The continuing role of material factors in child maltreatment and placement

This article constitutes a 20-year update to a previous publication (Pelton, 1994), which showed that there is overwhelming evidence that poverty and low income are strongly related to child abuse and neglect. Subsequent evidence shows that the relationship continues to be strong. In addition, there is further evidence since the 1994 publication that this relation is not substantially due to class bias. Yet it is suggested that class bias does exist within the system. There is also further evidence that decreases in child maltreatment follow increases in material supports, and that job loss bears a complex relationship to child maltreatment. Findings pertaining to racial bias within the child welfare system continue to be mixed, but leave no doubt that racial disproportionalities within the system are overwhelmingly related to racial disproportionalities in the poverty population. There is continuing evidence that children placed in foster care are predominantly from impoverished families, and that changes in the level of material supports are related to risk of placement. It is suggested that the fact that there are nearly one million children in out-of-home placement (foster care and child-welfare involved adoption, combined) is indicative of the continuing dysfunction of the child welfare system, and that the differential response paradigm has not altered this dysfunction. A proposal for a fundamental restructuring of the child welfare system is recommended and restated here. Prospects for such change are briefly discussed. Also, to reduce poverty, a previously proposed universal social dividend and taxation system is briefly discussed and recommended.

Child welfare policy and practice: the myth of family preservation

The family-preservation orientation of child welfare policy and practice is questioned, and the reasons why child rescue efforts continue to grow are explored. Child placement rates are examined in historical context and compared to those of other countries. This paper argues that the child welfare system in the U.S. has long been two "systems" and that, as currently structured, it is incapable of promoting family preservation.

Caseload Size Survey of Agencies Serving Blind and Visually Impaired Persons

A caseload size survey was conducted of both public and large private agencies serving blind and visually impaired people. Wide variations in caseload size were found between different types of professional caseworkers, between agencies, and between public and private agencies.

Stability and attraction of perceptual organizations in the reversible figure-ground phenomenon

The concepts of stability, defined as the temporal duration of a particular organization, and attraction, defined as the likelihood at any given moment that a particular perceptual organization is being experienced, were studied in regard to the reversible figure-ground phenomenon. Some factors that might increase the stability and attraction of a figural organization were investigated. It was found that neither “complexity” nor “meaningfulness” can increase the stability and attraction of a figural organization of a reversible pattern unless the added elements are functionally integrated with the central contour. However, it is maintained that, while some patterns of stimulation invariably elicit functional integration, there are others which elicit integration for some perceivers and not others.

Experimental Separation of Function and Task in Functional Fixedness Problems

Flavell, Cooper, and Loiselle (1958) found that functional fixedness (FF) varied inversely with the number of varied pre-problem experiences with an object. Although the decrease in FF was attributed to the increase in the number of experienced functions, task varied simultaneously with function. The present study attempted to separate these two factors by varying task only. It was hypothesized that such variation would increase FF, as measured by number of solutions and solution latency time, above that found when both task and function remain constant in the pre-problem experience. This hypothesis was not supported.