THE ROARING SILENCE: FEMINIST REVISIONS IN THE EDUCATIONAL POLICY LITERATURE

Absent from assessments of feminism's influence on the academy and the disciplines is an evaluation of the impact of feminist thought on policy research. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate feminist scholarship's presence in the core policy and higher education journals. The first section of the paper explains why it is important to consider the influence of feminism on the policy literature. This is followed by a discussion of what is meant by feminism in the context of this paper. The third section presents the methodology used in evaluating the literature. The paper concludes with a discussion of the findings and implications     

FAMILY POLICY IN THE STATE LEGISLATURE: THE CONNECTICUT AGENDA

In 1987 the Connecticut General Assembly made the first attempt in the nation's history to pass a comprehensive family policy. A total of 16 of 26 proposed bills were approved at a total cost of nearly $35 million. Included in the package was aparental and medical leave bill for state employees, a pilot program for displaced homemakers, and a bill to improve access to child day care. This study emphasizes the importance of strong party leadership, the need for comprehensive proposals that appeal to a variety of constituencies, and the importance of the right political and economic timing in enacting family-oriented legislation.     

REVIEW ARTICLE: MILITARY SPACE POLICY: DEBATING THE FUTURE

Colonel Bruce M. DeBlois, USAF (ed), Beyond the Paths of Heaven: The Emergence of Space Power Thought (Maxwell AFB, AL: Air University Press, 1999). Benjamin S. Lambeth, Mastering the Ultimate High Ground: Next Steps in the Military Uses of Space (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2003). Major M.V. Smith, USAF, Ten Propositions Regarding Spacepower (Maxwell AFB, AL: Air University Press, 2002). Brigadier General Simon P. Worden, USAF and Major John E. Shaw, USAF, Whither Space Power? Forging a Strategy for the New Century (Maxwell AFB, AL: Air University Press, 2002).     

FEDERAL EMPLOYMENT AND TRAINING POLICY: A VIEW FROM THE LOCAL LEVEL OF GOVERNMENT

To maximize the use of human capital, employment and training resources need to be redirected to meet four objectives: (1) reduce welfare dependency by helping people gain skills for self-sufficiency, (2) prepare a new workforce through better education of youth, (3) retrain dislocated workers, and (4) develop an employment system that links workers and jobs through the coordination of institutions. Suggestions for federal, state, and local initiatives to meet these objectives are spelled out. Particular emphasis is placed upon both a significant revitalization of the federal role in employment and training and a reassessment of traditional approaches.     

MEDICAL ANTHROPOLOGY HEALTH POLICY AND THE STATE: A CASE STUDY OF SUDAN

Medical anthropologists have frequently limited themselves to studying cultural factors in illness, curing or resistance to the acceptance of modern Western medical services. This prevailing "socioculturalist" approach has serious analytical shortcomings resulting from underestimating the importance of the social formations in which cultural factors occur. Consequently, the policy recommendations produced in medical anthropology are often crippled by theoretical limitations. It is argued that the historically specific constellation of social relations governing production and the appropriation and distribution of the economic surplus-commonly embodied in the functions of the state-have profound effects on the pattern of health and illness as well as on the availability of health services. In underdeveloped countries an analysis of the role of the state in health is especially important, since the organs of state power play a stronger role in health care than in countries with well developed markets for medical services.
In the case of Sudan, the interests of the state in colonial and postindependence periods required a development strategy involving large-scale irrigated agriculture utilizing seasonal migrant labor. The labor and health policies aimed at economic productivity and political stability are analyzed here in relation to the adverse health effects and serious maldistribution of health services which resulted.     

B: THE NORMATIVE/IDEOLOGICAL CONTEXT OF POLICY FORMATION FAMILY POLICY: HAS THE UNITED STATES LEARNED FROM EUROPE?

"Family Policy" is a term that is used increasingly in the U.S. to describe policies affecting children and their families. In this article, the authors focus on whether societal learning has occurred across the Atlantic with regard to family policy and what, if anything, the U.S. has learned or borrowed from Europe. The authors conclude that there has been some borrowing, albeit modest; currently, some of that learning is reflected in an expanding child policy debate.     

UNEMPLOYMENT POLICY: A CASE STUDY IN AGENDA MANAGEMENT

Abstract: Agenda management is a process in which governments attempt to prevent policy issues from emerging, to influence the public perception of issues and to shape or delete issues on the current agenda of policy making. Numerous techniques are available and governments may often resort to them for political purposes. Unemployment policy from 1976–82 provides a case study for assessing the significance of agenda management in the policy process. The many initiatives and announcements of the government and their presentation in the media are described. It is concluded that the government often appeared to employ agenda management techniques such as tokenism, symbolic reassurance, postponement and the selective presentation of social indicators. It is noted that the government's handling of the issue followed an annual cycle, superimposed on which was an electoral cycle. Its attempts to influence public perceptions of the issue had direct links with the nature of policy outputs.     

IDEOLOGY AND POLICY RESEARCH: THE CASE OF MURRAY'S LOSING GROUND

Ideology and policy research are intertwined in many ways; an example is Murray's Losing Ground which uses “science” to justify racial, sexual, and class discrimination. Murray is utterly faithful to the neoconservative version of how liberalism went wrong in the 1960s. He says an intellectual elite shifted the blame for poverty, crime and low achievement to “the system” destroying individual responsibility. But his argument is not supported by evidence. Data are bent tofit foregone conclusions. He argues that more people are becoming dependent on government support, but his method of counting who receives assistance is a fiction. Nevertheless his argument has wide appeal among Americans. Why? His argument touches the self-interested Social Darwinist in almost all of us.