Community Development and Government Response

The article contrasts two programmes aimed at improving thequality of life for older women in Australia. The CommunityOptions programme is a wellfunded Government initiative directedat personal care within the home. The Older Women's Networkis a grass-roots community development initiative. The articleexamines the relationship between control and resourcing interms of preventative and crisis care.     

Assumptions, Motivations and Neutrality in Rural Development: The Portuguese Paradigm

Development agents need to examine their underlying assumptions,motivations, neutrality, and their terminology, which is oftenimprecise and misleading. In addition, development is frequentlycharacterized by self-created dichotomies that obscure the veryproblems that need to be solved. The combined cooperativistand constructivist approach has proved itself successful inovercoming these problems. "A lady once said to him, ‘My maid must be pleased, Igave her my dresses.’ ‘That's nice’, he replied,‘does she give you hers?" Jean-Paul Sarrte, Saint Genet "You name it, you claim it." Max Roach, Black American jazzmusician, referring to whites, and jazz.     

OWI AND MOTION PICTURES

Is the Office of War Information making fullest use of our motionpicture facilities? Mr. Wanger says no, and presents hereina forthright and vigorous criticism of the policies, personnel,and methods of the Motion Picture Bureau of the OWI. The author is president of the Academy of Motion Picture Artsand Sciences and has produced a wide variety of entertainmentfilms from Algiers and Foreign Correspondentto Eagle Squadronand Arabian Nights. Many of his productions have been attemptsto advance the motion picture as a serious medium of expression,notably in the case of Gabriel Over the White House, PrivateWorlds, The President Vanishes, and Blockade. Mr. Wanger isalso president of the Motion Picture Society for the Americaswhich is the Hollywood collaborator with the Office of the Coordinatorof Inter-American Affairs.     

Social capital, the social economy and community development

Social capital is increasingly used in the field of communitydevelopment and the social economy. This article describes someof the results to emerge from a three-year research project(CONSCISE Project), which looked at the contribution socialcapital can make to the social economy within local economicdevelopment. Following the definition of social capital, thearticle examines how it can be assessed and then goes on tolist the main findings on the significance of social capitalin the understanding of the social economy and community development.It concludes with a number of policy implications on how socialcapital can be used within the context of community development.     

Improving Coding Reliability for Open-Ended Questions

One of the basic measurement problems in survey research isthe reliable coding of open-ended questions. A posteriori methodsfor improving coding reliability are distinguished from a priorimethods. An a posteriori method has been shown to be of limitedvalue for improving reliability for certain coding tasks. Thisarticle proposes and illustrates a multi-step, a priori procedurefor generating coding categories for open-ended items. Preliminaryevidence is presented indicating that this method may yieldreliability levels far superior to those typically obtainedin coding open-ended questions     

Errata

In Table A of Werner Cohn's comment (POQ 48:661) on the articleby Himmelfarb, Loar, and Mott ("Sampling by ethnic surnames:the case of American Jews," POQ 47:247–60), there is amissing minus sign: item 15 in the DJN column should read -.18. Harold Himmelfarb points out that in the response to Cohn(POQ 48:664–65), this error makes questionable the interpretationby him and his coauthors (p. 665). In "Taking Note: Bibliographies," in Book Notes (POQ 49:141),the number of pages given for the Guide to the Bureau of AppliedSocial Research, edited by Judith S. Barton, was erroneouslygiven. The book has 202 pages.     

The British Community Development Project: Lessons for today

This paper looks back at the experience of the first Britishpoverty programme, the national Community Development Project(CDP), which operated from 1969 to 1978. The "radical" projectswithin CDP comprehensively rejected the official governmentview of the nature and causes of, and solutions to, povertyand urban deprivation. The roots of the radical CDP perspectiveare to be located within the political character of the periodamong other factors. The paper offers a retrospective accountof the strengths and limitations of CDP.     

GALLUP AND FORTUNE POLLS

This section contains a compilation, topically arranged, ofpoll results released by the American Institute of Public Opinion,by Fortune, and by the Canadian Institute of Public Opinion.The AIPO results cover the period from October through December1941. (Previous aipo questions were reported in the July 1938,October 1939, and all subsequent issues of the QUARTERLY.) TheFortune questions are those which appeared in the October andDecember issues of the magazine, together with those taken fromthe Fortune Management Poll which appeared in the November issue.(Previous Fortune questions were reported in the March 1940and all subsequent issues of the QUARTERLY.) Releases from theCanadian Institute of Public Opinion are included for the firsttime. (The first cn>o report was issued November 29, 1941.) Under each topic, all of the Institute data are given in chronologicalorder, then all of theFortune material, also in chronologicalsequence. Dates appearing in connection with AIPO questionsare those carried in the date lines of Institute releases tosubscribing newspapers; dates following Fortune questions indicatethe issue of the magazine in which the information appeared.Institute questions are designated by AIPO; Fortune questionsby FOR; "DK" stands for "don't know"; "no op." for "no opinion." In considering these poll data, the reader should bear in mindcertain salient points of reference set forth on pages 75 and76 of the March 1940 issue of the QUARTERLY. The QUARTERLY wishesto express its appreciation to George Gallup and the AmericanInstitute of Public Opinion and to the editors of Fortune andElmo Roper for their cooperation in making these survey resultsavailable in convenient form to other students of public opinion.     

Non-formal education and community development in Senegal

Given the often limited capacity of most African states to addressthe needs of their populations, local communities must findways to tackle many development challenges. For example, inSenegal, villagers have had to ensure a steady supply of water,construct health huts, and dispose of waste. As these problemshave become more acute, new practices and structures are required.To effectively address different issues and problems requiresa high level of community cooperation. This article exploresthe factors that give rise to community participation and specificallythe role of non-formal education.     

Four different approaches to community participation

This paper explores some of the politics of community work byexamining four basic community participation approaches. Movingfrom the right of politics to the left, it overviews some ofthe different theoretical orientations, goals, processes andrecruitment practices that are commonly used but not alwaysrecognized to constitute different forms of community participation.Offered primarily to ‘lay’ community members, studentsand beginning practitioners, the paper is intended to clarifysome of the differences that emerge when participation projectsare designed, and to stimulate discussion about community participationmore generally.     

Sweet-Talking the Fourth Branch: The Influence of Interest Group Comments on Federal Agency Rulemaking

Students of politics have identified a variety of actors whoappear to influence the federal bureaucracy's implementationof public policy, including Congress, the president, and interestgroups. These lines of research, however, have often portrayedinterest groups as actors with indirect influence (who, forexample, work through or with Congress), rather than assessingthe direct influence of interest groups on bureaucratic policyoutputs. I conduct a test of direct interest group influenceby analyzing an original data set composed of 1,444 interestgroup comments in reaction to forty federal agency rules. Ifind, contrary to the expectations of the extant literature,that the formal participation of interest groups during rulemakingcan, and often does, alter the content of policy within the"fourth branch" of government. I conclude that those who voicetheir preferences during the notice and comment period rulemakingare often able to change government policy outputs to bettermatch their preferences.     

Editor's Note

The masthead for this, the first issue of the 70^th year of publicationof Public Opinion Quarterly, lists some new members of the journal’sAdvisory and Editorial Boards. I want to welcome these scholarsof public opinion to the POQ family. Along with continuing membersof the boards, they perform essential roles in the operationof the journal, and we owe them a debt of gratitude for their     

Book Award

The American Association for Public Opinion Research Presents the 2004 AAPOR BOOK AWARD to John R. Zaller For The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion Cambridge University Press (1992) The Nature and Origins of     

Editorial

After forty successful years of publishing and supporting otherrelated activities, the Community Development Journal remainsat the forefront within the field of community development.Its coverage of material from the north and south as well aspractice and theory ensures that the Journal continues to commanda unique position among academic journals. The recent introductionof online advance access publishing and e-letters ensures theJournal reflects the best in publishing. This issue begins with an article by Glen Laverack, in whichhe introduces the concept of the ‘domains approach’to community empowerment, which is illustrated by a case studyfrom Kyrgyzstan. Extrapolating from the community developmentliterature, Laverack identifies     

The Portrayal of Blacks in Magazine Advertisements: 1950-1982

This article compares the frequency and social characteristicsof blacks and whites in advertisements in Time and Ladies' HomeJournal during 1950 and 1980. The occupational level of blacksportrayed has risen considerably, and blacks are no longer presentedas maids or servants. However, white authority figures are stillfrequently shown aiding poor blacks or supervising black children.Furthermore, ads show friendly and informal social relationshipsbetween individual whites much more frequently than they showsuch relationships between whites and blacks. Finally, in anextended analysis the frequency of black ads in 1980, 1981,and 1982 is examined for Time, Newsweek and LHJ. Blacks arestill somewhat underrepresented, and recent fluctuations inthe use of black advertisements are considered. The articlebegins and ends with a discussion of three different modelsthat might account for the way blacks are presented in advertisementsin the United States.     

Reaching the U.S. Cell Phone Generation: Comparison of Cell Phone Survey Results with an Ongoing Landline Telephone Survey

Noncoverage rates in U.S. landline-based telephone samples dueto cell phone only households (i.e., households with no landlinebut accessible by cell phone) and the corresponding potentialfor bias in estimates from surveys that sample only from landlineframes are growing issues. Building on some of the few publishedstudies that focus on this problem, a study was conducted inthree states (Georgia, New Mexico, and Pennsylvania) as partof the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS), theworld's largest ongoing public health telephone survey, to evaluatethe effectiveness of conducting the BRFSS interview with a sampledrawn from dedicated cell phone telephone exchanges and mixed-use(landline and cell phone) exchanges. Approximately 600 interviewswere conducted in each of two groups: cell phone only adults(n = 572) and adults with both a landline and a cell phone (n= 592). Making comparisons with data from the ongoing, landline-basedBRFSS survey, we report on response rates, demographic characteristicsof respondents, key survey estimates of health conditions andrisk behaviors, and survey costs. The methods used in this studyhave wide application for other U.S. telephone surveys.     

DIRTY DATA IN BRITAIN AND THE USA: THE RELIABILITY OF "INVARIANT" CHARACTERISTICS REPORTED IN SURVEYS

This section of the Quarterly is reserved for brief reportsof research in progress, discussions of unsolved problems, methodologicalstudies, and public opinion data not extensively analyzed orinterpreted. Succinct case histories are welcomed, as well ashypotheses and insights that may be useful to other studentsof public opinion. Usually, material in this section will beshorter, more informal, and more tentative than in precedingpages of the Quarterly     

Erratum

In Peter L. Wright's, "Analyzing Media Effects on AdvertisingResponses" (Summer 1974), "the former" should be substitutedfor "the latter" so that the sentence reads correctly as follows(p. 206): "Print and broadcast media have been treated here,both theoretically and operationally according to the typicalsituation in which the former afford the greater response opportunity."     

New Labour's appropriation of the concept of community: a critique

This article analyses the ways in which ‘community’,one of the most important yet ill-defined concepts in SocialSciences, has been ‘appropriated’ in the discourseof the UK's New Labour government. It argues that the highlystrategic ways in which the term is used leads to associatedmeanings that neglect the intrinsically complex nature of theconcept and risk essentializing group identities, thus adverselyaffecting the most deprived sections of society.     

Contesting Communities. The Transformation of Workplace Charity

Contesting Communities has an interesting title and, as such,provided an enticement into the book but what started out asa journey of hope and excitement unfortunately ended in disappointment.While there are some very interesting parts to this book, ultimatelyit failed on a number of different fronts. It appears to bea book about community and therefore of interest to the readershipof the journal. The subtitle, The Transformation of WorkplaceCharity, hints at its real subject matter, that is fundraisingby non-profit organizations