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Journal Of Sociology & Social Welfare Vol. 3, No. 1 (September 1974)

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• Editorial, pp 2
• The Social Welfare Workers Movement: A Case Study of New Left Thought in Practice - STANLEY WENOCUR, pp 3
• Toward A More Adequate Concept of "Organization" in Social Work Practice - BUFORD E. FARRIS, pp 21
• The Interorganizational Relationships of a Public Welfare Agency - BURTON GUMMER, pp 33
• The Convergence of the Interactionist and Behavioral Approaches to Deviance - STUART A. KIRK, EILEEN D. GAMBRILL, pp 47
• Suicide .... Causation, Indicators and Interventions - FLORENCE W. KASLOW, pp 59
• Protective Services: Coercive Social Control or Mutual Liberation - ALFRED J. FORTIN, pp 81 …

Toward A More Adequate Concept Of "Organization" In Social Work Practice Theory, Buford E. Farris

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

A generic model of social work practice requires the formulation of frameworks that indicate what is meant by intervention at the "organizational" level. Usually "organization" is put at some midpoint in a hierarchy of social levels (such as individual, small group, organization, local community, society). However, when one looks at the various social work practice frameworks, there is very little development of knowledge about the process of intervention at this mid-level. Since the "macro" levels of community and society can probably be best conceptualized as "inter-organizational" arenas, social work practice knowledge for these levels is also hindered. This article intends …

The Interorganizational Relationships Of A Public Welfare Agency, Burton Gummer

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

The American social welfare field is best characterized as a highly decentralized sphere of activity in which autonomous organizations define and pursue their goals in a fairly independent fashion. The complex nature of modern social problems, however, requires concerted action by a variety of organizations if effective solutions are to be developed. This conflict between the structural nature of the welfare field and the demands of the problems to be addressed has meant that social welfare planners have had to be concerned with the conditions affecting the willingness of independent organizations to engage in cooperative activities with each other. The …

The Convergence Of The Interactionist And Behavioral Approaches To Deviance, Stuart A. Kirk, Eileen D. Gambrill

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

This paper compares two theoretical perspectives on deviance, the behavioral and interactionist. Although these two perspectives arise from separate disciplines and intellectual traditions, we will argue that their approaches to the study of deviance in general and to mental illness in particular share many basic similarities, as well as some important differences, and that an analysis of each helps us understand the limitations and strengths of the other.

The behavioral and interactionist perspectives are chosen for examination for three reasons. First, it is our opinion that these two theoretical approaches represent the most creative recent work by sociologists and psychologists …

Suicide -- Causation, Indicators And Interventions, Florence W. Kaslow

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Excerpt from the full-text article:

In this paper an attempt is made to determine what factors propel given individuals toward self destruction. Durkheim's typology of suicides is utilized and an analysis of the social and psychological components of each type undertaken. The social structure is viewed from the vantage point of how it influences and is internalized by members of society. The psychological aspects are handled by looking into what intrapsychic and external forces shape the individual's personality and behavior in such a way that he seeks his own death. In some instances it is hard to draw a sharp …

Protective Services: Coercive Social Control Or Mutual Liberation, Alfred J. Fortin

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Excerpt from the full-text article:

The area of protective services for children has always been a difficult one for social work. Protective casework has, and is now, both praised and condemned simultaneously from different elements of the community. The stakes in the protective field are usually high and players are subject to various episodes of the "emotional plague" as Wilhelm Reich would have called it. People in protective work exercise their role as worker in a variety of ways and these 'styles' range from being police-like and oppressive to radical and promoting social change. It is characteristic of this work …

Toward Partisan Politics In A Professional Association: Utility Of The Candidates Poll, L. K. Northwood, Howard Crockett

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

The purpose of this paper is to describe the initial efforts of one local chapter, The Puget Sound Chapter; to engage in partisan politics by the conduct of a poll of candidates for election to the Washington State Legislature in 1974. Properly speaking, the Chapter endorsed no candidates, merely rated them from "weak" to "outstanding" on their agreement with NASW policies on relevant programs and their social welfare attitudes. Thus, it is a mild form of partisan politics that will be considered.

The paper will analyze the social and organizational context in which the candidates' poll occurred, and then report …

Initial Screening And Identification Of Predictors For Possible Use In Selecting Foster Mothers For The Mentally Retarded, Terry L. Penniman

Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Interorganizational Conflict: The Case Of Police Youth Bureaus And The Juvenile Court, C. David Hollister, Joe Hudson

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Police departments, juvenile courts, training schools, and a variety of welfare organizations together constitute the network of agencies formally instituted to deal with juvenile deviance.I Because each of the organizations has an interest in reducing deviance, it is sometimes assumed that they share the same goals and work closely and cooperatively with each other. The purpose of this paper is to report on an exploratory study of inter-organizational relations at one link in this network: relations between police youth bureaus and the juvenile court.

A Serendipitous Relationship Between Theory Modification And A Study Of Staff Development, Patricia A. Brown

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

There are instances in which the guiding impetus to a study is a very practical problem, the answers to which are expected to have immediate applicability. Although the practical purpose is accomplished, at the study's end comes the recognition that perhaps the most important contribution of the investigation had been the uncovering of theoretical implications.

The above serendipitous process is applicable to the following report of a limited study of staff development in a new youth serving agency. The study is presented in detail so that the main elements associated with the validation and elaboration of a conceptualization of organizational …

Recipients' Attitudes Toward Welfare, Kirk W. Elifson, William S. Little, William Chamberlain

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

While the general plight of welfare recipients has long been recognized, little or nothing to date has been ascertained concerning their views toward the system that largely determines their lives. Many recipients find themselves manipulated by a less than personalized bureaucracy but few researchers have sought to examine the experiences and attitudes of these recipients toward that system. Given the recent figures which indicate a "welfare explosion" (Piven and Cloward, 1971), and the vast expenditures for public assistance programs (Skolnick and Dales, 1969:5), the lack of systematic empirical research in this area is disconcerting. Such information should be of considerable …

Journal Of Sociology & Social Welfare Vol. 1, No. 4 (Summer 1974)

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Table of Contents

• Editorial Page - 177
• A Serendipitous Relationship Between Theory Modification and a Study of Staff Development. - Patricia A. Brown - Page 179
• Recipients Attitudes Toward Welfare - Kirk W. Elifson, William S. Little, William Chamberlain - Page 186
• Social Work Practice and the Social Context - Jeffry Galper - Page 199
• Interorganizational Conflicts: The Case of Police Youth Bureaus and the Juvenile Court - David C. Hollister, Joe Hudson - Page 206
• Evaluating a Pilot Social Service Project for Widows: A Chronicle of Research Problems - S. Roxanne Hiltz - Page 217
• Electives and Undergraduate Social …

Social Work Practice And The Social Context, Jeffry Galper

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Any effort to define appropriate tasks and directions for social work practice must necessarily come to grips with some analysis of the particular social-political-historical situation within which that practice is being formulated. Too often it seems as though we attempt to define practice abstracted from the particular period in which that practice takes place. It is true, on the one hand, that it is important to develop generic principles of practice. Similarly, it is true that the definition of the social work task is not a matter left solely to the discretion of the profession. In fact, the profession may …

Evaluating A Pilot Social Service Project For Widows: A Chronicle Of Research Problems, S. Roxanne Hiltz

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

The decade of the 70's has seen the appearance of a number of publications in the area of "evaluation research", the effort to systematically apply social science research methods to the evaluation of action programs set up for the purpose of helping to solve social problems. Evaluation research is thus one area in which social scientists can be of direct aid in setting public policy about social welfare services.

An excellent primer on the problems that are likely to arise in the course of an evaluation effort and the "conventional wisdom" that has been developed thus far is Carol Weiss' …

Electives And Undergraduate Social Work Education In A State University, H. Wayne Johnson

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

From the beginning of its interest in undergraduate instruction, the Council on Social Work Education has stressed the importance of a broad liberal education for baccalaureate social workers . Such emphasis was restated twice in subsequent CSWE documents, and more recently in other materials which enunciate the standards for the new undergraduate accreditation process commencing in 1974. It is much easier to state the notion of a general education than it is to describe its content and character and there is a tendency to become ambiguous. We are prone to resort to a high level of generalization in characterizing a …

Innovation, Involvement, And Contemporary Service Organizations, Frank A. Kastelic

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Purpose of This Paper

Innovation and involvement have come to be ascribed an almost mystical potency for the task of bringing more relevant services and more human relationships to clients of service organizations. Many descriptive

and hortatory articles have appeared in the social welfare and health literature concerning the virtues of contemporary organizations exhibiting these characteristics, but little in the way of hard thinking about their real implications to service organizations has been done. The majority of the articles are reprises of proposals, or accounts of the first year or two of a program, with an emphasis upon positive prospects …

The Significance Of Ethnicity In Staffing Corrections, Alfred J. Kutzik

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Excerpt from the full-text article:

Until recently the total thrust of efforts to improve the staffing of corrections has been towards the recruitment and development of trained personnel. In the past decade it has begun to be recognized that factors other than training have to be taken into account. Largely as a result of California's groundbreaking Community Treatment Project the personality of staff is now considered by some to be as important as their training and in a few programs those with certain types of personality and training have been assigned to work, i.e., "matched", with juvenile offenders who have …

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, …

A Follow-Up Study Of Community Organization Concentrators, Hedy-Jo Huss Powell

Dissertations and Theses

This follow-up study of 1970-73 graduates of the Portland State University School of Social Work was aimed at identifying the community organization and social welfare planning skills that M.S.W.s are using in their current practice. The study sought information from graduates that could be useful in evaluating the current Social Welfare Planning concentration and planning future curriculum.

Two groups of graduates were surveyed utilizing a mailed questionnaire. The first group consisted of the universal sample of former students identified as community organization concentrators; the comparison group was a sample of graduates who had majored in direct services.

The study explored …

Survey Of Parental Attitudes Towards Health Services In The Beaverton Schools, Nancy M. King

Dissertations and Theses

The purpose of this study was to collect and evaluate information on health services provided to children enrolled in the Beaverton School District. The primary areas of inquiry in the study were (1) parents attitudes concerning how existing programs have affected their children, (2) parents perceptions of needed and/or additional health services which could be provided by the school system, (3) parents attitudes toward budgetary decisions concerning possible changes and improvements in health services.

Curanderismo And Health Delivery Services, Jean Margaret Blaesser

Dissertations and Theses

This study explores and describes curanderismo (folk curing) and the cultural disease concepts of mollera caida, empacho, mal de ojo, and susto as researched in a rural Oregon community. Chicano cultural disease concepts and beliefs are then related to modern health delivery services, and a case is made for the need for cultural awareness, respect, and sensitivity on the part of medical personnel who deliver services. The approach of a curandera (curer) and a doctor are compared.

It is strongly stated that Chicanos' health beliefs and practices do not exist in isolation from the rest of their …

Female Alcoholism: The Relationship Of Marital Status To Personality Disorganization, Julene B. Knapp

Dissertations and Theses

Research on the female alcoholic indicates that women drink for different reasons than men. Rather than being a product of role conflict as it is in males, female alcoholism is frequently precipitated by stress, particularly marital stress. For exploratory purposes a group of women seen at a public alcoholism treatment clinic were divided into four categories: 1) Non-alcoholic wives of alcoholic men; 2) alcoholic wives of non-alcoholic men; 3) single alcoholic women; 4) alcoholic wives of alcoholic men. These groups were compared. for amount of personality disorganization, using the total number of abnormal scales on the clinical profiles of the …

Assessment Of Course Impact On Child Care Worker Orientation: Worker Concerns Versus Child Concerns, Helen M. Banaka

Dissertations and Theses

This study proposes to examine the impact of an adult education course on the attitudes and orientation of child care workers. Therefore, the researcher has confined her discussion of the Iiterature mainly to examples of research and theory developed in the area of adult education.

An Exploratory Study Of Depression In Adolescents Placed In Residential Treatment Centers, Shirley D. Hale, Kermit C. Jeffrey, Gerald J. Moneke

Dissertations and Theses

Concerned that depression might be a common malady among youth who are placed in treatment centers for delinquents, we undertook an exploratory study to determine the validity of this premise. The authors of this study have all worked with youth who, for various reasons, have been placed in residential treatment centers. The authors have observed that symptoms of depression seem to be more prevalent in these youth than in non-institutionalized adolescents, and that these symptoms are often perceived as individual pathology rather than emotional responses common to institutionalized youth. We thus began questioning if these were common emotional responses, and …

Experts Probe Child Abuse Problems At Conference, Lisa Halvorsen

Social Justice: Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion

Every day there are hundreds of recorded instances of children being abused or sexually molested, yet often times nothing is done about it. Part of the problem is that a lot of people don't know what to do.

Academe: Internship: The Delicate Balance, Robert F. Kronick

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Excerpt from the full-text article:

There appears to be a battle that heretofore has been a brushfire incursion, but what may now have the possibility of becoming something more involved. This is the raging debate between "traditional" scholars and those now committed to off-campus or experiential learning. Historically, there has always been disagreement over what constituted learning or how to evaluate what was learned. Now the area of disparagement appears to be over the legitimacy of off-campus experiences as learning and, secondly, how to evaluate these experiences as academic enterprises. As always seems to be the case in debates such …

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 …

Journal Of Sociology & Social Welfare Vol. 1, No. 3 (Spring 1974)

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

• Ethnicity, Professionalism, and Black Paternalism: Implications for Social Welfare Services - Robert S. Bartlett - Page 101
• The "Credential Trap" and Social Work Staff Utilization - Ralph Segalman - Page 112
• Academe: Internship: The Delicate Balance - Robert F. Kronick - Page 130
• Pandora Box: The Liberation of Welfare Mothers - Bonnie Morel Edington - Page 135
• The Impact of Directly Mailed Family Planning Materials to AFDC Welfare Mothers - Paul J. Placek - Page 156

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 …

The 'Credentials Trap' And Social Work Staff Utilization, Ralph Segalman

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Excerpt from the full-text article:

From an examination of the foregoing charted analysis, it is apparent that social work probably cannot make much progress until it has overcome its "identity crisis." Differentiation of tasks based on outmoded or societally irrelevant models can only aggravate, rather than solve social work's confusion in relation to more effective utilization of manpower and resources.