Evaluation and Action in the Social Environment

Richard H. Price, Peter E. Politser

• Publisher: Academic Press
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN:
  9780125646505
• eBook ISBN:
  9781483219431
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Social Policy
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Evaluation and Action in the Social Environment provides a description of a framework for doing evaluation and action research in social settings. This book presents the strategies for analysis and intervention in community, health, and human service settings. Organized into 10 chapters, this book begins with an overview of the impact of social settings on individual behavior. This text then examines the family, community groups, and personal social networks. Other chapters consider the assessment and change in behavioral and physical environments. This book discusses as well the family as an interpersonal system, with emphasis on interactive sequences to show how symptomatic behavior has its own logic in the family context. The final chapter deals with larger and more complex settings and contexts, including schools, medical hospitals, and settings in the legal system. This book is a valuable resource for sociologists, anthropologists, social scientists, clinical therapists, program evaluators, and social policymakers.

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Evaluation and Action in the Social Environment
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Dedication
• LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS
• PREFACE
• Chapter 1. The Action Research Paradigm
• Chapter 2. Intervention and Evaluation in Family Settings
• Chapter 3. Community Groups: An Empirical Taxonomy for Evaluation and Intervention
• Chapter 4. Network Analysis and the Logic of Social Support
• Chapter 5. Action Research in the Built Environment
• Chapter 6. Conducting Behavioral Evaluations in Residential Facilities for Retarded Persons: From Analysis to Action
• Chapter 7. Human Service Programs as Work Organizations: Using Organizational Design to Improve Staff Motivation and Effectiveness
• Chapter 8. The Hospital Environment: Understanding and Modifying Its Impact on the Patient
• Chapter 9. An Integrated Network of Preventively Oriented School-Based Mental Health Approaches
• Chapter 10. The Role of Research in Changing the Legal System
• SUBJECT INDEX