To better understand the value of those who engage in environmental stewardship of natural areas, we studied volunteer steward's motivation to participate, their sustainable behaviors and attitudes toward stewardship-related constructs. Specifically, we designed and conducted a survey of volunteers who work as stewards in urban natural areas in Portland, Oregon. We hypothesize that as volunteer frequency increases: participants will be more motivated to participate for environmental reasons, volunteers will be more likely to feel a strong connection to the stewardship site, participants will be more likely to engage in public pro-environmental behaviors, and their level of environmental literacy will increase. Participants were sampled using a face-to-face survey methodology over the course of late winter and spring of 2012 during 18 different Portland Parks and Recreation sponsored stewardship events. We examined the motivations, attitudes and behaviors of the volunteers, and devised appropriate management implications for those organizing volunteer efforts. We equated a three-tiered typology of environmental literacy, based upon the frequency of volunteer participation, and analyzed our survey data using a principal component analysis, generalized linear models, and a qualitative coding analysis. The most frequent participants showed a higher likelihood of participation in public environmental behaviors, whereas participants at all frequency levels were also likely to participate in private environmental behaviors, such as removing invasive plants in one's yard. Volunteers across all frequencies of participation were motivated to engage in stewardship events by a desire to help the environment. By understanding volunteers' motivations and linked behaviors, park managers may gain insights about the recruitment, retention, and messaging of volunteers upon whom they may depend to achieve restoration goals. We recommend considering volunteers' motivations and benefits derived from participation in messaging to recruit and retain volunteers. Additionally, park managers should take advantage of educational opportunities linked to stewardship events, such as training programs and chances for volunteer mentorship.

This study explores refuse collection as a municipal service using qualitative methods to examine how government makes decisions about residential refuse collection services in Portland, Gresham, and Beaverton, Oregon. The study explores the history of refuse collection in these three cities to identify factors that influence bureaucratic behavior and decision making when selecting a municipal service delivery option for refuse collection. Public choice and public policy analysis theory are used to discuss those non-monetary considerations present when government makes decisions about service arrangements. Qualitative data was collected from public officials and private haulers involved in refuse collection in the three cities. This qualitative process was to capture, in context, the development of the industry. The use of a single criterion in determining choice of private organizational forms may not create the results desired by municipal governments. Choice in the selection of a service arrangement has two important aspects: (1) the array of service arrangement options that can be developed and (2) the contextual environment within which bureaucrats operate and which influences the decision making process. It was found that decisions about which type of service arrangement to use for refuse collection did not always stem from monetary factors such as cost. Non-monetary factors such as tradition, legal considerations, and lobbying can influence decisions about which type of service arrangement to use.

The purpose of the needs assessment study was to obtain current, accurate, concrete information on the continuing education needs and preferences of selected social service practitioners. In addition, the intention was to gather information that could actually be used in planning and continuing education offerings by the Portland State University School of Social Work Continuing Education Coordinator.

The purpose of this study was to compare NSST data (Lee, 1969, 1971) with data obtained in Portland, Oregon for children 4.0-4.11 years of age. The questions this study sought to answer were: 1) Is there a significant difference between the expressive and receptive scores obtained by Lee, (1969, 1971) and the scores obtained in Portland, Oregon? 2) What are the means, standard deviations and percentiles of the NSST scores of a select group of four-year-old children in Portland, Oregon?

This study will be a look at housing for Portland's Burnside population with special emphasis on the Foster hotel public housing project. Before housing or any other aspect of Burnside can be intelligently discussed, it is important to have a realistic historical and contemporary understanding of the Burnside community. The second chapter of this study is designed to provide that understanding. The third chapter surveys the ways that other American cities have dealt with their skid row communities. Cities roughly the same size as Portland were chosen. Their efforts will be compared to Portland's plans for and actions toward its Burnside area -- the subject of Chapter IV. In this chapter, a critical analysis of the social policy recommendations made by the Human Resources Bureau for the downtown urban renewal area is offered as this is the official public social policy for the area. The next chapter of this study presents a survey done of the roster hotel to determine whether or not it is meeting the needs of the community. When the roster was initially planned, certain promises were made about who would be housed there and how it would serve Burnside. The questionnaire given to the Foster residents was designed to see if those promises were kept and to gauge the overall satisfaction the residents have with the hotel. It is hoped that with the background material provided in the first chapter of this study, a context will be established within which the reader can understand housing as it relates to this community.

This is a study of how a city planning staff worked together with a neighborhood group to develop a comprehensive plan for a neighborhood. It explores their relationship and the major conflicts that arise when they work together to develop a district plan.

This study is on coproduction as a governing policy instrument. Coproduction can be understood as the joint production of services by local officials and individual citizens intended to raise the quality and or amount of service provision. The concept of coproduction as developed in this study suggests that urban services are not simply created by officials and delivered to a passive public. Rather that actions of citizens are an integral part of the service production process. The study purposes are two-fold: (1) to construct a model of coproduction which provides a basis by which citizen involvement in the provision of public services can be fully understood and appreciated; and (2) to examine the usefulness of this model by using it to frame and guide evaluative research on a specific program which targets coproductive participation of citizens. The research examined efforts to implement a program to encourage recycling by residents in multifamily complexes in the City of Portland by involving the direct participation of the managers of the complexes. The research conducted in this study addressed both the inputs and outcomes of citizen involvement in coproduction. Findings of this research are suggestive of the potential importance of both inclusion and volition to furthering citizen involvement in the coproductive process. The level of citizen involvement in producing the programmatic outcomes was by most measures demonstrated to be very important. The results of the investigation in demonstrating the importance of involvement in coproduced programs in generating broader levels of community awareness and involvement, however, were not as conclusive. The model of coproduction developed in this study provides a potentially useful conceptualization of the process and outcomes of coproduction. The empirical investigation provides an assessment of the nature and strength of the relationship between citizen involvement and the coproductive process in the case of Portland's multifamily recycling program. Both the economic and civic considerations of coproduction which were specified and measured in the research contribute to a number of observations about coproduction as a policy instrument leading to several policy recommendations for programs which are built on citizen involvement.

Nonmarket activities such as gardening and cooking are often correlated with increased well-being and happiness. Additionally, nonmarket, casual activities such as gardening and food preparation are often internally motivated, and provide observable examples of self-concordant experiences. Self-concordance, i.e., internalized motivation, has been shown to increase satisfaction and increase efficacy of goal attainment. Further, experiential hobbies such as gardening may help individuals feel more satisfied, adopt more intrinsic life aspirations, and be less materialistic. This study explored satisfaction, materialism, and food activities by focusing on first-person, lived experiences of eight urban gardeners in Portland Oregon who grow, prepare, and eat their own food. Little is known about what specific food experiences lead to increased feelings of well-being and satisfaction. Whereas previous research focused on defining and assessing materialism based on life aspiration measures, this study explored how intrinsic life aspirations translate into concrete, lived experiences expressed through food activities. The goal of the current study was to gain a deeper understanding of how food experiences satisfied the psychological needs of urban gardeners. Qualitative analysis of interviews and other data revealed that food experiences: 1) were motivated by intrinsic reasons, such as competency, creativity, and curiosity, and also sometimes for extrinsic reasons such as status and security, 2) were affected by enabling factors such as social relationships, and disabling factors such as time, energy, and financial limitations, and 3) resulted in increased life satisfaction, and feelings of strength, and confidence. Additionally, participants' level of general materialism often corresponded with their level of materialism regarding their food experiences. The results indicated that individually tailored experiential long-term food related hobbies are highly valued and a source of great satisfaction for a variety of psychological needs, such as relatedness, connection, work-life balance, and abundance. These results show that food activities can be intrinsically satisfying and can mitigate the negative effects of materialism. The findings from this study build theory and provide direction for potential future research in reducing materialism by developing measures for types of satisfaction from food activities and testing correlations with materialism and life satisfaction.

This thesis recounts the history of the Portland Learning Community, an experimental institution of higher education founded in 1970 by a group consisting mostly of former faculty and students at Reed College. The Learning Community was funded by the Carnegie Corporation and affiliated with Antioch College.

Portland Youth Advocates is a nonprofit organization in Portland, Oregon that since 1969 has supervised nearly a dozen innovative service programs for young people. One of these programs was a counseling and referral program that evolved in August 1970 and closed in September 1979. Although it used different names at various times, it was most often known as the Contact Center. Three of PYA's former programs are operating in 1981, having each incorporated separately since 1979. To address the problem of why the Contact Center was unable to continue as well, an ex post facto case study of the program is undertaken. To facilitate the study, the program's history is divided into five representative time periods. Four categories of sources are then consulted to indicate the program's performance in five fixed factors during each time period. Findings are initially presented for each factor in each time period. They are subsequently comprehensively analyzed from the viewpoint of two factors over time, a collective factor over time, and three special attitudes. A conclusion is then drawn regarding the Contact Center's demise. Data is sufficiently indicative as to suggest a reply to the problem. The Contact Center appears to have been a fairly well organized program that generally provided good service. Its difficulties seemed to derive from its increasingly troubled mediation with the external landscape--government officials, foundation executives, and other private human service agencies. Some of the disturbance the center encountered in this regard was a consequence of its acknowledged preference for clinical as opposed to political activity. But the evidence also implies that distinguishing attitudes assumed by program members may have exacerbated already tenuous relationships between the program and external entities. Because these attitudes roughly identify the Contact Center program with what is often called "alternative human service," the work concludes with a prescriptive essay regarding the perpetuation of such service. In this manner, the particular experience of the Contact Center inspires an informed contribution to the consideration of a national phenomenon in human service.