Int¢'rnattonalJournal o/Interct~ltural Rt'latu,n~. Vol 9. pp 4~5-441. 19x5 Prmted in the USA All rtght~ r¢~er',cd 0147-1767 85 $3 00 ~ DO ('op~,rtght ,~' 1986 Pergamon Press l i d B O O K R E VIE WS P H I L I P P I N E SOCIETY AND THE I N D I V I D U A L : SELECTED ESSAYS OF FRANK LYNCH, 1949-1976 Ararn A. Yengoyan and Perla Q. Makil (Eds.) Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Center for South and Southeast Asian Studies, 1984, 469 pp., $19.95 (cloth), $11.95 (paper) Collections of essays often suffer from a--"diffused purpose,"--the editors imposing an artificial unity where none exists. The purpose in such cases is more an obligation to publish than an attention to scholarly needs. That's certainly not the case with this collection of works by the late Frank Lynch. The selection includes 19 essays and research articles by Lynch and colleagues. Frank Lynch died in Manila in 1978 after more than four decades of scholarship that examined Philippine culture. Lynch's record of scholarship stretches across the wide range of theoretical issues and practical concerns that represented his diverse interests: development, agrarian problems, cross-cultural understanding, and issues dealing with changes on various dimensions. Since most of his work focused on the Philippines, this collection is a belated effort to make his endeavors available to a wider American audience. In that purpose, this re-reading of Lynch's work and its collection in a single volume should prove invaluable to anthropologists and others planning to work in the Philippines. The collection opens with a charming introduction of Lynch by one of the two editors, Perla Makil, who worked with Lynch for more than fifteen years on various projects. Yengoyan then elaborates on the social anthropology of Frank Lynch and provides a context for his work. What follows are six sections that include articles from 1956 to 1979. Part I includes three essays on values, class stratification, and elites. The first treats the Philippine concept of"pakikisama,'" an emphasis on smooth interpersonal relations (SI R) that can defeat the best of naive foreign survey researchers. Lynch's essay reports findings of several surveys centering on this ability to get along with others, including a U.S. Peace Corps survey that later appeared in the training literature used for the group of PCV's that counted this reviewer as a member in the late 1960's. Lynch tried to explain American culture to Filipinos and Philippine culture to Americans. His analysis retains its utility today. A second article in this section focuses on social class in rural areas. 435 436 Book Reviews The second section includes three selections on techniques and methodology in research, including social surveys, evaluative research, and the problem of effective communication between Filipinos who are well educated and those who are not, and between city dwellers and rural residents. The third article includes a useful set of appendices that should prove helpful to those who anticipate conducting research in Philippine contexts. Religion--belief systems and practice is the third section of readings. Fortunately, Lynch's essay on the belief in "asuwang's" (witchlike creatures) is included. Beliefs in "asuwangs" are found throughout the Visa},as. k}'nch's essay describes the "living belief" in asuwangs in the Bicol region and notes it is quite functional. This section also includes articles on folk Catholicism and the town fiesta as a cultural institution. kynch's interest in minorities and social problems is well represented in two other sections. A co-authored piece reports on the Tasaday of Mindanao, and another reproduces Lynch's public lecture on the below-standard wages paid to workers in "sugarlandia.'" Negros Occidental. l.ynch's concern for the less fortunate is contained in the summary section of the longest essay included in the collection, "Reluctant rebels: Leasehold converts in Nueva Ecija": "In brief, then, our plea is for more light, less heat: more union, less division; a positive rather than a negative approach to agrarian reform" (p. 358); the article reports on a 1971 stud}' of more than a thousand rice-farm operators and landlords in Nuexa Ecija. The final section, entitled "West Meets East," is testimony to Frank l.}'nch's own contributions as a cultural bridge. Here are selections in which he expresses an uneasiness about Philippine receptivit}' to foreign culture but notes that the Filipino is a bridge to southeast Asia. Though first issued in the 1960s, these essays speak to Philippine conccrns of today. Frank l.ynch was the founder and first director of the Institute of Philippine Culture at Ateneo de Manila. He also was a leader in organizing the Philippine Social Science Council. Certainly his contributions to scholarship and education in the Philippines are extensive. With this collection of essays, his contributions are made available to others who wish to understand the culture he studied and loved. li, o W. Je.ffres Cleveland State Universit.v Cleveland. Ohio Book Reviews 437 SCHOOL DESEGREGATION Y. Amir, S. Sharan and R. Ben-Ari (Eds.) Hillsdale, N J: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1984, 267 pp., $24.95 (cloth) This book is the result of an inter-university and multi-disciplinary seminar in Israel funded by the Ford Foundation to examine and summarize the theretical and empirical knowledge available relevant to Israel ethnic desegregation in schools. The volume presents chapters which deal with a wide range of issues ranging from governmental policy making to specific events in the classroom. On the one hand. school desegregation and integration is seen in Israel as nation building, a means by which all Jewish children of subgroups from Europe, Africa, the Americas, and the Middle East are regarded as being equal in a unified political system. On the other hand, the reality is that there is a broad gap between the European and the Middle Eastern Jews' academic achievements and goals. It is the growing awareness of this gap that has caused the move toward school desegregation in Israel since the late 60s. This book presents a detailed account of that process- policies, plans, programs, and results. Most of the eleven chapters are written by members of the Israel Interuniversity Seminar on Ethnic Integration. Each chapter looks at a different aspect of the issue or takes a different theoretical viewpoint. The first four chapters are Israel-specific and are primarily of historical interest. As a teacher, ! find them an excellent resource for students wishing to use an historical research method that incorporates statistical data. Chapters 5-10 are very cross-cultural in their perspectives. Interestingly, the issues discussed are educational and social ones that transcend the Israel cultural settings: roles, goals, values, school climate, academic achievement, teaching learning strategies, interpersonal needs, satisfaction, and expectations. ! find these chapters particularly relevant to the concerns of U.S. educators who are concerned about the lessening efforts toward integration and affirmative action in our society. The final chapter directly compares the integration efforts in Israel and the United States. The author takes the view that Israel's programs have been based more on a "positive" (or proactive) orientation than the U.S. programs which have often resulted in reaction to social demands or problems. Both societies, however, share the c o m m o n problem of academic achievement being lowered seemingly by integration of less prepared students with those better prepared. They also share the problems of mixing socioeconomic groups and the loss of neighborhood schools. Two additional problems are pointed out for Israel's programs. First, Israel's religious schools often require specific religious practices of their students that result in little or no integration of ethnic groups, particularly Middle Eastern children. Second, the desegregation program has 438 Book Reviews been the junior high school level with little pre-and post-school integration. It is pointed out that some experimental efforts toward greater desegregation have begun. Readers may find some of the earlier chapters not directly relevant to the U.S. school desegreation situations. However, this volume as a whole presents a rare cross-cultural perspective to school desegregation--one of the most important educational and social issues of all ethnically heterogeneous societies. Emil R. Spees Southern Illinois L1niversitv Carhondale, Illinois NATURALISTIC INQUIRY Yvonna S. Lincoln and Egon G. Guba Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications, 1985, 416 pp., $25.00 (Cloth) Naturalistic Inquiry attempts to document and to fix a place for a form of inquiry which would be a genuine alternative to positivistic social science methodology. It draws upon the resources of educational research and evaluation literature. The authors properly state that it is an introductory book to the thinking about and doing of naturalistic inquiry. The word, introductory, should be stressed because the authors clearly emphasize that there is no real effort to ground this book in the philosophical and epistemological literature. Generally, the first seven chapters are arguments against conventional methodology and positivism, as well as arguments for the adoption of the naturalistic paradigm. Chapters I and 2 give an overview of positivism in an introductory form. This approach is a quasi-philosophy of science and history of ideas. The intellectual tradition endorsed is contemporary British "critical" ethnography and philosophy of science mainly by Rom Harre and Mary Hesse. Chapter 3, "Constructed Realities," is a short chapter devoted to asserting multiple realities as a characteristic of our time and of the new science. Conspicuously absent is a discussion of the literature on social construction of reality which is well over two decades old in sociology and widely available in communication. Chapter 4 deals with the relationship between inquirer and the objects of inquiry. This chapter is not only critical to the naturalist paradigm but also to the whole enterprise of social science. The dualism of subject-object is taken to task which has been a cornerstone of positivist philosophy. This chapter, however, needs to deal with a "new" objectivity as well. As the author's philosophical mentor, Mary Hesse, states (quoted at the top of Chapter 13), "the guarantee of objectivity in human science is the Book Reviews 439 participation in the dialogue between the investigator and the investigated, in which reciprocal interaction occurs." It seems odd that this pertinent issue is not addressed. Chapter 5 is an excellent discussion of the theory of generalization in classical science and its related problems. This chapter, however, suffers to the degree it argues in the negative fashion and eventually ends up in a philosophical debate on the relationship between the universal and the particular, grounding a new paradigm on a universal principle: there are no universals. To this nonsequitor in contemporary social science there needs to be a genuine discussion of part-whole relationship as it would be understood in this new paradigm. Continuing on the discussion of generalization in science, Chapter 6 presents an excellent critique of causality. This critique is handled marvelously from inside the concept itself. In this sense, a true critique is provided, This may serve as an excellent model for methodologists and researchers alike of how a critique ought to be handled if it is to be a convincing presentation rather than a mere assault. This chapter also presents an adequate history of ideas related to the origins of the concept, causality, and thus making it sufficiently illuminating. Chapter 7, "Is Being Value-Free Variable'?", may be somewhat tedious to readers who do not see why the authors are referring to Darwin, Lemarck, and Galileo. (And some may not.) But, this is a refreshing discussion because it focuses on the critical issues of the consequences of the value-free position in traditional science. The authors again remind us that a value-free position in itself is a valued position. The significant point is that such a position fosters the ritualization of method and, as a consequence, affirms control rather than discovery as the product of science. Chapter 8 moves from the quasi-theoretical, quasi-historical development of the naturalistic inquiry into the pragmatics of doing it. This chapter is intended to display a repertoire of methods that are valuable for the practice of naturalistic inquiry. Of particular interest in this chapter is the discussion of purpose sampling and the role of qualitative methods as a human field instrument. Chapter 9, "Designing a Naturalistic Inquiry," is an excellent "nuts and bolts" chapter. Anyone who has been involved in field research will thoroughly enjoy and approve of this chapter. It should also be extremely helpful for students entering the field. Chapter 10, "Implementing the Naturalistic Inquiry, ~ deals with the topic of entree. Entree is an important topic which deserves a whole chapter to itself rather than a few pages. The salient aspect of entree is that the respondent must receive a relevant "payoff" for their participation. Clearly this requires a negotiation, a trust building through communication practices. The authors do not discuss this necessity to the extent that it would impress upon the reader that all good field research is a communication practice and does not come automatically with the mantle of naturalist armed with good intentions. Similarly, the authors' discussion of the interview does not emphasize strongly enough that the kind of information received in an interview is not just a person responding 440 Book Review.~ to a question but is based on all relevant forces that go into the dialogical setting of the interview. Chapter I I, "Establishing Trustworthiness," is valuable to field researchers in general because it addresses the issuc of validity and reliability through alternative concepts which are of a social nature. In addressing these issues, the authors present some criteria for assessing the naturalistic point of view, which most field researchers have either ignored or dismissed in the past. The authors, however, should have incorporated a stronger epistemological and theoretical discussion in prescnting their criteria of validity and reliability. Chapter 12, "Processing Naturalistically Obtained Data." essentially endorses Glaser and Strauss' approach of"constant comparative." This model of comparison is a little too commensical for the authors to present in this volume. The comparatives--likeness, identity, difference, sameness, nonidentity are distinctions requiring epistemological discussion which has to be spelled out in order to avoid simple empiricism. Clearly, wc can say the same things in different ways and conversely, can't we'? The final chapter on case reporting, member checking, and auditing appropriately argues for the case report as the model of inquiry representation. However, the way this chapter explains it is somewhat simplistic in that the topic is treated as a simple checking of a report with the other participants. But is this really what dialogue means? What about the introduction of greater understanding between the parties involved in each other's lilt situation as well as an increased understanding into one's own'? Overall, this volume serves as a good introductory text in naturalistic inquiry and field research courses. For a more serious reader, however, this book must be supplemented by more in-depth theoretical and epistemological considerations. Joseph J. Pilotta. Ph.D. Ohio State University Columbus. Ohio SOCIAL NETWORKS A N D MENTAL HEALTH: AN A N N O T A T E D BIBLIOGRAPHY David E. Biegel. Ellen McCardle and Susan Mendelson Beverly Hills, CA: Sage, 1985, 391 pp., $25.00 (cloth) Most of our daily activities are carried out in the context of our relationship to those individuals who make up our public and private social networks. While sources of the despairs we experience are often found in these relational ties, we also draw from them our personal strength, wholeness, and inspiration. Over the past decade or so, there has been tremendous growth of academic and professional interest concerning the relationship between the nature of 441 Book Reviews social network and individual well-being. We have also seen a dramatic increase in the activities of various “self-help”groups organized to serve specific individual needs such as alcoholism and single parenthood. This surge of networkrelated activities is, at least partly, due to the growing recognition of the role that an individual’s ties with others play in the prevention, treatment, and rehabilitation of mental-health related problems. In meeting with this societal emphasis, and commissioned by the National Institute of Mental Health Office of Prevention, the authors present in this volume 1340 relevant entries, many of which are not readily accessible through computer searches. Defining the term, social network, as “an individual’s ties with significant others-eg., family, friends, neighbors, and other informal helpers” (p. 1I), the authors list virtually all pertinent articles and books (published through the end of 1982) which take the perspective of “egocentric” or “microscopic” approach to social network in the context of mental health. Consequently, network literature which discusses “macroscopic” concerns on societal structures at large is not given a great deal of attention. Given this person-centered perspective, the authors organized the entries under five major headings: (1) overview and theory, (2) research-physical health, (3) research-mental health, (4) intervention, and (5) professional roles and policy. Most entries are accompanied by a succinct synopsis of approximately 100-200 words, in which the subject matter, central ideas or research questions, target population, and key conclusions are summarized. In some cases, however, the annotations tend to be somewhat too brief and sketchy for a serious reader to determine their relevancy to a particular interest area. Perhaps reference books such as the present one can serve readers more effectively by presenting all entries with common elements of information with a maximum degree of consistency. Having read this volume as a researcher, I find it to be very helpful in understanding the state-of-the-art in psychological network research. It helps me locate the studies which are relevant to my particular research questions and thereby minimize the amount of time which would otherwise be needed to conduct a literature search. I recognize the vastness and scatteredness of the available information, and commend the authors for having successfully selected and organized the relevant entries to make this bibliography. Doubtlessly, this work will also assist those persons in the profession of social work and other mental-health related professions as a compendium of information on the subject, Indeed, this bibliography is a networking effort designed to help organize existing information and to connect various individuals who share the common interest in social network vis-a-vis mental health. It provides a practical contribution to all systematic efforts, academic or nonacademic, in our collective process of developing a greater coherence, depth, and breadth of understanding the time-old wisdom-“No man is an island.” Young Governors Yun Kim State University University Park, Illinois