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Understanding Social Welfare
Understanding Social Welfare introduces readers to the issues, historical influences, trends, methods of operation, and unresolved conflicts of American social welfare. This well-organized, comprehensive, and scholarly book is accessible to social workers and helps them acquire the basic tools for understanding, analyzing, and evaluating social welfare policies and programs. The book focuses on the impact of social structure on people's lives, emphasizing the current concerns of a diverse client population, and incorporating the latest social welfare legislation. For those involved with social welfare and policy.
407 pages, Hardcover
First published April 4, 2006
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
November 25, 2016
This is a textbook for college social work courses. The book discusses the assumptions of providing social welfare and the basis of justice. The authors have a detailed and informative consideration of the history of social welfare in the United States.
The book is fast reading. The material is explained well, but seems repetitive. However, some repetition is necessary because multiple facets of policy and practice are discussed. The depth of discussion seems most suitable for an early course in a college program.
There are brief questions at the ends of the chapters and throughout the body of the text. The typical question prompts the reader to make decisions about their own opinions. This is important to do, but it is also necessary to have questions that require a reader to compare and contrast evidence to support conclusions. The book has little of that. Questions in the body of the text are used as a brief way to introduce many lines of thought without having to spend pages providing background discussion. That helps keep the text short, but could make it appear incomplete. This is effective because it reduces further reading that would be repetitive, and it may spur younger college-aged readers to think and investigate.
The authors are open to the roles that religious organizations can play in social welfare.
The book’s subtitle is “A search for social justice.” That is a theme that ties closely to underlying motivations to provide social welfare programs. The book doesn’t cover the extent of social justice, but mostly only as it applies to social welfare. The authors balance many opposing political views about justice and welfare. The last chapter focuses on the social justice aspect of social welfare. Unfortunately, it is at the end where many college readers don’t reach. Also, it leaves the reader with a pessimistic view that social justice is not possible under globalization of free markets. I’d hope for a more positive vision here, even if seemed hard to reach presently.
The book is fast reading. The material is explained well, but seems repetitive. However, some repetition is necessary because multiple facets of policy and practice are discussed. The depth of discussion seems most suitable for an early course in a college program.
There are brief questions at the ends of the chapters and throughout the body of the text. The typical question prompts the reader to make decisions about their own opinions. This is important to do, but it is also necessary to have questions that require a reader to compare and contrast evidence to support conclusions. The book has little of that. Questions in the body of the text are used as a brief way to introduce many lines of thought without having to spend pages providing background discussion. That helps keep the text short, but could make it appear incomplete. This is effective because it reduces further reading that would be repetitive, and it may spur younger college-aged readers to think and investigate.
The authors are open to the roles that religious organizations can play in social welfare.
The book’s subtitle is “A search for social justice.” That is a theme that ties closely to underlying motivations to provide social welfare programs. The book doesn’t cover the extent of social justice, but mostly only as it applies to social welfare. The authors balance many opposing political views about justice and welfare. The last chapter focuses on the social justice aspect of social welfare. Unfortunately, it is at the end where many college readers don’t reach. Also, it leaves the reader with a pessimistic view that social justice is not possible under globalization of free markets. I’d hope for a more positive vision here, even if seemed hard to reach presently.
November 2, 2011
Informative and well put together....
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews