Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

A Locality-Oriented Public Welfare Agency: A Case Study Of Boundary Maintenance In A Hostile Environment, Ray H. Macnair, Greta Hawthorne

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Boundary maintenance activities are studied in a public welfare agency as a means of establishing the relationship between the nature of these activities and the essential character of a formal organization. Assaults on the agency are observed through a period of social change, in this case an extreme of racial succession among the staff and administration of the agency. Conclusions point to congruence between the character of the organization and its boundary maintenance activity. Skewed or incongruent boundary maintenance produces disorganization and confusion among participants. In the context of racial succession, universalistic patterns are recommended as a solution to the …

The Welfare Poor: Patterns Of Association And Interaction In Discretionary Time, Francis P. Noe, Kirk Elifson

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

The welfare poor in America are classified into a "subterranean' strata not solely because of economic inequality but entrenched by racial ethnicity, age disadvantages, physical and psychological impairment, and broken family structures. While the misery and plight of the poor are often recognized in basic terms in which the survival necessity of food, clothing, health care, and shelter are real concerns, seemingly other less important cultural considerations are glossed over as trivia. Leisure participation continues to be neglected by researchers and because of this low priority, little or nothing is known of the leisure life style of the poor. Less …

Evaluation Research: Some Possible Contexts Of Theory Failure, Pranab Chatterjee, Lenore Olsen, Thomas P. Holland

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

What can evaluation research tell us about social science theory? It is the purpose of this paper to examine that question. There has been much written in the current literature about the relationship between theory and practice. Because it is evaluation research (Breedlove, 1972: 71-89; Newbrough, 1966: 39-52; Suchman, 1971: 43-48; Suchman, 1967; Weiss, 1973: 37-45; Fitz- Gibbons and Morris, 1975: 1-4) that attempts to analyze the results of practice, it is the authors' belief that an examination of evaluation research studies for possible contexts of theory failure will contribute to a linkage between theory and practice.

Philosophy, Sociology And The Theory Of Social Welfare: A Conceptual Starting Point, Robert D. Herman

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

In this paper I want to explore and 2begin to elucidate a fundamental problem in social welfare theory. The problem centers on the conception of the relation between individuals and social structure. Before proceeding with this task, it is important to note the senses in which the term "social welfare" will be used. The term has two basic senses, deriving from two more or less distinct intellectual traditions. In one sense the term refers to the provision of goods and services to needy individuals, either through government "transfers" or private philanthropy. In this comparatively narrow sense social welfare is a …

Public Welfare: Utilization, Change, Appropriations, Service, John E. Tropman

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

During the decade of the 1960's there was continually increasing interest in the programs of public welfare. This interest sprang from several sources. Citizens, always worried about welfare expenditures, developed resurgent concern. Recipients, long a quiet group, became more active, forming the National Welfare Rights Organization. And then there was the rediscovery of poverty as a social problem, and a realization that very many Americans were poor, many more than anyone had somehow realized.

The general interest in poverty and the measures used to relieve it had an effect on the academic community, generating some sustained and critical attention to …