1. The Improbable Change Agent and the Ph.B.
- Author
-
Hanson, Mark
- Subjects
ACADEMIC dissertations ,POVERTY research ,SOCIOLOGISTS ,EXPERIENCE ,RURAL sociology ,SOCIOLOGICAL research ,SOCIAL science research - Abstract
This article relates the author's experience of receiving his doctoral degree after successfully completing his thesis. The author recounts that members of a high level, government task force in the U.S. were trying out a new change agent strategy to counter poverty in the rural areas of the southwest and they wanted to know if it was working. He relates that he was asked to do the study because of his fluency in Spanish and his training in field research methodology. The study was to be located in a rural, economically depressed county in the southwest. In coming up with the subject, he found that the change agent concept suggests some form of intervention in the normal operations of an organization resulting in a restructuring of events.
- Published
- 1973