Equal Opportunity Illusion

Inhaltsangabe:Abstract: This study tested the effects of individual variables (prejudice level) and situational factors (power instructions) on information seeking strategies, employee evaluation, estimation of likely success, and task assignment in an employer employee, ethnicity relevant experimental design, with subjects always assigned the role of employer and an ostensibly other person (a same gender black individual depicted in a photograph) assigned the role of employee. Subjects (N=60) were categorized into groups that varied on power (exclusive or inclusive leadership instruction) and prejudice (quartile split of MRS scores). Participants were asked to select a subset of questions and tasks from various lists for the ostensibly other subject to answer. Participants at a later point in the experiment rated selected questions and tasks. At the end of the experiment the participants were asked to give a final employee evaluation and estimation of likely success for a future project. Next to the attempt of replicating generally accepted and expected interrelations of power and prejudice with certain attention (information seeking) strategies and the use of stereotypes and their effect on evaluation and estimation, one of the main focuses of this study is on the effects of the above variables on behavior (final task assignment). Consistent with predictions participants with a low prejudice level assigned more valued tasks, focused more on strength of the employee and estimated greater employee success than did high prejudice participants. Also participants with inclusive leadership instructions assigned relatively more skill tests with supporting help and estimated greater employee success than participants with exclusive leadership instructions. Interaction - effects across the skills test- information seeking-, employee evaluation-, final task assignment-, and estimated success- variables showed that high prejudiced participants in the exclusive leadership style condition respond in stereotype consistent ways significantly more often than participants in the inclusive leadership condition and low prejudice participants. Zusammenfassung: Diese Studie untersuchte den Einfluss individueller (Vorurteilslevel) und situationaler Faktoren (induzierter Machtstatus) auf Strategien der Informationssuche, der Bewertung eines Bewerbers in einer Bewerbungssituation, der Einschätzung von Erfolgschancen, sowie der Aufgabenverteilung. Das [...]

Educational policy and discussion, in Britain and the USA, are increasingly dominated by the confused ideology of egalitarianism. David E. Cooper begins by identifying the principles hidden among the confusions, and argues that these necessarily conflict with the ideal of educational excellence - in which conflict it is this ideal that must be preserved. He goes on to criticize the use of education as a tool for promoting wider social equality, focussing especially on the muddles surrounding 'equal opportunities', 'social mix' and 'reverse discrimination'. Further chapters criticize the 'new egalitarianism' favoured, on epistemological grounds, by various sociologists of knowledge in recent years and 'cultural egalitarianism' according to which standard criteria of educational value merely reflect parochial and economic interests.

Critical analysis of educational opportunity and its relationship to equal opportunity in the USA, with particular reference to access to higher education - examines historical trends in educational development, social mobility, social status inflation, income distribution, etc., and covers social problems relating to poverty, social structure, discrimination, urban area decay, social conflict and the need for social reform. Bibliography pp. 160 to 166 and references.

Employees expect organizations to offer an equitable distribution of rewards in promotion, compensation, and job challenge to those who work hard. According to Sonia Ospina, the realities of the workplace confound that expectation, since organizational practices oflabelling and ranking individuals create inequality. For this reason, Ospina suggests that an appreciation of how employees experience and resolve the contradiction between expectation and reality is prerequisite to understanding work attitudes in contemporary organizations. Illusions of Opportunity documents the pervasiveness of this contradiction by focusing on three groups of workers within a large public organization in a major city. Exploring individual and collective attempts to make sense of reward distribution, Ospina found that each group endorsed a different definition of merit. The definitions represented an attempt on the part of each group to justify the claims of its own members to being organizational citizen who deserved recognition. Drawing on the research traditions of organizational stratification, the social psychology of justice, and organizational behavior, Ospina operates within a conceptual framework that links objective opportunity structures to employees' subjective perceptions of justice. Through this merger of the structural and the subjective, she provides new insights into the social basis of work attitudes.

In The Equality Illusion, 'the most influential young feminist in the country' ( Guardian) and UK Feminista founder Kat Banyard argues passionately and articulately that feminism continues to be one of the most urgent and relevant social justice campaigns today. Women have made huge strides in equality over the last century. And yet: Women working full-time in the UK are paid on average 17% less an hour than men 1 in 3 women worldwide has been beaten, coerced into sex, or otherwise abused because of her gender Of parliamentary seats across the globe only 15% are held by women and fewer than 20% of UK MPs are women 96% of executive directors of the UK's top hundred companies are men Structuring the book around a normal day, Banyard sets out the major issues for twenty-first century feminism, from work and education to sex, relationships and having children. She draws on her own campaigning experience as well as academic research and dozens of her own interviews. The book also includes information on how to get involved in grassroots action.

First Published in 1995. As feminists reflect on the impact of the 'second wave' of feminism, and assess the gains of the last thirty years, invariably they have questioned whether claims that women have achieved equality are justified. In the late 1980s, there was a proliferation of popular imagery of 'new' men and 'post-feminist' women, with the concept of 'post-feminism' reinforcing and emphasizing the differences between independent, upwardly-mobile, career orientated women, and those women who 'choose' the more 'natural' role of wife and mother. The Illusions of'Post-Feminism':New Women, Old Myths maintains that 'post-feminism' is a myth. Through in-depth interviews with women about four major areas of their lives: education, work, the media and the family, the authors challenge and expose the myths implicit in the concept of 'post-feminism'. The research illustrates that women's discontent continues, despite the assumption that gender equality would result from equal opportunities legislation. The chapters highlight the ineffective nature of liberal reformism and demonstrate how power relations still lie at the root of the oppression of women. With its provoking and challenging analysis, this revealing book breaks the silence of women's real experiences by showing the actuality of women's lives today.