Sociale technologie en het instrumentele aspect van agogische actie

The development in the various fields of the 'helping professions' has greatly speeded up since the end of World War II. Social work has blossomed out from a philanthropic movement into a profession; in the field of mental health the emphasis has shifted from custody and nursing to treatment, prevention and after-care; new methods of treatment have been developed in the field of child welfare. Community organization, training in an industrial setting and adult education are also being tackled more professionally on the basis of extensive practice theory and an increasing use of scientific insights. Although these -and other areas -are usually seen as related (the helping professions) what they have in common is rarely defined. With the concept 'planned change' as applicable to education and re-education in the widest sense as starting point, we believe that these areas share the characteristics listed below: 1. the activities are planned; this can be seen from the distinction of phases if planned change (planning intervention -evaluation); 2. the intervention is usually based on social-technical strategies; 3. the 'change-agent' is a professional and independent psycho-social system (individual, group or organization); 4. the 'client system' is also a psycho-social system (individual, group, organization or community); 5. the relation between change-agent and client system is one of functional cooperation; 6. the aims are to induce changes in the client system, i.e. improvement of the psycho-social structure and/or the functioning of the client system. 7. the operational objectives are selected from the values of the client system in so far as they are not at odds with the fundamental values of the society to which the change-agent and client system belong.