Greater Urgency Research Articles

Personal narratives/political lives: personal reflection as a tool for collective change

Community development is committed to a more just, equitable and sustainable world. This vision is driven by a greater urgency as we face the crises of our times. The practice of a more just society starts in the personal everyday experiences that shape people’s lives. Creating reflective learning contexts which connect deeply personal experiences with profoundly political consequences leads to the critical consciousness needed for collective action for social change. It is this dynamic, personal narratives—and in particular the role of story in the process of action for change—on which I concentrate here.

Mathematical theory of dimensioning and parameterising product geometry

The classic art of dimensioning a drawing and the modern art of parameterising a product geometric model in a computer aided system have a lot in common. As industry moved into the information age, this commonality became apparent and the need to find a unified mathematical theory assumed greater urgency. This paper presents the results of nearly two decades of work towards such a theory. It is based exclusively on congruence theorems, some of which are known since the days of Euclid and others which were proved only recently. These results are being incorporated into national and international standards that deal with product lifecycle management.

Democracy without Civil Society?

The Weakness of Civil Society in Post-Communist Europe. By Marc Morje Howard. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. 220 pp., $60.00 cloth: (ISBN: 0-521-81223-2), $24.00 paper: (ISBN: 0-521-01152-3). To better understand the foundations of democracy has been a goal of perennial interest to political scientists. It is a question, however, that assumes even greater urgency at times when the construction of democracy is high on the international agenda—such as after the Second World War, after the collapse of the Communist regimes in Europe, and after recent interventions in the Middle East. It is also a topic that allows more introspective political observers to reflect about the quality of democracy in their own countries. Nowhere is this more the case than in the United States, a country in which democracy has become the core political value. These considerations form the background to Marc Morje Howard's highly readable book: The Weakness of Civil Society in Post-Communist Europe . In it, Howard investigates the foundations of democracy in post-Communist Europe, but he approaches that case with a toolkit of arguments from a wide range of other empirical and theoretical contexts. As such the book makes both a narrow and a broad contribution to the field, and even though it will be of primary interest to students of post-Communism, it also has much to offer theorists of democracy—especially those scholars with an interest in the concepts of civil society and social capital. Howard's argument consists of three main theses: (1) that among the foundations of successful democratic government, civil society is crucial; (2) that civil society is as yet weakly developed in post-Communist Europe and has, if anything, become weaker during the post-Communist period; and (3) that this weakness is explained largely by the Communist experience itself, which produced distinctive behavioral patterns and dispositions common to the …

Worship and Wilderness: Culture, Religion, and Law in the Management of Public Lands and Resources

Questions about land use, conservation, and preservation already so perplexing and contentious take on a new complexity and greater urgency when the land in question is understood as sacred. This is a view increasingly held, as adherents of mainstream religions come to recognize what indigenous peoples knew centuries ago that the sacred inheres in nature itself. What such a trend means and how it involves the forces of culture, religion, and constitutional law (especially First Amendment clauses concerning the free exercise of religion) are considered with a remarkable breadth and depth of understanding in this important new work. Drawing on case studies of national parks and monuments, national forests, and other public lands and resources, Lloyd Burton gives a clear and comprehensive account of how the intertwining influences of culture, religion, and law have affected the management of public lands and resources in the recent past and how they may do so in the future. In a unique and unprecedented way, his book weaves together teachings on nature and the sacred among indigenous and immigrant culture groups in the United States; the relevant constitutional history of religion and government action; and analysis of contemporary conflicts over culture, religion, and public lands management. As such, Worship and Wilderness is essential reading not only for public land managers and environmental policy makers but also for anyone interested in the growing significance of religious interests in the use of resources that constitute our national commons and our common natural heritage.

How to market titanium: Lower the cost

Titanium continues to be referred to as the “wonder metal,” with an image as untarnished as the metal itself; however, cost remains the barrier to greatly expanded use. Titanium is used when it is the only material that will do the job. For example, approximately 45% of the Advanced Tactical Fighter F-22 Raptor is constructed from titanium. It’s also the most effi cient material for construction of other items such as golf club heads. However, with its bright and positive image, titanium also sees use in higherquality consumable items such as watches, bicycles, jewelry, hammers, and knives (Figure 1). State-of-the-art titanium science, technology, and applications were showcased at the Tenth International Titanium Conference in Hamburg, Germany, 13–18 July 2003. Skillfully chaired by Gerd Lutjering, the conference outdid all previous conferences in this series with more than 730 attendees and in excess of 450 papers. All of the major titanium-producing countries were represented at the conference—United States, Commonwealth of Independent States, Japan, United Kingdom, France, China, and Germany. An interesting development here was the high quality of the presentation aids used by all participants—quite a contrast from the hand-drawn slides used by representatives from China and the Commonwealth of Independent States in the past. It was also apparent that the participants from these countries were cognizant of what it takes to market titanium to the West—quality, consistency, strategic alliances—oh, and cost. The cost theme permeated the conference, both in the formal papers and in hallway discussions. Aerospace was no exception here, with the big commercial guys such as Boeing and AirBus turning to titanium castings to reduce cost and in the military arena, U.S. Air Force programs such as the Metals Affordability Initiative and Forging Supplier Initiative aiming at cost-affordability. The high cost of titanium compared to metals such as steel and aluminum comes from the high extraction and processing/fabrication costs for the wonder metal. Papers at the conference addressed both areas of concern. For example, new extraction processes have benefi ted from the infl ux of multimillions of dollars from the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency for techniques such as the Fray-FarthingChen reverse electrolysis approach. In processing, single-melt methods were discussed as well as near-net-shape processes including casting, powder metallurgy (P/M), precision forging, and extrusions. Following the pioneering work by T. Saito in incorporating titanium P/M valves into the Toyota Altezza family automobile fi ve years ago, work in this area appears to be expanding with a greater urgency in Japan and Europe (where gasoline is 3–3.5 times the price it is in the United States). For an update on what’s new in titanium, read the articles featured in this issue of JOM. You’ll note that the papers range from research work on titanium components to dental use of titanium. The articles on titanium in the family automobile and powder metallurgy titanium review the cost issue.

Nature and Artifice in Max Ophuls' Cinema

VINCENT AMIEL Nature and Artifice in Max Ophuls' Cinema In the films of Max Ophuls there are endless staircases which organize both the lives of householders and the movements of worldly soirées; there are women who fall from on high, through windows, into the void . . . and there are carriages that glide along in the countryside, cartloads of flowers, sleds in the snow. . . . If staircases come from the theater, more precisely from the recommendations of Alexandre Tairov regarding the necessary elements of staging—recommendations that Ophuls saw fit to follow in his spectacles beginning in the 1920s—sleds and carriages represent a new encounter , specific to the cinematic medium. This is an encounter between an ancient dramatic apparatus, which the director knows and masters, which organizes his writing—that of movement as a trope for life—and a much more ambiguous device, in which the camera takes living nature itself into account. The snow of Austrian countrysides (Liebelei), the beaches of the Adriatic, of the English Channel, or the Pacific (in Madame de . . ., Le Pfoisir, The Reckless Moment), German wheatfields or the rapeseed of Normandy are just such natural realities taken into account—one may well ask how and at what point—by Ophuls' cinema, by his taste for artifice and by his will to compose. What role are they playing, these "already-present" forms, these realities seized before becoming tropes? How do they impose themselves as an autonomous pattern in the tight weave of Ophuls' compositions? Briefly, what is nature doing in Ophuls' world? What is it doing in the world of a man whose formative medium is theatrical artifice (in which "the truth of life becomes the lie of art," to cite an expression Arizona Quarterly Volume 60, Number 5, Special Issue 2004 Copyright © 2004 by Arizona Board of Regents ISSN 0004-1610 ISO Vincent Amiel attributed to Tairov, whom, as Annenkov and Asper have both noted, Ophuls greatly admired), and whose last films were applauded by the same people who praised neo-realism so highly? The question has even greater urgency insofar as it brings into play the relationship and the reciprocal transformation accomplished between writing and object. I propose, first of all, that we consider the different levels upon which the "natural" intervenes in Ophuls' films, and to analyze its identity , system and functions. The natural intervenes first on the level of what might be called the "motif," such as the beach or the field of flowers about which we spoke above. But also the horse that is running across the field—and the image field—at the end of Werther. Beyond the fact of the screen presence of all these animals, whose constant appearance Susan White once noted in conversation (dogs, birds, horses, ducks), is their way of reintroducing a different kind of nature, an instinctive reaction, into the social framework. But if we are discussing birds in cages (which are also numerous), we must also discuss potted plants, as well as the elements of the natural which are barely evoked: "Let's take a walk; it's a beautiful night," is repeated exhaustively by the bourgeois in "La Maison TeIlier "; and the ringmaster in hola Montes who presents Lola as a "wild beast a hundred times more dangerous than the ones in our menagerie." This beast, this night, are mere allusions, the traces of a distant, hypothetical —even ironic—nature. But nature will stake its claim: "The night is beautiful" will lead the distinguished citizens of the town towards the sea, and the dangerous beast will end up in a cage. Representations will follow the full logic of their being. This is why the issue is not so much whether Ophuls films "real" nature , or if he reconstructs it on a set; what counts is the perception he gives of it. What counts is that he feels the need, at a given moment, to make use of the illusion of a natural space, and not only of the signifier of a reality known elsewhere. And when Ophuls wants us to know that the nature he represents is false, he lets us know it, as we shall see below. The second level is that of...

Not with Our Tears

He loved to tease me. He knew my heart was pure, but he was amused by the excesses of reason to which I was often drawn. Burke aspired to a workable government. Quixote-like, I wanted something more perfect—a heaven on earth. Burke understood the foolishness of this dream but always tempered his reserve with kindness and made light of our differences. In the summer of 1963, between my first and second years of law school, I worked at the firm of Covington & Burling in Washington. The work was dreadful. I spent my days scanning invoices for “corn syrup unmixed” to see if I could detect a violation of the Robinson-Patman Act. It was very hard for me to keep going, but soon I noticed that all the earlier memoranda in the file had been initialed by Burke, who, having left the firm in 1960 to become the Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Civil Rights Division, was then at the center of the public life of the nation. So I managed to convince myself to persist, because corn syrup unmixed and all that it implied seemed indispensable training for public lawyers. The March on Washington took place in August 1963. I had returned to Harvard shortly before to complete my legal studies, but soon, as the civil rights cause took on greater urgency, I found myself uneasy with the career plans I had formulated. History was being made and I wanted to be a part of it. In early November 1963—after the bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, and only weeks before the assassination of President Kennedy—I flew from Boston to Washington with the wild idea of presenting myself to Burke Marshall for a job. I went straight to Burke’s office, and asked the secretary guarding his office if he was available. She asked who I was, I explained, and then she said, looking down to the floor to avoid the obvious awkwardness of the situation, that he was not in at the moment. She referred me to his Second Assistant, St. John Barrett, who was kind enough to give me a job application. I filled it out, and went home. For the next three years, I marked time. I completed my last year at Harvard, clerked, and then in September 1966 began work in earnest at the

Social work research on disasters in the aftermath of the September 11 tragedy: Reflections from New York City

Commentators emphasize how our world changed on 9/11. Yet it's really our knowledge of the world, our sense of the world, not the world itself that changed on that tragic day. --Nancy Hooyman Whether the rest of the world changed on September 11, 2001, is certainly arguable, but there is no doubt that social work research in New York City (NYC) and beyond changed. It is difficult to imagine otherwise given the enormity of events--the first large-scale terrorist attack on U.S. soil resulting in the loss of thousands of lives in NYC, at the Pentagon, and in a plane crash in Pennsylvania. Shortly after September 11, anthrax poisoning through the U.S. mail left most Americans--especially those living on the East Coast--feeling serially vulnerable. Research from a variety of disciplines provides us with a framework for understanding and reacting to such a disaster. Since September 11, we have turned to experts on the Islamic world to understand the roots of grievances against the West (Reich, 1990), and we impatiently await medical and public health findings on how to respond to bioterrorism. And when it comes to the psychosocial needs of disaster survivors, the role of social work research--and the social and behavioral sciences in general--is critical. This article has three interrelated goals: (1) to briefly portray the impact of the September 11 disaster on social work research in NYC and summarize what lessons can be learned from the experience; (2) to describe what is known from earlier research on community disasters and how this knowledge was used in the organizational response to the September 11 disaster; and (3) to offer suggestions for future research informed by the cumulative evidence from disaster research and the experience of September 11. The first goal addresses the how--the logistical aspects--of conducting research and the second and third goals address what is known and what needs to be known. This report, coming from close to Ground Zero, cannot fully represent the diverse thoughts and experiences of social work researchers in NYC (much less those residing in other parts of the country or the world). I hope it will stimulate further discussion about what types of interventions and support are best suited to the needs that inevitably arise after a disaster and how research is vital to our understanding of these needs and their amelioration. Although many of the topics discussed here predate September 11, the scope of its tragic impact has compelled many in the helping professions to rethink their research agendas with greater urgency. Social work--a profession that was vitally involved in responding to the devastating crisis of September 11--is no exception. A BRIEF PORTRAIT OF THE IMPACT OF THE SEPTEMBER 11 DISASTER ON SOCIAL WORK RESEARCH: THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK CITY The terrifying but riveting spectacle unfolded on the world's television screens--the Twin Towers collapsing as we watched, knowing that thousands were perishing before our eyes. For New Yorkers--especially those in downtown Manhattan and western Brooklyn--the horror took place in real time and with immediate consequences. Telephone service was disrupted for days or weeks and subways and mass transit ground to a halt, forcing thousands of commuters to trek for miles across bridges closed to all traffic. In the days after September 11, Manhattan below 14th Street looked like a post-nuclear attack scenario--empty streets populated by dazed pedestrians wandering, sirens wailing, and acrid smoke drifting. Even after the frozen zones were lifted, feelings of vulnerability and fear of new attacks reduced many of us to a subsistence level of activity with one noteworthy exception: a powerful urge to help others who were more seriously affected. For schools of social work, this meant canceling classes and helping students whose field placements were scheduled to begin the week of September 11. …

Constitutionalizing Democratic Politics

Among most significant, but least appreciated, developments in Supreme Court decisionmaking over last generation has been what this Article calls the constitutionalization of democracy. In recent years, powerful litigants - major political parties, incumbent officeholders, candidates for Presidency - have increasingly turned to courts to subject fundamental structure of democratic processes and institutions to constitutional constraint. To a degree that would have been inconceivable even 20 years ago, and that has no parallel in any constitutional system outside United States, these efforts have largely succeeded. This Article first documents factors that have led to more frequent challenges to existing structures of democracy in United States; these challenges can be seen in renaissance of voter initiative, rise of third party politics, and increasing disaffection of more citizens from traditional forms of politics. The Article then describes how constitutional law has responded to these challenges. The Article builds towards a framework for defining circumstances in which constitutional oversight of democratic politics is best justified, and when such oversight is least justified. The Article thus seeks to defining appropriate boundary between constitutional law and democratic politics, and to identify why need for theoretical clarity about this question is taking on greater urgency as pressure increases to constitutionlize more features of democratic politics.

Diasporas and Technology Transfer

(2001). Diasporas and Technology Transfer. Journal of Human Development: Vol. 2, No. 2, pp. 265-286.

With Resurgence in Use of Herbal Remedies, Unanswered Questions Take on Greater Urgency

With Resurgence in Use of Herbal Remedies, Unanswered Questions Take on Greater Urgency

Validez del cuestionario King’s Health para la evaluación de la calidad de vida en pacientes con incontinencia urinaria

To assess the validity of the Spanish version of the King's Health Questionnaire (KHQ) for measuring the quality of life of women with different types of urinary incontinence. 77 women with urinary stress incontinence (USI), 51 with urge incontinence (UUI) and 34 with mixed urinary incontinence (MUI) were consecutively recruited. Subjects were diagnosed using urodynamic tests. Patients completed the KHQ and SF-36 questionnaires on inclusion in the study, after 15 days, and again after one month. There were no significant differences in socio-demographic and QOL characteristics between different UI groups. UUI and MUI patients had greater urinary frequency and urge than USI patients, and USI and MUI patients had a greater number of leakage episodes than UUI patients. Correlations between dimensions on the KHQ and the SF-36 were moderate to strong. Women with greater urinary frequency, greater urgency, more incontinence episodes during the week and who used pads and nappies perceived a worse quality of life. Changes in these variables correlated with changes in HRQOL. The internal consistency of dimensions was good (0.65-0.92) as was test-retest reliability (0.68-0.88). Dimensions most sensitive to change after one month of treatment were impact of UI, seriousness of UI, and the symptoms scale (effect size greater than 0.6). The KHQ is a valid instrument for measuring the quality of life of patients with different types of UI. Improvements in urinary frequency, urinary urgency, number of leakage episodes, and changes in the type of protective material produces an increase in HRQOL.

Transplanting the Holy Land: Diggers, Fifth Monarchists, and the New Israel

For some Christians in all ages, the biblical Holy Land has possessed far more than historical significance. It has also provided an ideal, a vision, and even a model of the future, a godly society that might be established in some other time and place. This paper looks at England in a period when these aspirations held greater urgency and plausibility than at any other - the English Revolution. It focuses on two strands within that Revolution, the Diggers and Fifth Monarchists, both inspired by the vision of the Holy Land, but in dramatically different ways. Or so it would seem. The two groups are rarely considered together, yet it is possible by doing so to identify unexpected elements of commonality as well as difference.

‘Racist Crime’: Racially Aggravated Offences in the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 Part II

The introduction of racially aggravated offences in Part II of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 (the Act) represents a major shift in the state response to violence and harassment of minorities in the United Kingdom (UK).1 It comes at a time when 'racial violence' is increasingly recognised as a persistent social problem. High profile incidents such as the Stephen Lawrence enquiry have ensured that the debate about the relationship between racial violence, crime and law enforcement agencies in the United Kingdom has taken on greater urgency.2 Previous governments resisted pressure to introduce a specific criminal offence of racial violence and harassment. In 1994, the Home Secretary, Michael Howard summarised this approach in setting out the Government's objection to the Home Affairs Committee's call to introduce such an offence in its report on Racial Attacks and Harrassment: 'All violent crimes, regardless of motivation, can already be dealt with properly under existing legislation'.3 In a sharp contrast to this approach, the Labour Party election manifesto stated that 'Britain is a multiracial and multicultural society. All of its members must have the protection of the law. We will create a new offence of racial harassment and a new crime of

Jewish Philosophers and Jewish Philosophy (review)

General Book Reviews 163 The volume concludes with a supplementary chapterevaluating the presentation of Jews and Judaism in the new Catholic Catechism. While Cunningham finds many of the post-Vatican II dimensions ofthe Catholic-Jewish dialogue incorporated in the text, it falls into stereotypical presentations of Jews and Judaism far too often, particularly in sections not explicitly directed towards the Catholic-Jewish relationship. Many ofthe key post-Vatican II official statements on Catholic-Jewish relations are almost never referenced in the Catechism. At the end of the book are found several pages of definitions of terms and categories. Also included is a comprehensive bibliography of important publications on various aspects of the Christian-Jewish relationship. Education for Shalom is a very useful volume. It is well researched and clearly written. It will prove especially useful for people in education whether teachers or educational researchers. But general audiences can also gain considerable insight from it. It is a book not to be missed by anyone interested in the state of the contemporary Catholic-Jewish relationship. John T. Pawlikowski, OSM, Ph.D. Catholic Theological Union, Chicago Jewish Philosophers and Jewish Philosophy, by Emil L. Fackenheim, edited by Michael L. Morgan. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1996. 226 pp. $39.95. What makes a Jewish philosophical statement "Jewish" and what make it "philosophical "? What is the relation between Jewish philosophy and general philosophy? And more particularly, what is the relation between Jewish philosophy and Judaism itself, Jewish life and Jewish history? This complex of questions has been at the heart of Emil Fackenheim's agenda as a Jewish philosopher for decades. They pervade his Encounters Between Judaism and Modern Philosophy (1973) and To Mend the World (1982). This new anthology of Fackenheim papers, originally published between the late forties and the early nineties, pursues this inquiry. The anthology contains a total of 18 papers. Part I includes eight papers on "Jewish Philosophers" dealing with the thought of thinkers from Maimonides, AI-Farabi, and Ibn Sina to Samuel Hirsch (and his relation to Hegel), Hermann Cohen, Martin Buber, Franz Rosenzweig, Leo Strauss, and Pinchas Peli. Part II includes four papers on "The Holocaust and Jewish Philosophy," and Part III, six papers on "Jewish Philosophy," concluding with Fackenheim's "Retrospective of My Thought." There are simply very few thinkers among us today who have both the range and the expertise to handle this set of thinkers and issues. 164 SHOFAR Springl999 Vol. 17, No.3 Professor Michael L. Morgan, the most lucid expositor of Fackenheim's thinking, provides an Introduction both to the volume as a whole and to each of its three parts, all ofwhich are models of what introductions of this kind should accomplish. Morgan locates each paper in its historical context and in the context of Fackenheim's thought as a whole, provides a brief synopsis of the content of each paper, and pinpoints its unique contribution to the broader range of issues under consideration. Much ofthe material in Part I ofthe collection demands a degree ofphilosophical sophistication. The most illuminating papers here are those on Samuel Hirsch and Hermann Cohen, and not simply because these two thinkers are rarely taught by contemporary teachers of Jewish philosophy. Fackenheim's accomplishment here is to reflect on what is of enduring interest and value in their writings. The two papers on Buber are a masterful review ofthe essential contributions of a thinker who more than any other has shaped Fackenheim's own thought. The paper on Peli will charm those of us who knew him; it also indicates unsuspected depths in his thought. The papers in the two final parts of the volume are much more accessible to the general reader. Fackenheim has spent decades reflecting on the meaning of the Holocaust, and this selection draws on his previously published material. Finally, the more interesting of the papers in Part III focus on the philosophical implications of the creation of the State of Israel. There is both a greater urgency and a more fragmented quality to Fackenheim's writing here, partly because since 1983 he has been an Israeli citizen and is personally involved in the destiny of the State, and partly because the issues...

Development needs of middle managers: the views of senior managers

A questionnaire survey of the role of the Professional Development Coordinator within one Local Education Authority's high schools and middle schools revealed widespread concerns about the professional development needs of school middle managers. This paper sets out the needs identified and argues that in addition to training needs concerned with managing the department or faculty (which have long been recognised but which are still not being addressed satisfactorily) training needs relating to the middle manger's contribution to whole-school planning and development are increasing rapidly. As the role of the middle manager is becoming more complex, the need to ensure that such managers possess the knowledge and skills to perform effectively takes on an even greater urgency. The Teacher Training Agency's initiative on 'A National Professional Qualification for Subject Leaders' hold out hope that these needs will at last begin to be addressed

On the front lines of welfare delivery: Are workers implementing policy reforms?

The impact of policy changes on the local delivery of services has been overlooked in several decades of largely unsuccessful efforts to “reform” welfare. This article uses one case of state-level welfare reform in the early 1990s to examine the implementation of policy changes in local welfare offices. Direct observation of transactions between welfare workers and clients suggests that policy reforms were not fully implemented by street-level bureaucrats. The instrumental transactions that continued to dominate interactions with clients were consistent with processing claims and rationing scarce resources, but they were poorly aligned with new policies aimed at changing the services and message delivered to welfare clients. The failure to fully implement reforms on the frontlines has implications for the achievement of policy objectives and for equity in service provision. Implementation issues will have even greater urgency as welfare is devolved from federal to state governments.

Media literacy in the information age: current perspectives

At the dawn of the twenty-first century, education about and through the media has become a worldwide phenomenon, and is playing an increasingly important role in educational reform. The theory and practice of media education have profited greatly from recent and intensive development and application of new information and telecommunications technologies. Consequently, the importance of media and information literacy is taking on an even greater urgency. With this in mind, the contributors to this volume survey what has taken place over the last decade in different parts of the world, examine the current state of theoretical, conceptual, and research development, and consider where media education is going and where it ought to go. With two-thirds of its 22 contributions coming from outside the United States, Media Literacy in the Information Age is a genuine international effort, with many leading media and information educators in the world taking part. The work converts the notion of globalism from a slogan into a working hypothesis. The concerns in this volume are with literacy not just in computer technology, but as a broad concern of the educational process.

Professional Empowerment and Teaching Sociology to Health Care Professionals

The teaching of the social and behavioral sciences as disciplines within the education and training of health care professionals is a relatively new phenomenon in the United Kingdom. The push for their inclusion in medical, nursing, midwifery and radiography curricula is a consequence of major changes in the system and service of health care in Britain, which lent a greater urgency to the professionalization of these occupations. This, in turn, called for professional and educational validating bodies to fundamentally reorganize courses, to raise their academic level, and to encourage widespread research into learning styles, continuing professional development, and alternative educational delivery modes such as open and distance learning. In teaching sociology across a range of newly developed health care courses we have had to consider the dynamics of United Kingdom health care education that prompted their development. This paper is based on our experiences in designing, implementing, and evaluating such courses.

Political and Social Dimensions of Economic Growth

The definition of what precisely we mean by poverty is controversial. Yet empirical evidence establishes firmly that both the gap between the richest and the poorest countries in the world has been widening (as measured in terms of per capita GDP) since 1960, and that since independence a number of the very poorest countries in the world have experienced negative growth in per capita GDP. Regardless of whether one is concerned with relative or absolute conceptions of poverty, therefore, it is difficult to argue that poverty has not become a problem of greater urgency. Redistributive policies are one response. But for significant areas of the world any long term redress of poverty will also have to allow the size of the pie to be shared to increase, and has thus to encompass economic growth as a necessary though not a sufficient condition.1 The development of growth theory and its revival in the 1980s and 1990s has added much to both our theoretical and empirical understanding of economic growth. The consequence is that some necessary preconditions for economic growth appear to be well established. On the other hand our understanding as yet falls short of the ideal of being able to specify sufficient conditions for the realisation of economic growth. The discussion in the present paper will point to some limitations which attach to 'simple' or core models of growth, and briefly outline, as non-technically as possible, the directions in which the newer growth theory has led. The increasingly wide-ranging search for additional determinants of growth has led to an increased preoccupation with the wider institutional contexts - political and social - within which growth occurs, and it is this which will form the central focus of the present paper. While the institutional determinants of growth appear with increasing frequency in the empirical literature on economic growth, there does not yet appear to exist a synthetic and comparative assessment of the various contributions which have thus far been made. The purpose of the present discussion will be to place the contributions which have thus far appeared in a coherent context, to