Showing papers on "Social change published in 1988"

An Ecological Perspective on Health Promotion Programs

Abstract: During the past 20 years there has been a dramatic increase in societal interest in preventing disability and death in the United States by changing individual behaviors linked to the risk of contracting chronic diseases. This renewed interest in health promotion and disease prevention has not been without its critics. Some critics have accused proponents of life-style interventions of promoting a victim-blaming ideology by neglecting the importance of social influences on health and disease. This article proposes an ecological model for health promotion which focuses attention on both individual and social environmental factors as targets for health promotion interventions. It addresses the importance of interventions directed at changing interpersonal, organizational, community, and public policy, factors which support and maintain unhealthy behaviors. The model assumes that appropriate changes in the social environment will produce changes in individuals, and that the support of individuals in the population is essential for implementing environmental changes.

Notes towards a description of Social Representations

Abstract: The theory of social representations occupies a place apart in social psychology both by the problems it raises and the scale of the phenomena with which it deals. This provokes many a criticism and misunderstanding. Such a theory may not correspond with the model of social psychology as it is defined at present. One attempts however to show that it answers important social and scientific questions, in what it differs from the classical conception of collective representations and, from the very beginning, adopts a constructivist perspective which has spread in social psychology since. Several trends of research have confirmed its vision of the relations between social and cognitive phenomena, communication and thought. More detailed remarks aim at outlining the nature of social representations, their capacity to create information, their function which is to familiarize us with the strange, according to the categories of our culture. Going farther, one insists on the diversity of methodological approaches. If the experimental method is useful to understand how people should think, higher mental and social processes must be approached by different methods, including linguistic analysis and observation of how people think. No doubt, social representations have a relation with the more recent field of social cognition. But inasmuch as the former depend on content and context, i.e. subjectivity and sociability of people, they approach the phenomena differently from the latter. Referring to child psychology and anthropology, one can contend, despite appearances, that it is also a more scientific approach. There is however much to be learned from criticisms and there is still a long way to go before we arrive at a satisfactory theory of social thinking and communication.

Structures and Processes of Social Support

Abstract: This chapter reviews the recent literature on social support and health and its relation to preexisting research and theory in the areas of social networks and social integration. We identify crucial directions for future theoretical and empirical work, focusing on the need to better understand the structures and processes through which social relationships affect human health and well-being. Two elements of social relationship structure are distinguished: (a) social integration, which refers to the existence or quantity of social relationships, and (b) social network structure, referring to the structural properties that characterize a set of relationships. We further identify three social processes through which these structures may have their effects: (i) social support, which pertains to the emotionally or instrumentally sustaining quality of social relationships; (ii) relational demands and conflict, referring to the negative or conflictive aspects of social relationships; and (iii) social regulation...

Moving away from the World: Life-Course Patterns of Shy Children.

Abstract: Le depouillement de donnees d'archives renseigne sur les sequelles a long terme, sur le plan des caracteristiques de l'insertion professionnelle et affective, de la timidite durant l'enfance

Capitalism, nature, socialism a theoretical introduction∗

Abstract: Summary This article expounds the traditional Marxist theory of the contradiction between forces and relations of production, over‐production of capital and economic crisis, and the process of crisis‐induced restructuring of productive forces and production relations into more transparently social, hence potentially socialist, forms. This exposition provides a point of departure for an “ecological Marxist”; theory of the contradiction between capitalist production relations and forces and the conditions of production, under‐production of capital and economic crisis, and the process of crisis‐induced restructuring of production conditions and the social relations thereof also into more transparently social, hence potentially socialist, forms. In short, there may be not one but two paths to socialism in late capitalist society. While the two processes of capital over‐production and underproduction are by no means mutually exclusive, they may offset or compensate for one another in ways which create the appe...

Afrocentricity, the theory of social change

Abstract: Discussed in this cross-disciplinary work is the theory of 'Afrocentricity', which mandates that Africans be viewed as subjects rather than objects and is driven by the question: Is it in the best interest of African people? This book looks at how this philosophy, ethos, and worldview gives Africans a better understanding of how to interpret issues affecting their communities. History, psychology, sociology, literature, economics, and education are explored, including discussions on Washingtonianism, Garveyism, Du Bois, Malcolm X, race and identity, Marxism, and breakthrough strategies.

Neopatriarchy: A Theory of Distorted Change in Arab Society

Abstract: This work addresses a problem central to all developing societies in the Third World, that of the transition from patriarchy to secularism, from traditional culture to modernity. Challenging some of the most cherished and widely held beliefs in the Arab world, the author develops a theory of social change which offers an understanding of the setbacks and distortions which have shaped this process of transformation.

Early Family Experience, Social Problem Solving Patterns, and Children's Social Competence.

Abstract: PETTIT, GREGORY S.; DODGE, KENNETH A.; and BROWN, MELISSA M. Early Family Experience, Social Problem Solving Patterns, and Children's Social Competence. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1988, 59, 107-120. The relations among early social and familial experience, social problem solving skill, and social competence in the classroom were examined in a sample of 46 preschool (4and 5-yearold) children from economically distressed backgrounds. The hypothesis was tested that (a) early family experiences would be related to classroom social competence, and (b) that this relation would be mediated by the child's social problem solving patterns. Early experience was assessed during a semistructured home-visit interview with each child's mother. Measures derived from this interview included the child's level of exposure to deviant aggressive models, maternal values and expectations for the child, harshness of discipline toward the child, use of preventive teaching with the child, and the child's degree of early experience with peers. The child's classroom competence was assessed by sociometric nominations and teacher ratings of aggressiveness and social skill. Responses to hypothetical social problems were used to generate measures of the child's social problem solving patterns. Several dimensions of family experience were found to be predictive of both classroom social competence and social problem solving. Stepwise regression analyses revealed that some kinds of early experience (e.g., early experience with peers) appeared to have a direct impact on peer outcomes, whereas for other experiences (e.g., exposure to deviant maternal values and expectations), the relation to social competence with peers was mediated by the child's social problem solving skills and patterns. The need to consider family relationship factors when designing preventive intervention programs for socially incompetent children was stressed.

Child Development: Its Nature and Course

Abstract: Part 1 Beginnings: the nature of development the contexts of development heredity and prenatal development. Part 2 Infancy: first adaptions infant cognitive development infant social development. Part 3 Toddlerhood: toddler language toddler social development. Part 4 Early childhood: cognitive development in early childhood social development in early childhood. Part 5 Middle childhood: cognitive development in middle childhood social development in middle childhood. Part 6 Adolescnence: physical and cognitive development in adolescence social development in adolescence. Part 7 Disorders and resiliency: developmental psychopathology.

The Role of Social Groups in Political Thinking

Abstract: This article outlines a cognitive-affective model of the role of social groups in political thinking. The model is based on the assumptions that people have stored information and emotional reactions to social groups, and that people are purposive in their thinking about social groups in the sense that they are interested in understanding what various groups have obtained and whether it is deserved. The process through which social groups influence political thinking varies significantly depending upon whether an individual identifies with the group in question. Generally, people are more inclined to feel sympathetic towards the groups to which they belong. These ideas are illustrated with an empirical analysis that focuses on women's issues and makes use of data collected in the 1984 National Election Study Pilot Study.

Technical change and full employment

Abstract: The result of a major research project which assesses the effects of technical change on employment levels, the structure of employment and the nature of work itself, this study concludes that social changes must accompany and even precede technical innovation.

Pursuits of Happiness: The Social Development of Early Modern British Colonies and the Formation of American Culture

Abstract: In this book, Jack Greene reinterprets the meaning of American social development. Synthesizing literature of the previous two decades on the process of social development and the formation of American culture, he challenges the central assumptions that have traditionally been used to analyze colonial British American history. Greene argues that the New England declension model traditionally employed by historians is inappropriate for describing social change in all the other early modern British colonies. The settler societies established in Ireland, the Atlantic island colonies of Bermuda and the Bahamas, the West Indies, the Middle Colonies, and the Lower South followed instead a pattern first exhibited in America in the Chesapeake. That pattern involved a process in which these new societies slowly developed into more elaborate cultural entities, each of which had its own distinctive features. Greene also stresses the social and cultural convergence between New England and the other regions of colonial British America after 1710 and argues that by the eve of the American Revolution Britain's North American colonies were both more alike and more like the parent society than ever before. He contends as well that the salient features of an emerging American culture during these years are to be found not primarily in New England puritanism but in widely manifest configurations of sociocultural behavior exhibited throughout British North America, including New England, and he emphasized the centrality of slavery to that culture.

Social Development: History, Theory, and Research

Abstract: For many years students who took courses in social development had no text available for their use. Those of us who instructed them had to rely on assigning journal articles to be read and providing an overview and syn thesis of the area in our lectures. In the last few years, the situation has changed markedly. There are now several very good textbooks that fill the void, reflecting an increasing interest in this area of research and theory. Here is one more. There are many ways to tell a story. Our book, we think, tells it dif ferently enough to have made it worth the writing. As we began to talk, some time ago, about undertaking this project, we found we had a mutual interest in trying to present the study of social development from a histori cal point of view. The field has changed dramatically from its inception, and we have both been in it long enough to have witnessed first-hand a number of these changes. Modifications of theoretical orientations and the de velopment of increasingly sophisticated and rigorous methodology have brought with them the stimulation of controversy and growth, as social developmental psychologists argued about the best ways of going about their business. Certainly the same things have happened in other areas of psychology, but the arguments seem to have been particularly vigorous in our own domain."

Continuity and change in social support between young-old and old-old or very-old age.

Abstract: This longitudinal research examined continuity and change in social support in a sample of 74 old-old (74 to 84) or very-old (85 and over) members of the Berkeley Older Generation Study. Considerable continuity in extent of contact was found between 1969 and 1983 for the group as a whole, particularly with respect to family relationships. In beyond-family contacts, declines were observed for men but not women, and for the very-old but not the old-old. Important changes also were observed in involvement or subjective level of commitment: satisfaction with children increased, while involvement beyond the family declined.

The Causes of Demographic Change: Experimental Research in South India

Abstract: Observers of the Third World have been surprised in recent years by the dramatic declines in both birth and death rates in many developing countries. These phenomena have occurred on a vast scale in India. Although demographers are familiar with the broad outlines of what has happened there, they still know very little of the causes of these changes. Now, John C. Caldwell, P. H. Reddy, and Pat Caldwell present the results of their long investigation in rural South India, revealing critical social and political changes that will be of interest and value to all demographers, sociologists, planners, and other social scientists. The investigation, centering around the changes that the rural population is effecting in order to meet the challenges and opportunities presented by a global economy and society, has broad and profound implications for all Third World peoples and societies."

The Impact of Volunteer Experience on Adolescent Social Development: Evidence of Program Effects:

Abstract: The Social and Personal Responsibility Scale was employed in a study of the Youth Volunteers program, involving 44 adolescents in 12 projects, equally divided between child care and community servi...

Sociology in a Changing World

Abstract: This new ninth edition of SOCIOLOGY IN A CHANGING WORLD will help you visualize sociology all around you! Let this experienced author help you explore the reality of social change and its impact on individuals, groups, and societies throughout the world. SOCIOLOGY IN A CHANGING WORLD uses the theme of social change to tie together the many elements of sociology while helping you develop an understanding of the science. Soon, you will begin to see real sociology at work in the world every day. You will examine the social epidemiology of AIDS and the growing obesity epidemic, collective behavior, including fads, fashions, rumor, gossip, panic, and mass hysteria, aging in a global perspective, and gay and lesbian relationships and families. Revised against a background of war and severe economic depression, this new ninth edition tackles domestic and global trends that are sure to resonate with the modern student.

Families in Peril: An Agenda for Social Change

Abstract: Too many American families unstable, broken, often poor are in serious peril, and both the reality of the situation and the myths obscuring that reality call for attention and swift action. In this most incisive analysis of the parlous state of the family today, Marian Wright Edelman, President of the Children's Defense Fund, charts what is happening, exposes myths, and sets a bold agenda to strengthen families and protect children. In brilliant strokes and with abundant detail, Edelman describes family conditions over a generation the rising curve of teenage pregnancy, the overwhelming joblessness of young blacks, the trend toward single-parent households, the increase in hungry and neglected children.Dispelling common assumptions about these bleak phenomena, she shows that the birth rate for black unmarried women is stabilizing while that for unmarried whites continues to rise, that Aid to Dependent Children does not cause teenage pregnancy or births, and that the child poverty rate has increased two-thirds for whites in recent years, as opposed to one-sixth for black children. Overall, whites are losing ground faster than blacks. Speaking for a growing number of social commentators, she finds the key to explain the rising proportion of births to single black mothers: a lost generation of fathers young black males unable to marry and support a family, jobless from lack of education and training.What can be done? Edelman links the family and child poverty crisis to the fragile and ephemeral commitment of government to assist the needy. She suggests establishing a partnership between government, the private sector, and the black community to ensure children food, clothing, housing, medical care, and education. Preventive investment strategies providing health, nutrition, and child care, raising the minimum wage, preventing teenage pregnancies, and opening up educational and employment opportunities for heads of families will benefit us all. A passionate call to act now, to give real meaning to traditional American instincts for decency, this book is essential reading for everyone committed to preserving the nation's future."

A new history of social welfare

Abstract: 1. Values in Social Welfare. Values in Social Welfare. American Social Values. Issues of Discrimination. 2. The Institution of Social Welfare: An Overview. The Meaning of Social Institution. Perspectives in Social Welfare. The Scope of Social Welfare. 3. The Beginnings of Social Welfare: Political Economy and Early Societies. Prehistory and Social Welfare to 6000 B.C.E. The Beginnings of History 6000 -- 1200 B.C.E. Invasion, Conquest, and Patriarchal Religion. Moving into the Iron Age: 1200 -- 400 B.C.E. Greece, Christianity, and the Roman Empire. Conclusion: Beginnings of Charity and Control. 4. Feudalism and the Welfare State. The Dark and Middle Ages. The Dissolution of Feudalism. Poverty Becomes a Crime. The Protestant Reformation: New Meanings for Work and Welfare. Social Welfare in England: The Tudor Period. The Industrial Revolution and the Emergence of Capitalism. Conclusion: Reifying the Values of the Past. 5. Social Welfare Moves to the Americas. The Indigenous Peoples of America. The European Invasion of North America. Work in North America. Social Welfare in the Colonies. Slavery in the Americas. Toward the Revolution. The New Nation and Its Constitution. Conclusion: Revolution to Status Quo. 6. Americato the Civil War. The First Civil Rights Movement. Private Philanthropy. Government Responses. Social Treatment in the 1800s. Social Control. Nonwhite Minorities: Expendable Commodities in the New Nation. The Women's Movement in the 1800s. Conclusion: Working Toward Freedom. 7. The American Welfare State Begins. The Civil War: A New Nation Emerges. After the Civil War. Postwar Political Economy. Population, Immigration, and the People. "True Womanhood." Emerging Philosophies and Social Welfare. Public Welfare Efforts. Professionalization of Social Work. Conclusion: Moving Toward Reform. 8. The Progressive Era, War, and Recovery. The Progressive Era. Population Movements and Immigration. Oppression of African and Native Americans. Labor and the Unions. Social Welfare in the Progressive Era. Women's Movements and Peace Protests. The Professionalization of Social Work. Conclusion: New Freedoms and Old Constraints. 9. The Great Depression and Social Security for Americans. The Great Depression. Social Insurance in the United States. Programs of Social Insurance Based on the Social Security Act. Public Assistance Programs of the Social Security Act. Maternal and Child Welfare Act: Title V. The Professionalization of Social Work. World War II. The Resurgence of Social Work. The American Dream. Conclusion: Moving Toward the Future. 10. Civil and Welfare Rights in the New Reform Era. The State of the Nation Under Eisenhower. Social Programs in the 1950s. Civil Rights Before Kennedy. Civil Rights in the Kennedy -- Johnson Years. Johnson and the Great Society. Social Programs in the Kennedy -- Johnson Years. Welfare, Civil Rights, and the Social Work Profession. Conclusion: Looking Back on the 1960s. 11. The Return to the Past. A Retreat from the Welfare State. Social Programs in the 1970s. Other Social Welfare Programs. Civil Rights in the 1970s. Conclusion: Tightening the Reins. 12. The Reactionary Vision. Biting the Conservative Bullet. Reaganomics: The Conservative Political Economy. The New Federalism. Pruning the Programs. Basic Needs Programs. Civil Rights Under Reagan and Bush. The Costs of Social Welfare. The International Element. Conclusion: Past Ideology in a Postindustrial World. 13. The Decline of Social Responsibility. Clinton and the Republican Congress. Welfare as We Knew It. Other Safety Net Programs. Health Care in America. Social Issues. Affirmative Action and Civil Rights. Private Charity. Welfare for the Wealthy and Corporate Welfare. Conclusion. 14. The Synergistic Cycle. Values and Dependency. They Synergistic Cycles of History. The "Why" of Values Analysis. Conclusion: Futureword.

Womanpower: The Arab Debate on Women at Work

Abstract: Womanpower unveils the lively but little-reported debate on women's position in the modern Arab world. It paints a picture drawn from individual stories as well as from national development programmes and attempts to explain why the process of social change in the region has been slow and uneven by linking it to political and economic developments. By illustrating particular themes - personal status laws, development policies, political rights - with examples from specific countries, Nadia Hijab builds up an informative overview of the Arab world today. The title sums up the two-pronged approach: the process of integrating women into the modern work-force and of empowering them to enjoy equal rights and opportunities. The book argues that those seeking equal rights for Arab women cannot isolate this aim from the search to liberate Arab potential and resources and for democratic political systems. The Arab world is a region in search of an identity. The book discusses the differing views of liberals and conservatives, most of whom are concerned that Arab identity be developed in an indigenous context rather than by slavish imitation.

Back to the Future: Adult Political Behavior of Former Student Activists

Abstract: This research is the second follow-up study of 1960s civil rights activists and two control groups. The data support Mannheim's theory of distinctive intragenerational units who are agents of social change. In addition, confirmatory factor analysis verified five separate dimensions of political behavior. Civil rights activists scored the highest on four measures of active conventional and unconventional politics. The noninvolved in college politics are the least active as adults. Although both the protesters and the institutional activists are highly involved in politics, they tend to be on opposite sides in various political arenas.

Populist politics, communications media and large scale societal integration

Abstract: Observations of public apathy in today's electoral democracies are commonplace (Neumann, 1986). For many social scientists, low voter turnout and similar indicators are simply reasons for believing that liberal democracies will always be governed by elites, though these may shift over time. Recently, a number of authors have argued against this view, and indeed against the presumption that representative institutions are the only form of participation workable in modern, large-scale polities. Characterizing representation as a form of "thin democracy," for example, Barber (1984) has called for a move towards a "strong democracy" based on new or revitalized forms of popular participation. His proposals stress two dimensions of such participation: the renewal of community level institutions of self-rule and the development of more frequent national referenda.... My argument in this paper is that the theoretical grounds on which most discussion of these issues takes place are doubly deficient. In the first place, numerical size, while a central variable, does not adequately grasp the transformation in social organization wrought during the modern era. We need to address contrasting forms of social integration as well as sizes of population. I shall adopt Habermas's (1984) distinction of system world/system integration from lifeworld/social integration for this purpose. I will argue that the current efflorescence of populist politics (of both left and right) simultaneously is a response to the split between system world and lifeworld, and is limited in an often poorly recognized way by the implications of large scale system integration. Secondly, academic discussion of representative vs. direct democracy has tended to focus on mechanisms of decision-making at the expense of attention to public discourse and the educational functions of politics. Communitarian populists (though generally not plebiscitarians) are sensitive to this, and offer proposals for improved settings for local discourse and political language less prejudicial to the values of community and tradition (Barber, 1984; Bellah, et al., 1985; Evans and Boyte, 1986). Most, however, approach this predominantly in cultural rather than social structural terms, and underestimate the limits imposed by large scale system integration. Above all, both communitarian and plebiscitarian visions tend to neglect the structural difficulties which social change has put in the way of public discourse among people significantly different from each other. Changes in cities and community patterns on the one hand, and in communications systems on the other, make it likely that no extension of community level discourse or mobilization will constitute a public discourse at the level of the state. This is a limit to communitarian politics, but not an argument against them. At the same time, the issues presented here do argue against most proposals for extensive reliance on referenda.

Psychotherapy, Distributive Justice, and Social Work: Part 1: Distributive Justice as a Conceptual Framework for Social Work

Abstract: This is the first part of a two-part article analyzing the relation between psychotherapy and social work. This part provides a new account of the nature of social work. It is first argued that each profession is defined by an "organizing value" that it aims to promote. Then, using John Rawls's theory of justice as a framework, it is argued that the organizing value of social work is distributive justice; that is, social work strives to ensure that no person is deprived of a fair minimum level of those basic social goods to which everyone is entitled. Rawls's theory implies that the social goods relevant to justice include certain psychological traits, such as self-respect, but not mental health. This allows for a distinction between clinical social work, which uses psychological intervention to pursue justice, and other forms of therapy, which pursue mental health. Part 2, to appear in the next issue of this journal, will use this framework to explore the nature of clinical social work.