From settlement house to antipoverty program

Abstract

Letty Santiago, MSW, is a social worker in the New York City Board of Education's Strengthen Early Childhood Program, District 8, Bronx, New York. Community organization as sociotherapy —that is, organizing a community to change the behavior of its people and moti vate self-improvement—has a long history and roots in sociological theory. Rein would almost suggest a linear theory in the evolution of sociotherapy and traces its beginnings to the publication of The Polish Peasant in Europe and America, a study of Polish immigrant communities in Chi cago.1 At the start, community organization in America was influenced by the writings of European sociologists, who thought that in creasing urbanization and industrialization were causing life to become impersonal and anonymous and were weakening social bonds. Foremost of these was Durkheim, whose classic work, Division of Labor in Society, examined the transition of a soci ety from a low degree of labor division to greater specialization.2 He observed the environment becoming more complex and felt that the social order must also change. Noting that great industrial centers had a higher incidence of crime and suicide, he suggested that intermediary groups should be developed to bridge the gap between state and individual so that social disinte