human resource management 6100

Culturally Deprived Children: Implications for Child Welfare

Four conditions signifying cultural deprivation are identified. If child welfare agencies are to have an impact on a significant number of deprived children, they must direct more of their resources into services for children in their own homes and into extending the concept of child welfare beyond the current narrow definition.

ELIZABETH G. MEIER, D.S.W.

"Cultural deprivation" has recently become a fairly popular term. But, some months ago I used the phrase and was taken to task by one of the students in my class who pointed out to me that the phrase was no longer good form. "Cultural deprivation," she explained, is able to connote only that the persons af- fected have not had some experiences or op- portunities they ought to have had. This is not enough, my student pointed out, for one ought also to be able to convey that the persons about whom we are concerned not only have been deprived of constructive ex- periences, but they also have had destructive experiences. Therefore, she concluded, the

D R . M E I E R is Professor of Social Work, School of Applied Social Sciences, Western Re- serve University, Cleveland, Ohio. This paper was presented at the CWLA Central Regional Conference, Toronto, Canada, March 18,1965.

term "culturally disadvantaged" is much more inclusive and much to be preferred.

On the other hand, Riessman warns that in his book the phrases " 'culturally de- prived,' 'educationally deprived,' 'deprived,' 'underprivileged,' 'disadvantaged,' 'lower class,' [and] 'lower socio-economic group,' are used interchangeably." ^

Terms are peculiar things. Long ago there were children whose intelligence did not develop normally, and they were called idiots, imbeciles, and morons—or perhaps all of these groups were included in the strongly descriptive word feebleminded. Later these persons were referred to as mentally retarded, and now there is a Journal of Exceptional Children, whose con- tents concern these very same children. The Bible and even some current legal terminol- ogy refer to bastards. But this word was harsh; so then there were illegitimate chil- dren, and now there are children bom out of wedlock.

This is not to suggest that there is some- thing inherently valuable about harsh terms for harsh realities, but the softening of words may have consequences that are harmful rather than helpful to the groupings of per- sons about whom we are concerned. Euphemisms may cause us to forget tliat so far as the individual child and his family are concerned, the old responses of shame and hurt, fear and humilitation are evoked, and these are not dispelled by new terminol- ogy. John has referred to a second unfortun- ate consequence:

"The terms 'socially disadvantaged' or 'cul- turally deprived' enable us as social scientists

1 Frank Riessman, The Culturally Deprived Child (New York: Harper and Row, 1962), p. 1.

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to neutralize our feelings about life for chUdren in the midst of abject poverty. The synthetic quality of these words perhaps reflects our anger and shame about the plight of these chil- dren and our ignorance and confusion about how best to help them." ^

Social workers cannot afford to permit their feelings to be neutralized. The very reason for the social worker's professional existence is that of bringing about change —change in individuals, in persons within groups, and in communities. This calls not for a neutralization of feeling, but for an ap- propriate channeling of physical, intellectual, and emotional energies.

Culture Defined

What, then, is "culture," of which—or perhaps by which—^persons are deprived? From the hundreds of available definitions, Kroeber and Kluckhohn derived the follow- ing definition:

"Culture consists of pattems, explicit and implicit, of and for behavior acquired and transmitted by symbols, constituting the dis- tinctive achievement of human groups, includ- ing their embodiments in artifacts; the essential core of culture consists of traditional (i.e., historically derived and selected) ideas and especially their attached values; culture systems may, on the one hand, be considered as pro- ducts of action, on the other as conditioning influences upon further action." s

These culturally determined ways of think- ing, feeling, and behaving help to shape per- sonality structure. The family is a primary institution through which the child has his earliest experience in having transmitted to him the patterned behavior and values of the culture. The family and all other social institutions affect the development of the entire personality by the manner in which the individual is indoctrinated into the cul- ture. All cultures must necessarily make pro- vision for acceptable ways of expressing in- stinctual needs, although the patterning for these expressions varies from one culture to another.

sVera P. John, "The Intellectual Development of Slum Children: Some Preliminary Findings," American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, XXXIII (1963), 822.

a Richard Kluckhohn, ed., Culture and Behavior: The Collected Essays of Clyde Kluckhohn (New York: The Free Press of Glencoe, 1962), p. 73.

The development of the many functions of the ego are culturally influenced. Our perceptions and the meanings we read into them are culturally derived. Our opinions as to what is beautiful or ugly, melodious or raucous, delicious or nauseous, are culturally conditioned. Our ideas about behavior ap- propriate to social roles are similarly derived. Even the differential values placed upon the various ego defenses vary from one culture to another, as do the attitudes concerning health and illness. Our culture designates those achievements that are to be honored, those acts that are to be shamed. And be- cause these ideas and feelings carry values about what is right or wrong in the way in which id impulses are expressed and in which the ego functions, cultural condition- ing likewise influences superego develop- ment.

If the individual is to assimilate the cul- ture in which he is bom, knowledge con- cerning these pattems for behavior must be transmitted to him; the values must become incorporated. The products of the culture and its artifacts must be available for his use.

Areas of Cultural Deprivation

Who, then, are the culturally deprived? I should like to designate four types of chil- dren who are culturally deprived. It will be apparent that there is much overlapping of these types. First, the child who is so ill-fed, ill-clothed, and ill-housed that he and his family live at a level below that which is compatible with standards of health and decency is culturally deprived. Second, as indicated above, the pattems for behavior must be transmitted by adults. Hence, there is grave danger that a child will be culturally deprived if within his family there is no ap- propriate model for sexual identification and when within the family and the neighborhood there are few appropriate models after which the child can pattem his concepts of a socially productive adult role. Third, a child is cul- turally deprived when the methods and ap- proaches of the educational system alienate him and make it impossible for him to as- similate the knowledge needed to become a socially productive person who is reasonably able to comprehend the world in which he

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lives. Fourth, a child is culturally deprived who comes to the conclusion—on the basis of the behavior and attitudes expressed to- ward him—that there will be no place for him in the culture, and he will have no valued role to play in the society of which he will be a part as an adult. Why do these four types of conditions constitute cultural deprivation, and who are these children?

Physical Poverty

Why should living in poverty be equated with cultural deprivation? Poverty means hunger. The hungry child hurts; his belly aches from the cramp of hunger. He cannot grow and develop properly. The hungry child camiot attend to learning those patterned forms of behavior that constitute his cultural heritage; nor, if the culture gives him so little, is he likely to be motivated to adopt its values. Moreover, when hunger exists in a "land of plenty," in an "aflBuent society" in which high value is placed on material tilings and on acquisitiveness as a personality trait, then the contrast is sharp indeed between what the child experiences and what the culture symbols teU him he should be ex- periencing. Dr. James, New York City Com- missioner of Health, comments:

"It is not the point that the deserted mother in the slum may have somewhat better nutri- tion and less arthritis than an Asiatic rice worker. What counts is that somehow she is far adrift of what is expected in our society." *

In the United States, one of the most re- cent studies of the extent of poverty has been reported by Orshansky. This report uses as the standard for poverty any income that is less than three times the cost of the economy food allowance as computed by the Depart- ment of Agriculture for families of three or more persons (with adjustments of this for families of two and for persons living alone).

On this basis, there are 15 million children living with their families in poverty in the United States. These children constitute one in five of all the children in families. The association between poverty and women heading the household has long been pointed

out, as has the fact that public assistance grants in all states are poverty-level grants. It is, therefore, the more surprising to leam that 10 million of the 15 million children living in poverty are in families headed by a man, and only one million of these are re- ceiving aid to families with dependent chil- dren.

Although unemployment is one cause of impoverishment, it was found that for many millions of persons poverty exists in families in which the male head of the household is fully employed—at low wages. This disad- vantage falls more heavily upon nonwliite families than upon white families. The con- centration of nonwhite workers in these low- paying jobs consigns their families to a life of poverty—at three times the rate of white citizens."

Witmer points out that although the pro- portion of poor nonwhite families (47 per- cent) is more than three times that of poor white families (14 percent), in terms of numbers the poor white families are almost three times as numerous as poor nonwhite families. Similarly, although 63 percent of the families headed by women are poor in contrast with only 13 percent of those headed by men, in numbers there are three million poor families headed by men as contrasted with one million headed by women.* Thus, even though poverty is indeed associated with being nonwhite and with female headship of the family, there are more poor families who are white than Negro and more with a man at the head of the household than with a woman.

I do not know whether Canadians have been as busy counting their poor as Ameri- can economists and govemment officials have been in the last few years. But I do know that years ago Canada's govemment passed the Family Allowance Act signifying that it had concem for the material well-being of its children, and it expressed this concern by providing a monthly payment to parents in behalf of each child. There is no similar provision in the Unted States to signify our social investment in children nor to safeguard

* George James, M.D., quoted in Children, XI (1964), 213.

5 MoUie Orshansky, "Counting the Poor: Another Look at the Poverty Profile," Social Security Bulletin, XXVIII, No. 7 (1965), 3-29.

8 Helen L. Witmer, "Children and Poverty," Chil- dren, XI (1964), 212.

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families against the economic hazard of hav- ing a large family.

Inadequate Role Models

The second type of culturally deprived child is the one who has no adequate role models. The patterning of behavior, the learning of behavior appropriate to social roles, and the transmission of values do not happen automatically. The child is intro- duced to these through the hundreds of cues he receives from adults in his environment. The child in the fatheless home—particularly the male child—has no ready reference for establishing his sexual identification and for learning in the myriad ways, day by day and year by year, the kinds of behavior expected from men in the home as husbands and fathers, in the neighborhood and on the job as citizens of the community. In this regard, the Negro male child is particularly vulner- able to cultural deprivation. (Witmer points out that although only .06 percent of the white families with children have a female head of the family, this is true of 21 percent of the nonwhite families.'')

The greater amount of marital instability among Negroes is associated with the rel- atively fewer economic opportunities for Negro men as compared with Negro women. This circumstance runs counter to the value assumptions of the dominant white culture that the father is the stable wager earner and wiU be the primary support of the children. This same circumstance also means that within the range of acquaintances with men of his own race, the Negro child is likely to find fewer adult models who have achieved success.

Inadequate Education

A third type of cultural deprivation exists when a child does not learn those things necessary to his becoming a socially produc- tive adult who is adequately knowledgeable about his surroundings and the infiuences

f Ibid., p. 209. These percentages were derived from the table, which gives the following information: In this country in 1960, there were 25,661,000 families with own children. Of the 23,263,000 white families, 1,394,000 were headed by a female. Among the 2,398,000 nonwhite families, 497,000 had a female head.

that affect his life. In our culture, the ability to understand and to use words and numbers are necessary tools. These are the symbols through which the accumulated knowledge of a culture is transmitted. More simply and basically, these are necessary tools for the individual's earning a living, for finding out where he is in a city, for being able to count the money he has or does not have, for being able to read a biU and to know how much payment is expected, for knowing how much he is really paying for something on an "easy-payment plan," for reading signs in the supermarket, for filling in an application for employment, and for reading the direc- tions that tell him how he is to use the con- tents of a package.

The child from a poverty-stricken home is at a disadvantage when he first begins school. He has not seen newspapers, magazines, or books used either as sources of information or as sources of pleasure. He has become acquainted with fewer things that he can identify by name. Moreover, the slum child has had few organized conversations with adults.^ He has not been listened to or talked with; no one reads to him. For the eco- nomically favored child, his experiences at home and at school reinforce each other, whereas this is not the case for the cul- turally deprived child, for whom home and school frequently seem to be at odds with each other. Consequently, the gap between his reading ability and that of his more favored associate widens as the number of school years increases.

Educators have become highly critical of the effect that the educational system and its teaching methods have upon culturally de- prived children. There is increased urgency for learning how to educate these chUdren, since it is predicted that future jobs will re- quire better education and higher levels of skill.

Davis writes:

"The future of our Nation industrially and socially depends upon the ability of the schools to help large numbers of children from work- ing class families leam the basic skills essential both to social and economic life. The schools

8 Suzanne Keller, "The Social World of the Urban Slum Child: Some Early Findings," American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, XXXIII (1963), 828.

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have not yet learned how to give this training effectively." »

Educators have identified some of the factors that interfere with learning. Lack of preschool acquaintance with the media for leaming has already been cited. Learning materials used in school are drawn from the experiences of middle-class children, and the stories in the readers are about children quite strange to the slum child. When, in addition, the child is Negro and aU the stories are about white people, the difficulty is com- pounded. When the older Negro child finds in the history books and in the courses in American literature that his forebears are just not there—except as slaves—^his sense of being a part of the culture is violated. (Thus, some of us have heard Negro civil rights workers exclaim with gleeful satis- faction, "They see us now! Finally, they know we are here!")

Middle-class teachers often do not under- stand the "style" of leaming among people in lower classes and, therefore, are unable to communicate with deprived children. Moreover, the less-adequate teachers are frequently assigned to the poor districts of the city. Female domination of the school often discourages the continued attendance of the adolescent boy. And—^perhaps most important of all—the pressures of immedi- ate economic need, the repeated humiliations of poor achievement in school, and the lack of certainty that education will be useful cause many boys and girls to drop out of school. Thus, the cycle of cultural depriva- tion continues for themselves as adults and for their future children.

Inadequate Role Identification

A fourth type of cultural deprivation exists when a child or young person comes to the conclusion, on the basis of the be- havior and attitudes expressed toward him, that there will be no place for him in the culture, and he will have no valued role to play. Erikson has made it clear that the

8 Allison Davis, "Society, the School, and the Cul- turally Deprived Student," in Arno Jewett, et al., eds.. Improving English Skills of Culturally Different Youth in Large Cities (Washington, D . C : Office of Education, U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, 1964), p . 12.

individual achieves his ego identity not only by knowing who and what he is, but also by being recognized and so identified by others:

"The community supports such development to the extent to which it permits the child, at each step, to orient himself toward a complete 'life plan' with a hierarchical order of roles as represented by individuals of different age grades. Family, neighborhood, and school pro- vide contact and experimental identification with younger and older children and with young and old adults. A child, in the multi- plicity of successive and tentative identifica- tions, thus begins early to build up expectations of what it will be like to be older and what it will feel like to have been younger—expecta- tions which become part of an identity as they are, step by step, verified in decisive experi- ences of psychosocial 'fittedness.' " ̂ ^

It is not enough for the young person to know that he has capacities, to want to make use of them, and to have goals. If these per- sonal qualities are to eventuate in social productivity, the society must articulate its readiness to permit the individual to make use of his capacities.

The other three types or conditions of cultural deprivation previously discussed coalesce in their damaging impact upon the young person's capacity to establish an ef- fective ego identity, and they tend to ex- clude him from full participation in the cul- ture. This, the adolescent knows—^before he reaches adulthood—and his despair sometimes leads to his assuming a negative identity dedicated to the destruction of the cultural structure from whose benefits he is barred. Schorr has referred to the "three D's of alienation—drugs, delinquency, and despair." ^̂

Cultural Diversity

I tum again to the question of terminology and to the question implied earlier. Are the four specified conditions truly indicative of "cultural deprivation," or do they merely refiect middle-class values? Some authors have suggested that neither "culturally de- prived" nor "culturally disadvantaged"

10 Erik H. Erikson, "The Problem of Ego Identity," Psychological Issues, I, No. 1 (1959), 114.

11 Alvin L. Schorr, "Policy Issues in Fighting Poverty," Children, XI (1964), 130.

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should be used, for both fail to take into account the positive values within the cul- turally determined attitudes and behaviors among lower-class persons. Rather, they say, the phrase "culturally different" should be used, thus giving recognition to the fact that differing values exist in different classes and cultural groups. Related to this is the usage of the phrase "the culture of poverty."

Schorr has addressed himself to this problem, pointing out that it is dangerous to make assumptions about cultural at- titudes without taking into account the conditions out of which these attitudes arise. He writes: ". . . the attitudes that are as- sociated with the culture of poverty, viz., orientation to the present, passivity, cyni- cism, are a realistic response to the facts of poverty." 12 "Because the attitudes persist," he continues, "we should not suppose that they are an independent phenomenon. They depend on material circumstances and probably are functional in relation to them." "

Cultural diversity—among the many ethnic groups and the classes within—is and should be a matter of national pride. Di- versity, or difference, does not mean dep- rivation. But certain minimum require- ments must be met in order for the individual to function effectively within any ethnic group and any class therein. To refer to the lack of these requirements as "differences," or as signifying a special "culture of poverty" with an implication of choice on the part of the individual, or as "transmitted traditional values" obscures the fact that, when these minimum conditions are not met, the in- dividuals concerned are indeed deprived and disadvantaged.

To expect that children will have enough to eat is not a middle-class value—providing one recognizes that their culture determines whether the diet will include or exclude enchiladas, hush puppies, gefiillte fish, or orange juice. To expect that children will be taught how to earn a living and how to communicate with others is not a middle- class value—^providing one recognizes that their culture may infiuence the direction

12 Alvin L. Schorr, "The Nonculture of Poverty," American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, XXXIV (1964), 907.

IS Ibid., p. 911.

toward a vocation. To expect that boys and girls will have models for sex-role identifica- tion is not a middle-class value—providing one recognizes that some differences in sex roles are. class-determined. And certainly middle-class value is not involved in the expectation that the child, when grown, will have an opportunity to find a place for him- self in that society.

Implications for Child Welfare Practice

What implications do these four areas of need have for child welfare practice? The implications are many, both as to the way in which services are structured and the nature of the services to be rendered. But, the nature and magnitude of this problem are such that it is unlikely to be solved by any one type of social agency or combina- tion of agencies relying upon the method of bringing about change case by case, person by person, and family by family.

Social-structural changes are required to change some of the conditions resulting from discrimination and leading to poverty, such as employment at substandard wages, dead-end employment, inadequate educa- tion, and excessive rents for poor housing. Child welfare agencies should decide to use some of their resources and infiuence to educate the public concerning the need for more adequate minimum-wage laws, fair employment practices, adequate school levies, vocational training geared to real job opportunities, and the entering of unions through apprentice training.

United States social workers have been extraordinarily and unaccountably silent concerning social security measures such as the family-allowance systems that make some provision for society's sharing some of the costs of child rearing and that take into account the economic hazards of large families. Recently, however, social workers have begun to show somewhat more interest in the idea of a minimum family income.

These types of measures that bring about changes in the social structure are preventive in nature, although some of them—even if they were legislated immediately—might not benefit the families who are currently culturally deprived. Nevertheless, these long- range measures are among the most impor-

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tant in terms of their basic infiuence upon the lives of large numbers of children, some of them yet unborn.

There are however, other implications for child welfare pertinent to the immediate problems of today's deprived children. As noted earlier, although only a fraction of the children living in poverty are receiving public assistance, it is important that child welfare agencies lend their infiuence in work- ing toward the improvement of standards for public assistance.

So far as the practices of child welfare agencies are concemed, two of the most important implications of cultural depriva- tion (from my point of view) are these: First, if the child welfare field intends to have any impact upon a significant number of the 15 million culturally deprived chil- dren—1 child in every 5 in the United States—it must concern itself increasingly with children in their own homes. Second, related to the first point is the inadequacy of traditional agency alignments (accord- ing to social work method and fields of practice in welfare federation and councils) and the specializations of services within agencies themselves (according to social work methods or t3^es of clientele and services).

Flexibility of Services

Voluntary agencies have long claimed fiexibility as one of the advantages of being under voluntary auspices. It is time for them to claim their heritage by actually being fiexible, which means much more tiiian oc- casionally being willing to take a difficult child for placement when pressured to do so. Flexibility must involve inaugurating ex- perimental services or ranges of services previously not undertaken. This would mean taking their services to the culturally de- prived children and families in the slums, in the public housing developments, and in the schools. But this also means taking only those kinds of services that the families and children are able to use.

The neighborhood-based multiservice agency provides the opportunity for reach- ing families who, from the despair of poverty, would not be able to find or go to the dis- tantly located specialized service. The neigh-

borhood service would be likely to use all three of the social work methods—casework, groupwork, and community organization— but it would also use the talents of health personnel, teachers, and home economists.

Expansion of Services

The neighborhood service proving most useful to the residents of the neighborhood would likely be one that, above all, helped families to deal with practical realities. The poorly educated person is ill-equipped to deal with the intricacies of bureaucratic structures such as the housing authority, the employment agency, and the hospital. The parents, like their culturally deprived chil- dren, may have been alienated by the schools and thus be unable to deal with numbers and the written word, contrary to the as- sumptions made by personnel in the bureau- cratic structures. Literacy classes and help with budgeting are practical measures.

There is ample evidence that when young children in deprived areas are given pre- school experiences in learning, they are better able to make use of school experi- ences. The day care center can prepare the child to begin school on a more equitable footing with his more fortunate peers. Not only will he have learned more words (what they mean, how to listen to them, and how to use them), but he also will have learned how to deal with things. The absence of things with which to play and work has a direct relationship to the development of children in impoverished homes.

Riese has stated:

"Tactile perception and the manipulating of objects which are sensed as distinct and out- side the body limits are instrumental in the dis- covery of one's own body image; this is a basic relation of man and matter." i*

And again:

"Materials to work with are not purely a matter for self-expression or a means for social and economic liberation, important as these functions obviously are or will become. For the deprived youngster, materials for manipulation are above all a vehicle and belated opportunity for proprioceptive experience, for the sizing up

i^Hertha Riese, M.D., Heal the Hurt Child (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962), p. 293.

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of one's strength and manipulative skill against and in comparison with the surroundings and its requirements." ^̂

Furthermore, the child in a day care center would necessarily receive some atten- tion from health personnel prior to his ad- mission. (Health services might well be a key service in a neighborhood service cen- ter.) And the child in the day care center would get something to eat there.

For the older child, tutoring services might be needed. The impoverishment of experi- ences for the slum child and his parents outside of the slum has been documented. The adults as well as the children need opportunities to do and see things that in- terest them on the other side of the slum's poverty curtain. Group activities within the neighborhood service can provide oppor- tunities for recreation and leaming, and groupwork can be directed toward helping individuals improve their capacities for so- cial relationships. It would be expected that if the families in the neighborhood found the services useful, this would lead to the for- mation of self-help groups.

In commenting upon the alienation from society that the poor feel, Schorr suggests that "more aid and encouragement to poor families to organize for their own pur- poses" *̂ might help to achieve an integrated society. He adds in this regard:

"The problem of self-organization among poor white people is, in a way, more acute than among poor Negroes. Poor white people have no comparable [civil rights] movement and they are losing even the advantage that a white skin gave. If they are not reached in some other manner first, they may be candidates for a White Muslim movement." ^''

I am aware of the fact that none of the above suggestions concerning the neighbor- hood services center are new. They have been tried in experimental programs in various parts of the country. My point is that the field of child welfare and child wel- fare agencies have not been notably eager to experiment along these lines. In the com- ments above, I have suggested that volun-

d., p. 299. 18 Schorr, "Policy Issues in Fighting Poverty," op.

ctt., pp. 130-131. iT/6/d., p. 131.

tary agencies have a particular responsibility to make use of their right to be flexible; obvi- ously, these experimentations are also ap- propriate for public agencies. In fact, the new "poverty programs" are using some of these means.

I am also aware that in large urban com- munities—^with highly organized systems of social services—it is taken for granted that medical social workers in hospitals deal with problems of patients that affect their physical condition and that school social workers deal with problems of children that are re- lated to the school. Perhaps, because a large share of my child welfare experience was in rural areas, I do not fully appreciate these niceties in the organization of services. In the rural areas and in smaller towns, when there is a problem pertaining to the welfare of children, there is a kind of naive assump- tion that this has something to do with "child welfare" and that the child welfare worker in tum does something or ought to do some- thing about it. In addition to my early con- ditioning, I continue to have experiences that cause me to surmise that even in big cities, in this matter of organization of serv- ices, there is sometimes more "organization" than "services."

A colleague of mine recently told me that in a large city, which prides itself on its so- cial work standards, the medical social work- ers in a public hospital were finding it vir- tually impossible to refer successfully to child welfare agencies (either public or pri- vate) the cases of young teenage unmarried mothers who delivered their babies there. Unless these girls absolutely refused to take their babies home, they took them home without any agency extending services to them.

It would seem that if child welfare agen- cies wish to be of service to culturally de- prived children, a more effective liaison will need to be worked out among schools, hos- pitals, and other institutions that serve de- prived families.

Expansion of Personnel

I am also aware of the fact that expansion of services means, among other things, ex- pansion of personnel. We are not graduating enough social workers from schools of social

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work to take care of present needs. We are not even enrolling enough students. More- over, we are not getting some of the young people who might become interested in the profession // they were to see evidence that social work was responding wholeheartedly to the new challenges.

In considering new approaches to proh- lems, the profession also needs to reconsider how best to use the present limited number of professionally educated persons. Many of the services suggested for the neighbor- hood service center are not social work serv- ices, although they are intended to further the welfare of children. Some of the services require professional personnel from other professions; other services are semiprofes- sional in nature and can be given by persons trained on the job. The manpower shortage in our profession may become increasingly acute, thus making it necessary for the agen- cies and the profession to distinguish be- tween those activities that do indeed require professional education and those that can be done by persons with less education.

Some of the children who are culturally deprived come into foster care. Because of their previous experiences, these children need the same kind of individual help needed by culturally deprived children within their own homes. The fact that they have been re- moved from their own homes suggests, in addition, that other problems of intrafamilial relationships are present. (The culturally deprived child placed in foster care is a separate topic that has not been addressed in this paper.)

Concluding Remarks

This paper has identified four of the con- ditions signifying cultural deprivation. It has further suggested that if the field of child welfare and the child welfare agencies therein are to have any impact on a signifi- cant number of culturally deprived children, then the field and the agencies will need to

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direct more resources and energy into serv- ices for children in their own homes. Fur- thermore, if these services are to be helpful, they must be geographically and psycho- logically accessible to culturally deprived children and their parents, and they have to be offered in those forms that are re- garded as valuable by the persons for whom the services are intended. In addition, it is suggested that our business is the welfare of children, and our obligation is to reach chil- dren when their welfare is in jeopardy; our business is not the perpetuation of organiza- tional structures labeled "child welfare" when and // these structures are no longer adequate to deal with new needs and new challenges. RECEIVED JULY 6, 1965

CHILD WELFARE February 1966 73