Social and ethical issues Books

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Book SynopsisSocial development can be summarily described as the process of organising human energies and activities at higher levels to achieve greater results. Development increases the utilisation of human potential. This book contains important research in the field of social development, both of children and of societies.

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Book SynopsisA minority is a sociological group that does not constitute a politically dominant voting majority of the total population of a given society. This book focuses on a variety of issues which threaten minorities in the United States, as well as the policies put in place by the government to ensure the protection of these people. Topics discussed herein include discrimination cases brought against the USDA; Indian Trust Fund Litigation; federal taxation of Indian tribes and members; disadvantaged small businesses; and others.

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Book SynopsisSocial security''s dedicated revenue stream sets it apart from most other federal programs in that the dedicated revenues are credited to trust funds that are used to finance the program''s activities. Current estimates suggest that unless changes are made to the system, the trust funds combined will be exhausted by 2039. This book provides an overview of social security and discusses some of the criteria for evaluating proposals and options to change the system and their financial and distributional effects

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Book SynopsisCommunity development has become the new buzz in the social and health sciences. Although community development has been an important subject for deliberation and study for several decades, within the past ten years or so it has become politically correct and even fashionable to include mention of community development in government parlance, economic planning, social work, public health debates and liberal arts discourse. Whereas most texts on community development make only brief reference to the importance of theory, thereafter quickly dispensing with it, in this book, the approach taken to community development positions itself against that trend. The issues raised in the chapters of this book offer us alternative ways of looking at the familiar. This book inform us that community development is a complex conundrum of definitions, ideas, ideologies, interests, data, participants and locations.

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Book SynopsisThis book is the first volume of a qualitative study of social mobility over three generations in post-war Hong Kong. The family histories and work-life histories of eighty-nine respondents who were middle-aged middle-class parents -- teachers, managers, and their spouses -- were collected between 1996 and 1997. This book examines the processes of social mobility in order to elucidate how social mobility is generated at the micro level and it investigates the consequences of social mobility with a view to illuminating how the system of social stratification could be reproduced or changed over generations.

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Book SynopsisThis book is the second volume of a qualitative study of social mobility over three generations in post-war Hong Kong. The family histories and work-life histories of eighty-nine respondents who were middle-aged, middle-class parents -- teachers, managers and their spouses -- were collected between 1996 and 1997. This book examines the processes of social mobility in order to elucidate how social mobility is generated at the micro level and it investigates the consequences of social mobility to show how the system of social stratification can be reproduced or changed over generations.

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Book SynopsisIn the wake of the financial crisis of late 2008, the Treasury developed HAMP (Home Affordable Modification Program) as the latest in a series of federal government initiatives to stem the growing foreclosure problem. At the time, foreclosures had been rising for several years already, leading to an increase in the number of empty homes owned by banks and weakening the banking system, at a time when policymakers felt that restoring economic and bank stability was crucial. The history of prior efforts, which met with limited success, provides a useful context for examining HAMP and its performance to date. This book examines the consequences of mortgage irregularities for financial stability and foreclosure mitigation.

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Book SynopsisSocial identity theory is a diffuse but interrelated group of social psychological theories concerned with when and why individuals identify with, and behave as part of social groups, and adopt shared attitudes. Social identity theory is thus concerned both with the psychological and sociological aspects of group behavior. In this book, the authors present topical research in the study of social identity, including the elderly and social identity; sexual identity in relation to developmental and social considerations; ethnic identity in Baikalian Siberia and the role of Russian colonisation; Latinas and Black women negotiating multiple marginalised social identities; social identity implications for individuals with physical disabilities and social identity and self-image.

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Book SynopsisThis book captures the history, lifestyles and beliefs of Caribbean people relating them without impunity to the psychology of their emotion, thought and behaviour. This book studies research on the background of historical perspectives, definitions, dimensions and a Caribbean Diaspora, the interpretation of behaviours and mental disorders with contributions from witchcraft, priestcraft and science, as well as the challenge of the local interpretation of mental illness.

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Book SynopsisShelter, the generic term for housing, triples with food and clothing as the primordial human need. Consequently, a universal consensus of housing as a basic human right has been recognised; an accord that is predicated on the perceived positive impact of housing on human health, quality of life, and socio-economic well-being. Give the global significance of these issues, housing and housing policy, have risen to occupy centre-stage in development discourse and programs in both developed and developing countries. This book examines housing policy issues and challenges globally including detecting patterns of ethnic discrimination in the housing market; housing and fiscal policies in a spatial growth model; housing policy reforms in Nigeria; and traditional landownership systems and the housing problem in Ghana.

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Book SynopsisAlthough Social Security remains a crucial benefit for millions of seniors, the program was designed to serve an American society of 75 year ago. Much has changed since its inception: Americans are living longer, women''s participation in the labour force has significantly increased, and with a rise in the divorce rate, household composition has changed. In addition, the labour force is growing more slowly and the nature of work and compensation has altered in ways that affect workers'' ability to save for retirement. As a result, under its current design, Social Security may not be as effective as it could be in addressing the needs of our society both now and in the future. This book explores the modernisation of the Social Security program to reflect America''s evolving demographics which is vital to ensuring that benefits are adequate and equitable for generations to come.

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Book SynopsisThe Social Security program pays benefits to retired and disabled workers and their family members, and to family members of deceased workers. The Social Security program is financed primarily through payroll taxes that are deposited in the U.S. Treasury and credited to the Social Security trust fund. Any revenues credited to the trust fund in excess of program costs (benefit payments and administrative expenses) are invested in special U.S. government obligations (debt instruments of the U.S. government). This book examines the basics of how the Social Security program is funded and how the Social Security trust fund works.

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Book SynopsisThe ways we think about the world, about ourselves and our personal relations are largely determined by our cognitive schemes, cognitive styles. These cognitive schemes, cognitive styles appear in early childhood, and parents have a decisive role in the learning process. This book examines the parental influence on cognitive styles and through it, to the way of thinking and personal relations of mentally healthy individuals. Also discussed herein are the parental educational influences that impede the individual in adequate adaption to reality.

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Book SynopsisThe wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have brought renewed attention to the needs of veterans, including the needs of homeless veterans. Preventing and ending homelessness among Veterans in five years is a key priority for the White House as well as the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness and its member agencies. This book addresses this need in showcasing novel analyses that use data currently available from administrative records to provide detailed information about the prevalence of Veterans within the homeless population; the prevalence of homelessness among Veterans; and the differential risks for homelessness among Veteran, age, race, poverty, and sex subgroups.

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Book SynopsisThis book compiles biographical sketches of top professionals in the field of sociology, as well as research summaries from a number of different focuses in this important field.

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Book SynopsisModern developing multi-cultural countries claim their status as progressive democracies by promulgating policies of civic cohesion engendering ethnic equity within a national unity. However, what is promulgated through government mission statements, public speeches and the sentiments of national anthems might not successfully align with realities of citizen concern. This book introduces a Culturometric application for evaluating these claims to progressive democracy within multi-cultural developing countries.

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Book SynopsisThis is the fifth and final volume in a series of books examining the problem of suicide around the world and how suicide can be prevented. There are many groups of individuals that have been the focus of special interest. Part One of this volume presents current research and interventions for these groups, including those who have chronic medical illnesses, who are homeless and who are very young. Suicide in the workplace and in jails and prisons presents particular problems for mental health professionals, and the problems involved in preventing suicide in these situations are discussed. Part Two presents discussions of issues that have been of particular concern in recent years, such as whether antidepressants precipitate suicidal behaviour in some people as well as preventing it in others and the complex issues involved in physician-assisted suicide.

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Book SynopsisIn this book, the authors present current research from across the globe in the study of the quality management, issues and economic implications of food security. Topics discussed in this compilation include women and food security in the Sudan; the impact of the vegetable breeding industry and intellectual property rights in biodiversity and food security; the Brazilian Popular Restaurant Program for food security and nutrition policy; food and water security in eThekwini Municipality, South Africa; aquaculture as an essential source of food security; environmental orientation in the Spanish food industry; Zambia''s post-independent policies for food security and poverty reduction; and the role of the processing industry for food security in India.

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Book SynopsisThe transition to adulthood in the United States has changed in recent decades as many of the traditional milestones that mark adulthood, such as household establishment and marriage, have changed or been delayed. Among these changes are increased participation and attainment in education; extenuation of educational completion and subsequent delayed participation in the labour force; and delays in child rearing. This book examines numerous aspects of the lives of youth and young adults, ages 14 to 24 in the United States over the last several decades. Discussed are the status and trend data from multiple surveys on the distribution of youth and their family structure; on school, employment, health-related factors and future plans.

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Book SynopsisThis book emerges from the interest in enriching the body of knowledge about accident characteristics, examining health outcomes and proposing measures to overcome societal and economic consequences of accidents. Contributions from different disciplines compose a collection that provides answers to prominent questions from various perspectives. The three parts of the book offer a comprehensive overview of the new state-of-the-practice knowledge about accident characteristics, risk factors, consequences and safety interventions. Combining knowledge from both road and occupational safety, and extending through various disciplines such as engineering, economics, medicine, and statistics, this collection stimulates readers in looking for enhanced solutions to safety problems that are a major threat to human life and cost millions to our society.

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Book SynopsisThis innovative book locates the historical emergence of post-modernism and what it is a reaction against. One of the key theorists of post-modernism, is Jean Baudrillard. He has had an enormous impact on contemporary social theory and social philosophy. This text locates his key concepts, locates empirical examples and importantly maps out the key influences of Baudrillard''s work. There is critical engagement with Baudrillard''s post-modernism in an assessment of its strengths and weaknesses.

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Book SynopsisToday''s society is marked by a fundamental ambiguity: On the one hand we find the loss in old values and systems, in particular what is called secularisation, and the loss of the stronghold of religious institutions. However, at the same time we find the opposite: rather than the loss of confidence in religion, the loss of confidence in citizenship and the institutions of the welfare state. As a conservative answer, policies based in family and religion are constructed and offered as new doctrines as well as for new social policies. The borders between different traditional positions are blurred in this process: conservative and progressive positions claim the turn to communitarian values. This book is a valuable contribution to current debates, looking at the background of faith systems, their understanding and claims, and the limitations in answering the challenges of modernising societies.

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Book SynopsisHow a journey of self-discovery unearthed the scandalous evolution of artificial insemination. By his forties, Peter J. Boni was an accomplished CEO, with a specialty in navigating high-tech companies out of hot water. Just before his fiftieth birthday, Peter’s seventy-five-year-old mother unveiled a bombshell: His deceased father was not biological. Peter was conceived in 1945 via an anonymous sperm donor. The emotional upheaval upon learning that he was “misattributed” rekindled traumas long past and fueled his relentless research to find his genealogy. Over two decades, he gained an encyclopedic knowledge of the scientific, legal, and sociological history of reproductive technology as well as its practices, advances, and consequences. Through twenty-first century DNA analysis, Peter finally quenched his thirst for his origin. In Uprooted, Peter J. Boni intimately shares his personal odyssey and acquired expertise to spotlight the free market methods of gamete distribution that conceives dozens, sometimes hundreds, of unknowing half-siblings from a single donor. This thought-provoking book reveals the inner workings—and secrets—of the multibillion-dollar fertility industry, resulting in a richly detailed account of an ethical aspect of reproductive science that, until now, has not been so thoroughly explored.

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Book SynopsisThis book will address the need for gender issues and the discourses of power to be explored within resilience frameworks to achieve successful outcomes for at-risk males in intervention programs. Due to the western valorisation of traditional masculinities, the "backlash politics" debate internationally constrains challenges to the existing gender order within intervention programs. The discussion will deal with the notion of hegemonic masculinities and how boys with behaviour problems act out traditional masculinities to gain a sense of male power. It will focus on the notion of at-riskness, which defines these boys as the new victims of accepted social values and does not address the issues of how men victimise other men from different ethnic, class, and sexual preference minority groups, through violent and aggressive tactics. For these boys, exploring the interplay of hegemonic masculinities within society will enable them to move into connecting protective processes / factors within intervention programs and the community. The book makes suggestions for the design and implementation of future intervention / preventative programs that will integrate gender construction and resilient protective processes / factors.

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Book SynopsisWhen we speak of "assault", we move our discussion from that of violence in its varied injurious forms toward the needs of the victim, prevention of future acts of harm, societal education and policy development, and mobilisation of community resources, which should include the support of both nation-states and responsible institutions. Violence as a manifestation of human aggression has long been with our species. Defining that aggression in its manifest forms as "assault" provides a foundation for intervention with both the perpetrator (offender in legal terms) and survivor victim (person attacked in legal terms). As you read these chapters, consider the role of the researcher and practitioner in their chosen profession to make a contribution. View the language with a critical eye. You will find carefully reasoned proposals for change, calls for social justice, explanations of models for prevention strategies and development of public policy, and articulated reasons why violence falls short of the human right for societal protections that each member of our species deserves. What may be a potential solution or, conversely, negative consequence, what might be a dilemma or beneficial outcome, and what can happen when people work collaboratively: These chapters portray the nuanced reasoning that permits the professional to work toward development and confirmation of more effective models of prevention and intervention, which can reduce the need for prolonged care and services.

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Book SynopsisThis book presents current research focusing on sexual minorities. Topics discussed include gay and lesbian parenthood; asexuality; media representations of marginalised minorities; the effect of image contact on heterosexual women''s attitudes toward lesbian women; the high-school experiences of sexual and gender minority youth and best practices in the development of interventions designed to attenuate homonegativity. The final entry is a "virtual discussion" in which contributors responded to a set of questions that focused on key issues in the field of sexual minority studies.

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Book SynopsisHealth, care and welfare have emerged as key vehicles used to legitimise and position the identities that older people adopt in contemporary modernity. Both contain continually changing technologies that function to mediate relations between older people and the state. Medico-technical, victimisation policies and care management discourses, have been presented as adding choice and reducing limitations associated with adult ageing. However, they also represent an increase in professional control that can be exerted on lifestyles in older age and thus, the wider social meanings associated with that part of the life-course. This book presents a theoretical analysis based on a critical reading of the work of Michel Foucault. It identifies the inter-relationship between managers and older people in terms of power, surveillance and normalisation. The book highlights how and why older people are the subjects of legitimising professional gazes through the dark side of modernity: being managed, being victimised and asking the existential questions of death.

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Book SynopsisThe National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has long been concerned about alcohol-impaired driving, which accounts for approximately one-third of all U.S. highway fatalities. In the past several decades, awareness of the dangers of alcohol-impaired driving has increased. Public and private entities focusing on this safety issue have changed social perceptions concerning alcohol-impaired driving; they have also achieved important legislative actions to help reduce it. Due to these efforts, the number of lives lost annually in alcohol-impaired-driver-related crashes declined 53 percent, from 21,113 in 1982 to 9,878 in 2011; and the percentage of highway fatalities resulting from alcohol-involved crashes is down from 48 percent in 1982 to about 31 percent today. In recent years, however, U.S. success in addressing this safety issue has plateaued. This book describes the scope of the impaired driving problem; summarises the efforts of advocacy groups, researchers, law enforcement agencies, traffic safety groups, public health organisations, legislators, and motor vehicle agencies, as well as federal, state, and local governments, to reduce the number of crashes, injuries, and fatalities; examines the effect of alcohol consumption on an individual''s ability to operate a motor vehicle and on the risk of being involved in a crash; and evaluates the effectiveness of current and emerging alcohol-impaired driving countermeasures and identifies new approaches and actions needed to reduce and ultimately eliminate alcohol-impaired driving.

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Book SynopsisCommunity development has become the new buzz in the social and health sciences. Although community development has been an important subject for deliberation and study for several decades, within the past ten years or so it has become politically correct and even fashionable to include mention of community development in government parlance, economic planning, social work, public health debates and liberal arts discourse. Whereas most texts on community development make only brief reference to the importance of theory, thereafter quickly dispensing with it, in this book, the approach taken to community development positions itself against that trend. The issues raised in the chapters of this book offer us alternative ways of looking at the familiar. This book inform us that community development is a complex conundrum of definitions, ideas, ideologies, interests, data, participants and locations.

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Book SynopsisFrom a customer service perspective, the Social Security Administration (SSA) has set a standard for superior customer service among governmental agencies. It has historically received high marks from beneficiaries, and most Americans do not have to travel far to reach a SSA field office, where they can apply for benefits, become a representative payee for someone incapable of managing his or her finances, or apply for a name change after marriage. Yet continuing budget constraints, which began at the start of the decade, have forced SSA to make difficult decisions to reduce service to the public. At a time when Baby Boomers are retiring and filing disability and retirement claims at record numbers, SSA has shed 11,000 workers agency-wide over three years. This book discusses the reduction in face-to-face services at the SSA; provides a report on the policies and procedures for closing and consolidating field offices; long-term strategies for addressing key management strategies; and budget issues.

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