Mary E. Rogge

Social Work, Disenfranchised Communities, and the Natural Environment: Field Education Opportunities

Minority and lower socioeconomic communities face disproportionate exposure to the growing threat from natural environment hazards such as toxic waste. The author places an expanding field of social work practice in the context of the profession’s historic commitment to social welfare, justice, and equity. She describes specialized knowledge, the application of social work skills, ethical issues, and strategies for integrating environmental equity into practica training in a framework for field education. In addition, she examines opportunities for social work educators and students to contribute to the resolution of environmental hazard, across multiple intervention levels, for foundation and concentration practica.

The Person-in-Environment Perspective in Social Work Journals: A Computer-Assisted Content Analysis

Abstract Disagreement over the meaning, utility, and implementation of the person-in-environment (p-i-e) perspective represents social works efforts to continually redefine itself in a dynamic world. The choice of a guiding perspective is significant, particularly in this era in which concern about the interdependence of global social, economic, and environmental systems is growing. Much of the debate about the p-i-e has taken place in social work journals. This article provides an empirical assessment of how social work scholars have interpreted and applied p-i-e related concepts in social work journals, through the use of a computer-assisted content analysis of all article abstracts in core journals reviewed in Social Work Abstracts (SWA) from 1987 to 1996.

Poverty and the environment: an international perspective for social work

Approximately 1.1 billion individuals, or just under a quarter of the world’s people, live in absolute poverty (Buvinic and Yudelman, 1989). Of the total population in Asia, 675 million (25 percent) live in absolute poverty at income levels below minimum standards of nutrition, shelter, and personal amenities. There are 325 million (62 percent) absolute poor in Sub-Saharan Africa, 150 million (35 percent) in Latin America and 75 million (28 percent) in North Africa and the Middle East below the lowest standards of decency (Durning, 1989a). Living in poverty increases susceptibility to dis-