View the Table of Contents. Read the Foreword.

"The debate over welfare suffers from lack of historical perspective. Now come Mink and Solinger to transform our understanding with a clearly articulated, carefully organized, and judiciously selected collection of key sources and illustrative documents that illuminates the past and present of aid to poor women and their children. Essential for classroom use, this book also belongs on the desks of policy makers and activists alike."
--Eileen Boris, Hull Professor of Women's Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara

"A stirringly dramatic narrative of welfare policy history. Through the documents they select, Mink and Solinger bring to life an immensely important human drama, and they do so in a way that paves a path to a higher awareness of the deeply ingrained biases of gender, race, and class that operate in welfare policy."
--"Social Service Review"

Federal welfare policy has been a political and cultural preoccupation in the United States for nearly seven decades. Debates about who poor people are, how they got that way, and what the government should do about poverty were particularly bitter and misleading at the end of the twentieth century. These public discussions left most Americans with far more attitude than information about poverty, the poor, and poverty policy in the United States.

In response, Gwendolyn Mink and Rickie Solinger compiled the first documentary history of welfare in America, from its origins through the present. Welfare: A Documentary History of U.S. Policy and Politics provides historical context for understanding recent policy developments, as it traces public opinion, recipients'experiences, and policy continuities and innovations over time. The documents collected range across more than 100 years, from government documents and proclamations of presidents throughout the 20th century, to accounts of activist and grass roots organizations, newspaper reports and editorials, political cartoons, posters and more.

They enable readers to go straight to the source to find out how public figures racialized welfare in the minds of white Americans, to explore the origins of the claim that poor women have babies in order to collect welfare, and to trace how that notion has been perpetuated and contested. The documents also illustrate how policymakers in different eras have invoked and politicized the idea of dependency, as well as how ideas about women's dependency have followed changing characterizations of poor women as workers and as mothers.

Welfare provides a picture of the government's evolving ideas about poverty and provision, along side powerful examples of the voices too often eclipsed in the public square--welfare recipients and their advocates, speaking about mothering, poverty, and human rights.

In the US and UK there has been a transformation in child care, family leave, social assistance and tax credits over the last twenty years. This book explores the factors behind these changes. With detailed case studies, it shows that ideas and the power to wield them are crucial factors in the transformation of family policy.

This book focuses on how EU welfare policies are implemented at the local level in 11 European cities and how local policy making addresses women's care responsibilities. The book studies the complex combination of and the relationships between local political processes, policies, institutions, structural conditions and outputs, as well as outcomes for the women's labour market integration. It demonstrates how cultural settings and multi-level governance patterns form the "playground" for local policy makers to formulate their welfare policies concerning service provision. The book further demonstrates how local production systems and the situation of the local labour market influence the prospects that women have in working and caring. EU welfare policy promotes the labour market integration of women as well as gender equality. The provision of adequate care services is vital in supporting women's employment. Within comparative welfare research, the focus has been on the national welfare systems and policies even if care services are overwhelmingly provided by local authorities that in many EU member states enjoy considerable autonomy. This book fills the gap in understanding local welfare policy making from a comparative perspective.

White working class areas are often seen as entrenched and immobile, threatened by the arrival of 'outsiders'. This major new study of class and place since 1930 challenges accepted wisdom, demonstrating how emigration as well as shorter distance moves out of such areas can be as suffused with emotion as moving into them. Both influence people's sense of belonging to the place they live in. Using oral histories from residents of three social housing estates in Norwich, England, the book also tells stories of the appropriation of and resistance to state discourses of community; and of ambivalent, complex and shifting class relations and identities. Material poverty has been a constant in the area, but not for all residents, and being defined as 'poor' is an identity that some actively resist.

Whether you are a seasonal volunteer, group leader or full-time professional, you need practical advice on how to provide young people with the tools they need to succeed.

Equipping Quality Youth Development Professionals-E-QYP for short-provides best practices to help young people ages six to eighteen reach their potential. It also offers age-appropriate ideas that you can translate to your specific child and youth program.

E-QYP is a handy reference for individuals, as well as a powerful volunteer and staff development tool when adopted by organizations. It also serves as a great supplement to college textbooks on child and youth development. With easy-to-read information and sample activities that really work, this guide can help you help the young people in your life.

"Youth agencies serve huge numbers of kids in the United States, but few youth workers have specific knowledge about youth development, and agency budgets tend to have few dollars for staff training. Although the training and credentialing of all youth workers remains an aspiration, workers with and without training need ready access to research-based knowledge and practices. Equipping Quality Youth Development Professionals provides both. Whether read as a whole or accessed for just-in-time information, Equipping Quality Youth Development Professionals is a timely, valuable, and much-needed resource."

-Irv Katz, president and CEO, National Human Services Assembly and National Collaboration for Youth

This book explores the dimensions and characteristics of social vulnerability in Western Europe. It provides a broad empirical foundation for recent theories on the emergence of new social risks in post-industrial societies, revealing to what extent social risks are compromising the 'normal' functioning of the European population.

Poverty is not a neutral phenomenon, nor are social inclusion programmes neutrally conceived, designed and implemented.Their ultimate nature is built upon ideas, values, actors, politics and economic constraints.This topical book is one of the first to examine the social and political construction of anti-poverty programmes in Central Eastern Europe and their transformation from communist rule to the current economic crisis. It covers the approach towards the 'parasite' poor through to Guaranteed Minimum Income Schemes and illustrates how the distinction between different categories of 'deserving' and 'undeserving' poor has evolved over the years as the result of changing paradigms, combined with the pressure exerted by domestic and international actors, the European Union and the World Bank among others. This text breaks new ground for social policy students and scholars interested in understanding how differently post-communist welfare states have represented, legitimised and dealt with poverty, need and social justice in accordance with divergent normative frameworks constructed at national level.

The provision of care has been widely referred to as facing a 'crisis'. International migrants are increasingly relied upon to provide care - as domestic workers, nannies, care assistants and nurses. This international volume examines the global construction of migrant care labour and how it manifests itself in different contexts.

Becoming a caregiver is increasingly an inevitable experience for many people and, therefore, a likely life transition. Drawing on research and personal experiences of working with family caregivers, this book examines a range of family caregiving situations from across the life course. It seeks to capture the dynamics of caregiving in a number of common situations: caregiving during infancy, for adults who acquire a disability through accidents or illness, for older people with age-related issues, and caregiving by children and adolescent carers and grandparent carers. In drawing attention to key moments of vulnerability faced by family and informal caregivers, and by suggesting how to assist 'reconnection' at these moments, the book provides a guide for those working in the area of health, disability and care. Informal care is conceptualised as occurring with the context of personal interrelationships, these being nested within wider kin networks and linked with wider professional formal care networks. Informal care is seen both as an expression of social capital and as an activity that builds social capital. It is an indicator of resources of mutual support within social networks, and it has the effect of adding to the stock of social resources. The book makes a case, therefore, for facilitating the development of social capital by strengthening the capacity of informal caregivers and caregiver groups, and by improving the linkages with formal care organisations.

This original and timely text is the first published research from the UK to address the neglected topic of the increasing (and largely enforced) settlement of Gypsies and Travellers in conventional housing. It highlights the complex and emergent tensions and dynamics inherent when policy and popular discourse combine to frame ethnic populations within a narrative of movement. The authors have extensive knowledge of the communities and experience as policy practitioners and researchers and consider the changing culture and dynamics experienced by ethnic Gypsies and Travellers. They explore the gendered social, health and economic impacts of settlement and demonstrate the tenacity of cultural formations and their adaptability in the face of policy-driven constraints that are antithetical to traditional lifestyles. The groundbreaking book is essential reading for policy makers; professionals and practitioners working with housed Gypsies and Travellers. It will also be of interest to sociologists, anthropologists, social policy and housing specialists and anybody interested in the experiences and responses of marginalized communities in urban and rural settings. Royalties for this book are to be divided equally between the Gypsy Council and Travellers Aid Trust.

The field of social policy has a rich history but policies on the ground are undergoing intensive change. Governments around the world are responding to political, economic and financial pressures, many of them linked to the global economic crisis. National agendas typically have social policy at or close to the centre. This latest edition of Social Policy Review presents an up-to-date and diverse review of the best in social policy scholarship. It brings together research by an exciting range of internationally renowned authors and examines important debates in British and international social policy. This edition includes a special focus in the third part on work, employment and insecurity. Social Policy Review is essential reading for social policy academics and students and for anyone who is interested in the social and economic implications of government policy.

In this study, David Greenberg and Douglas Wolf describe, systematize, and evaluate the cost effectiveness of computerized anti-fraud procedures in public welfare programs. In particular, they discusss the Congressionally mandated wage matching systems used to check for under-reported or non-reported incomes of participants in the AFDC and Food Stamp Programs. The authors describe the implementation of such systems in several local areas around the country, point out factors that currently impede the use of wage matching, and suggest ways of reducing such impediments. They also enumerate the advantages and disadvantages of alternative wage matching procedures and techniques, both in theory and practice. Cost benefit analyses of four existing wage matching systems are then presented. Finally, the authors present their conclusions and make recommendations. This volume is complete with a flow chart showing the operation of a typical wage-matching system, and a table summarizing the costs and benefits to the government of running such systems.

The American Settlement Movement was an influential part of the social welfare reforms of the Progressive Era. In an era when America became an urban industrialized nation, the development of the settlement house was interwoven with that of the American city, and settlement workers, living and working among the poor in the city, were in the vanguard of a wide range of social welfare reform initiatives. This selective bibliography covers titles providing an introduction and overview of the American Settlement Movement.

Arranged in six categories, the titles include materials pertaining to the influence of the English Settlement Movement on the United States, general surveys discussing the American Settlement Movement within the context of larger reform efforts, studies focused on the Settlement Movement, biographical titles, settlement workers' research and case studies, and reference works. The bibliography provides easy access to the literature of the American Settlement Movement.

"By focusing squarely on the cultural dimensions of social welfare policy, Sanford Schram brilliantly illuminates recent turns in policy and politics. Nor does he slight the material for the symbolic. Ratherhe shows the close connections between the cultural and material aspects of policy. Most welcome of all, Schram's work is imbued with a rare empathetic concern for the people who are both the beneficiaries and victims of social welfare."
--Frances Fox Piven, Graduate Center of the City University of New York

"If you want a flesh-and-blood story of the real agendas that lie behind policy-making in the age of tough love, After Welfare is the best book on the topic. Schram's incisive expose makes for spectacular common sense."
--Andrew Ross, New York University

"This engagingly written book lays bare the 'dirty little secrets' of a new order of social policy, one that shores up inequality by tapping into cultural reserves of race and gender prejudice while publicly presenting a neutral face. Its power derives from Schram's eloquence, his sharp wit, and his talent for persuading the reader to scrutinize social policy through the lens of social theory."
--Lisa Disch, University of Minnesota

"Sanford Schram's After Welfare is an exemplary combination of political theory, cultural critique, applied policy analysis and astute and comprehensive mapping of the contemporary politics of welfare. It should engage a wide readership in both academia and the policy community."
--Michael J. Shapiro, University of Hawai'i

Do contemporary welfare policies reflect the realities of the economy and the needs of those in need of public assistance, or are they based on outdatedand idealized notions of work and family life? Are we are moving from a "war on poverty" to a "war against the poor?" In this critique of American social welfare policy, Sanford F. Schram explores the cultural anxieties over the putatively deteriorating "American work ethic," and the class, race, sexual and gender biases at the root of current policy and debates.

Schram goes beyond analyzing the current state of affairs to offer a progressive alternative he calls "radical incrementalism," whereby activists would recreate a social safety net tailored to the specific life circumstances of those in need. His provocative recommendations include a series of programs aimed at transcending the prevailing pernicious distinction between "social insurance" and "public assistance" so as to better address the needs of single mothers with children. Such programs could include "divorce insurance" or even some form of "pregnancy insurance" for women with no means of economic support. By pushing for such programs, Schram argues, activists could make great strides towards achieving social justice, even in today's reactionary climate.

For the past century, governments have been compelled, time and again, to return to the search for solutions to the housing and economic challenges posed by a restructuring countryside. The rural housing question is an analysis of the complexity of housing and development tensions in the rural areas of England, Wales and Scotland. It analyses a range of topics: from attitudes to rural development, economic change, land use, planning and counter-urbanisation; through retirement and ageing, leisure consumption, lifestyle shifts and homelessness; to public and private house building, private and public renting and community initiatives. Across this spectrum of concerns, it attempts to isolate the fundamental tensions that give the rural housing question an intractable quality. The book is aimed at policy makers, researchers, students and anyone with an interest in the future of the British countryside.

"Fair Play" brings together a selection of Danny Dorling's highly influential writings examining inequality and social justice. Offering crucial insight into the popular feeling that the United Kingdom is in crisis--a feeling made manifest in last summer's riots--Dorling provides a wealth of evidence that the country is becoming more politically, socially, and economically divided despite progress in areas such as education and reduced segregation. Dorling's work covers a broad range of subjects and will be of interest to anyone concerned with where one of the world's leading democracies is headed.

Family policy holds a particular status in the quest for a more equitable world as it intersects the rights of women, children, and workers. But despite local and global efforts and initiatives, the state of family policy in different areas of the world varies widely. Through a cross-section of countries on six continents, Family Policies Across the Globe offers the current state of the laws concerning family life, structure, and services, providing historical, cultural, and socioeconomic context. Lucidly written chapters analyze key aspects of family definition, marriage, child well-being, work/family balance, and family assistance, reviewing underlying social issues and controversies as they exist in each country. Details of challenges to implementation and methods of evaluating policy outcomes bring practical realities into sharp focus, and each chapter concludes with recommendations for improvement at the research, service, and governmental levels. The result is an important comparative look at how governments support families, and how societies perceive themselves as they evolve. Among the issues covered: Sierra Leone: toward sustainable family policies. Russia: folkways versus state-ways. Japan: policy responses to a declining population. Australia: reform, revolutions, and lingering effects. Canada: a patchwork policy. Colombia: a focus on policies for vulnerable families. Researchers , professors and graduate students in the fields of social policy, child and family studies, psychology, sociology, and social work will find in Family Policies Across the Globe a reference that will grow in importance as world events continue to develop.

Throughout the postwar period, changes in individual behaviour and legal reforms have transformed traditional notions of family life throughout Western Europe. However, interpretations of what constituted a desirable family life varied, together with the type of social intervention adopted towards it. Taking Britain and Italy as comparative cases, the author explores the extent to which dominant notions of family life differed in postwar Britain and Italy and the implications this had on the development of family policy in these two countries.

Everyone will experience a number of transitions throughout their life. Many of these will be positive, others may present challenges. This book addresses significant transitions relevant to policy and practice, covering key transition points in social care from childhood to old age. Drawing on the best available research evidence, Managing transitions highlights issues common to all experiencing transition as well as the dilemmas specific to particular situations. Individual chapters explore what we know about how transition is experienced by young people leaving care and by those with learning disabilities and mental health problems. For young people seeking asylum there are multiple transitions, of age, of country and of culture. Further contributions address the current transformation from service provision to self directed support, the major transition for older people who move to supported living, and the enduring challenges that surround the transition from hospital to community.

Public social services are increasingly being individualised in order to better meet the differentiated needs of competent and independent citizens and to promote the effectiveness of social interventions. This book addresses this development, focusing on a new type of social services that has become crucial in the 'modernisation' of welfare states: activation services. The book discusses and analyses the individualisation of activation services against the background of social policy reforms on the one hand, and the introduction of new forms of public governance on the other. Critically discussing the rise of individualised social services in the light of various theoretical points of view, it analyses the way in which activation and the 'active subject' are presented in EU discourse. It compares the introduction of individualised activation services in five EU welfare states: the UK, Germany, Italy, Finland and the Czech Republic, focusing on official policies as well as policy practices. The book provides original insights into the phenomenon of the individualised provision of activation services. It is useful reading for policy makers as well as for students and researchers of welfare states, social policies and public governance.

Illicit drug use is an issue that triggers a wealth of debate and concern. Drawing on well-respected authors in the field, this textbook is at the cutting edge of contemporary debates about illicit drug use. Comprehensive in its coverage, the book examines the major theoretical questions, themes and policy debates and presents them in a straightforward, lucid manner. Knitted together by a strong editorial framework and student-friendly features such as study exercises, Drugs in Britain is essential reading for students of sociology and criminology taking courses in this area.