Browsing by Author "Batson, Edward"
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- ItemOpen AccessA social survey of persons over sixty living in institutions in greater Cape Town(1954) Cooper, Rona Maureen; Batson, Edward
- ItemOpen AccessA study of social case work procedure in Johannesburg, with special reference to the standardization of this procedure(1947) Arnold, Louise; Batson, Edward
- ItemOpen AccessProbation: its application in the Republic of South Africa under the Children's Act of 1960(1970) Van den Berg, Petrus J H; Batson, EdwardThe present research study was in the first place undertaken to ascertain to what extent the probationers and their parents have complied with the requirements laid down by the Children's Court. A secondary objective was to obtain the views of probationers, their parents, and the supervising probation officers on this particular method of treatment. A questionnaire comprising 43 questions was drawn up. In order to complete the questionnaires in detail, it was necessary to study the case files of 110 probationers and to visit them, their parents, and their supervising probation officers. Several towns and cities of the Republic were included in the survey. It is hoped that the findings of this research will present a clear and informative picture of the results of probationary treatment as applied in South Africa since the passage of the 1960 Children's Act. Furthermore, the views of those directly concerned in the application of the probationary system may have much to contribute to the improvement of the system in order to achieve more lasting results. The opinions solicited from parents, probationers, and probation officers, will be discussed in the ensuing chapters.
- ItemOpen AccessA social survey of the educational institutions for Africans in Cape Town(1955) Giugni, Giovanni L; Batson, EdwardThe specific aim of the survey was twofold, first to find out what educational institutions are "available" in Cape Town for Africans (whether they are numerically adequate, are sufficiently well suited and equipped, and are strategically located in proximity to pupils' homes; and how the social circumstances or the pupils and of the staffs affect school training); second; to find out to what extent the existing schools are "utilized'' by the Africans. In addition, the survey also considers the broader question of school education for Africans, which has become at present one of the major problems of the whole country together with the social and political re-organization of the Bantu community. To re-organize socially is first of all to re-organize mentally, a task which is proper of education in general and of school education in particular.
- ItemOpen AccessA socio-cultural community survey of the township Nyanga(1983) Dludla, Mduduzi Elias; Batson, EdwardThe author wished to study a community and chose Nyanga, a Black township near Cape Town. As a student from Zululand he was at first a stranger to Nyanga, but learned something about it from direct observation. He then decided that his study should use the Method of Survey, that the sur- vey should be socio-cultural, and that it should provisionally be a survey of Nyanga as a community. He believed that whether a township like Nyanga ought to be called a community or a new kind of neighbourhood was an uncertain question on which his research might shed some light. The author did not intend to add to his research a full study of the history and geography of Nyanga. That would be out of the question for a single research student. But he studied its situation to decide the geographical boundaries of his survey and read enough of its history to understand how its people came to be living there. Using established community survey methods, the author determined the scope, dwelling units, sampling technique, interviewing techniques, and procedures for editing, coding, and tabulating his field data. The formal work in the field began with a Pilot Survey in 1980 and was completed with approximately 200 household interviews in the summer of 1980-1981. Bus and school boycotts and serious unrest on the Cape Flats added to the difficulties of the field work, which was nevertheless persevered in and accomplished according to the research design. The household investigations were concluded with the aid of a 22-item field schedule comprising the open-ended questions and other questions listed on page 42 of the dissertation. Thinking mainly in Zulu, the author initially found interviewing in Xhosa somewhat difficult, and the translation of his records into English was also a complication. With much help from the people of Nyanga, from his Xhosa-speaking wife, and with guidance in supervision at the University, these difficulties were surmounted. The data were hand-tabulated by the author rather than having that work performed through a computer service, for detailed scrutiny of the data at every stage and for self- education. The results of the simple classifications are reported in Chapter 6 and a series of 45 bivariate frequency distributions is presented in Chapter 7 and commented upon in Chapters 7 and 8. The author's conclusions are summed up in Chapter 8, in terms of the relative proportions of key opinions expressed, the very pronounced majority opinions, the possible significance of minority opinions, and the status of Nyanga as a community in the light of six criteria from P.V. Young.
- ItemOpen AccessA socio-economic study of Parkwood Estate, Cape Flats(1941) Rabkin, Phyllys; Batson, EdwardParkwood Estate in the municipality of Cape Town is part of the Wynberg Ward. It is bounded on the west by the Prince George Drive, an arterial road to the False Bay Suburbs, on the north by the Golf Links Estate and on the other side by farmlands not as yet sub-divided into plots. Parkwood Estate, in spite of its prepossessing name, is a typical "pondokkie settlement" on the Cape Flats, housing some 1,100 people, mainly Coloured. The Estate is forty-three acres in extent and has about 185 houses, making it one of the more densely populated areas in the vicinity. The dwellings are of very poor construction, consisting almost entirely of roughly built wood and iron structures. The area is singularly deficient in municipal services, there being no system of sewerage and no provision for stormwater drainage. This latter municipal deficiency has meant that annual flooding is inevitable for the people of Parkwood but the seriousness of the consequences was only brought to the notice of the public in the winter of 1941 when the rains were particularly severe. The water level was so high that houses were rendered totally uninhabitable and two children in the district met their death through drowning. The conditions of life are backward, the roads are only tracks in the prevailing sandy littoral drift characteristic of the Cape Flats, the water supply is drawn from wells open to contamination, and the homes are illuminated at night by candlelight.
- ItemOpen AccessA sociographic study of student groups(1948) Forman, Lionel; Batson, EdwardThe present investigation is one of social groups and not of the individuals who make up the groups. The aim was to obtain information about a fairly large number of groups and to attempt to express differences between groups, in quantitative terms. The small, selective sample of students are of no interest as biohoms, or even as socii. The subject of the investigation is the groups which the students list. The students are of interest only as a background to the work - to make it clear that the sample of groups which has been collected is a very selective one. This was not the original intention. The investigation was originally intended to be a study of the nature of the social groups to which social science students belong, as related to their attitudes and personal relationships within the social science class. This was to have been divided into three sections: 1. The collection of information on the social groups. 2. The collection of information on the attitudes of the students and their personal relationships. 3. The correlation of the results. The questionnaire which was drawn up for section 1, was prepared with the second part of the investigation in mind. When, however, a preliminary analysis of the results of this questionnaire was made, it was seen that a great deal of information on the social groups had been collected. The suggestion was made by Professor Batson that it might be profitable to concentrate on the analysis of these results, rather than to proceed with the second part of the investigation.
- ItemOpen AccessSome factors associated with absenteeism in a printing factory: a study at the Cape Times, Parow(1959) Brooker, Walter M A; Batson, Edward
- ItemOpen AccessA study of voluntary welfare agencies' responses to the phenomenon of squatting by Coloured people in Cape Town(1983) Taylor, Carla; Batson, EdwardThe questions addressed in this research were: (a) to what extent had voluntary welfare agencies in Greater Cape Town been involved during 1982 in work concerning Coloured squatting, and (b) what opinions were held by the agencies concerning aspects of intervention in Coloured squatting. A brief background was given on squatting and on the involvement of various sectors of society in the problem of the Coloured housing shortage in Greater Cape Town. The method of descriptive inquiry was employed. All voluntary social welfare agencies operating in Greater Cape Town and registered under the National Welfare Act and/or the Fund-Raising Act as at 30 September 1982 were listed. All (that is the total universe except for three whose addresses were not on record) were approached by means of a mailed questionnaire containing both closed and open-ended questions on the subject of agency involvement in Coloured squatting and agency opinion on aspects of intervention. Anonymity was guaranteed and respondents were invited to state reasons (if any) for being unable to respond or preferring not to respond to the questions. Forty per cent (114) of the agencies had replied by due date. These constituted a self-selected sample which was, therefore, not representative of the original universe. It was, however, deliberately invited as constituting a new universe comprising the respondent agencies, and was so interpreted in the analysis and conclusions. Analysis of the data revealed that 12 of the 114 agencies that had returned the questionnaire had been actively involved in intervention with Coloured squatters. Of these, only three had responded on a level beyond that of counselling or assisting materially in cases of individual need. Social workers had been involved in work related to Coloured squatting in four of the agencies. Sixteen of the 114 respondent agencies had answered none of the opinion questions, and had indicated that they were not sufficiently informed on the subject to be able to express an opinion. Many others had answered some, but not all questions. The inquiry had been so designed that the extent and nature of this particular response was itself a source of data. Comparison of responses from agencies serving Coloured clients and those not serving Coloured clients revealed differences in the opinions of the two groups. Specifically, these were related to the types of intervention advocated, the categories of actors proposed for involvement in both intervention and co-ordination of intervention, and the combinations of actors chosen for intervention. The actual roles envisaged for each category varied within the two groups of agencies. The most agreed-upon aspects were the need for intervention and co-ordination, and the preference for involvement of various actors in co-operation with one another. The research employed both quantitative and qualitative analysis.
- ItemOpen AccessA survey of community social work agencies in greater Cape Town(1983) Horne, Eunice; Batson, EdwardA survey of sixteen community social work agencies in Greater Cape Town was conducted from December 1981 to June 1982. Community social work agencies were defined as voluntary associations that currently employed workers to practise the method of community work and whose community work could be classified as within the field of social work. The goal of the survey was to gather and document knowledge about the practise of community social work and to identify "patterns of occurrence" in the nature of the community work practised by the agencies and the support systems provided by the agencies for the community workers. Using a list of quaesita derived from her experience and knowledge of the field, from previous studies, and from community work theory, the researcher collected data by indirect observation. She also employed observation to gather data from agency constitutions and annual reports. Her principal technique for indirect observation was to secure human testimony by structured interviews. The most senior staff member involved in community work in each agency was interviewed. The data collected were edited, classified, coded, and tabulated in simple frequency distributions and selected bi-variate tables. These were used to reconstruct an Idealtypus of a community social work agency, described in the final chapter. Detailed conclusions regarding the characteristics of the ideal-type agency thus constructed referred respectively to the agency itself, the community work performed by it, the community workers performing the community work, and the support systems available to them. Taken together these conclusions depict a very active and varied pattern of community work being conducted by community social work agencies in Greater Cape Town. This community work is mainly a recent revival and it is still not a major field of practice, but it is ready for training and development.
- ItemOpen Access