Suchergebnisse

Thesis submitted to the University of Luton for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy ; Much attention has been devoted in the social sciences to the reorganisation of the moral order of society (Smart, 1999). This reorganisation means that responsibility for welfare is now located with the individual. In spite of the salience given to privately held responsibility for welfare in social policy, little work has been carried out on the discourses underpinning this way of distributing responsibility (Finch and Mason, 1993, Duncan and Edwards, 1999, Rowlingson, 2002). Work on this issue is especially timely as New Labour continues the privatisation of responsibility for welfare in a way that, many people believe, neglects a moral dimension. Instead, New Labour favours a more ethical construction that exhorts the individual to do her duty by which they mean she should work for her own betterment and well-being (Levitas, 1998, Giddens, 1998, Jordan, 1998, Lund, 1999). This work begins by situating responsibility as a historically variable and discursive construction, uncovering how the understanding of responsibility changed as the problem focusing the minds of social engineers altered from one of poverty to one of security in the 1970s. While responsibility has only recently been identified as a particular issue for social policy academics (Roche, 1992, Dwyer, 1998, Dean et aI., 2004) philosophers and sociologists have paid close attention to responsibility over the past decade (Bauman, 1993, 1995, Habermas, 1990, 1995, Apel, 1989, 1996, Etzioni, 1995, Schmidtz, 1998, Goodin, 1998). Building on the issues raised by these authors, this work presents a qualitative study of government press releases, interviews with benefits recipients, members of the general public, welfare advisors and welfare benefits administrators to explore the rational structure of the discourses of responsibility for welfare. As a result, I develop the argument that while the reconfigured moral order promotes a private acceptance of responsibility for welfare, people still want a way of interpreting responsibility taking in a more public way.

The "everyday bordering" concept has provided key insights into the effects of diverse bordering practices upon social life, placing the bordering of the welfare state among wider state interventions in an autochthonous politics of belonging. Sociological contributions have also introduced new explanations as to why states pursue such measures, positing that neoliberal states seek legitimacy through increasing activities to (re)affirm borders within this politics of belonging, compensating for a failure to govern the economy in the interests of citizens. To what extent is this visible in the state-led emergence of (everyday) borders around welfare in the United Kingdom, often cited as a key national case? This article draws from 20 elite interviews to contribute to genealogical accounts of the emergence of everyday bordering through identifying the developing "problematizations" connected to this kind of bordering activity, as the British state began to distinctly involve welfare-state actors in bordering policies in the 1990s and early 2000s. This evidence underlines how these policies were tied to a "pull factor" problematization of control failure, where the state needed to reduce various "pull factors" purportedly attracting unwanted migrants in order to control immigration per se, with little evidence that legitimacy issues tied to perceived declining economic governability informed these developments in this period. These findings can inform future genealogical analyses that trace the emergence of everyday bordering.

This is the final report of a research project that addressed social exclusion and poverty as it relates to single parent families and their children in particular. The rising numbers of single parent families and children throughout the EU and the increased likelihood that these families will live in poverty and experience many different forms of social exclusion in their daily lives brings in sharp focus the need to address the issue as an urgent one in our efforts to eradicate poverty and social exclusion. The focus on the children of single parent families seeks to rectify a long-standing problem in our knowledge and understanding of single parent families and the social problems they face, namely, the fact that little, if anything, is known about how these children experience and understand their lives as members of these families. The research set out to contribute to policy development and the transnational exchange of best practice by adding a much-neglected dimension on single parent families. The project used a cross-national comparative qualitative research design and methods (Mangen 1999) which involved all partners in the design of each research phase including the analysis; partners were England, Cyprus and Greece.

Young people enter secure accommodation because of the risks they pose to themselves, and/or others. Their deprivation of liberty is authorised on the grounds of either welfare, justice or mental health legislation. Secure accommodation is 'both incarceration and an alternative to incarceration, a form of control imposed in order that care can be provided' (Harris & Timms 1993:4). Research has demonstrated that young people who enter secure accommodation, via these different legislative pathways, share common characteristics (inter alia O'Neill 2001; Goldson, 2002). Yet, these children are placed within distinct settings; secure care, secure custody or secure mental health facilities. This research seeks to understand i) who the young people are, ii) where young people are detained, iii) how decisions around place are made, and iv) the significance of place for young people. Surrey will act as the case in this research. To begin, secondary analysis of data will explore the characteristics and trajectories of young people from Surrey previously placed in secure settings. Next, a mapping of secure places available to young people from Surrey will identify current provision. Later phases of this research will explore decision-making practices, and the experiences of key stakeholders. This paper introduces this research and underscores the significance and timeliness of developing knowledge in this area. The value of this collaborative project lies in the connections between research and policy, with the common aim to develop more integrated responses to better meet the needs of vulnerable and complex young people.

In outlining the Liberal Democrat's 2015 General Election offering, Nick Clegg promised 'one of our front-page manifesto commitments will be to protect the education budget from nursery to 19-year-olds, from cradle to college'. In adopting the phrase 'from Cradle to College' he also unintentionally highlighted a sharp contrast with his party's promise at the 2010 Election to abolish tuition fees for higher education in England on the basis they were 'wrong' and 'unfair'.

"Development, Welfare Policy, and the Welfare State" published on by Oxford University Press.

This broad and accessible text examines one of the most crucial issues facing western governments today: how to raise sufficient funds to meet the rising aspirations of their electorate for more and better welfare services. Looking at seven European countries representing different policy traditions, government ideologies and levels of economic affluence, it discusses health, social security, housing, personal social services and education policies against a background of economic, demographic and familial change