Rethinking needs assessment in planning services for older adults

Needs assessments are widely used in the field of aging, and are considered valuable tools for planning service responses to unmet and undermet needs of older adults. This article describes a comprehensive needs assessment of Bermuda's older population and presents some of its findings to illustrate concerns about needs assessments that emerged from this experience. We suggest that even when needs assessments are carefully planned and adhere to generally recognized best practice principles, they may not be able to fully provide desired information. A revision of key assumptions about needs assessment is offered for researchers, planners, and community workers.     

From Conflict To Embedment: The Individual–Society Relationship, 1920–1991

Sociological Forum - Why does the perception of Americans as conformists disappear after 1970 while the idea of a need for community persists? The literatures of social criticism, self-help, and...     

Book reviews

Qualitative Sociology -     

Paternalism as a component of managerial strategy

Paternalistic forms of labor control have become less viable according to many macro and mid-range analyses. This is true to a point, but it is exaggerated and this exaggeration results, we argue, from common theoretical premises. In the Weberian perspective, paternalism is one of several univocal forms of legitimized authority. The assumption follows that paternalized managerial strategies will be univocally paternalist, and thus will become obsolete as institutional rationalization, and the associated differentiation of forms of authority legitimations, advances. Instead, paternalism remains one element in a multivocal strategic repertoire that presents workers with a variety of rationales and justifications for management actions. To illustrate some of the features of the multivocal employment of paternalism, we present and analyze material from interviews with workers in two secondary labor market firms.     

Evaluation Research System,Functions, Future

Abstract

The authors focus on evaluation research as a social phenomenon. After identifying the system of actors for whom this phenomenon has meaning, they trace the changing functions and dysfunctions of evaluation research for these actors over time. They find that: (1) there was initially a consensus among actors on the scientific utility of evaluation research; (2) this consensus has broken down as actors realize the various economic, political and value implications of evaluation research for their own interests, and as they struggle to control the process. Because of this interaction of interests and perceptions of function, the authors predict that evaluation research will be, increasingly, the activity of the “for profit” research organizations, rather than of university based social scientists.'     

Parents' psychological self-concepts and children issues in low-income families in Singapore

Drawing on data from a survey of 430 families who were recipients of a government financial assistance scheme, the study found that different types of children issues affected different types of psychological self-concepts experienced by the sample of low-income parents. While parents' sense of self-efficacy was decreased by children's poor grades, parenting stress was aggravated by both children's health and behaviour problems. The effects were stronger for parents with teenage children than parents with younger children. The findings imply the importance of better integration of services to meet the different needs of low-income families, and of a supportive manner of providing assistance.