The volume is a selection of the most incisive analyses related to the issues of gender and social transition that appeared in the pages of the quarterly East European Politics and Societies. The articles look at what was happening to women in the changing East European societies and propose new perspectives on the history of the region. Articles cover many countries and come from a period of twelve years - 1994 to 2006 - when the efforts of introducing gender into East European studies were most intense. The volume shows the trajectory leading from the introduction of the lens of gender into the East European studies to the moment at which the tools of gender analysis were applied without apology to the research on East European politics, law, history, culture and economy.

The Everyday of Memory explores manifestations of the communist past in the everyday lives of Eastern Europeans today. Representing a wide range of disciplines including cultural studies, film studies, urban studies, sociology, media, literature and art, the contributors to this book question the myth of a homogeneous Eastern European identity (as opposed to its historical Western counterpart). At the same time, they insist that those who experienced communism have a 'right to remember', and that their memories offer an alternative to the project of globalizing capitalism. The volume presents a critique of the current withdrawal of Eastern European politics from discussion of the communist past, in which the latter tends to be regarded as an obstacle to the neoliberal transition to democracy. As the book's microstudies of the everyday life of memory show, communism has never been isolated from its capitalist nemesis: the two systems have been intertwined in the post-Enlightenment interplay of the humanist ideals that underpin the modernist project. Through a close observation of the unconstrained ways in which memory works, this book offers an insight into the paradoxes of the two ideological powers which posited the subservient homo sovieticus against the civilized homo economicus. The book also invites debate about the contemporary relevance of the ideological polarization of communism and capitalism.

The first major regional study of poverty and its relief in the seventeenth century: the first century of welfare. The English 'Old Poor Law' was the first national system of tax-funded social welfare in the world. It provided a safety net for hundreds of thousands of paupers at a time of very limited national wealth and productivity. The First Century of Welfare, which focusses on the poor, but developing, county of Lancashire, provides the first major regional study of poverty and its relief in the seventeenth century. Drawing on thousands of individual petitions for poor relief, presented by paupers themselves to magistrates, it peers into the social and economic world of England's marginal people. Taken together, these records present a vivid and sobering picture of the daily lives and struggles of the poor. We can see how their family life, their relations with their kin and their neighbours, and the dictates of contemporary gender norms conditioned their lives. We can also see how they experienced illness and physical and mental disability; and the ways in which real people's lives could be devastated by dearth, trade depression, and the destruction of the Civil Wars. But the picture is not just one of poor folk tossed by the tidesof fortune. It is also one of agency: about the strategies of economic survival the poor adopted, particularly in the context of a developing industrial economy, of the support they gained from their relatives and neighbours, andof their willingness to engage with England's developing system of social welfare to ensure that they and their families did not go hungry. In this book, an intensely human picture surfaces of what it was like to experience poverty at a time when the seeds of state social welfare were being planted. JONATHAN HEALEY is University Lecturer in English Local and Social History and Fellow of Kellogg College, University of Oxford.

Contemporary Issues in the Sociology of Race and Ethnicity: A Critical Reader occupies, expands, and challenges the issues raised by critical race theory. Fleshing out the theoretical pillars of Critical Anti-Racist Theory (CART) as its central organizing framework, this text responds to the central issue of race in terms of public and academic discourses, meta-narratives, and its implications for social policy. Drawing from popular culture, this edited collection features a variety of real-world analyses, from media bias to contentious Africentric school programs. This collection serves as a timely and accessible text for academic and wider audiences. In addition to outlining the philosophical underpinnings of CART, the text considers how this theory may inform current socio-political dynamics in a wide, globally-reaching range of areas. This book could be used in the undergraduate and graduate levels in these disciplines: Anthropology, Diaspora Studies, Education, Ethnic Studies, Law, Multiculturalism Studies, Politics, Social Work, and Sociology.

In China, social development has fallen far behind economic development. This book looks at why this is the case, and poses the question of whether the conditions, structures and institutions that have locked China into unbalanced development are changing to pave the way for the next stage of development. Based on an empirical examination of ideological, structural and institutional transformations that have shaped China's development experiences, the book analyses China's reform and development in the social domain, including pension, healthcare, public housing, ethnic policy, and public expenditure on social programs. The book moves beyond descriptive analyses to understand the role of broader changes in shaping and redefining the pattern of development in China.

The contributions to this edited collection, first published in 1983, are based on two underlying themes. The first examines the major recession that took hold of the global economy during the 1980s and assesses its effects on key areas of social structure, including political and economic democracy and trade union representation. The second theme considers the limitations of state intervention in such changing circumstances, with particular reference to the welfare state. This is a comprehensive title, which is of great relevance to those with an interest in the current global economic situation and the potential impact of this on the welfare state and class structure.

Homelessness is now a much greater problem than twenty years ago. In Britain today around half a million homeless people form a regrettable permanent 'underclass'. This study spells out their similarities with the spurned vagrant of bygone days. It traces how for centuries emergent laws have combated alleged threats from unruly vagrants while largely ignoring causal factors like economic fluctuation, bad harvests, disease and war. It is argued that only educational and social reform will alleviate the homeless plight.

First Published in 1998. This is Volume IV of eighteen in the Sociology of Behaviour and Psychology series This is a study of social isolation, plus its causes. Written in 1952 rather than just ask what is wrong with the state of the world today, Dr Halmos turns to scientific analysis, constructive criticism and positive suggestion has he passes from study of basic social forces, through historical and empirical investigations, to the practical problems of reform and therapy. He has penetrated below the facile generalisations of common experience by distinguishing between neurotic types -the anxious, the depressed and the hysterical-and studying the different ways in which each is related to social isolation or participation.

Drawing on several years of research with grief support organizations and the families and friends of murdered children, this book examines the emotional experience of families in the aftermath of a homicide. It examines the politics of sorrow, offering a comparative analysis of White and African-American families as they navigate the experience of homicide, shedding light on the ways in which the class location or ethnicity of mourners affects their experience. Analyzing the manner in which police and other authorities differentially extend emotional support to bereaved families, notify them of a homicide, or assign blame, The Politics of Sorrow reveals how 'disenfranchised grief' comes to be an institutionalized outcome of their practice. The book further examines the effects of 'announcement shock' and the importance to the family of the moral career of the deceased, as they seek to manage his or her identity, often dealing with their grief through an active pursuit of justice in court, or through political involvement with a grief support organization, which mobilizes families in pursuit of its political ends. A rigorous study of stigma, identity, and stratified experiences of grief, The Politics of Sorrow will appeal to sociologists interested in interactionist methods, race, class, and emotion.

The first comprehensive and up-to-date overview of the literature on poverty, communal welfare systems and alternative welfare strategies. Offers a new perspective on how we should conceptualise poverty and how ordinary families and communities responded to that poverty.. Indicates the need for new directions in the study of poverty and welfare using previously unpublished results form one of the biggest poor law databases in existence.. Argues that welfare historians have paid too little attention to the complexities of defining and measuring poverty, and a variety of primary source material is used to reconsider the extent of poverty in the period 1700-1850.. Provides the first systematic attempt to discuss the regional dimensions of the welfare system in an English context. This book is relevant to United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 1, No poverty. -- .

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This work explains the causes of social policy reform in Chile and Uruguay in the areas of health care, pensions and education. Until the 1970s, Chile and Uruguay shared striking similarities.

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Routledge Studies in the Social History of Medicine

Grassroots Social Security in Asia investigates the role of mutual associations in providing income protection to low-income people in Asia and in particular the region's developing countries. Historically, these associations have consisted of small groups of people with common interests who save regularly to support, maintain and supplement their incomes. Members make regular contributions to a communal fund which is used to provide income protection when they experience financial hardship. This book is the first to comprehensively document the activities of mutual associations and their microinsurance programs in Asia where these programs are especially well developed. It provides a number of important case studies that provide detailed information about mutual associations in different parts of the region, covering South Asia, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Mongolia, Indonesia and the Philippines. The case studies offer important insights into the potential of mutual associations to offer effective income protection and how their activities can contribute to the formulation of comprehensive and effective grassroots social security strategies in the developing world that make a tangible contribution to the goal of poverty eradication and the improvement of standards of living. This book will be of interest to policy makers, academics and students in the fields of Asian studies, Social security studies and development studies.

Today most countries rely on formally organized welfare programs - in some cases to the extent that they are labeled "welfare states". These programs, which have been constructed over the last decades, make up a larger national and international system of good intentions. Overall, it appears inconceivable to imagine "civilized society" without a comprehensive organizational system of social welfare. Social welfare has become a "holy cow" in many societies; an institutionalized aspect of modern life. But how does the institutionalization of social welfare occur through the concrete activities it enacts; and why does the institutionalization of social welfare appear to be so particularly successful in relation to other institutionalizing phenomena? These are central problems for any sociological analysis of contemporary society's organization and are the main locus of attention of this book. Holmqvist explores how a social welfare organization becomes a self-evident phenomenon by "medicalizing" its environment: a way of "solving" social problems by viewing and treating them as medical problems. This study generates new understandings of how institutionalization of organizations comes about and contributes fresh insight to the area of social welfare policies.

The Golden Age of postwar capitalism has been eclipsed, and with it seemingly also the possibility of harmonizing equality and welfare with efficiency and jobs. Most analyses believe the the emerging postindustrial society is overdetermined by massive, convergent forces, such as tertiarization, new technologies, or globalization, all conspiring to make welfare states unsustainable in the future. This text takes a more sociological and institutional look at the driving forces of economic transformation. What, as a result, stands out is postindustrial diversity, not convergence. Macroscopic, global trends are undoubtedly powerful, yet their influence is easily rivalled by domestic institutional traditions, by the kind of welfare regime that, some generations ago, was put in place. It is, however, especially the family economy that hold the key as to what kind of postindustrial model will emerge, and to how evolving tradeoffs will be managed. 20th-century economic analysis depended on a set of sociological assumptions that, now, are invalid. Hence, to better grasp what drives today's economy, we must begin with its social foundations. This book is intended for students and scholars of

In Double Standard, James W. Russell shows how and why different models of social and welfare policy developed in the United States and Europe. The fourth edition has been revised and updated throughout to reflect recent political developments that are having significant policy consequences, including the Brexit vote in the UK and the election of Donald Trump in the U.S. The fourth edition also features additional material on Karl Polanyi, European party politics, disability policy, and more. Part One, "The Development of Social Policy," discusses the factors that contributed to the different shapes of social policy in the U.S. and Europe. Part Two, "Key Social Policies," considers how different counties have handled commons social problems including poverty, unemployment, child and family support, retirement and disability, health care, race and immigration, and incarceration. These different social policy orientations have produced disparate social ways of life-ways of life that are now in contention for the future of Western societies. A complimentary test bank including discussion/essay questions and multiple choice questions is available. Please email [email protected] for more information.

This book presents a unique analysis of the learning derived from East-West contacts in social work and reflects on the discipline's inalienable trans-national dimensions, of high actuality in the face of the re-emergence of nationalisms. The fundamental transformations in Europe subsequent to the revolutions of 1989 had a profound impact on social work in terms of raising sharply the profession's relationship with politics. The exchanges between western schools of social work and the emergent academic partner institutions in former Communist countries formed a valuable testing ground for the essential principles and competences of social work in terms of their universal scientific basis on the one hand and their regard for cultural and national values and contexts on the other. The chapters in this contributed volume focus on lessons derived from fundamental social and political transformations, highlighted by East-West encounters and intra-national divisions, and thereby have important messages for mastering impending transformations in the light of the global COVID-19 health crisis. They demonstrate how cultural and social divisions can be addressed constructively with direct implications for training and practice in dramatically changing contexts: Lithuanian social work's claim to professional autonomy vs. authoritarianism in popular and political culture Social work between civil society and the state - lessons for and from Hungary in a European context When Europe's East, West, North and South meet: learning from cross-country collaboration in creating an international social work master programme Nordic-Baltic cooperation in social work researcher education: A Finnish perspective on the impact on scientific, historical and linguistic similarities and differences Intra-national similarities and differences in social work and their significance for developing European dimensions of research and education Social work, political conflict and European society: reflections from Northern Ireland European Social Work After 1989: East-West Exchanges Between Universal Principles and Cultural Sensitivity is an invaluable resource for social work educators; social work practitioners confronted with national and international divisions; students of social work, of social administration and policy; and any policy researcher with a comparative focus.

The editors of this book draw upon professionals in seven industrialized nations to examine the prevalence, causes, trends, demographics, and health concerns of homelessness and to evaluate potential solutions. They also report on the resources available to the homeless by the public and private sectors in each of the seven countries studied; the United States, Germany, the Czech Republic, Denmark, England, Russia, and Spain. Also provided is a comparison of social welfare systems in industrialized nations with perhaps the most current and accurate statistics regarding Russia available in the literature.

The two East European countries, the Czech Republic and the Russian Federation, represent the most radical changes, from a state to a free market economy with their social systems turned upside down. While the former socialist governments provided a system of universalistic care and control, the released uncontrolled free market forces have been eroding most social protection for the individual. Consequently, homelessness as a new phenomena affects those who are not able to compete in the free market economy. The editors tie the data and country-specific chapters together with a series of concluding chapters that include discussions of resources to prevent homelessness, financial resources for the unemployed, social welfare benefits for the indigent, access to health care and sickness benefits, affordable housing and housing policies, and public and private resources for the homeless.

Culture and its impact on health assessment and interventions is widely recognised as an essential aspect of medical training. While courses are proliferating throughout Africa and the rest of the world, there has, until now, been no suitable student textbook or reference text to support such initiatives. The authors of Cultural issues in health and health care deal with the basic principles of transcultural care and focus on training practitioners to be able to put the principles into practice in their own health settings.

Recent years have seen the topic of victims and victimhood brought to the fore on the island of Ireland, both in the North with the publication of the controversial Eames/Bradley report dealing with victims of the Troubles, and in the Republic with the publication of the final Ryan Report on institutional abuse. In this collection, drawing on the cross-disciplinary nature of Irish studies, contributors from the fields of history, literary and cultural studies, politics, sociology and civic society provide multifaceted perspectives from which to examine the issue of victimhood in Ireland. The volume explores in detail how a traumatic past, whether repressed or proclaimed, can continue to impact on the present, both at a personal and societal level.

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.

One in every 31 U.S. adults is in the penal system. This mass incarceration is by far the largest in the world. African Americans are disproportionately imprisoned and challenged by the consequences of incarceration in education, jobs, voting, and other aspects of life. Since 96 percent of those imprisoned are released, there is an urgent need for resources and research that can improve reentry outcomes. Reconstructing Rage analyzes how - and how well - one company, Reconstruction, Inc. of Philadelphia, has organized returning prisoners, their families, and communities for 24 years. It looks at Reconstruction's programs, strategies, and patterns of change over time; holistic (i.e., mind-body-spirit) and principled transformations in the people and families it has touched; and at the company's collaborations and contributions to criminal justice and public policy best practices. Reconstructing Rage explores challenges of improving community capacity and quality of life outcomes within and beyond reentry and reintegration, for former felons, their families, and a growing number of others interested in a broader social justice.

How do you become an 'amputee', 'war-wounded', 'victim' or 'disabled' person? This book describes how an amputee and war-wounded community was created after a decade long conflict (1991-2002) in Sierra Leone. Beginning with a general socio-cultural and historical analysis of what is understood by impairment and disability, it also explains how disability was politically created both during the conflict and post-conflict, as violence became part of the everyday. Despite participating in the neoliberal rebuilding of the nation state, ex-combatants and the security of the nation were the government's main priorities, not amputee and war-wounded people. In order to survive, people had to form partnerships with NGOs and participate in new discourses and practices around disability and rights, thus accessing identities of 'disabled' or 'persons with disabilities'. NGOs, charities and religious organisations that understood impairment and disability were most successful at aiding this community of people. However, since discourse and practice on disability were mainly bureaucratic, top-down, and not democratic about mainstreaming disability, neoliberal organisations and INGOs have caused a new colonisation of consciousness, and amputee and war-wounded people have had to become skilled in negotiating these new forms of subjectivities to survive.

From the 1960s onwards, Japan s rapid economic growth coincided with remarkably smooth transitions from school to work and with internationally low levels of youth unemployment. However, this changed dramatically in the 1990s, and by the 2000s, youth employment came to be recognized as a serious concern requiring an immediate response. What shape did this response take?

Japan s Emerging Youth Policy is the first book to investigate in detail how the state, experts, the media as well as youth workers have reacted to the troubling rise of youth joblessness in early 21st century Japan. The answer that emerges is as complex as it is fascinating, but comprises two essential elements. First, instead of institutional carrots and sticks as seen in Europe, actors belonging to mainstream Japan have deployed controversial labels such as NEET ( Not in Education, Employment or Training ) to steer inactive youth into low-wage jobs. A second approach has been crafted by entrepreneurial youth support leaders that builds on what the author refers to as communities of recognition . As illustrated in this book using evidence from real sites of youth support, one such methodology consists of exploring the user (i.e. the support-receiver) whereby complex disadvantages, family relationships and local employment contexts are skilfully negotiated. It is this second dimension in Japan s response to youth exclusion that suggests sustainable, internationally attractive solutions to the employment dilemmas that virtually all post-industrial nations currently face but which none have yet seriously addressed.

Based on extensive fieldwork that draws on both sociological and policy science approaches, this book will be welcomed by students, scholars and practitioners in the fields of Japanese and East Asian studies, comparative social policy, youth sociology, the sociology of social problems and social work.