Proceedings: Workshop on Cultural Factors: "A Program For Social Caseworkers"

San Diego: San Diego Area Recruitment Committee for Minority Adoptive Homes, [1959]. 8.5 x 11", blue stapled printed wrappers, [1], v, 90 pp. Report of a two day workshop for social caseworkers by the San Diego Area Recruitment Committee for Minority Adoptive Homes, "established in 1954 as an outgrowth of the deep concern for the growing numbers of Negro, Mexican-American, and Oriental children who were being denied permanent homes because of the lack of sufficient adoptive homes for them" (Foreword). The committee was a branch of the San Diego Urban League, a Civil Rights group, and was financed by the Rosenberg Foundation. The report contains chapters discussing cultural factors which prevented African American and Mexican-American families from making use of social services, as well as a chapter on cultural biases that prevented white social workers from working with minority groups. The text notes the importance as well as the difficulty of looking at one's own biases: "each individual who was present must decide whether to go ahead with the explorations. Some of us were pretty uncomfortable with the realization that part of the problem lies within ourselves. When case workers take this kind of social and personal inventory, we leave behind our status as a young profession and take a giant step toward maturity." The report represents the tail end of an era in which the National Urban League attempted to find minority homes for minority adoptees; by the 1960s the league adopted a "color-blind" policy in the name of integration and shifted toward interracial adoptions (Spence, "Whose stereotypes and racial myths? The National Urban League and the 1950s roots of color-blind adoption policy"). Not in OCLC. In very good condition with mild toning and creasing. Item #10080

Price: $350.00