The Welfare State and Social Work
Pursuing Social Justice
- Josefina Figueira-McDonough - Arizona State University, USA
July 2006 | 456 pages | SAGE Publications, Inc
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
Ch 2: Understanding Social Justice in Liberal Democracies
Ch 3: Evaluating Distributive Justice in the United States
PART II. INTERPRETING WELFARE IN THE UNITED STATES: BEYOND EXCEPTIONALISM
Ch 4: The Fragile Roots of Welfare in the United States: From Colony to the Gilded Era
Ch 5: The Ambiguous Ancestry of Welfare and Social Work in the First Half of the Twentieth Century
Ch 6: From the Aftermath of World War II to the Great Society
Ch 7: The Weakening of the Welfare State Gains Speed
Ch 8: The End of the Millennium and the Demise of Entitlement to Public Assistance
PART III. THE LESSER AMERICANS: HISTORICAL LEGACIES
Ch 9: Women and the Welfare State
Ch 10: Welfare Through the Color Lens
PART IV. CONTEMPORARY DIRECTIONS OF THE LIBERAL WELFARE STATE
Ch 11: Temporary Assistance for Needy Families - I
Ch 12: Temporary Assistance for Needy Families - II
Ch 13: Social Security and the Push Toward Privatization
PART V. CONTEMPORARY DIRECTIONS OF WELFARE STATES IN DEVELOPED NATIONS
Ch 14: Types of Welfare States, Different Outcomes, and Future Needs
Ch 15: The Future of Welfare State in Postindustrial Societies
PART VI. LOCATING AND COUNTERACTING SOURCES OF INJUSTICE
Ch 16: Framing Policy Practice
Ch 17: Policy Practice