Social Welfare Commons^™

The Conservative Program For The Welfare-Warfare State: The Response To The Korean, Algerian, And Vietnamese Wars, Clarence Y.H. Lo

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

This paper explains why the leaders of conservative political parties were so successful in the aftermith of limited wars. Conservative parties are those parties whose constituency is large and small business, managers, upper income professionals, and some white collar workers and farmers, exemplified by the Republican Party in the United States, the Gaullist Party in France, the Christian Democrats in Germany and Italy, and the Conservative Party in England. Conservative political leaders rose to power because they addressed the problems intensified by limited wars-- budget deficits, political stalemate, and inter-imperialist rivalries-- and, to some extent, enacted short term solutions--budget cuts, …

The Welfare State Within The Military, Charles Maynard, Ann Blalock

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Much has been written concerning the extent to which contemporary industrialized societies meet the accepted criteria of a "welfare state". By contrast, the literature on the welfare aspects of the military as an institution within societies is comparatively sparse. Yet internally, military establishments often exhibit many welfare state attributes. Within the military's organizational territory and authority, members are provided with a wide spectrum of comprehensive universal entitlements--social, economic, occupational, educational, and medical. The formal parameters of the U.S. military establishment's welfare entitlements give the undeniable appearance of a bonafide welfare state whose provision is significantly more benevolent and equitable than …

Social Welfare And Some Implications Of Non-Violence, Mulford Q. Sibley

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

A new journal has made its appearance. It is called Soldier of Fortune and is devoted to the concerns of "professional adventurers"--that is, to those who would like to become hired violent fighters in various parts of the world. The journal opens its columns to their advertisements: "Ex-marine seeks employment as mercenary, full-time or job contract, prefers South or Central America but all offers considered." "Experienced mature fighter/seeks assignment anywhere.... " In defending his journal from the charge of encouraging brutality, the founder says: "After all, booze is brutal, cars are brutal, sex is brutal. There's a need for guns …

Common Roots And Functions Of The Warfare And Welfare State, David G. Gil

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Warfare and welfare are usually assumed to serve contradictory ends and to hie rooted in antithetical values, institutions and dynamics. In this essay, I propose to challenge this notion and to advance, instead, the thesis that, in spite of significant differences betwcn them, warfare and welfare serc, nevertheless, identical and colilementary functions, and are both rooted in identical socittal values, institutions and dynamics.

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 …

Social Equality And The Housing Allowance Approach To Assisting The Poor, Elizabeth Huttman, John Huttman

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

This report discusses the role housing assistance has played in the United States in decreasing social inequality of America's poor, and then, in more detail, discusses the degree to which a housing allowance program, now being experimented with, might do a better job of diminishing social inequality. The report is based on the author's ten years of research on subsidized housing programs, especially public housing, new towns, housing for the elderly, and most recently, the HUD experymental housing allowance program and European housing allowance programs.

Condominium Housing: Some Social And Economic Implications, Frank G. Mittelbach, Joe Ebin

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

The functioning of condominium communities and projects has received increased attention from housing analysts in many professions. As of 1973, there were an estimated 15,000 condominium and townhouse communities in the United States, a figure expanding approximately by 4,000 annually.

In this context, the proliferation of home owners associations in the communities or projects is of special interest due to their emerging role as a new form of residential government. This role manifests itself as both supplementary and in part complementary to the existing government framework. The collective provision and maintenance of selected services, including roads, utilities, lighting, refuse collection, …

New Towns And Social Welfare Prospects: 1975 - 2000 A.D., Arthur B. Shostak

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

America's 15 HUD-aided new towns are mired in such serious financial problems as to make likely the emphatic close of the 1968-1974 Golden Age of modern new town development. Contrary, however, to present-day indications there is reason to expect a revival of new town prospects in the late 1970's, and social welfare components may be center stage in the matter.

There is no gainsaying the seriousness of the 1975 collapse of the American new towns movement: HUD, for example, from a prior commitment to approving at least ten projects a year between 1968 and 2000 A.D. is now refusing to …

Operational Problems Of New Communities, Chester C. Mcguire

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

The development of Reston, Virginia and Columbia, Maryland in the early 1960's produced much speculation concerning the role of new towns in future urban growth. Supporters of new towns have offered them as prescriptions for many of the ills found in urban America today: as opposed to the sprawling, often poorly designed and frequently single class typical suburban community. However, in the decade that has passed since the inception of Reston and Columbia large numbers of planned new towns have not been built, due in large part to the myriad problems of new town development which are now general knowledge.

Gemeinschaft Vs. Gesellschaft In A Finnish New Town, Stanley F. Wiseman

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Excerpt from the full-text article:

This article has a dual purpose: (1) to describe report on the creation and progress of one of the most famous New Towns, Tapiola, in Finland, and (2) to "operationalize" in this scene the dual concepts of Ferdinand Tbnnies' Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft, or al they have come to be identified modernly, cimunity and contract bureaucracy. (T~nnies, 1963:12-25) This approach is used because the major attempt in the world today to restore the peopleoriented element of Geeinschaft to local government is being taken in the New Town setting, and one of the most successful (according to …

The Politics Of Funding: Human Needs And Social Welfare, Robert F. Kronick

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Sociological theory has provided two models that attempt to explain social power and decision making in America, the elite model (Mills) and the pluralist model. Mills saw power in America like particles dispersed in a triangle--with more and more power at the top, but more people at the base of the triangle. For Mills there was a powerful elite that ruled almost like a monarchy and decision making on all fronts was vested in them. Rebellion as utilized in Merton's paradigm would turn this triangle upside down in setting up new goals and new means, as well as distributing power …

The Welfare Calculus Allocations And Utilization Within The American States, John E. Tropman

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Within the history of the American states, the attitude toward "welfare" had been fundamentally ambivalent. On the one hand there is a great thrust in this country toward charity, and toward helping the poor. Much is given each year to United Funds across the country (860 million in 1972-73), and the Christmas listing by the New York Times of the 100 "neediest cases" results in much spontaneous offering of aid. On the other hand, Americans are singularly suspicious of institutionalizing this impulse. These suspicions leave the United States behind other comparable countries in providing social welfare benefits. Indeed, so suspicious …

The Myth Of A Population Explosion In America: Implications For The Social Welfare Profession, Lillian T. Cochran, James M. O'Kane

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

In the past decade, the concern over a hypothetical "population explosion" has become an increasing preoccupation in growing segments of the American public. Terms such as "standing-room-only-world," "demographic catastrophe,' "future doomsday," etc. have become common, and the work of organizations such as Planned Parenthood, Zero Population Growth, and countless other agencies has centered around this supposed threat to continued human existence. Paul and Anne Ehrlich have set forth the general position on "overpopulation" stating: "The explosive growth of the human population is the most significant event in the past million millenia. . . . Mankind itself may stand on the …

The Three Evaluations Of Social Welfare Programs, Dean Harper, Haroutun M. Babigian

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

As new and innovative social welfare programs are being attempted, there has been an increased concern with evaluating the effectiveness of such programs. To what degree is a new program effective? For which kinds of clients is each type of program effective? What elements are crucial in a program which has been judged to be effective? These are just a few of the questions that evaluators would like to answer.

There is a large literature on evaluation research--some of it reporting or reviewing the results of specific evaluations (6, 8, 9, 10, 11) and some of it presenting general discussions, …

Self-Interest, Social Welfare Policy And Social Problems, John P. Flynn

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

This writer assumes that there is a reciprocal interdependence between the providers and the receivers of social welfare programs and explores one particular aspect of that exchange. A proposition explored here is that self-interest is a dynamic in social welfare policy formulation and that such a dynamic is founded on the basic assumption of reciprocal interdependence. The perception of newlyfound self-interests obtainable in alternative social welfare policy options is examined here as a factor in inducing purposive policy change.

It Is proposed here that the common characterization of the welfare relationship as a unilateral transfer has obscured the connection between …

Social Welfare As Coercive Social Control, Norman N. Goroff

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

The key concepts which require some basic definitions in the title are "social welfare, social control and coercion". For the purposes of this paper, social welfare is defined as those public programs designed to provide an individual who is in financial need with the resources (financial and/or in kind) to exist in our society. Social control refers to the entire range of actions and pressures which are designed to lead the individual to function within society without threatening to disrupt the social order. These actions and pressures are embodied in sanctions for enforcing group norms as well as in formal …

National Income Insurance: Some Implications For Political And Economic Inequality, John B. Williamson

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Several co-workers and I have recently completed an evaluation of sixty-three anti-poverty programs and proposals (Williamson, et. al., 1973, 1974). This paper briefly describes the study and some of our findings by way of introduction to the presentation and defense of a national income insurance proposal, This proposal is a synthesis of three highly rated anti-poverty strategies. It would within a few years have a substantial impact on the extent of the economic inequality in the United States.

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …