Black women in the emerging services economy

In the current debate about low-wage work and poverty, little attention has been paid to causes of basic structural change in the economy with the shift from a manufacturing to a services economy. Black women, a key segment of the low-wage work force, have gained and lost in this change. As the lowest paid, lowest status work force in the economy, black women benefited by a move out of domestic services employment where they had been restricted for more than a century. But static wages, high rates of part-time work, and a continuing overconcentration in new but marginal services job systems have created a crisis for personal income and black family support. The growing feminization of poverty is the product of growth of a subculture of low-wage work. Only through serious attention to the use of collective bargaining and equal opportunity regulation on behalf of this work force are these trends likely to be reversed in the 1990s.Support for this research was provided by grants from the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, the William Monroe Trotter Institute, The Ford Foundation, and the Woman's Bureau of the U.S. Department of Labor.     

Genes, religion and society: The developing views of the churches

This paper (1) reviews and analyzes the positions on genetics taken in the official statements of Christian churches in the United States, together with church institutions of global status, and 2) offers suggestions about possible future responses of the churches to genetics and biotechnology.     

Educational and careers guidance services for adults: II. A review of current provision

The similarities and differences between existing educational and careers guidance services for adults are analysed in terms of five dimensions: the roles with which the services are primarily concerned, their target groups, their guidance junctions, their staffing policy, and their organisational base. A brief discussion of 'distance-guidance' services is added.     

The future of public-private sector partnerships for the provision of human services: problem and possibilities.

This article examines the responses of states, localities, and the private sector to recent attempts by the federal government to realign domestic responsibilities for the provision of human services. In exploring this issue, the author conducted a study of agencies assisting the developmentally disabled in Greater Richmond, Virginia. The author finds that the nation is experiencing a fundamental paradigm shift--a reconceptualization of structure, goals, and responsibilities--with respect to social welfare, with new public-private sector partnerships emerging to meet human needs.     

Empirical and historical perspectives on the growth of Pentecostal-style churches in Malaysia,Singapore and Hong Kong

This article considers the growth of Pentecostal-style churches in Southeast Asia, and specifically in Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur and Singapore. It outlines four reasons for the growth that occurred and then, using qualitative and quantitative data in a mixed mode, seeks to test the hypotheses it derives. It concludes that each of the hypotheses remains plausible but notes that contextual factors or major social disruptions undermine any deterministic account.     

Schooling,the Protestant churches and the state in Northern Ireland: a tension resolved

In 1998, Byrne and McKeown examined the churches’ roles in Northern Ireland’s (NI) schooling system. NI was then governed by direct-rule from the UK’s Westminster Parliament. The authors concluded that the desire of the Protestant churches to re-establish their influence in schools was ‘unlikely to succeed’. This was contrasted with the ‘success-story’ of Catholic influence in schooling. This article tracks the fortunes of the Protestant churches in NI’s educational policy developments in the last 18 years. Of particular interest are the government’s proposals to establish an Education and Skills Authority (ESA) under a new Education Bill. A careful reading of the Protestant churches’ annual education reports indicates the alarm with which these proposals were met. In the early years of the new millennium it seemed that the conclusions of the 1998 paper were prescient. However, extensive lobbying by the Protestant churches in a changed (devolved) political context secured almost all their demands. This article concludes that the ‘tension’ (claimed in the 1998 paper) between the Protestant churches and the state has largely been resolved. The article evaluates the significance of recent developments for the Protestant churches and their involvement in schooling. More critically, the propriety of these developments is questioned asking if they mark an advance for the Protestant churches and/or schooling in NI.