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Whenever the journal prints a controversial article someone is sure to protest, "Why don't you print along with it a rebuttal paper?" or "Why print such an outrageous point of view?" The policy of your Editorial Board is to print controversial papers if they meet publication standards letting the chips fall. This is true even when the article is anathema to the editors. To what extent is the central agency to modify or replace the roles of the traditional autonomous operating agency? Yes, your agency, dear reader. It is another version of the federal-states rights principle, not easily solved but enormously important how it is solved. Assuming that the role of the autonomous agency will be modified, does not the individual agency with its leadership board prove to be a constructive counter-foil in the central power structure? Another point-when the goal for community planning is stated as problem centered with the objective of social welfare, none can quarrel with it.

A number of major considerations emerged fairly clearly from meetings held in 1928 of the section on Sociology and Social Work. The more important of them may perhaps be indicated in terms of the following questions, are the social research and social work attitudes compatible?, and more specifically, should social workers be expected to subject their own processes of work, such as come into play in the interview, for instance, to objective analysis and investigation?, can social workers so write their case records as to make them more available for sociological research without jeopardizing their value as social work documents? and what definite suggestions and contributions has sociology to make to the treatment of specific social work problems such as family discord. These are complex considerations which cannot be dismissed dogmatically with the formulation of a single point of view and this year's meetings seem to have been definitely planned with a view to throwing additional light op them. There were four meetings of the section this year, devoted respectively to the discussion of the following topics, "Some Contributions of Sociological Theory to Social Work," "A Sociological Analysis of the Contents of 2,000 Social Case Records With Special Reference to the Treatment of Family Discord," "A Study of Social Case Work Interviews," and "Is Prediction Feasible in Social Work? An Inquiry Based Upon a Sociological Study of Parole Records."

Time for the preparation of this paper was made available through the author's participation in a contract between the State of Colorado and the Office of Juvenile Delinquency and Youth Development, United States Department of Health, Education and Welfare; the contract being titled: A Field Test and Refinement of a Model to be utilized in Surveying Existing Programs for Present and Future Needs in Child and Youth Services Insofar as They Concern Delinquency. The writer is indebted to Carol I. Cartwright for critical readings of several early drafts; to Edgar F. Borgatta for valuable editorial commentary and specific critique of the design and content of the manuscript; and to an anonymous reviewer who provided numerous insightful criticisms of a late draft of the paper. The assistance of Mary and Madeline Luebke in typing early drafts of the manuscript is much appreciated. Mrs. Jean Michener most ably carried out the task of final preparation of the manuscript. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholar Earle E. Eubank's discussion of contributions of sociological theory to social work is a more ambitious undertaking than the usual efforts in this field for it presents several case analyses in terms of sociological concepts supplemented by a list of principles that he believes are derived from social theory. However much one may commend Eubank for his courage in dealing boldly and frankly with this much debated issue, his statement of the case for sociology is not at all likely to be convincing to the social worker. A defense of sociology on the conceptual plane has serious limitations because concepts have real meaning only for those who have been trained to use them as tools in their thinking. A social worker whose professional education has included a thorough study of sociology might read Eubank's paper with approval, since he has become accustomed to think about social problems in terms of such concepts. The typical social worker, however, is likely to be more familiar with psychological and psychiatric terms and therefore could easily make the claim that his vocabulary is equally, if not more illuminating than that of the sociologist. Moreover, when he studies Eubank's analysis of the case stories, he can not help but be perplexed to find that concepts which he had taken over from the fields of psychology and psychiatry are here set forth as contributions of sociological theory to social work.

This article presents an update on organizations related to sociology as of November 1972. The Institute for Community Development and the Center on Human Policy call for papers for the Third Annual Symposium on Current Issues in Community Psychology from April 12-14, 1973. Papers should relate to alternatives to total institutional structures for people of all ages having special needs, including the emotionally disturbed, retarded, delinquent and criminal. The Southern Anthropological Society announced the annual James Mooney Award of $1,000 for the book-length manuscript that best describes and interprets the people or culture of a distinctive New World population. The Institute for European Health Services Research was created at Leuven University in Belgium to contribute to the improvement of European health and other social welfare services through research and to organization financing and administration, and through the professional growth of those who develop and implement public welfare at all levels.

This paper describes a procedural guide for the application of behavioral principles and techniques in open welfare settings. The aim of the guide is to aid the worker in approaching assessment and modification from a behavioral point of view and to organize his activities sequentially and systematically in accordance with that view. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper undertakes a discussion of two important controversies in the field of community planning. The first has to do with the role and relationship of a health and welfare council to comprehensive community planning. The comments and point of view that follow are based on several years of life in a climate of change. The New Haven area has undergone both a physical and a social transformation. The Community Council of Greater New Haven, responding first to the need to relate social planning to the physical changes taking place through a comprehensive redevelopment program, developed new relationships. The complaint of being bypassed is like pouting in the corner. Nevertheless, it was relatively simple to pick up the initiative, to demonstrate not only interest but willingness to work with the redevelopers in terms of the human needs they were attempting to meet, and to bring the council, the renewal planners, and the city government into a close working relationship. The ability to use staff community organization training in the development of an effective interdisciplinary planning organization. Council staff should be leaders in helping to weld an effective partnership out of the team members.

This paper, is addressed to social workers in aiming toward better understanding of social work. It, makes it possible for one to overcome much of one's frustration and to marshall one's material so that one can pass it on to professional writers for wide circulation media; and so that one can use it oneself, not only in agency publications, but in one's everyday conversations. Each year social workers help uncounted thousands to cope with their problems, to find their way towards a more comfortable, useful, and satisfying existence. They help communities to reorganize their services so that more and better help can be provided. And yet, when circumstances force them to talk about their work too many of them are defensive, sometimes evasive, reluctant, and often inadequate. If social workers had more of that very quality, faith and confidence in their work, it would help them in every phase of public relations. It would enable them to meet attack or disapproval with information rather than anger or argument. It would help them to endure whatever dislike they cannot now diminish.

In the article, the author comments on works of Professor O. Hobart Mowrer. Mowrer takes the position that what constitutes a social problem depends upon one's judgment as to what constitutes social welfare and that social welfare tends to be a subjective concept of an evaluative character. With this view there can be little disagreement except for the implication that there is wide variation of belief as to what constitute the goals to be sought by group endeavors. The author believes that nearly everyone recognizes as desirable social objectives the reduction in the frequency of poverty, crime, accidents, diseases, mental illness, slums and wars. He disagrees with Mowrer on the measures to be taken to achieve these social values and on the ways in which the sacrifices necessary to accomplish these ends are to be distributed among the various groups in the population. Mowrer has presented a theory in which values and subjective judgments do play an important role. To think of social welfare as other than evaluative in character seems to the author to be impossible since the very term welfare implies a judgment as to what is well for society.

The article presents news related to sociology. This year, for the first time, a course in supervised social work will be conducted at the Marymount College by Mildred Fagerstrom, Salina County Child Welfare director. The course includes a working knowledge of the functions of various social agencies of Salina, visits to child caring institutions in the locality, attendance at the State Conference of Social Work, study of actual case histories, and actual experience in social case work under supervision. Franz Mueller presented a discussion of Paul Honigsheim's paper on "The Relation of Russian Orthodox Religion to Soviet Expansion" at the 1946 convention of the Mid-West Sociological Society in Des Moines, Iowa. Harvard University has reorganized its department of sociology and related fields to establish a new Department of Social Relations with Talcott Parsons as chairman of the department.

The article discusses various issues related to welfare research. One of the biggest conceptual dilemmas in welfare research is the definitional problem. A few social scientists have stepped back from empirical data and have developed a panoramic view of the welfare system or have struggled to provide a conceptual framework for a field one might term the social science of welfare. These analysts have not been content with the everyday situation. Even among those who have made important contributions toward delineating a science of social welfare there is as yet no agreement on what should or should not be included in definitions, and by implication social science analyses, of social welfare. Despite definitional limitations, current welfare research has developed substantial information about public assistance programs and recipients. Several research papers, particularly that of economists, have zeroed in on the determinants of work-welfare choices. In spite of the growing literature on recipients little attention has been given to demographic or ecological analysis. Since public assessments have accentuated speculative propositions linking demographic change to welfare problems, it would be appropriate for more social scientists to undertake such analysis.

The purpose of this paper is to explore some of the problems between aged parents and their adult children in the light of the experiences of one counseling agency and previous research and theory in family sociology. That this change in the composition of the American population will have increasing effects upon child-rearing families and family life in general seems unquestionable. This problem has already been reflected in social agencies, many of which have found it necessary to set up special departments to work with the increasing number of aged clients and their married children. However, specification of the types of problems they present, and the relation of these problems to the social system of the family remain unclarified. The estimated median income of the sample studied was between $2000 and $2500. The income was derived from the following sources in descending order of frequency: children, social security, savings, employment, Old Age Assistance, income property, retirement and pension funds, and a variety of other sources.

This paper speaks to the problem of designing income maintenance programs from the perspective of sociological theory. First, the underlying logic of situational and cultural theories of poverty is delineated, and some of their general implications are explored. Afterwards, the predictions of these theories with respect to the response by poor persons to an income maintenance program are examined. It is argued that, in place of seeking whether one or the other type of explanation is valid in general, we ascertain for which groups in poverty and for what types of response a particular theory is likely to be more useful. The discussion is illustrated by a consideration of how an individuals response to income maintenance is likely to vary with ethnicity and neighborhood organization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses social science and social action in agriculture. The author was with the Bureau of Agricultural Economics when the Department of Agriculture was reorganized in October 1938. He has been with it since then. He had worked with three major agricultural action programs in the years just preceding. Therefore, he feels that his greatest contribution in this paper can be made by discussing research and action in agricultural programs. The author is of the views that many so-called scholars in sociology have not been and are not research men at all. They spend most of their time seeking authoritative documentation of their ideas instead of observing and analyzing social phenomena. Science is not built in this fashion. The science of sociology is being forwarded primarily by research men who are studying living social phenomena, such as crime, poverty, population, community organization, social institutions and agencies, and others. The author does not mean to say that study of the past is not research, nor that deduction has no place in scientific thinking.

The article focuses on the development of the relation between sociology and social work. The official relation between sociology and social work may be said to begin with the meeting, in Pittsburgh, in 1921, where the first attempt was made to outline the relation between sociology and social work. This was the first time that the American Sociological Society took official cognizance of the fact that sociology might have some relation to social work, although it became conscious of such a relation to teaching and the training of teachers as early as 1915. At this meeting provision was made for round table discussions on the relation between sociology and social work and other subjects relating more specifically to social work processes. It was concluded by a professor in the meeting that the contribution of undergraduate sociology to the equipment of the social worker is chiefly in the general perspective, restraint, and inspiration obtained, though applied sociology sometimes has specific value for technique.

This article focuses on the Third Annual Meeting of the Southern Sociological Society scheduled to be held on April 1 and 2, 1938, at Hotel Patten, Chattanooga, Tennessee. It will have one main session and eight sectional meetings. The article gives a list of the papers to be presented in the main session. These papers will cover topics such as "Urban and Community Studies,""Social Psychology," and Social Psychiatry," and "Population problems." In addition to the formal papers, leaders have been appointed to open the discussion from the floor. In each case, the Section Chairman will act as presiding officer. A list of the officers of the Society, the names of section chairman, time of sectional meetings, and other details, appeared in the December 1937, issue of this journal. Some other topics of focus are "The Teaching of Sociology," "Rural Sociology," "Social Work and Public Welfare," Race and Culture," Social Research," etc. Some eminent sociologists will participate in the meeting.

This article presents a report of the Liaison Officer of the National Association of Social Work. The National Association of Social Work was originally formed by a merger of seven separate organizations. It included a Social Work Research Group. This is where sociologists were most active. It became the new organization's Research Section. After this fall, it will be renamed the Council on Research of the National Association of Social Work. The Council will be expected to assume leadership for the application of research methods to social work practice. It is scheduled to continue such activities as the encouragement of nationwide studies, their publication and the circulation of their reports. During the last year, the National Association of Social Work Research Section sponsored an Institute in Child Welfare Research and a Conference on the Nature of Social Work Knowledge. The National Association of Social Work also received a Ford Foundation grant to take a new look at social problems. Papers have been assigned to specialists to survey the state of knowledge on such topics as poverty, delinquency, deterioration of the inner city, and out-of-wedlock births.

The Meriden Legal Services Project in Meriden, Connecticut, found that welfare recipients have problems peculiar to their status that may be alleviated through reference to the law. Their problems deal with family law, challenges against the administrative agencies, and civil cases in commercial and housing areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information on the Southern Sociological Society. The society has 355 members represented with all the southern states of the United States. It will hold its meeting at the Atlanta-Biltmore Hotel, Atlanta, Georgia, on April 27 and 28. The program will feature sections pertaining to the teaching of family relations courses, social work and public welfare, social psychology, community development, sociological research and contributed papers. Program chairmen for these sections are: Marion B. Smith from Louisiana State University; Robert I. Kutak from the University of Louisville; Raymond F. Bellamy,from Florida State University; Laura S. Ebaugh, from Furman University and T. Lynn Smith, from the University of Florida.

The article presents news by various departments of sociology. The Department of Sociology at the University of Arizona will move into new quarters in time for the fall semester. These will include a set of instructional laboratories as well as a set of research laboratories so that no laboratory will have to serve multiple functions. C. Howard Phillips has received a grant from the Appalachian Regional Commission to study regional community aspects of commuting quality of services and interdependence in the Ohio area of Appalachia. The multidiscipline study will con!ider both the sociological and economic aspects of the areas of study. Agricultural economists John. Bottum and Robert Reeser are serving as consultants on the project. The Departments of Rural Sociology and Sociology of the University of Wisconsin announce the establishment of a graduate program in Sociology of Development. The program emphasizes instinational and societal factors in development, and is primarily concerned with theoretical and research issues.

Love is analyzed as an element of social action and therefore of social structure. Although the romantic complex is rare, a "love pattern" is found in a wide range of societies. Since love is potentially disruptive of lineages and class strata, it must be controlled. Since its meaning is different within different social structures, it is controlled by various measures. The five principal types of "love control" are described. Disruptions are more important to the upper social strata who possess the means for control. Therefore these strata achieve a higher degree of control over both the occurrence of love relationships and the influence of love upon action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The United States is confronted with the necessity of formulating and adopting national policies with reference to certain social aspects of medicine. These policies should not be projected without careful study of the experience of countries that have applied them over a period of years. It is desirable that the American people should discover and know the facts in regard to the conditions in the United States that will be affected by such policies. Thus, to make possible the social and medical research prerequisite to the intelligent construction of sound policies in social medicine and related fields, it is imperative that pertinent source materials be systematically collected and made accessible. In setting up a program for the provision of these vital materials, the medical and social science research worker and the librarian would do well to cooperate in the formulation of: (1) a definite statement of those categories of source materials relating to the social aspects of medicine which deserve more attention than they have hitherto received in the collecting activities of libraries; (2) a national plan for the systematic collection of these materials in strategic geographical and scholarly centers; (3) a program of social and medical research.

The science of sociology in general can make two important contributions to the art of social work, as Dr. Earle E. Eubank's discussion indicates, first, sociology can provide precise analytic and diagnostic concepts which aid in clear thinking about those social situations with which social workers are concerned and, second, sociology can make critical scientific analyses of certain social situation and processes which have hitherto resisted analysis and defied social control. These two objectives are, of course, highly interdependent and are differentiated here simply for purposes of academic discussion. The social scientist is apt to place a higher value on the first of these contributions than will the practical social worker. A medical scientist is more apt to appreciate the necessity of referring to a cold-in-the-head as coryza, or to softening of the bones as osteomalacia than will the man on the street. The scientist is rightly concerned with subtleties of word-meanings and with accurate use of terms. The practical social worker, however, is more apt to stress the importance of the second goal of sociology; that is, the exploration and charting of the field of social life in the interest of better social control.

The article focuses on the viewpoints of the author Joel Fischer on an article "Is Casework Effective?" Fischer, in his book explains that there are few genuine control groups, that many controls receive help from nonprofessional sources. But Bergin's contribution was much more than that and certainly antedated 1971. His 1963 article written in response to the negative findings uncovered by other authors might also be applied as a response to Fischer. Fischer writes that no comprehensive review of all the available major evaluative research on casework effectiveness is available in the social work literature. Once again the social work profession, and especially social casework, is being attacked and depreciated by social workers themselves. Social work is strongly identified with programs intended to improve the social and economic well-being of the people. The reactionary forces are attacking these programs and the social work profession along with them.

Power through institutional participation has become for many communities and campuses the royal toad to social change. It has served at times as an ultimate objective for organized groups through which they have sought to humble agencies and organizations. However, a voting privilege, or representation, or even a majority vote in the policy-making unit of an agency or organization, hardly guarantees major systemic institutional or societal changes. Certainly some curricula and services, some administrative procedures and policies affecting fiscal allocations and personnel deployment have been modified. For the purpose of influencing institutional policy and changing institutions, it is possible to distinguish several levels of participation. All of them operate within the institutional framework although with varying degrees of impact, autonomy, and authority. These levels may be illustrated by the various channels of relationship through which public welfare clients, for example, may participate directly or indirectly in the policy-making functions of public welfare agencies.

The National Association of Social Workers is consistent with social work tenets. It is consistent with social work's own best thought for itself. The new organization is not rigid but flexible; it is not static but devoted to change; it is not happy in isolation but comfortable and skilled in developing fruitful relationships. Among the many things that are now within the reach of social work, one must surely mention first a broader, more intensive intensive research effort, possibly of a laboratory type: research that is not geared to an agency's need nor to the needs of a specific community or group but is devised to meet the needs of a profession, perhaps wherever that profession practices. Another kind of research might be of a sort that is not necessarily bounded by any specialization but is of use to any social worker. A prime function of a professional organization, to provide adequate means for the exchange and dissemination of information and knowledge, first within the profession and then to the wider public that should know of it, can now be carried out in far greater measure, more efficiently, and in greater volume than one has as yet enjoyed.

Social work deals with the interaction of a variety of factors: the client or participants in a program, the professional worker, and the environment, including both the agency setting and life in a community. To do "basic" research, the goal of which is related to the impact of the service given to individuals, is thus no small order. The first step would appear to be to describe what the service consists of, its goals and its assumptions, as well as the theoretical basis for these assumptions. This first step clearly involves definitions. With this substantive knowledge as a base, one is prepared to move on to the statement of theories as to the interaction of the relevant factors. These theories must in turn be stated or broken down into researchable terms. The obstacles in doing such research are of two types (a) those arising from the nature of the subject matter of study, for example, human behavior; and (b) those arising from the situation in which most of the research must be done, for example, an operating service agency.

This article examines the organization, method, aims and accomplishments of the appropriate sections of the League of Nations in order to plan for future social cooperation. Positive organization is needed for general social welfare. Without regard to changing circumstances, one must have the sure conviction that by promoting security and welfare in and among all the nations of the world, one is serving the highest interests of one's own country, as well as the interests of the world as a whole. Those who framed the Dumbarton Oaks Agreements were fully aware of the importance of the social welfare of the world both within nations and between them. Organization is essential if all the people of the world are eventually to have work available to them when they are capable of it; if they are to have adequate food, housing and medical care, so that they may enjoy good health; if they are to have freedom of speech and of religion, of education and of movement, and the right to acquire and transmit property. international publicity organization is needed. It is needed not only to disseminate facts and theories about peaceful international organization, but also to be a clearing house of information about the peoples of the world.

The article presents announcements and information regarding the sociology departments various universities in the Julia Roberts, former holder of a graduate scholarship at the University of Wisconsin, has been appointed Instructor in Sociology at Cedar Crest College. Cedar Crest has a four-year course in Community Recreation besides its regular sociology courses. The Department of Sociology at the Texas State College for Women has expanded its curriculum this year. Courses in Public Welfare and Social Statistics have been authorized by the curriculum committee. A field course in Social Work is being offered for the first time next semester. Only students of senior rank will be permitted to enter this course. Richard F. Behrendt, who for the past two years has been Director of the Graduate Institute of Social and Economic Research and Professor of Economics and Sociology at the Inter-American University in Panama, has accepted a position as Associate Professor of International affairs at Colgate University, Hamilton, New York.

This article presents announcements made by several organizations. The Vermont Sociological Association has been initiated by a group of sociologists associated with the State of Vermont. Weilman J. Warner, professor Emeritus at New York University, was elected the first president for the year 1970 to 1971. The Nebraska Confederation in Early Childhood Education brings together a variety of pre- and postdoctoral scholars and staff in programs scattered across the country and concerned with a variety of ethnic conclaves, socioeconomic groups and educational programs. The Committee on Sociological History, whose primary objective is to bring together sociologists and historians on a regular and informal basis, meets twice each year in New York City. Tulane School of Public Health & Tropical Medicine, Mental Health Section, announces a new Community Mental Health Specialists program for psychiatrist, psychologists, social workers, sociologists, psychiatric and public health nurses. The National Science Foundation is accepting applications for Graduate and Postdoctoral Fellowship awards in the Social Sciences.

This article presents information about various meetings in the U.S. that are related to sociology. One of the most important meetings of the year was that of the Southeastern groups of The Federation of Womens Club at Pinehurst, North Carolina, in December 1923. Among the speakers at the North Carolina Conference for Social Service during January 24-25, 1923 will be Joseph K. Hart, whose books and articles are lately stimulating unusual thought. The Virginia Co-operative League held a most successful annual session at Richmond, Virginia during November 28-30, 1923. The Florida State Conference of Social Work of which Owen R. Lovejoy is president will devote its spring meeting largely to the promotion of Public Welfare in that state.