Adoptive Placement of Minority Group Children in the San Francisco Bay Area: A Study byMarch (Minority Adoption Recruitment of Children's Homes)Review by: Thelma G. ThompsonSocial Service Review, Vol. 34, No. 3 (Sep., 1960), pp. 369-370Published by: The University of Chicago PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/30017511 .

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BOOK REVIEWS 369

The Professional Houseparent. By Eva Bur- meister. New York: Columbia University Press, 1960. Pp. xxvii+244. ?4.00.

Anyone who works in the field of children's institutions has come to expect from Miss Burmeister sound, professional knowledge given with warmth and a sensitivity that can come only from long and intimate experience with the problems of children in a group setting. In an era when children's institutions have fallen into disrepute and only "fancy" treatment centers have caught public attention, Miss Burmeister has consistently pointed the way in which old programs can move into new areas of service by shifting from custodial care to the modern concepts of group living for chil- dren. The key person in this shift should have been the houseparent. Other personnel, case- workers, psychiatric consultants, group work- ers, too often were superimposed on traditional institutional programs, houseparents were given new names?counselors, child-care workers? but only a passing glance was given to the fact that the people who had most to do with the children were untrained and unprofessional and were still operating just as they always had.

Miss Burmeister brings clearly into focus the fact that houseparents must be profession- al people with a clear understanding of their function, the tools they have to work with, and the help they must expect from other staff members.

This book, written primarily for housepar- ents, contains example after example of the kinds of problems that every houseparent meets daily, and it offers suggestions and ideas for coping with these problems. Valuable as these suggestions are, however, houseparents must inevitably be struck by the conclusion, first, that they themselves are not just house- keepers and baby-sitters, but a vital part of the program of caring for children. Second, there is a body of knowledge about children and their reactions which can be learned and which will give purpose to their work and will enhance natural skills. Finally, while the house- parents have responsibility for the day-to-day living of the children, they are not alone. Miss Burmeister points out the responsibilities of administrators, supervisors, caseworkers, and recreational workers, and describes the inter- action of all members of the staff.

While this book is written primarily for

houseparents, it is a book well worth reading by board members, administrators, and case- workers. In fact, there are chapters from which any person interested in children could gain profit. These deal with Christmas and the inevitable deluge of gifts and parties, tours of the institution by interested groups, and, most important, what kinds of children are served in a group setting and how this setting can be helpful to them.

If fault can be found with this presentation, it would be only in that it seems optimistic. The over-all impression is that houseparents can suceed with disturbed children provided they have all the attributes and all the tools described. It should be pointed out that few institutions have all these tools and helps and that adults as well as children have their prob- lems, so that occasionally children cannot be helped in a given setting. The impact of hav- ing to "give up" on a child can be a devastat- ing experience for a well-trained, professional worker.

One other point deserves mentioning. Miss Burmeister recommends that more recorded material by houseparents be made available. This should be heartily seconded. Material in this book directly quoted from houseparents shows that their observations would be a valu- able addition to the literature in this field.

This book should have wide distribution, not only to houseparents, but to everyone inter- ested in high standards for child care. Its very simplicity is deceiving, for packed into its pages is the philosophy that should motivate any person involved in caring for lost, un- happy children.

Phyllis M. Cos and

Lake Bluff Children's Home Lake Bluff, Illinois

Adoptive Placement of Minority Group Chil- dren in the San Francisco Bay Area: A Study by MARCH (Minority Adoption Recruit- ment of Children's Homes). San Francisco, 1959. (Available from Children's Home So- ciety, 897 Hyde Street, San Francisco 9.) Pp. xv-f75^1.00. This pamphlet describes the program objec-

tives and the results of MARCH, a three- year demonstration project financed by the Columbia Foundation of San Francisco and specifically designed to study and explore the

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370 BOOK REVIEWS

possibility for improving and expanding adop- tive placement opportunities for minority group children in the San Francisco Bay Area. It presents a detailed account of the way in which professional and lay leaders of the adoption agencies of seven Bay Area counties utilized their combined resources in an all-out community effort to recruit adoptive homes for the hard-to-place child.

Although the geographical setting for this experimental effort is limited to the San Fran- cisco Bay Area, the findings outlined in the report are applicable to the many communities throughout the United States in which there is a recognized need to stimulate an interest in adoption among minority group couples. Spe- cial consideration is given to the social, eco- nomic, and cultural factors which make it extremely difficult for many national and racial minorities to comprehend and utilize the serv- ices offered by licensed adoption agencies.

The report is presented in four parts: (1) a description of the project, (2) an analysis of the methods used to reach the various minority groups, (3) an assessment of current and future adoption opportunities for Bay Area minority-group children, and (4) conclu- sions and recommendations. Considerable em- phasis is validly placed on the way in which the community organization process was effec- tively used to arouse community concern. It is unfortunate, however, that so little discus- sion is devoted to the end result of this proc- ess, which was actually consummated in the adoption agency setting in which the final de- cision was made regarding the acceptability or the potential usefulness of the adoption application requests. Only very limited and hazy bits of information are given concerning the degree to which adjustments and changes, if any, were made in agency practices and procedures.

Social agencies interested in developing im- proved methods for finding homes for the hard-to-place child will find this booklet help- ful, stimulating, and challenging. It clearly outlines the frustrations and disappointments as well as the accomplishments of one specific all-out community endeavor to alleviate the acute need for a sufficient number of adop- tive homes to meet the needs of minority group children.

Thelma G. Thompson

Welfare Council of Metropolitan Chicago

A Basic Course in Sociological Statistics. By Morris Zelditch, Jr. New York: Henry Holt b Co., 1959. Pp. xiii+370. ?6.50. This statistics text, which is said by the au-

thor to be "among the most elementary of all elementary texts on statistics," is designed "with the specific and pleasant intention of attracting the student who is frightened of mathematics." However, the ideas it attempts to convey are far from elementary. One of the major problems in teaching statistics to students who have no particular mathematical aptitude and very little mathematical training is that of conveying the ideas of quantitative thinking, of sampling and inference, without bogging down in the teaching of computational methods or in imparting to the student the idea that the major problem faced by the statistician is that of computation. This text is directed to the idea that the task of the student is not learning how to compute, but how to use the methods of statistics to solve research problems. According to the author, preparation of this volume was "undertaken with the idea that even the most elementary and mathematically unprepared student can, and should, learn from the very beginning the conditions under which the more popular methods can and cannot be applied."

The text begins with a description of a simple statistical investigation and introduces the statistical concepts of variable and popu- lation. The three following chapters cover the organization of univariate measurement data, measures of central tendency, and measures of dispersion. It is basic to the purpose of the text that methods of organization, summariza- tion, and inference applicable to different kinds of variables are clearly distinguished. The latter part of the text includes one of the better elementary introductions to sampling and a brief but clear discussion of the logic of non-parametric methods.

Three somewhat unusual features of the text are worthy of mention. At the end of each chapter there are from ten to twenty pages of workbook material, on perforated pages, for completion by the student; whether this is an advantage or a disadvantage depends on one's point of view. The second feature, which is an excellent one that could be more widely adopted, is the summarization of computation- al designs each on a separate and specially designated page, with special listing in the table of contents. Thus these models are easily

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