Controls And Choices

Controls and Choices: The Educational Marketplace and the Failure of School Desegregation provides a detailed examination of the nature of the educational marketplace, supported by historical evidence, to argue that school desegregation failed because it involved monopolistic efforts at redistributing opportunities.

How Much Do You Believe That What Happens to You Is the Result of Your Own Actions—or Do Circumstances Beyond Your Control Largely Determine Your Fate? Locus of Control (LOC) is a phrase used by psychologists to describe a widely effective way of assessing an individual’s potential for success—personal, social, and financial. LOC measures how much you believe what happens to you is the result of your own actions or, conversely, of forces and circumstances beyond your control. People who accept that they are largely in control of their lives tend to do better than those who feel that fate or external factors rule what they do, especially in novel and difficult situations. This book explains LOC research, until now mainly confined to academic circles, in terms easily understandable to the average person. The author, a clinical psychologist who has spent nearly five decades investigating and writing about LOC, helps the reader to explore his or her own locus of control and what those orientations might mean for how life is lived. He discusses the extensively documented relationship between LOC and academic achievement, personal and social adjustment, health, and financial success. Dr. Nowicki notes that there has been an increasing tendency among Americans to feel as though their lives are slipping out of their control, and he identifies ways to reverse this negative trend. He describes how the Locus of Control is learned and demonstrates ways in which it can be changed to yield higher levels of achievement, success, personal satisfaction, and better interactions with others.

Current maternity policy advocates choice and control for women in maternity care, and promotes women as active childbirth consumers and decision-makers. However, evidence that women receive true choice within contemporary maternity services is lacking, and continued and pervasive barriers to choice continue to have profound consequences for many. Choice, Control and Contemporary Childbirth explores the narrative childbirth experiences of a group of women, outlining current policy and providing an overview of the relevant discourses to which women are exposed when making choices for maternity care. This book is unique in presenting narratives that reveal varying identities for women across their maternity exerience, illustrating how maternity choices are simulataneously promised and constrained. It provides practitioners, service providers and policymakers in maternity care, and all those with an interest in birth provision, with profound insights into both women's experiences of childbirth and how choices can be better facilitated in future. 'Maternal choice and control are a challenge in contemporary society, with the changing demography of the population, the rising birth rate and financial constraints. Collecting this diverse information in one publication is timely and an invaluable resource for the practising and academically active midwives, obstetricians and health service managers.' - From the Foreword by Tina Lavender

This book focuses the public debate on fundamental political problem by defining three approaches to arms control. The three approaches are (l) extend or modify the SALT II Treaty; (2) restructure the present or planned nuclear forces; and (3) establish overall equivalence.

This paper studies women’s empowerment in northern Mozambique as it relates to agriculture, considering in particular the factors that lead to women’s managing the plots that they nominally control. Women control about 30 percent of the plots in the data but manage only about 70 percent of those plots. Using a unique panel dataset, the study finds that women are more likely to manage plots when households have historically had access to off-farm labor, typically completed by men.

Whether we're buying a pair of jeans, ordering a cup of coffee, selecting a long-distance carrier, applying to college, choosing a doctor, or setting up a 401(k), everyday decisions—both big and small—have become increasingly complex due to the overwhelming abundance of choice with which we are presented. As Americans, we assume that more choice means better options and greater satisfaction. But beware of excessive choice: choice overload can make you question the decisions you make before you even make them, it can set you up for unrealistically high expectations, and it can make you blame yourself for any and all failures. In the long run, this can lead to decision-making paralysis, anxiety, and perpetual stress. And, in a culture that tells us that there is no excuse for falling short of perfection when your options are limitless, too much choice can lead to clinical depression. In The Paradox of Choice, Barry Schwartz explains at what point choice—the hallmark of individual freedom and self-determination that we so cherish—becomes detrimental to our psychological and emotional well-being. In accessible, engaging, and anecdotal prose, Schwartz shows how the dramatic explosion in choice—from the mundane to the profound challenges of balancing career, family, and individual needs—has paradoxically become a problem instead of a solution. Schwartz also shows how our obsession with choice encourages us to seek that which makes us feel worse. By synthesizing current research in the social sciences, Schwartz makes the counter intuitive case that eliminating choices can greatly reduce the stress, anxiety, and busyness of our lives. He offers eleven practical steps on how to limit choices to a manageable number, have the discipline to focus on those that are important and ignore the rest, and ultimately derive greater satisfaction from the choices you have to make.