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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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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' …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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, …

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 '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.

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 …

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 …

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 …

Sociology And Social Work: Science And Art, Robert D. Leighninger, Leslie H. Leighninger, Robert M. Pankin

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Excerpt from the full-text article:

We live in an age of specialization and usually find it beneficial, perhaps even essential. However, we have been aware since Marx's time at least that the division of labor has its cost. And though we may be a long way from the unconpartmentalized utopia where an individual might do four different kinds of work in a single day, we cannot afford to let the assumptions which underlie the separation of important jobs and functions go without periodic reexamination. The separation of the work of the sociologist (or, indeed, any social scientist) and the social …

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 …

Racial Conflict And Institutionalization Of Social Welfare Decision-Making, Walter W. Stafford

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Introduction – Overview

In recent decades, there has been considerable attention devoted to the nature of interest group conflict and emerging structural changes in the American economic, social and political system. The economic changes have perhaps been the key indicators of emerging trends. These changes have been reflected mainly in the amount of economic activity and occupations devoted to services since the late 1950's; the increasing concern with technological growth; the close collaboration between national government policies and planning and the private sector; national governmental assistance for urban and suburban problems, and more recently, the increased mandates of interest groups …

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 …

Journal Of Sociology & Social Welfare Vol. 1, No. 2 (Winter 1973-1974)

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Publisher and Managing Editor: Norman N. Goroff, University of Connecticut, School of Social Work

Editor: Ralph Segalman, Department of Sociology, California State University, Northridge

Associate Editors: A.K. Basu, Department of Sociology, California State University, Hayward, Harris Chaiklin, School of Social Work and Community Planning, University of Maryland, Ivor Echols, School of Social Work, University of Connecticut, Charles Guzzetta, School of Social Work, Hunter College, City University of New York, Joan Wallace, School of Social Work, Howard University

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• Social Science and Social Welfare: Towards A Society for the Solution of Social Problems - ANDREW BILLINGSLEY, Page 1
• Perspectives …

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.