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The article reports that the general social welfare manpower training needs in Papua New Guinea must be viewed against the background of rapid political and social change taking place in an emerging nation of some two and a half million people, comprising hundreds of distinct language groups and cultural entities. Secondary school education has increased from a total enrolment of 1,800 in 1960 to 17,785 in 1970; the University of Papua New Guinea was established in 1965, and began with a Preliminary Year enrolment in 1966, graduating its first students in 1970. In February, 1972 the elections for the House of Assembly led to the formation of a National Coalition Government under the leadership of the Chief Minister, Mr. Michael Somare. December 1, 1973 has been agreed to as the date for internal self-government, with early independence to follow. Problems of rapid social change have led to a growing awareness that there is no adequate provision of trained personnel for developmental, preventative, or remedial social welfare tasks.

The article focuses on the development of social policy in conditions of rapid change. Social work in the North American nations has long been concerned with the evaluation of social welfare, and in recent years has concentrated on national social policies as the means with which to affect the general welfare of disadvantaged persons. This turn to social policy has sometimes been accompanied by some naivete, believing that a passion for justice is sufficient to harness the basic forces of social change. Social work has maintained its vision, an uneasy blend of Utopian design and nineteenth century personal charity extended to twentieth century mass application. The dynamics of change are frequently defined in professional conferences as the explosion of population, social mobility or the migration of peoples, the exponential growth in technological capacity with consequent economic and personal disruption, shifts in power among various groups in society, the evolution of new values and mores in a given culture.

This article explores an emerging intellectual group within the Jesuits and of the implications this phenomenon has for psychological and organizational aspects of the order. One of the modern and successful religious orders is the Society of Jesus or Jesuits. Its traditional symbolism reflects the military history of Ignatius who was a soldier-courier before his conversion experience while recovering from a leg wound suffered in battle. The impact of the special students spearheads and symbolizes the larger shifts that are occurring within the Catholic community and within the Society of Jesus in particular toward greater emphasis on individual development and life styles and the incorporation of the instrumental and ecumenical values of the dominant society. This development is facilitated within the Jesuit Order by its rationalistic tradition of means-ends, its intellectualism and its final emphasis on the non-coercive and universalistic norm of enlightened obedience rather than any particularistic sacred behavior as its defining characteristics. These organizational values are seen as allowing a new adjustment between the internal system and external system with the larger society. This adjustment or social change is carried and symbolized by the stratum of hyphenated Jesuits who carry a dual identity as sacred-secular intellectuals.