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The Welfare State and Social Work
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The Welfare State and Social Work
Pursuing Social Justice

July 2006 | 456 pages | SAGE Publications, Inc
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The Welfare State and Social Work: The Hesitant Pursuit of Social Justice critically assesses the historical, sociopolitical, and economic factors that have influenced social work policy and practice in the United States. By viewing social welfare and social work in light of principles of social justice, this book offers a fresh perspective of their interplay and how this interaction affects policy practice.

Key Features:

  • Conceptualizes social justice as it operates, or fails to operate, under a specific system-the liberal democracy familiar to citizens of the United States
  • Examines how administrative centralization and political and economic power affect social policies, how these policies are conditioned by the paths embedded in the histories of previous decisions, and how a selective ideology justifies them
  • Offers a critical commentary following the coverage of historical periods
  • Systematically compares outcomes in the United States with those in other liberal democracies that have different welfare regimes, and evaluates proposals for reforming welfare in a global context
 
Introduction
 
PART I. MAKING SENSE OF SOCIAL JUSTICE
 
Ch 1: Justice as a Value in Social Work
A Schizophrenic Profession?

 
Rescuing a Profession That Betrayed Its Mission

 
Gil on Social Determinism and Constructing a Just Society

 
Piven and Cloward on Welfare, Control, and Disruption

 
Gilbert on Balanced Reform From Within

 
Jordan on Struggling for Justice and Social Work

 
Wakefield on Justice as the Organizing Principle of Social Work

 
Comparing Concepts of Social Work

 
 
Ch 2: Understanding Social Justice in Liberal Democracies
Liberal-Democratic Society and its Contradictions

 
Theories of Social Justice for Liberal Democracies

 
Freedom Versus Democracy: Priorities in the United States

 
 
Ch 3: Evaluating Distributive Justice in the United States
Expanding the Welfare State Concept

 
Dimensions of Distributive Justice

 
How does the United States Rate on Distributive Justice?

 
 
PART II. INTERPRETING WELFARE IN THE UNITED STATES: BEYOND EXCEPTIONALISM
Building an Analytic Framework

 
 
Ch 4: The Fragile Roots of Welfare in the United States: From Colony to the Gilded Era
The Legacy of the English Poor Laws and the Shaping of a National Ideology in the Eighteenth Century

 
The Nineteenth Century: Seismic Changes and Moral Certainties

 
 
Ch 5: The Ambiguous Ancestry of Welfare and Social Work in the First Half of the Twentieth Century
The Progressive Era

 
Social Work, 1900-1920

 
Social Regression, Disaster, and the Birth of the Welfare State During the Interwar Years

 
Social Work in the Twenties and Thirties

 
 
Ch 6: From the Aftermath of World War II to the Great Society
Holding Back the New Deal

 
Social Work in the Postwar Period

 
The Promise of the Great Society

 
Social Work in the Sixties

 
 
Ch 7: The Weakening of the Welfare State Gains Speed
The Seventies: Expansion and Stagnation

 
Social Work in the Seventies

 
Reagan and the Precipitous Undoing of Public Assistance

 
Social Work in a Regressive Era

 
 
Ch 8: The End of the Millennium and the Demise of Entitlement to Public Assistance
A Centrist President in a Conservative Government

 
Social Work at the End of the Millennium

 
 
PART III. THE LESSER AMERICANS: HISTORICAL LEGACIES
The Story of a Limited Democracy

 
 
Ch 9: Women and the Welfare State
The Preindustrial Period

 
Economic and Social Restructuring

 
The Place of Women in the New Deal

 
 
Ch 10: Welfare Through the Color Lens
African Americans

 
Mexican Americans

 
Native Americans

 
Genocide, Manifest Destiny, and Contradictory Federal Policy

 
 
PART IV. CONTEMPORARY DIRECTIONS OF THE LIBERAL WELFARE STATE
 
Ch 11: Temporary Assistance for Needy Families - I
Positive Outcomes, Concerns, and Questions

 
Devolution: Unaccountability, Creativity, and State Budgets Crisis

 
Promoting the Work Ethic and Self-Sufficiency

 
Toward a Nuclear Family State

 
 
Ch 12: Temporary Assistance for Needy Families - II
Barriers and Exclusion

 
TANF Reauthorization

 
 
Ch 13: Social Security and the Push Toward Privatization
The Medicare Prescription Drug Improvement and Modernization Act of 2003

 
Social Insurance Financing and Alternative Proposals

 
Further Thoughts About Privatization

 
 
PART V. CONTEMPORARY DIRECTIONS OF WELFARE STATES IN DEVELOPED NATIONS
 
Ch 14: Types of Welfare States, Different Outcomes, and Future Needs
Different Logics of Welfare States

 
Alternative Institutional Designs

 
Comparing Welfare Types

 
Historical Synopses

 
Achievements of the Welfare Regimes

 
 
Ch 15: The Future of Welfare State in Postindustrial Societies
Demographic and Economic Shifts

 
The Three Pillars of Welfare

 
 
PART VI. LOCATING AND COUNTERACTING SOURCES OF INJUSTICE
 
Ch 16: Framing Policy Practice
Social Work's Commitment to Justice for the Twenty-First Century

 
How Do Professional Statements Fit With Social Work Theories of Justice?

 
What Do Social Justice Theories Add?

 
What Guidelines Can Be Derived From the Historical Analysis?

 
Ideology

 
Policy Decision Making

 
Summary

 
 
Ch 17: Policy Practice
Building Influence From the Ground Up

 
Influence in Policy Making

 
Shaping Policy Implementation

 
Judicial Policy Making

 
Interdependence Among Types of Policy Practice

 
Conclusion

 
Key features
  • Critical assessment of the discipline from historical, sociopolitical, and economic perspectives.
  • The theme of social justice.
  • The growing influence of globilization on contemporary social policay and practice.

Sample Materials & Chapters

Chatper 1

Chapter 3

Chapter 5