Suchergebnisse

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"--

Whether on a patrol beat, in social service offices, or in public school classrooms, street-level workers continually confront rules in relation to their own beliefs about the people they encounter. Cops, Teachers, Counselors is the first major study of street-level bureaucracy to rely on storytelling. Steven Maynard-Moody and Michael Musheno collect the stories told by these workers in order to analyze the ways that they ascribe identities to the people they encounter and use these identities to account for their own decisions and actions. The authors show us how the world of street-level work is defined by the competing tensions of law abidance and cultural abidance in a unique study that finally allows cops, teachers, and counselors to voice their own views of their work. Steven Maynard-Moody is Director of the Policy Research Institute and Professor of Public Administration at the University of Kansas. Michael Musheno is Professor of Justice and Policy Studies at Lycoming College and Professor Emeritus of Justice Studies, Arizona State University. A penetrating look at how government workers make sense of their work, ascribe identity to the people they encounter, and account for their decisions and actions.