Environment, Development and Public Policy: Public Policy and Social Services – serie

School improvement, like motherhood, has many advocates. Everyone is for it, without having to campaign actively on its behalf. And just as the 100% of people who have had mothers think they know how mothering could be done better, so the (nearly) 100% of people who have been pupils in schools, or have even taught in or managed them, think they know how schools can be im­ proved. More precisely, they are sure that schools ought to be improved. The trouble is that they propose a staggering, conflicting range of methods of improving the schools, from ;'back to the woodshed" to teacher merit pay, a stiffer curriculum, a stronger tax base, reorganization, a more humane climate, "teacher-proof" innovations, community involvement-the list is nearly end­ less. Furthermore, the issues are not merely technical, but normative and po­ litical. The term improvement is itself problematic. One person's version of improvement is another's version of wastefulness or even of worsening the schools. Furthermore, the versions that win out in any particular school are not Improvement sometimes turns out to be merely a necessarily technically "best. " code word for the directives that administrators have successfully put into place, or for the agreements that teachers have lobbied into being. How much do we really know about school improvement? The available research literature is quite substantial, but not as helpful as it might be.

We need scarcely note that the topic of this book is the stuff of headlines. Around the world, political, economic, educational, military, religious, and social relations of every variety have a racial or ethnic component. One cannot begin to understand the history or contemporary situation of the United States, the Soviet Union, China, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Great Britain, Lebanon, Mexico, Canada-indeed, almost any land-without careful attention to the influence of cultural and racial divisions. Preparation of this new edition has brought a strong sense of deja vu, with regard both to the persistence of old patterns of discrimination, even if in new guises, and also to the persistence of limited and constraining explanations. We have also found, however, rich new empirical studies, new theoretical perspectives, and greatly expanded activity and analyses from members of minority groups. Although this edition is an extensive revision, with reference both to the data used and the theoretical approaches examined, we have not shifted from our basically analytical perspective. We strongly support efforts to reduce discrimination and prejudice; but these can be successful only if we try to understand where we are and what forces are creating the existing situation. We hope to reduce the tendency to use declarations and condem­ nations of other persons' actions as substitutes for an investigation of their causes and consequences.

The bright side of the 1980s, or the "Hispanic decade," as it was dubbed early on, may ironically turn out to be the detail and sophistication with which the economic and social reversals affecting most Latinos in this period have been tracked, with a fresh cohort of Latino scholars playing an increasingly prominent role in this endeavor. As this volume conveys, these analyses are steadily probing more deeply into the fine grain of the processes bearing on the social conditions of U. S. Latinos and particularly into the diversity of the experiences of the several Latino-origin nationalities until recently generally treated in the aggre­ gate as "Hispanics. " Though still fragmented and tentative in perspective, as are the disciplines on which they draw and the research apparatus on which they rest, the quest among these new voices for a unifying perspective also comes across in this collection of essays. There is manifestly more under way here than a simple demand for inclusion of neglected instances on the margin of supposedly well understood larger or "mainstream" dynamics. The 1990s open with a more confident assertion of the centrality of the Latino presence and Latino actors in the overarching transformations reshaping U. S. society, and especially in the playing out of these restructurings in the regions and cities of Latino concentra­ tion.

Here, Wm. Alex McIntosh analyzes the relationship between food and nutrition and social factors, using a wide array of sociological theories. The author applies theories of social organization, culture, social stratification, social change, rural sociology, the sociology of the body, and social problems to empirical problems in food and nutrition. By doing so, he sheds light on issues such as the rise of the state; population growth; famine; obesity; eating disorders; the maldistribution of food across class, gender, and ethnic boundaries; and the changing nature of the food industry.

The author examines the numerous facets of 'implicit intelligence policies'those unspoken directives that often profoundly influence social and educational policies-and their impact on policies regarding measured and actual mental ability.

By way of introduction to this fascinating book, let me highlight two of its many contributions. First, it is a good example of something all too rare in sociology: testing competing general theories. Most of us either try to develop or refine theories about how the social world works, and cite convenient data as support, or we select and collect data that will fit some general theoretical position. In the first case, the data playa subor­ dinate role-bits of evidence for our view of life. In the second, the theory plays a subordinate role-a way to make sense of the social behavior we have observed. McCaffrey's position subsumes these two. He has gathered data on an important social agency, but with an im­ plicit problem in mind: which of the several theories about the social world he was exposed to in graduate school would do the best job of interpreting the data? Or, we might just as well turn it around. In a graduate department such as Sociology at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, there is a lively, never ending debate about the "truth" of competing perspectives on the political and social world. By selecting a data base and remaining alert to the kind of evidence each theory required, McCaffrey circumvented the usual" data for a theory" vs. "a theory for the data" dilemma that most of us live with.

This book has several objectives. Most basically it presents an approach to assessing interorganizational innovation diffusion. To do this we have tried to link contempo­ rary organizational theory with more person-centered diffusion theory. We have also combined contingency theory with the resource dependence perspective to explain why organizations might choose to initially consider an innovation, re­ define it to suit their particular environmental context, and then implement it. Another objective has been to examine how environmental constraints can limit the ways in which diffusion channels form, and can determine when diffusion can be truly organizational and when it will depend upon individuals. In doing so, we have tried to indicate how organizational structures emerge to manage re­ sources in ways that are consistent with those environmental constraints. We have borrowed the notion of boundary management from resource dependence, and we have used it to examine how organizations use various boundary management strategies to preserve their autonomy in exchange relationships with other organi­ zations. We have done this both at the network level and at the level of individual organizations.

by Ronald G. Corwin What do the following have in common: regulatory agencies, magnet schools, a declining empire, puritan asceticism, plea bargaining, the recent tax revolt in California, the Boston Tea Party, the Vietnam War, public drinking halls during Prohibi­ tion, police entrapment, and Yosemite National Park on Labor Day weekend? If the answer is not readily apparent, read this engaging book. Dr. Sam Sieber makes a convincing case that harbored in a potpourri of such events are countless instances of how well-intentioned social interventions often produce harmful effects. Searching for a general framework that will force us to think of heretofore discrete events in new ways, he has chosen to use the term "intervention" in its broadest sense. His approach is a superb example of how serious schol­ arship can produce a new creative synthesis from familiar knowledge when the scholar is guided by a lively curiosity. The wide-ranging subject matter of this book provides a re­ freshing vision of social reform movements and programs. I think that Sieber has succeeded in doing what he set out to do: namely, to develop a general and inclusive typology for cl- ix x RONALD G. CORWIN sifying and interpreting the perverse effects of all kinds of social interventions. This is not merely another treatise on the "unintended effects" of purposeful action, however. As Dr.

School improvement, like motherhood, has many advocates. Everyone is for it, without having to campaign actively on its behalf. And just as the 100% of people who have had mothers think they know how mothering could be done better, so the (nearly) 100% of people who have been pupils in schools, or have even taught in or managed them, think they know how schools can be im­ proved. More precisely, they are sure that schools ought to be improved. The trouble is that they propose a staggering, conflicting range of methods of improving the schools, from ;'back to the woodshed" to teacher merit pay, a stiffer curriculum, a stronger tax base, reorganization, a more humane climate, "teacher-proof" innovations, community involvement-the list is nearly end­ less. Furthermore, the issues are not merely technical, but normative and po­ litical. The term improvement is itself problematic. One person's version of improvement is another's version of wastefulness or even of worsening the schools. Furthermore, the versions that win out in any particular school are not Improvement sometimes turns out to be merely a necessarily technically "best. " code word for the directives that administrators have successfully put into place, or for the agreements that teachers have lobbied into being. How much do we really know about school improvement? The available research literature is quite substantial, but not as helpful as it might be.

The bright side of the 1980s, or the "Hispanic decade," as it was dubbed early on, may ironically turn out to be the detail and sophistication with which the economic and social reversals affecting most Latinos in this period have been tracked, with a fresh cohort of Latino scholars playing an increasingly prominent role in this endeavor. As this volume conveys, these analyses are steadily probing more deeply into the fine grain of the processes bearing on the social conditions of U. S. Latinos and particularly into the diversity of the experiences of the several Latino-origin nationalities until recently generally treated in the aggre­ gate as "Hispanics. " Though still fragmented and tentative in perspective, as are the disciplines on which they draw and the research apparatus on which they rest, the quest among these new voices for a unifying perspective also comes across in this collection of essays. There is manifestly more under way here than a simple demand for inclusion of neglected instances on the margin of supposedly well understood larger or "mainstream" dynamics. The 1990s open with a more confident assertion of the centrality of the Latino presence and Latino actors in the overarching transformations reshaping U. S. society, and especially in the playing out of these restructurings in the regions and cities of Latino concentra­ tion.

Alex McIntosh analyzes the relationship between food and nutrition and social factors, using a wide array of sociological theories. The author applies theories of social organization, culture, social stratification, social change, rural sociology, the sociology of the body, and social problems to empirical problems in food and nutrition.

Petroleum Geology is a complex discipline, drawing upon data from many technologies. It is the function of Well site Geologists to integrate processed data produced prior to and dur­ ing the drilling operation With their own geological observations. For this reason, it is necessary that geologists appreciate some of the technology, theory of measurement, and processing of this data in order to better assess and use them. In the Field Geologists's Training Guide (Exlog, 1985) and Mud Logging: Principles and Interpretations (Exlog, 1985), an introduction is given to the scope of petroleum geology, and the techniques of hydrocarbon (oil and gas) logging as a reservoir evaluation tool. This handbook is intended to provide the Logging Geologist, and those training for a Consultant Wellsite Geologist position, with a review of geological techniques and classification systems. This will ensure the maximum development of communicable geological informa­ tion. Whether a geologist's work lies in this direction or in the more applied field of pressure evaluation, it is the application of geological insight to engineering problems that distinguishes the professional logging geologist in the field. This book will be of interest to and become a regular reference for all geologists. 1 INTRODUCTION CUTTINGS RECOVERY 1. 1 In an ideal borehole and mud system, cuttings would be transported to surface with the same order and composition as they were cut, as in Figure 1-1.