastly larger, more industrialized United States has triggered profound changes in the island's industry and labor force. Puerto Rico has been deeply affected by the constant flow of its people to and from the mainland, and by the influx of immigrant workers from other nations. Distinguished economists Francisco Rivera-Batiz and Carlos Santiago provide the latest data on the socioeconomic status of Puerto Rico today, and examine current conditions within the context of the major trends of the past two decades.

Island Paradox describes many improvements in Puerto Rico's standard of living, including rising per-capita income, longer life expectancies, greater educational attainment, and increased job prospects for women. But it also discusses the devastating surge in unemployment. Rapid urbanization and a vanishing agricultural sector have led to severe inequality, as family income has become increasingly dependent on education and geographic location. Although Puerto Rico's close ties to the United States were the major source of the island's economic growth prior to 1970, they have also been at the root of recent hardships. Puerto Rico's trade andbusiness transactions remain predominantly with the United States, but changes in federal tax, social, and budgetary policies, along with international agreements such as NAFTA, now threaten to alter the economic ties between the island and the mainland.

Island Paradox reveals the social and family changes that have occurred among Puerto Ricans on the island and the mainland. The significant decline in the island's population growth is traced in part to women's increased pursuit of educational and employment opportunities before marrying. More children are being raised by singleparents, but this stems from a higher divorce rate and not a rise in teenage pregnancy. The widespread circular migration to and from the United States has had strong repercussions for the island's labor markets and social balance, leading to concerns about an island brain drain. The Puerto Rican population in the United States hasbecome increasingly diverse, less regionally concentrated and not, as some have claimed, in danger of becoming an underclass.

Within a single generation Puerto Rico has experienced social and economic shifts of an unprecedented magnitude. Island Paradox charts Puerto Rico's economic fortunes, summarizes the major demographic trends, and identifies the issues that will have the strongest bearings on Puerto Rico's prospects for a successful future.

FRANCISCO L. RIVERA-BATIZ is director of the Program in Economic Policy Management and associate professor in the Economics Department and the Latino Studies Program at Columbia University. He is also associate professor of international studies at Teachers College, Columbia University.

CARLOS E. SANTIAGO is professor in the Department of Latin American and Caribbean Studies and in the Department of Economics and associate vice president for academic affairs at the State University of New York, Albany.
 

A Volume in the RSF Census Series

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Cover image of the book Social Diagnosis
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Social Diagnosis

Author
Mary E. Richmond
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6 in. × 9 in. 512 pages
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978-0-87154-703-3
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Social Diagnosis is the classic in social work literature. In it Miss Richmond first established a technique of social casework. She discusses the nature and uses of social evidence, its tests and their practical application, and summarizes the lessons to be learned from history, science, and the law. While other aids in diagnosis have been added to the caseworker's equipment, the assembling of social evidence is still an important discipline of the profession, to which this volume continues to make a significant contribution. No revision of the book has ever been made nor does any later book take its place.

MARY RICHMOND was the director of the Charity Organization Department at the Russell Sage Foundation.

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Cover image of the book The Foundation Administrator
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The Foundation Administrator

A Study of Those Who Manage America's Foundations
Authors
Arnold J. Zurcher
Jane Dustan
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6 in. × 9 in. 188 pages
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978-0-87154-996-9
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This book offers a systematic study of those individuals who derive their livelihood and professional satisfactions from foundation employment above a clerical level. Replies to questionnaires addressed to foundations and to foundation staff, supplemented by other research, enabled the authors to secure a wealth of data, not previously available, concerning such staff personnel. The data relates to their origin, education or training, professional or occupational background, personal qualities, recruitment for foundation service, job specialization in foundations and in-service and on-the-job training, salary levels, retirement, fringe benefits and perquisites of various kinds. These data are systematically analyzed according to the employing foundation's asset size, program, founding auspices, staff size, geographical location, and other variables. The comprehensiveness of the data also makes possible a census of full-time and part-time staff employed by all foundations and better reveals the rather distorted pattern of the distribution of that staff among the employing foundations.

A feature of the study is a chapter that tabulates and analyzes the comments on foundation employment of some 420 foundation executives—on their satisfactions, dissatisfactions, and frustrations and on how foundation employment might be made more attractive. The pros and cons of the related issue of increased professionalization of foundation service is considered in the light of these comments and from the standpoint, also, of the current philanthropic policies of different kinds of foundations. The probable long-term effect on foundation service of certain provisions of the Tax Reform Act of 1969 is also examined.

ARNOLD J. ZURCHER was formerly Executive Director of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and is Professor of Politics at New York University.

JANE DUSTAN is Associate for Program Development of the Association for the Aid of Crippled Children.

 

 

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