QUESTIONS RAISED HERE BY ANTHROPOLOGISTS ALLOW ONE TO ASSESS OPTIONS AVAILABLE TO APPLIED SOCIAL SCIENTISTS STUDYING PUBLIC POLICY ISSUES, & TO RECOGNIZE THE EXISTING BIASES OF DOING POLICY STUDIES RESEARCH. POLICY SCIENCES SHOULD BE ENHANCED BY ANTHROPOLOGISTS BRINGING THE STRENGTHS OF THEIR DISCIPLINE TO BEAR ON THIS FIELD.
Policy analysis in the United States relies heavily on the microeconomic assumption that the primary motive in individual and organizational behavior is self interest. After describing how the over‐reliance on self interest emerged, this paper provides evidence that participants in the social policy process relyon other motivations to structure their decision‐rules which are equally if not more important than self interest. The paper goes on to describe and explain how decision‐rules based on notions of distributive justice operate and to integrate this line of inquiry with an evolving paradigm for policy research which is sensitive to organizational context, supports adaptive administration, and encourages the analysis of the normative premises underlying social policy action.
Like all participating academic disciplines, anthropologists entering the policy studies field face a series of "unsolvable" problems that deal with intellectual values about how to ply one's trade. For example, what are one's obligations to agencies, and to the intended clienteles of public policies, especially when the citizens are "havenots" up against well‐organized economic interests? Such questions raised by anthropologists in this volume allow one to assess the options available to applied social scientists studying public policy issues. They also lead us to recognize the existing biases of doing policy studies research. While weighing the propriety of doing applied research, anthropologists do possess critical concepts and research methods essential to the policy sciences. With a grounding in process or temporally‐based concepts like "culture, context, and symbol," applied anthropologists will strengthen the study of policy implementation. Further, with qualitative methods gaining a strong foothold in the policy sciences, anthropologists are contributing to the refinement of methods for studying the organizational behavior of actors charged with the implementation of public policy. Moreover, anthropologists in this volume demonstrate their discipline's potential to break new ground in the policy sciences. Specifically, the world view of anthropologists is likely to add a comparative, crosscultural perspective to existing areas of concentration like public health, and to increase the range of issues of interest to the policy sciences. Also, anthropologists are already developing new units of analysis different from the aggregation of individual scores, and adding new social indicators that are group or culturally grounded. In short, the policy sciences will be enhanced by anthropologists as they bring the strengths of their discipline to bear on the field.
Problems associated with the current "state of the art" for identifying & selecting intervention points for interrupted time-series, quasi-experimental evaluations of mandated policies are identified. A working definition of the intervention point is introduced that requires consideration of "implementation lag" in the policy process. Based on a summary of the literature on policy implementation & the diffusion of technological innovations, a strategy is proposed for improving the construct validity of intervention as it relates to time-series analysis. 2 Graphs. HA.
Urban schools are often associated with violence, chaos, and youth aggression. But is this reputation really the whole picture? In 'Navigating Conflict', Calvin Morrill and Michael Musheno challenge the violence-centered conventional wisdom of urban youth studies, revealing instead the social ingenuity with which teens informally and peacefully navigate strife-ridden peer trouble. Taking as their focus a multi-ethnic, high-poverty school in the American southwest, the authors complicate our vision of urban youth, along the way revealing the resilience of students in the face of carceral disciplinary tactics.
"The book examines routine encounters of cops, teachers, and counselors with diverse publics when questions of justice and fairness are at play. This new edition speaks to contemporary issues at a time when frontline workers gained broad recognition for their heroic contributions to communities during the Covid 19 pandemic, as well as sustained condemnation for their embodiment of the brutal expression of racialized state power in police actions. The authors conclude with a focus on the significance of place and trust in building social inclusion on the frontlines of public service"--
Advocates of "defensible space" as a crime prevention strategy call for the use of modern electronic technology to overcome faulty planning of existing housing projects. The goal of the proposals is to provide residents with audio & visual coverage of particularly vulnerable areas, such as lobbies, through the imposition of closed circuit television cameras (CCTV) & sound amplification equipment. The effectiveness of using eletronic apparatus to render public housing more defensible has rarely been scrutinized. In order to test this facet of defensible space, a field experiment was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of closed-circuit television as a strategy for preventing crime in public housing. The elevators & lobbies of 3 buildings in a 26-building housing project were equipped with cameras & audio amplification devices monitored by tenants on their own television sets. The system studied is a bona fide, full scale endeavor to implement the prescripts of defensible space theory. Tenants living in these buildings & in 3 control buildings were interviewed about victimization & fear of crime before & after introduction of the security program. No positive impacts were discovered. The implementation process surrounding the program was also studied in an attempt to determine plausible explanations for the lack of impact. Most crimes associated with the housing project are committed by people living within the project itself. This problem of internal criminal activity is not well integrated into the theory of defensible space, which is aimed primarily at protecting residents from outsiders. There were bureaucratic difficulties in achieving efficient implementation & an intermittent pattern of tenant utilization which undermine the deterrence capabilities of the security system. 3 Tables. AA
