New public management and welfare-to-work in Australia: Comparing the reform agendas of the ALP and the Coalition

Since the 1990s, the adoption of new public management (NPM) as a management philosophy has translated into multiple waves of reform in the employment services sector in Australia, namely Working Nation (1994–96), Job Network (JN: 1996–2009) and Job Services Australia (JSA: 2009–present). Each wave has sought to improve the preceding policy. In this article, we examine changes implemented during the Rudd/Gillard Labor governments. Using government policy documents and survey data from frontline employment services staff, we compare JSA to JN against five benchmarks. Our data indicate that JSA has generated modest improvement. JSA is also a system with less emphasis on strong forms of sanctioning. Our combined data suggest that policy actors operating under NPM conditions are indeed able to influence specific aspects of frontline practice, but they must spend great effort to do so and must accept new imperfections as a consequence.

1990年代以来,新型公共管理被作为一种管理哲学而被接受。这导致了就业服务部门的数次改革浪潮,即工作国（1994—96）、工作网（1996—2009）、澳大利亚工作服务（2009至今）。每波浪潮都力图改良此前的政策。本文考察了陆克文/吉拉德工党执政时期的变革。作者根据政府的政策文件、一线就业服务机构员工的调查数据等等,在五个基准点上将澳大利亚工作服务与工作网做了对比。根据我们的资料,澳大利亚工作服务这个系统带来的改进最小,也不大注重强有力的制裁。我们认为,实施新型公共管理的政策制定方的确能影响一线实践的某些方面,但他们还要花大力气,还要接受往后新的不圆满。     

School accessibility and academic achievement in a rural area of Taiwan

This study empirically analyzes the influence of school accessibility on student academic achievement in a rural area of Taiwan. The sample population comprised elementary and junior high-school students in Pinlin, a small village outside Taipei City, the capital of Taiwan. Data were obtained through a questionnaire survey and analyzed via linear regression and ordered logit regression for continuous grade point average and discrete letter grade, respectively. Compared with previous research, this study presents the following new findings: (1) similar to elementary-school children, travel obstacles also negatively affected learning achievement of junior high-school adolescents; (2) travel obstacles affected academic achievement more significantly for adolescents than children; and (3) travel obstacles affected letter grades more significantly than grade point averages in children. The empirical evidence indicates that travel obstacles explain the academic achievements of children and adolescents with moderate or weak significance.     

Examining Implementation of the National Voter Registration Act by Nonprofit Organizations: An Institutional Explanation

The 1993 National Voter Registration Act authorizes nonprofit social service organizations to conduct nonpartisan voter registration drives, with the aim of making the process more accessible for low‐income citizens and segments of the population historically underrepresented in the political process. Although more than 15 years have elapsed since this important reform was enacted, very little is known about the extent to which nonprofits have embraced this practice, and what factors explain their decision to do so. Drawing upon institutional theory, this article examines the propensity of nonprofit social service organizations to carry out nonpartisan voter registration and voter mobilization campaigns in a national election year. A series of hypotheses are tested using data from a random sample of several hundred nonprofit service organizations in the United States that were surveyed prior to the 2008 election. Findings suggest that institutional factors, especially state laws, are highly influential in shaping the decision of local level nonprofits to register voters. The article concludes with a discussion of policy implications of this study.     

老龄服务：美国、日本、瑞典三国的实践经验与启示

随着社会经济的发展与人口老龄化问题的突出,社会对老龄服务的需求不断扩大。为此,大力发展以老年人需求为导向的老龄服务,不仅有利于提升老年群体的生活质量,还有利于缓解我国老龄化过程中的各种矛盾。本文通过梳理与总结美国、日本、瑞典三国在老龄服务方面的经验和实践模式,认为我国老龄服务应当做好四方面的工作：加强社区老龄服务网络建设;建立和完善老龄服务补贴制度和评估制度;着力推进老龄服务队伍的职业化;拓宽老龄服务经费的筹资渠道。     

改善民生 建立健全基本公共服务体系

改善民生,建立健全基本公共服务体系是中国特色社会主义中具有战略意义的组成部分,是十七届五中全会最大的亮点,更是完成“十二五”规划的关键所在。我国当前基本公共服务体系建设方面存在公共服务支出比例偏低、区域之间公共服务支出的人均差异过大、歧视性供给以及公共服务提供过程中的效率低下等问题,必须从提高政府保障能力、推进体制改革、创新社会管理、推进公共服务均等化等方面积极探索推进基本公共服务体系建设的对策。     

大都会艺术博物馆教育工作述评

全文结合笔者对国内外博物馆教育工作的理解,对大都会博物馆的教育理念、教育资源、教育活动以及教育工作的统计数据进行了介绍与评析,认为大都会博物馆在教育理念为先、教育体系完善、教育以人为本以及注重基础数据的统计与研究等方面,都值得国内博物馆教育工作参考借鉴.     

Sailing virtual canoes across Oceania: revisiting island accessibility

Understanding sailing conditions is a basic requirement for understanding the two periods of settlement of the distant islands of Oceania, initially from the Bismarck Islands off New Guinea as far as Samoa and later from Samoa throughout East Polynesia. The question of a “navigational threshold” between these two worlds is the focus of this paper. A computer simulation is presented that quantifies the difficulty of sailing virtual canoes in the differing wind conditions in both areas. The model demonstrates substantial differences in ease of voyaging up to and beyond Samoa. That this measure is so markedly different between these two worlds gives support for the hypothesised pause between the discovery and settlement of islands West and East of Samoa.     

Service as a Subversive Activity: On the centrality of service to an academic career

In the normative view of academic life, service is presented as an unfortunate inconvenience, a dull distraction from the real work of the academy, which is taken to be teaching and research. Service is also presented to the novice academic as an activity that is completely unconnected with the real work of teaching and research. Jan Monk has made service central to her academic career. A brief overview of her service activities shows how closely intertwined they have been with her scholarship and teaching. Moreover, I believe that Jan's service work demonstrates not only how service is central to a vibrant, meaningful, and rich academic life; it is also an essential vehicle for creating change within, as well as outside of, the academy.     

Spatial segregation and class subjectivity in Turkey

Drawing on ethnographic research in an upper-class district in Turkey, this article examines social and spatial experiences of young low-wage service workers who travel daily back and forth between their homes in low-income neighbourhoods and their jobs in gated communities, upscale shopping malls and corporate offices. The paper argues that the significance of upper class districts or gated communities for urban inequality lies not in the sites themselves, nor the lifestyles of their elite inhabitants as commonly treated in the literature, but rather in the ways in which they relate to the outside and outsiders. Within this framework, the paper analyses the district’s effect on urban spatial segregation and urbanites’ sense of place in society. While resentment and reaction to inequalities and upper class customers are prevalent in young workers’ narratives, workers’ class subjectivities are also marked by a sense of mobility and liminality between the upper middle classes in their work district and their families, friends and neighbours back home. This sense of socio-spatial ‘in-betweenness’ is reinforced by being young, hence a sense of temporal liminality between youth and adulthood. The study contributes to the understanding of urban inequality at the intersection of spatial, emotional and temporal experiences of urbanites.     

On the service frontline: Israeli Arab-Palestinian men in a call-center

Intersectionality is applied to gender-occupation-minority inconsistent hierarchies, to as to explore the workplace-experience of Israeli Arab-Palestinian men service workers and unveil the multiple-geographies it contains. In-depth semi-structured interviews with 24 suchlike men emphasize complexity as the key feature of their intersectional experience. Whereas masculinity and Israeli-Palestinianess are forged against the feminine and Israeli-Jewishness Others, service work is de-feminized and restructured as a welcome modern development whose traditional Other is cherished. The disadvantages of their national-minority status are compensated by cross-national amity and routine occupational practices in the modern workplace, whereby some of their Othering markers are prized. The national difference appears as a multiple-discursive resource which mainly separates the ethnic component from the political one by which the effects of gender, modern work and class structure, weaken. Four geographies, periphery, home-work links, the sociability of the place of work and the MENA world-region are identified, suggesting that geography is integral to the intersectional experience.