While reforms of welfare policies have been widely analysed, the reform of welfare administration has received far less attention. Using empirical case studies, this book provides significant new insights into the way welfare administration is being internationally transformed. Particular attention is given to the effect on welfare clients, staff and agencies. "Administering welfare reform" presents a critical analysis of governance practices in welfare administration and examines shifts in the participants, practices and processes of welfare administration. It presents original empirical case studies that highlight the effects of reforming welfare governance on welfare subjects, staff and agencies and provides a much-needed international and comparative perspective of changing welfare governance. This book is aimed at scholars and advanced students of sociology, social policy, economics, public administration and management, as well as social policy practitioners and service delivery workers.

'Before the 2010 General Election, David Cameron placed the ''Big Society'' at the heart of his efforts to rebuild Britain's ''broken society''. The essays in this volume probe the historical origins of the concept and seek to evaluate it in the light of both historical and contemporary evidence. They raise profound questions about the provenance of the ''Big Society'' and its relevance to contemporary social concerns. They should be of interest to anyone who cares about the past, present or future of British social policy.' - Bernard Harris, University of Southampton, UK 'There is nothing new about the notion of a Big Society. This book combines historical scholarship, international research and grassroots experience to shine a critical spotlight on the rhetoric behind the coalition government's big idea.' - Bill Jordan, University of Plymouth, UK 'Armine Ishkanian and Simon Szreter's fascinating book provides important insights into the way political elites use slogans and imagery to sway public opinion on social policy issues. This highly original work will be a major scholarly resource for years to come.' - James Midgley, University of California, Berkeley, US The expert contributors to this detailed yet concise book collectively raise questions about the novelty of the Big Society Agenda, its ideological underpinnings, and challenges it poses for policy makers and practitioners. The book is divided into two sections, history and policy, which together provide readers with a historically grounded, internationally informed, and multidisciplinary analysis of the Big Society policies. The introduction and conclusion tie the strands together, providing a coherent analysis of the key issues in both sections. Various chapters in this study examine the limitations and consider the challenges involved in translating the ideas of the Big Society agenda into practice. By drawing on international examples, from developed and developing countries in order to analyze and discuss Big Society policies, this book will prove invaluable for students, academics and policy makers. Contributors: M. Albrow, K. Bradley, L. Charlesworth, R. Fries, J. Harris, M. Hill, M. Hilton, J. Holgate, A. Ishkanian, M. Ketola, D. Leat, D. Lewis, R. McGill, N. Ockenden, J. Page, C. Pharoah, L. Richardson, J. Stuart, S. Szreter, D. Weinbren

In this fascinating book, Ann Woodall investigates and compares the work and thought of William Booth and Karl Marx, who both arrived in London in 1849. She draws comparisons between their responses to the intractability of the poverty of the 'submerged tenth' of London's population, and argues that Booth's pioneering work in establishing the Salvation Army and the development of Marx's economic theory began in their interactions with the London residuum. Each recognised that much of the suffering was caused by the workings of laissez-faire capitalism and that its total solution required a challenge to the existing economic system. What Price the Poor? raises important questions about the relationship between theological discourse and the sociological imagination, and it firmly places the development of theoretical and practical social analysis and application within the context of social history. It will appeal to all with interests in classical sociology and the history of social activism.

Can and should asset-based policies such as universal capital grants become a new pillar of the welfare state? Can they form the basis for a more egalitarian form of market economy? The citizen's stake throws open the debate by bringing together the ideas of leading thinkers in academia and policy to explore the future scope of asset-based policies in Britain. The book examines asset-based welfare in connection with a wide range of issues, from tax policy to childcare, and includes the results of two innovative studies of public opinion on capital grants and inheritance tax. It is the first time that public opinion work has been integrated with theory into a serious and cohesive consideration of practical options for the future of asset-based welfare. The citizen's stake is accessibly written and aimed at a broad audience of academics, students and policy-makers. Indeed, anyone interested in how this new policy field can and should develop will want to read this book. The discussions are relevant to academics, researchers and policy makers overseas, particularly in the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Germany, Ireland and Sweden, where there is a high level of interest in this topic.

In this book, Susan Gluck Mezey examines LGBT policymaking over the last several decades, highlighting advances in LGBT rights as well as formidable challenges that still confront the LGBT community. With an emphasis on courts, she traces developments in the struggles for LGBT rights in the United States and abroad. The chapters focus on employment discrimination, transgender rights, marriage equality, and the ongoing battles over discrimination against same-sex couples and transgender persons in education, employment, and public accommodations. It also adds a global perspective by appraising issues affecting LGBT rights in other parts of the world, discussing claims of discrimination in the Canadian and South African courts as well as in the European Court of Human Rights. Mezey provides a succinct and accessible guide to the debates over sexual orientation and gender identity, evaluating the roles played by state and federal courts, legislatures, and chief executives in formulating and implementing LGBT policy. Suitable as an up-to-date resource for anyone interested in LGBT rights, Beyond Marriage will also help students in upper-level classes focusing on judicial politics, public policymaking, family law, civil rights, gender policy, and minority group politics understand ways forward for the LGBT community in the political realm.

Research into social stratification and social divisions has always been a central component of sociological study. This volume brings together a range of thematically organised case-studies comprising empirical and methodological analyses addressing the challenges of studying trends and processes in social stratification. This collection has four themes. The first concerns the measurement of social stratification, since the problem of relating concepts, measurements and operationalizations continues to cause difficulties for sociological analysis. This book clarifies the appropriate deployment of existing measurement options, and presents new empirical strategies of measurement and interpretation. The conception of the life course and individual social biography is very popular in modern sociology. The second theme of this volume exploits the contemporary expansion of micro-level longitudinal data and the analytical approaches available to researchers to exploit such records. It comprises chapters which exemplify innovative empirical analysis of life-course processes in a longitudinal context, thus offering an advance on previous sociological accounts concerned with longitudinal trends and processes. The third theme of the book concerns the interrelationship between contemporary demographic, institutional and socioeconomic transformations and structures of social inequality. Although the role of wider social changes is rarely neglected in sociological reviews, such changes continue to raise analytical challenges for any assessment of empirical differences and trends. The fourth theme of the book discusses selected features of policy and political responses to social stratification. This volume will be of interest to students, academics and policy experts working in the field of social stratification.

In this timely and unique work, Calum Paton assesses the political economy and politics of current health policy in order to explain the underlying causes of problems in the National Health Service. Debates from political theory, political economy and public administration are used to examine health policy made and implemented by New Labour since their election victory in 1997. The author argues that the fundamental nature of health policy is dependent upon the prevailing regime in political economy and also that 'policy overload', contradictions and confusion have rendered the task of coherent implementation very difficult. Although there is implicit comparison, the primary focus is England within the UK (post-devolution), and the book provides a detailed examination of contemporary health policy. Written by an established scholar in the field, it will particularly interest academics, post-graduate students and professionals in health policy, social policy and politics.

Pro-'workfare' governments justify their policies by claiming 'workfare' helps enhance self-esteem and promote the dignity of unemployed recipients. On the other hand, welfare activists argue that 'workfare' suppresses the dignity of unemployed persons. This book examines the concept of human dignity in this context and attempts to clarify its meaning. For the first time, it formulates a framework for evaluating the dignity of welfare recipients; uses this framework to explore the dignity of unemployed persons in four different welfare systems: UK, Sweden, China and Hong Kong and compares the conditions of human dignity in each case and identifies factors which enhance or suppress it. Human dignity and welfare systems is important reading for students and academics in the fields of social policy, social work, philosophy and politics. It is also a useful reference text for politicians, welfare administrators and activists.

This thought-provoking book examines the organization of medical and social services for people with serious psychiatric disorders. It focuses on the current transition from hospital-centred to community-centred services. The first part of the book concentrates on the changes which have occurred in the theory and practice of key groups of professionals, including psychiatrists, nurses, social workers, occupational therapists and psychologists. The second part describes how those changes have directly impinged on the everyday lives of people affected by psychiatric disorders. Prior demonstrates how sociological insights can be gained from an examination of the multiple ways in which disorders have been represented in and through the work of diverse groups of psychiatric professionals.

Social policy reforms driven by profound social changes have been a popular and pressing topic worldwide in recent years in both policy and academic circles. In this book, prominent social policy scholars from Europe, North America, and Asia discuss the history of social policies, compare different social development models, and analyze the challenges facing these economies' social policy reforms. The book provides comprehensive and comparative perspectives and updated data on social development and social policy reforms in the world's major economies, and particularly, in mainland China.

It is a great pleasure to offer this volume from Michael J. Nakkula, Karen C. Foster, Marc Mannes, and Shenita Bolstrom as the latest in the Search Institute Series on Developmentally Attentive Community and Society. Its importance to the series and this ?eld of inquiry and practice is readily evident in its title, Building Healthy Communities for Positive Youth Development. Since the early 1990s, Search Institute has invited and encouraged communities of all shapes and sizes to use its framework of Developmental Assets and principles of asset building to create strong, vibrant, and welcoming communities for children and youth. We have operated largely at the grassroots level, encouraging innovation and adaptation around a shared vision, rather than proposing a program or model for replication. We seek to learn as much from the communities as they learn from us. This book offers in-depth case studies of what happened in eight diverse c- munities that took up our invitation. In them, we see a wide array of strategies and approaches that, on the surface, seem to have little coherence. But, as Nakkula and colleagues found, underlying each of these distinct efforts was a deep commitment to transforming the social norms of community life to more effectively attend to young people's healthy development throughout the ?rst two decades of life. There have been many ambitious efforts aimed at comprehensive community change on behalf of young people.

This book examines the ways in which women's experiences of poverty lead to particular demographic outcomes. It also shows the paths by which demographic events may determine women's ability to achieve well-being and escape from poverty and it makes explicit the specific circumstances that poor women face in trying to attain a healthy life for themselves and their children.

Full support for teaching and learning with our best-selling resources Written by best-selling author Yvonne Nolan, so you can be confident you have the expert support to succeed Knowledge specifications (KS) continually referenced in the margin so candidates know what is being covered and can prepare for assessment. New evidence features are clearly linked to specific performance criteria (PC) and are cross-referenced to other elements within the qualification - helping candidates to plan holistically. Updated legislation and references to regulations where appropriate so that candidates and assessors have the most current information on frameworks related to the health and social care sector. New information on the latest movements and trends in health and social care so that candidates are aware of initiatives that may affect their working practice. Many updated photos to demonstrate best practice more clearly.

The United Kingdom's Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition government 2010-15 was responsible for some of the most radical changes to education policy for decades. Beyond Every Child Matters provides a critical overview of developments in education and social welfare policy in the years following the 2010 general election. It explores the conceptual background of a 'Big Society' used to frame Coalition policy and shows how the underlying spectre of neoliberalism both creates issues for policy attention and undermines ensuing policy solutions. This book charts those changes which have impacted upon education and schooling in England and Wales and is divided into two parts. Part I analyses Conservative philosophical thought and policy discussions that underpin the social, welfare and education policies introduced under the Conservative-led coalition government of 2010-15 and the subsequent Conservative administration since 2015. Part II looks at these policies in detail and concludes with a discussion of possible alternative policy approaches. Set against a backdrop of unprecedented economic crisis and austerity, Beyond Every Child Matters will be of interest to students of education and welfare policy, academics and researchers.

Service-learning research has been growing and expanding around the world. While much of the early work was carried out in the US and Europe, such efforts have been developing in Asia for the past few decades. The use of the term, 'service-learning' was not popular, while use of community engagement, volunteerism, social services are more common among community practitioners and academics, with the rapid development of service-learning, both research and community-based programs have been growing throughout Asia over the last decade. One of the major movements in that part of the world has been the Service-Learning Asia Network (started in 2005), where more than 11 countries have unified to share their efforts collectively through conferences and journals. In this new book we have examples from five (5) different places: China, Singapore, Hong Kong, Indonesia, and India. These models follow a recent publication of Asian research found in the Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning, published in Summer 2019 after the 7th Asia Pacific Regional Service-Learning conference in Singapore. The chapters represent some of the exciting work that is developing in Asia, highlighting the rich and powerful connections between universities and communities throughout the region. Excellent examples of various kinds of study, from case studies, to qualitative research, to mixed method designs are included. In addition, the focus of the studies, from student learning, community change, innovative practice, and institutional development and change are provided to illustrate the rich diversity of work occurring throughout Asia.

Across the traditional welfare states of Europe, Australia, New Zealand and Canada there has been increasing emphasis on 'activation' by the unemployed as a tool for fighting unemployment. The core idea of activation programmes is the integration and empowerment of jobseekers through active work-related measures rather than passive income support. However, the empirical evidence of the efficacy of activation programmes is far from conclusive and there have been no systematic studies of the effects of activation programmes on the lives of the unemployed people who come into contact with them. This book is based on a detailed ethnographic study of the highly praised Swedish rehabilitation organization Samhall. The result is a key volume for those working and studying within welfare, poverty, disability and special needs.

This groundbreaking book by Olof DahlbAck analyzes the direct effects of the environment and the indirect effects of geographical differentiation of individuals on the offender rates of different urban areas. In order to do this, relationships between crime and independent factors are analyzed in various ways - by considering cross-sectional and longitudinal aspects, linear and non-linear models, point and change data, different time periods, micro- and macro-level interaction, and data for individuals with different patterns of moves. The offender rates analyzed refer to individuals suspected by the police. The directly crime-influencing processes focused upon imply that individuals are affected by social control and social resources. The study makes use of advanced analytical models, novel methods and comprehensive data, and it solves several problems that have hampered research.

The need for public libraries to tackle social exclusion and engage in social justice becomes ever more urgent as the gap between rich and poor continues to widen, and the very survival of public libraries in the heart of the community is open to debate. If public libraries are to develop and grow in the future and become relevant to the majority of their local communities, then they need to abandon outmoded concepts of 'excellence' and fully grasp the 'equity' agenda. This book examines the historical background to social exclusion and the strategic context in terms of government and professional policy. The authors propose a compelling manifesto for change and outline practical ways in which public libraries can be transformed into needs-based services.

The welfare system in the United States underwent profound changes as a result of the groundbreaking welfare legislation passed in 1996 entitled The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunities Reconciliation Act (PRWORA). The Political Economy of Welfare Reform in the United States examines in detail the legislative process that gave rise to PRWORA and presents two alternative theories to explain this process; the traditional public interest model of government and the public choice model. On the basis of a detailed historical analysis of welfare programs and policies in the US, the author explains the two alternative theories and engages in a detailed institutional and statistical analysis to make a convincing argument for the validity of the public choice paradigm.Mary Reintsma's book reveals how the outcome of any legislation is highly dependent on the input of interest groups and the interactions of such groups with those responsible for passing the legislation. The Political Economy of Welfare Reform in the United States will appeal to academics and researchers involved in public sector economics, public choice theory and welfare economics reform.

In an era of rapid technological change, are qualitative researchers taking advantage of new and innovative ways to gather, analyse and share community narratives? Sharing Qualitative Research presents innovative methods for harnessing creative storytelling methodologies and technologies that help to inspire and transform readers and future research. In exploring a range of collaborative and original social research approaches to addressing social problems, this text grapples with the difficulties of working with communities. It also offers strategies for working ethically with narratives, while also challenging traditional, narrower definitions of what constitutes communities. The book is unique in its cross-disciplinary spectrum, community narratives focus and showcase of arts-based and emerging digital technologies for working with communities. A timely collection, it will be of interest to interdisciplinary researchers, undergraduate and postgraduate students and practitioners in fields including anthropology, ethnography, cultural studies, community arts, literary studies, social work, health and education.

New Labour deployed community as a conceptual framework to rearticulate the state / citizen relationship to be enacted at and through new spaces of governance. An important example of this was how successive New Labour governments sought to renovate the social, political and economic cultures of poor neighbourhoods and generate trajectories of strong, empowered and ordered civic space. This was pursued through programmes such as the New Deal for Communities (NDC) that sought to invigorate and embed socially excluded citizens within localised regeneration projects. In attempting to construct community as a space through which personal and spatial renewal could be achieved, New Labour relied on problematic assumptions about the nature, scope and meaning of community and its relationship with individual social agents. Drawing on original research conducted in an NDC neighbourhood, Remaking Community addresses the interlinking uses of community in government rhetoric and practice. It explores why this concept was so central to the New Labour governing project and what it meant for individuals enveloped in the 'regeneration' of their citizenship and locality. It seeks to understand how community is conceptualised, applied, constructed, misunderstood, exploited, experienced, contested, mobilised and activated by both policy actors and neighbourhood residents and situates this discussion within an examination of the political, emotional and cultural impact of the regeneration experience. Offering a timely analysis of New Labour, regeneration and the politics of community, this book makes an original and important contribution to debates around new spaces of governance, citizen participation and the tackling social exclusion in poor neighbourhoods.

Today, in a period of economic crisis, public sector cuts and escalating class struggle, Marxism offers important tools for social workers and service users to understand the structures of oppression they face and devise effective means of resistance. This book uses Marxism's lost insights and reinterprets them in the current context by focussing on one particular section of the international working class - refugees and asylum seekers in Britain. Vickers' analysis demonstrates the general utility of a Marxist approach, enabling an exploration of the interplay between state policies, how these are experienced by their subjects, and how conflicts are mediated. The substantive focus of the book is twofold: to analyse the material basis of the oppression of refugees in Britain by the British state; and to examine the means by which the British state has 'managed' this oppression through the cultivation of a 'refugee relations industry', within a broader narrative of 'social capital building'. These questions demand answers if social workers and other practitioners are to successfully work with refugees and asylum seekers, and this book provides these through a detailed Marxist analysis.

This book responds to the need to explore the multitude of interconnected factors causing displacements that compel people to move within their homelands or traverse various borders in the contemporary world that is characterised by extensive and rapid movements of people. It addresses this need by bringing together historical and contemporary accounts and critical examinations of the displaced, by articulating the commonalities in their lived experiences. It accomplishes the task of charting a new path in displacement studies by offering a number of studies from interdisciplinary and diverse methodological approaches comprising ethnographic and qualitative research and literary interpretations to emphasise that although the forms and conditions of mobility are highly divergent, individual experiences of displacement and placelessness offer a critical challenge to the artificial categorisations of people's movements. Each chapter adds insights into the different configurations of displacement and placement, and offers fresh interpretations of migration and dislocation in today's rapidly changing world. The contributors critically examine a variety of displacement processes and experiences in the context of war, tourism, neoliberal policies of development, and the impact of various agro-forestry policies. They focus on a range of countries, enabling a thorough comparative analysis in terms of scope and range of examples and methods of analysis. This book makes an original contribution to the growing body of literature on displacement, and will appeal to a wide readership including advanced undergraduates, and graduate students and professors in disciplines such as human geography, development studies, sociology and anthropology, regional studies and comparative impact assessment.

As part of the devolution process, a range of powers was granted to the newly formed Scottish Parliament in 1999. These powers principally governed social welfare where there was already a degree of Scottish autonomy. Welfare has thus been central to the devolution project. This topical book examines social welfare in Scotland since devolution. In particular, it focuses on the politics of welfare during and after the devolution process; poverty and inequality; and the two single most important powers devolved to the Edinburgh Parliament, education and health. It is the first work to attempt such a synthesis. The book: looks at why social welfare issues were central to the devolution process in Scotland; explores the particular social and financial circumstances in which Scottish policy makers operate; reviews and assesses Scottish policies for children, education and lifelong learning; examines health policy, including care for older people, an especially controversial example of 'policy divergence' from England; provides an invaluable overview of the Scottish welfare state is as it is, and discusses how it might develop in the future. This book is essential reading for all those concerned with the contemporary and historical dimensions of social policy in Scotland and how they relate to developments in other parts of the United Kingdom.

This book focuses on the Biafran humanitarian crisis of 1967-1970 which generated a surge of human rights anxieties and attracted the attention of world humanitarian organizations. For the first time in recent history, different church groups and humanitarian activists around the world came together for the sole purpose of alleviating human suffering and saving lives regardless of theological differences, race, ethnic affiliation, nationality, and geographical distance. Despite their role in shaping the course and outcome of the conflict, most scholars of the Nigeria-Biafra War treat the humanitarian aspect of the war as a footnote, making it appear less important among other issues of interest in the conflict. Notable exceptions, however, include Joseph Thomson's American Policy and African Famine, which focuses on American policy on the humanitarian aid, and Reverend Tony Byrne's Airlift to Biafra. This study underlines that the international humanitarian aid largely contributed to the internationalization of the war. The efforts of the churches from thirty-three countries which remain virtually unexplored was not just the first of its kind in the developing world but also the largest civilian airlift in history. While the paucity of scholarship on the humanitarian aspect of the Biafra war could be attributed to the newness of this field of enquiry, the increase in conflicts in different parts of the world has just opened humanitarian aid studies as a new frontier in academic study. This book is a masterful example of scholarship in this newly emergent field.