Introduction to the Special Issue

To commemorate the 90th anniversary of the National Career Development Association and to anticipate its centennial, this special issue presents 9 analyses of the career counseling profession's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT). On the basis of SWOT analyses and using the methodology explained in this introductory article, the authors present objectives and strategies for advancing the profession in the next decade. The special issue concludes with an “analysis of the analyses” that reviews and integrates the authors' recommendations and suggestions for constructing the future of the profession.     

Introduction to the Special Issue

Organizational innovation is now widely seen tobe a major source of competitive advantage for firms,along with product and process innovation. One of themajor intellectual sources for the upheavals, in which firms strive for some formof international best practice, is thesociotechnical systems tradition, which traces its rootsback to innovations such as semi-autonomous work teamsin manufacturing in the 1960s, associated with the work of theTavistock Institute. An international Colloquium wasstaged in Melbourne, Australia, in May 1995, to explorethe current relevance and contributs to organizational innovation.     

Introduction to the Special Issue

Qualitative Sociology -     

Introduction to the Special Issue

The articles published in this special TAS issue, Racial Diversity In Becoming a Sociologist, offer sobering insights into the marginal status of people of color in the profession of sociology. This essay provides introductory commentary on the various ways in which the marginality of sociologists of color represents a form of ethnocultural deviance in a historically persistent ethnocentric profession. He is Chair-Elect of the Status of Racial Minorities Committee of the American Sociological Association.     

Adoption Issues in Perspective: An Introduction to the Special Issue

The process and dynamics of adoption have changed considerably in the last 50 years, assisted by both social change and new knowledge of human development. The current status of 3 important aspects of adoption is reviewed: 1) the general effects of relinquishment and adoption, 2) the effects of secrecy in adoption, and 3) the need to add information on the dynamics of adoption to the training of therapists. The articles contained in this special adoption issue of the Journal of Social Distress and the Homeless are summarized and are placed in context of the 3 aspects reviewed.