Interpersonal Helping Skills,by Eldon K. Marshall,P. David Kurtz,and Associates. Jossey-Bass Publishers,San Francisco, 1982. $35.00. 682 Pp.

Abstract

Courses in international or comparative social welfare have many benefits, but require a framework for systematic comparisons between countries. This article presents an institutional political process model for studying social welfare policy comparatively. The principal elements of the model include each country's societal values, government institutions (operationalized as the role of interest groups), policy goals, and system implementation (type of welfare system). The model is demonstrated through a comparison of the dissimilar social welfare systems of Sweden and the U.S.     

The Absurd Healer: Perspectives of a Community Psychiatrist,Matthew P. Dumont,M.D. New York,Science House, 1968. 196 pp. $7.95 Hardbound

The program described in this paper was designed to provide educational opportunity for minority group students who wished to pursue a professional career in social work, but were hampered by lack of information, limitations in preparation, and need for financial assistance. It had a dual focus: remediation of gaps in students' academic preparation and development of a sense of alternatives by raising their level of educational and career aspirations.

The program was conducted for three summers—1970, 1971, and 1972. It was considered extremely successful in view of the large number of students who returned to Smith or enrolled in other MSW programs. It was discontinued after 1972 because of lack of funds.     

Class, Culture and Empire: E. P. Thompson and the Making of Social History

In this article, the author asks: How has the legacy of E.P. Thompson helped shape the emergence of Social History in the United States? How have ideas about race, gender and empire, largely absent from Thompson’s work, been incorporated in writing on labor, immigration, and American exceptionalism? Is it now possible to synthesize race, class, and gender? Or, have histories based on class analysis so elided race and gender that such grafting has been foreclosed? With a bit of gossip here, a gesture to historiography there, and as little charm as possible, the author wonders: Is there any justice for “the Subaltern” in this profession? Or, is it just another “Organization Man” gone West?