The purpose of this study is to explore regional differences in gender and family attitudes and behaviors. The research tests a multivariate model with sex-role attitudes, sexuality attitudes, family attitudes, and kinship interaction as dependent variables. Educational attainment, occupational prestige and population size of residence at age sixteen are the control variables in the model. / Two explanations of regional differences are derived from existing literature: (1) a structural explanation emphasizing socioeconomic and demographic factors associated with the lesser economic development and urbanization of the South; and (2) a cultural argument emphasizing regional variation in religious and ethnic diversity. / The results indicate there are small regional differences on some of the variables: Southerners are more traditional than non-Southerners. Most regional differences persist with controls for education, occupational prestige and population size; tests for interaction effects between region and the control variables are not significant. Regional differences are similar for males and females with the exception of family attitudes and kinship interaction. / These findings indicate the regional effect on gender and family traditionalism in the United States can not be explained away simply as the result of regional variation in educational attainment, occupational prestige and population size. This provides support for the argument that subcultural differences tied to region may be important influences on rates of traditionalism. Further analysis indicates regional differences are partially explained by regional variation in religion. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 48-09, Section: A, page: 2453. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1987.

Marijuana and other drug abuse among adolescents may present one of greatest potential social and health problems of contemporary society. This dissertation has emphasized that drug use is located in a sociocultural context against the disease theory. Our current social welfare policy or cultural attitude toward drug use, strongly influenced by disease model, has not led to an improvement in our society's drug taking problems. Conversely, this paper advocates that social problems associated with drug are related to the sociocultural context, and cannot be explained simply by ascribing the etiology deviant drug problems to individual pathology. Methodologically, this study has approached the topic of the relationships among the social factors through the causal structural modeling (a full-LISREL model). We performed the new PRELIS and LISREL VII programs separately to determine the relative importance of drug environment, risk beliefs, attitudes, and perceived social norms. Through the new PRELIS, the study tries to overcome a misuse of LISREL methodology with ordinal data which is not normally distributed. The results of these analyses support our contention. We find that the drug environment factor has the strongest effect. Among the intervening variables, the perceived social norms factor has the lowest effect. This paper might be helpful for social workers to better understand addiction problems in terms of etiology and to refocus their efforts on effecting change through social context. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 52-08, Section: A, page: 3076. / Major Professor: C. Aaron McNeece. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1991.

Social work is not likely to be fully legitimized in Saudi Arabia until its claim to professional status has gained public recognition. Most important, this recognition is not likely to come about until social work has demonstrated its ability to deal with the local needs of Saudi society and to show that it truly reflects the Saudi economic, political, religious, and sociocultural milieu. The goal of this study is to discover how well these ends have been achieved to date. / Four methods of data collection were used to achieve these objectives: review of institutional sources, structured interviews with faculty members in social work, structured interviews with selected leaders in the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs, and self-administered questionnaires with social work practitioners in three ministries. / The results indicate that the social work profession has not yet received wide societal acceptance in Saudi Arabia. Social work practice and training programs are based on nonindigenous models imported from the industrialized Western world. Moreover, social work service is still facing many problems concerning its functions, administration authority, goals, and coordination. / Recommendations are made in the concluding chapter for strengthening the social work profession and its services within the Saudi context. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 52-05, Section: A, page: 1893. / Major Professor: Shiman Gottsachalk. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1991.

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Social work's conceptualization as to what it is that entitles an individual or entity to moral consideration, or as having moral status, is thoroughly anthropocentric, and is articulated in complete disregard of the context of our fundamental evolutionary continuity and our embeddedness within an evolving natural world, and flies in the face of the reality that we already inhabit mixed communities and a wider household. It is deemed to be obvious that we are islands of moral value in an otherwise valueless natural world.