Social Work Commons^™

Relief Vs. Rehabilitation: Conflicting Goals Within The American Social Welfare System, Matthew Silberman

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

There are two distinct orientations within the American social welfare system. The first orientation is a bureaucratic one in which heteronomous agencies are committed to a set of externally imposed regulations designed to provide relief to individuals who require some form of assistance in order to survive (Blau, 1965; Friedlander, 1968: 258-284; Wilensky and Lebeaux, 1965:233-282). Assistance usually takes the form of monetary grants. The second orientation is professional in character (Meyer, 1959). In many agencies, priority is given to the provision of the rehabilitative services to which professionally trained social workers are committed in principle and to which nonprofessionals, …

The Impact Of Directly Mailed Family Planning Materials To Afdc Welfare Mothers, Paul J. Placek

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Excerpt from the full-text article:

Communications research has repeatedly documented the fact that people are affected by the various forms of mass media, and so family planning programs have begun to use television (Hutchinson, 1970), radio, movies, posters, telephones (Dabbs and Neiger, 1970), newspapers, and various combinations of these media (Clark and Morris, 1972; Chase, 1972; Balakrishnan, 1967; Takeshita, 1966; Cernada and Lu, 1972) in transmitting the message of family planning. Our present media focus, however, involves direct mailing, which in contrast to other media, often has the advantages of being sent by an authoritative or prestigious source, is relatively …

Pandora's Box: The Liberation Of Welfare Mothers, Bonnie Morel Edington

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Excerpt from the full-text article:

The non-"misandrist" mainstream of the women's movement has suggested that, more than women being liberated from male oppression, both sexes need to be liberated from the tyranny of culturally determined sex roles, the last bastion of ascribed status. If all social roles were androgynous they could be based on more relevant criteria. For example, children would be encouraged to develop skills and talents without regard for their "appropriateness" to gender, the male-female ratio in the work force and in nearly all specific occupations would be virtually equal, pay would be equal, and the number of …

Ethnicity, Professionalism, And Black Paternalism: Implications For Social Welfare Services, Robert S. Bartlett

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Excerpt from the full-text article:

The assumption around the use of nonprofessionals as members of the agency team suggest that the "bridge" function is enhanced when the new worker and the client-system are similar in such factors as ethnicity, class, cultural background, religion, and so on. Data from a 1968 survey tested Grosser's hypothesis: "that staff similarity with the client in ethnicity...will result in greater accuracy regarding the client and his community (1966:60)". Grosser's hypothesis was tested at a black staffed community action agency, serving a black ghetto in a large metropolitan city in the northeastern section of the United …

Perspective On Youthful Deviance: Implications For Social Policies, Albert S. Alissi

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Excerpt from the full-text article:

The way a society deals with its younger deviants reflects the place assigned to youth in hat society. In his famous study of European family life, Phillippe Aries pointed out that for centuries children shared the same status as adults and were mixed with adults as soon as they were weaned from their mothers at about the age of seven. And so it was possible that in England in 1801, a child of thirteen was hanged for stealing a spoon. A girl of seven was publicly hanged in 1808 and a boy of nine was …

Representatives In Government - A Role For Social Planning Councils , Alan Cohen

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Excerpt from the full-text article:

I have referred to a key problem of how to make individual and group concerns known to the decision makers without ignoring the weakly organized and unorganized-and without putting both the legislators and administrators in the position of merely ratifying bargaining negotiated between these interest groups. I have suggested non-governmental Social Planning Councils have a potentially significant role to play in the changing need for representativeness for the myriad of strong, weak and unorganized groups and individuals.

This role recognizes the feedback benefits resulting from the proposition that people learn to participate by participating, and …

Social Science And Social Welfare: Toward A Society For The Solution Of Social Problems, Andrew Billingsley

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Excerpt from the full-text article:

Do existing social work texts contribute to a student's recognition of professional values and issues and of the implicit ideological bases for these? The following study contends that they do not, and that their failures are quite similar to those found by Mills in his examination social pathology texts.

Our concern today with social science and social welfare policy is in keeping with the purposes and conceptions of the founders of the Society for the Study of Social Problems. In those early days these men and women were idealists- -they were reformists, but they also …

Public Concepts Of Poverty: The County Commissioners' View, Charles Ramsey, Rita Braito

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Every program designed to decrease poverty is based upon assumptions either as to the nature and causes of poverty or what is necessary to help the poor improve their lot (Spilerman and Elish, 1970; Task Force on Economic Growth and Opportunity, 1966; Valentine, 1968). Often these assumptions are only implicit, and supervisors of the program might not even agree with the assumptions if they were stated. Nevertheless, a program would itself make no sense unless certain statements about poverty were true. For example, a program of economic development to increase employment opportunities assumes that, first, much poverty is due to …

Swedish Child Welfare Worker: Estrangement And Alienation In An Ideal Situation, Implications For American Social Policy, The, Wayne Plasek

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Excerpt from the full-text article:

Our research was guided by an interest in the attitudes of social workers toward their personal work situation, their occupation, its place in the society, and other matters. It seemed likely that in a welfare state, the position of the profession and the attitudes of its practitioners would reflect its key position within the society. If such expectations were borne out, we might be able to make predictions concerning such attitudes among American social workers should the welfare program be greatly expanded.

Social Welfare Texts: A Study In The Sociology Of Knowledge, Leslie Leighninger

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Excerpt from the full-text article:

Do existing social work texts contribute to a student's recognition of professional values and issues and of the implicit ideological bases for these? The following study contends that they do not, and that their failures are quite similar to those found by Mills in his examination social pathology texts.

The books examined here are all designed to be used in basic undergraduate and graduate courses on the structure and function of social welfare institutions. The survey includes both widely adopted books and recent texts in the field. The books chosen for this study appear, in …

Reported Ill-Health And Life Cycle Among Welfare Mothers, Robert Lejeune

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Excerpt from the full-text article:

A person's presentation of self, as Goffman uses that depends phrase, in part on the expectations of others, and also, no doubt, on the power which these others have over the person. Thus it happens very frequently that persons, particularly of low status or stigmatized positions, are called upon, as a conscious or unconscious technique of survival, to present to others negative featureS of the self; to resort to what Goffman has called "negative idealization." (Coffman 1959; 39-41; 1963). These considerations have direct bearing on the role of welfare recipients in American society. Welfare clients, …

Maternity Homes: The Case Of A Dying Institution., Samuel O. Miller

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Excerpt from the full-text article:

The checkered career of a major social welfare institution appears to be near its end. Maternity homes as the major service to unmarried mothers face an uncertain future, with few indicators of a reversal in this current trend. The provision of social services as an expression of society's conern for the problems of unwed mothers has invariably been accompanied by a dynamic combination of deep feelings of prejudice and ambivalence. However, the current uncertainty of their status; the confusion in attitudes and conflicting opinions about the value and purpose of homes for unmarried mothers are …

Ideology, Sociological Theories, And Public Policy, Norman Goroff

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Excerpt from the full-text article:

It is important that my basic assumptions about social theories be made explicit at the very outset.

1. Every social theory has implicit, if not explicit, assumptions about the nature of man/woman.

2. Every social theory has implicit, if not explicit, assumptions about the nature of society or the collectivity.

3. Every social theory has implicit, if not explicit, assumptions about the relationship of man/woman to society or to the collectivity.

These assumptions in the theories are not empirical but normative and hence social theory is ideologically based. The fact that the social theories are …

Adolescent Pregnancy And Poverty: Implications For Social Policy, Clara L. Johnson

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Excerpt from the full-text document:

Adolescent pregnancy, per se, has been devoted little consideration by clinical observers and empirical researchers. For the most part, such pregnancies have received attention only insofar as they have occurred without the moral and legal sanctions of matrimony. This concern with illegitimacy has had the effect of blinding theorists and researchers to a whole segment of the adolescent pregnant population--the married teenager. Further, the adverse effects of adolescent pregnancy have been shrouded by moral precepts.

From existing evidence there appears to be no doubt that the married teenage girl is an integral part of the …

Social Work, Social Welfare, And The American Family, Ronald A. Feldman

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

The following discussion proceeds from two basic premises: (1) that the family constitutes one of the most basic units of social structure in contemporary American society, and (2) that the social work profession represents a major, if not the primary, institutional mechanism for coping with the myriad of social problems encountered by American families. The former premise is readily substantiated in view of the observation that the vast majority (over 9O%) of American men and women are married at least once in their lifetimes. However, since family units oftentimes experience severe difficulty in performing key functions and, indeed, in maintaining …

Factors Leading To Client Degradation In Welfare And Public Housing, Elizabeth D. Huttman

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Excerpt from the full-text article:

Degradation and humiliation are the consequences of using many social services In our society. Added to this is classification as a non-normal or a failure because one turns to a government source for help. The person is stigmatized for use and the agency is negatively labeled by both non-users and users.

While these public opinions stem partly from a long-held philosophy regarding the role of social services and the nature of the poor, these attitudes are reinforced and strengthened by specific policies and practices in the administration and structuring of the programs. Comparisons between services …

Creating Accountable Public Bureaucracies, James R. Hudson

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Excerpt from the full-text article:

During the past several decades there has been a persistent and constant trend in our society that has not gained the prominence it deserves. This trend has been the continuous growth in the autonomy and power of public bureaucracies. The community power literature, for example, has systematically ignored public bureaucracies in its search for the power structure of cities (Aiken and Mott, 1970). The reasons why public bureaucracies have been overlooked by these researchers stem from a number of theoretical and methodological shortcomings that need not concern us here. The point, however, is that we …

Research Data As Aides In Formulating Agency Policy, Ludwig Geismar, Isabel Wolock

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Excerpt from the full-text article:

Much is being written these days about the role of evaluation in the formulation of social policy. While few writers question the need for basing policy on systematic evaluation a good deal of the literature appears to focus on the obstacles in Larrying out as well as applying evaluative research. By contrast, the number of studies which in the eyes of critics measure up to minimum standards of scientific adequacy appears to be exceedingly small. Regardless of the problems inherent in the use of research data for policy formulation, the dearth of good studies constitutes …