A Conceptual Paper on Factors That Affect Public Perceptions of Welfare
This is a conceptual paper to study the effects of external factors on public perceptions of social welfare. The study reviews literature on the history of social welfare during the presidencies of Franklin Roosevelt, Lyndon B. Johnson, and William Clinton. The paper goes on to analyze three factors that play role on perceptions. These factors are values, environmental factors (economics and politics), and the media. Studies and surveys from Gilens, Gilliam, Los Angeles Times, and the National Election study were analyzed and discussed throughout the paper in the context of factors that influence perceptions. The factors outlined in the paper are analyzed using the theoretical framework of symbolic-interactionism. Symbolic-interactionism states that people act toward things based on the meaning those things have to them; and these meanings are derived from social interaction and modified through interpretation (Blumer, 1969).The model is appropriate for this inquiry because it allows the reader to understand how public perceptions are influenced. Minimal biased methods were used for acquiring literature for the paper. A number of databases in fields such as sociology, social sciences, psychology, and economics were used to acquire literature on the topic. Methods for conducting future research on the effects of experience on perceptions and attitudes towards welfare are provided. The findings of the paper include the types of factors that play a role on perceptions (values, environmental factors, and media), what factor appears to be most influential (media) and whether public perceptions of welfare has changed over time. Conclusions from the literature are drawn that states that living in society plays a key role in how perceptions are made, but the individual’s interpretation of the information should be taken into consideration. The paper ends with recommendations on future research on how experience with welfare affects perceptions and attitudes towards welfare; and future research to better public perceptions of welfare. Introduction
American dream : three women, ten kids, and a nation's drive to end welfare
those who “don’t count,” and so forth. He tries passionately to call attention to those on the margins, but he does not successfully show their capacities and gifts. We are not left with a sense of those on the margins as persons gifted by God with intelligence and freedom and endowed with the capacity to make self-determining choices ordered toward the common good. Although De La Torre seems to want us to see the marginalized with the eyes of Christ, instead we learn to see them with the eyes of nineteenthcentury German philosophers. In a similar way, the issues and case studies are flawed. Scholars committed to the Enlightenment ideals of objectivity and detachment might complain that the presentation of the issues and cases is one-sided. That is true enough; there is no pretense to objectivity. De La Torre makes it pretty plain which side he is on for each issue, and it is always the side that one would expect from a liberation theologian located on the political left. I have a different complaint about the case studies. The cases are so brief (usually only a few paragraphs long) that they make it impossible for college students to understand the issues with any kind of human complexity. In some of the cases, those on the margins are given names to make the cases seem more real, but we do not learn much about the people involved. We never see the people involved as moral agents or as persons created in God’s image. Instead, each one seems like a caricature, a helpless victim—followed by a five-step rational process for how to fix the problem. (Perhaps a violent revolution is justified?) The personal passion, evident at the beginning of the book, quickly transforms into a mechanical analysis of impersonal power relationships. I have found that my students learn most about marginalized people by serving in their neighborhoods, and then, over time, coming to know them not as the oppressed but as neighbors and maybe as friends. For a better book, I recommend John McKnight’s The Careless Society. My sense is that De La Torre’s gifts—as a writer, a teacher, and a theologian—would be developed better with a vision more like McKnight’s. —Gregory R. Beabout Saint Louis University
Archaeology and mud wall decay in a West African village
Abstract A detailed study of the processes of deterioration of mud walls and of the physical evolution and devolution of a contemporary West African village is seen to facilitate the location of decayed mud structures at a nearby archaeological site. Various climatic and pedological conditions at the site make it unlikely that such walls will be discerned. The archaeologist wishing to obtain the fullest and least biased picture of the settlement configuration of the ancient community should therefore heed all the inferential lessons to be had from a focused ethnographic investigation. Given similar climatic situations and practices of house construction, taphonomy and ethnographic analogies may both be necessary for a valid reconstruction of an archaeological settlement.