A critical perspective on social intervention and evaluation in the modern welfare state.
Date
1995
Authors
VanderPlaat, Madine.
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Dalhousie University
Abstract
Description
This thesis examines the social interventionary process, social programming and evaluation research, within a discourse informed by critical and feminist interests. There is a need to develop an interventionary process that is consistent with the interests of critical and feminist educators and social scientists who are committed to the development of political agency and the production of social change. The thesis challenges the assumption underscoring most conventional approaches to intervention that the solutions to social problems lie in the ability to organize and rationalize everyday life according to the professional and technocratic mindset of the state administrative apparatus. Based on a Habermasian analysis of the modern welfare state the thesis argues that empowerment oriented social programming and evaluation practices can support an emancipatory interest. At the heart of an emancipatory approach to intervention is the intent to create a communicative space within which participants can explore the parameters of mutual interests and move toward a sense of collective political agency. Such an approach to intervention seeks to empower the political citizen, rather than increase the self-sufficiency of the welfare state client. The thesis argues that the creation of communicative spaces requires critical thinkers and activists to develop a reflexive concern with their own agent/subject location within an empowerment oriented process. Within this context, the thesis examines the implications that an emancipatory approach to intervention has for social program evaluation research.
Thesis (Ph.D.)--Dalhousie University (Canada), 1995.
Thesis (Ph.D.)--Dalhousie University (Canada), 1995.
Keywords
Women's Studies., Sociology, Public and Social Welfare.