Synopses & Reviews
Dimensions in Social Welfare Policy provides students with the most comprehensive and widely-used theoretical and conceptual framework for analyzing the design of a wide range of social welfare policies. Highlights of the Sixth Edition
- Provides the most comprehensive and widely-used analytical frameworks for understanding the design of social welfare policy, enabling students to identify alternative choices and to understand the consequences of each alternative.
- NEW chapter broadens the scope of this text by applying the social policy framework to international policy trends (Chapter 9).
Reviewer responses
As an instructor, I find this text soundly organized and understandable. The text covers content in both depth and breadth and the content is appropriate for graduate level education. I particularly like the way the authors encourage critical thinking through the presentation of information without attempting to provide simplistic answers or solutions to social policy questions and problems.
Myrna D. Bocage, Simmons College
The conceptual framework gives students an organized, systematic approach to examining social welfare policies in-depth. Using this framework fosters students' ability to engage in conceptual and analytical thinking, including consideration of underlying values and assumptions regarding policy choices. Additionally, the framework provides tools that will be useful over time; that is, students will be able to use the four dimensions and related concepts throughout their careers to analyze modified or new policies.
Jan L. Hagan, University of Albany
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Synopsis
/x 3763L-5, Gilbert, Neil, Dimensions of Social Welfare Policy, 5/ex/" This social welfare policy book provides a comprehensive theoretical framework for the analysis of social welfare policy." The book illustrates theoretical points by offering examples from a cross-section of program areas including income maintenance, child welfare, model cities, day care, community action, and mental health. The book also shows how social theories and individual versus collective value orientations influence policies." For social workers, or students studying social welfare policy.
Table of Contents
All chapters end with “Notes.”
Preface.
1. The Field of Social Welfare Policy.
Institutional Perspectives on the Study of Social Welfare Policy.
Evolving Institutions and the Welfare State.
Analytic Perspectives on the Study of Social Welfare Policy.
Political Perspectives on the Study of Social Welfare Policy.
Individualist and Collective Approaches to Planning.
Conceptions of the Public Interest.
Competing Values: Participation, Leadership, and Expertise.
Why Policy Analysis is Relevant to Direct Service Practitioners.
Emerging Issues: Feminist Perspectives on Social Welfare.
2. The Modern Welfare State.
The Evolving Welfare State.
Theories of Welfare Growth.
Is America Exceptional?
Welfare Goals.
Welfare Scope.
Welfare Realms.
Emerging Issues: Renegotiating the Boundaries.
3. A Framework for Social Welfare Policy Analysis.
Benefit Allocations in the Social Market and the Mixed Economy on Welfare.
Elements of an Analytic Framework: Dimensions of Choice.
An Example: The Transformation of Social Services.
Application of the Framework.
Distributive Justice in Public Assistance.
Individual and Collective Values in Public Assistance.
Theories, Assumptions, and Social Choice.
Emerging Issues: The Search for Equity.
4. The Basis of Social Allocation.
Who Shall Benefit?
Universality and Selectivity in Income Maintenance.
Child Support and Asset Building.
Social Effectiveness and Cost Effectiveness.
Another Perspective on Allocation: A Continuum of Choice.
Allocative Principles and Institutional-Residual Conceptions of Social Welfare.
Operationalizing the Allocative Principles.
Eligibility Versus Access.
Emerging Issues: Generational Equity.
5. The Nature of Social Provisions.
Basic Forms: Cash Versus In-Kind.
Alternative Forms: An Extension of Choice.
Vouchers: Balancing Social control and Consumer Choice.
Substance of the Social Provision.
Social Provisions as Reflections of Policy Values.
Cash, Kind, and the Cycles of Public Assistance.
Emerging Issues: Choice for Whom?
6. The Design of the Delivery System.
Privatization and Commercialization in Service Delivery.
Promoting Coherence and Accessibility: Service Delivery Strategies.
Unsettled Questions.
Selecting Strategies.
Emerging Issues: Services Rationing and Managed Care.
7. The Mode of Finance: Sources of Funds.
Sources of Funds.
The Philanthropic Contribution.
Contributory Schemes and Fee Charging.
Public Financing: Not Entirely a Public Matter.
Emerging Issues: Financing Social Security.
8. The Mode of Finance: Systems of Transfer.
Centralization, Decentralization, and Their Ideologies.
How the Money Flows.
How Transfers Are Conditioned.
Devolving Public Welfare.
AFDC to TANF.
Emerging Issues: Immigrants, Social Policy, and the States.
9. Policy Dimensions: International Trends in the 21st Century.
Pressures for Change.
Directions of Change.
Implications of Change.