by Paul Close (1992)
The State and Caring is a collection of essays especially prepared by an international team of writers on issues concerned with the part played by the state in the process of caring in modern societies. The writers focus on five societies - Britain, Japan, the United States, Australia and New Zealand. But they deliberately address aspects of the state and caring in these particular societies so as to develop arguments and arrive at conclusions of relevance to modern societies in general. The writers come from different scholarly disciplines and accordingly employ a range of perspectives on the state and caring. Nonetheless, all the writers adopt approaches to their topics which lie firmly within the 'critical school' of social thought and comment. The writers scrutinise sceptically the outcomes, interests and motives associated with state care, favouring the view that the state not only inadequately but also detrimentally affects people's welfare. An overall message of the book is that we can understand and improve the state's involvement in care only by recognising how this involvement ties in with a further social process - that of social control. At the same time, the book carries the optimistic message that precisely because state care also entails the everyday experience of state control, the state's involvement in caring becomes a crucial source of progressive social change in modern societies.
Mathew Thomson
This volume studies the alarm about 'mental defectives' in Britain between 1870 and 1959, and the policies of segregation, community care, and sexual sterilization. It examines the origins of these central government policies, showing how they were practiced by health professionals and local authorities.
Paul Slack
Between the 16th and the 18th centuries, the character of English social policy and social welfare changed fundamentally. From Reformation to Improvement looks at the intellectual and political roots of this change.
James Robertson
Twentieth-century capitalism and socialism propped each other up. Both belonged to the modern industrialized period of human history when the powerful interest groups of business and state dominated people, and Euro-American culture and power dominated the world. An emerging post-modern worldview foreshadows possibilities for a new path of progress, more deeply concerned for people and nature. Based on articles and lectures, this collection explores what this new path of progress could mean for politics, work, welfare, health, energy, the life of families and neighborhoods, the world role of today's rich countries, and other aspects of the human predicament today.
the Violence Against Children Study Group
"Children, Child Abuse and Child Protection is the second book written by the Violence Against Children Study Group, a multidisciplinary group of researchers and practitioners from a range of professional settings concerned with child protection." "This new volume gives an overview of the complex and uncertain political, moral and social context within which practitioners and managers attempt to work with children, families and others. The authors suggest factors that should be taken into consideration when refining policy and practice." "The book reviews the development of improved policy and practices in child protection, placing children at the centre of policy, practice and discourse. The chapters explore the margins of the child protection system, and in particular how child protection interconnects or overlaps with other systems, such as health, police and education." "Children, Child Abuse and Child Protection is a core text for students studying health, social care, social work and applied social studies. It is essential reading for practitioners and managers with responsibilities for child protection, and a valuable resource for social service and social work departments, local education authorities and welfare agencies."--Jacket.