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The article talks about the globally ageing population and the importance of involving older adults in community development. It discusses the multi-cultural research conducted on older adults which imply that community development projects promotes the social and civic participation of older adults in the locality. It also offers a look at the Elder Friendly Communities Programme in Calgary, Alberta.

The article focuses on a study which examined the experiences of women as social welfare administrators. By now it is almost common knowledge that women in social work, although they constitute the vast majority of practicing social workers, are poorly represented in the ranks of administrators in social welfare agencies: two-thirds of professional social workers are women, but two-thirds of social work administrators are men. These issues have received considerable attention and have been the focus of doctoral-level research as well as conference proceedings. Although the profession has a well documented understanding of the experiences of women administrators in the aggregate, the literature does not contain information about the specific experiences of subgroups of women who hold administrative positions. This article reports the findings of an interview study of a group of 57 women administrators. The other major motivational theme that emerged in these interviews was that respondents became interested in considering administrative positions because an opportunity was presented to them. In this respect, 35 percent of the respondents reported their experience was characterized by the following circumstances: a position became available and they were recruited, an administrator resigned and they were the natural replacement or their move into an administrative position evolved that is, as they grew in expertise! their job titles were upgraded to match their professional development.

The article deals with a study, which evaluate the coverage of women's issues during the "second wave" of feminism in social work journals from 1970 through 1981. Most social workers might assume that the amount of space given to research about women's issues has increased dramatically during the past fifteen years, a period that has been heralded as the second wave of feminism. But the social work literature has not been as responsive to the issues of feminism as might have been expected. Research has focused on the predominance of male authors in social work publications, as well as salary inequities, power differentials, and sexism within the profession. It is evident that women are not adequately represented in administration, professional leadership positions, academic positions, and authorship of the social work literature. But one would presume that the women's movement has had some impact on what is viewed as important within the profession and that women have had more opportunities to write about issues of importance to them, as programs and services have expanded and as a heightened consciousness of women-as-victims has emerged.

No abstract available for this article. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Since Americans are surviving to the extremes of old age in unprecedented numbers, long-term care is likely to be a critical policy issue in the future. This research examines the conditions under which managers in public long-term care programs believe that family and friends can assume responsibility for the long-term care of the elderly (N = 127). A factor analysis of 13 individual items reveals 5 broad dimensions of importance in care plan development: (a) size of responsibility, (b) caregivers' capacity, (c) long-range welfare, (d) caregivers' age, and (e) caregivers' motivation. Of these conditions, the size of the caregiving responsibility was rated the highest in importance in assessing family responsibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the inability of older adults to age well due to lack of access to fundamental health and social services. Subpopulations of older adults who are underserved; Characteristics of individuals who will utilize more social and healthcare services.

The article presents authors' comment on the research paper entitled "A New Approach to Relevant Scientific Research for Practitioners: The Heuristic Paradigm." Leaving aside the paper's scholarly merits, two presentational errors were made. First, an artificial dichotomy was created as a means of inappropriately forcing readers into an either-or choice between the heuristic and positivistic research approaches. Second, using a selective view of positivism, a "straw person" was constructed that could then be attacked, leaving readers with only the heuristic approach as the alternative. In reality, such important issues cannot be reduced to such a simplistic choice. At a minimum, the positivistic research paradigm has produced some social work-relevant knowledge of some utility for some practitioners. The paper may have been more valuable to readers had it identified a body of heuristic social work-relevant research findings. Readers could compare and contrast the usefulness of research findings generated from heuristic studies directly with those derived from positivistic approaches. Such comparisons could help formulate "more useful" social work research approaches.