Author: Margaret Robinson
Publisher: Nova Publishers
ISBN: 9781560728672
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 228
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Book Description
Perhaps the most sweeping of changes in social welfare since the enactment of the Social Security Act, was realised in 1996 with the passage of the Personal Responsibility Work Opportunity and Reconciliation Act (PRWORA). PRWORA, signed into law by President Clinton amidst much national controversy, was designed to essentially transform social welfare in the United States through transferring the design, implementation and evaluation of the welfare system from the federal government to the states. This groundbreaking book highlights firstly how important the strong social welfare is to the country and secondly, how spirited the debate of the 1990s has been with regard to the nuances of social welfare policies and programmes.
Author: Greg J. Duncan
Publisher: Russell Sage Foundation
ISBN: 161044826X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 673
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Book Description
One in five American children now live in families with incomes below the povertyline, and their prospects are not bright. Low income is statistically linked with a variety of poor outcomes for children, from low birth weight and poor nutrition in infancy to increased chances of academic failure, emotional distress, and unwed childbirth in adolescence. To address these problems it is not enough to know that money makes a difference; we need to understand how. Consequences of Growing Up Poor is an extensive and illuminating examination of the paths through which economic deprivation damages children at all stages of their development. In Consequences of Growing Up Poor, developmental psychologists, economists, and sociologists revisit a large body of studies to answer specific questions about how low income puts children at risk intellectually, emotionally, and physically. Many of their investigations demonstrate that although income clearly creates disadvantages, it does so selectively and in a wide variety of ways. Low-income preschoolers exhibit poorer cognitive and verbal skills because they are generally exposed to fewer toys, books, and other stimulating experiences in the home. Poor parents also tend to rely on home-based child care, where the quality and amount of attention children receive is inferior to that of professional facilities. In later years, conflict between economically stressed parents increases anxiety and weakens self-esteem in their teenaged children. Although they share economic hardships, the home lives of poor children are not homogenous. Consequences of Growing Up Poor investigates whether such family conditions as the marital status, education, and involvement of parents mitigate the ill effects of poverty. Consequences of Growing Up Poor also looks at the importance of timing: Does being poor have a different impact on preschoolers, children, and adolescents? When are children most vulnerable to poverty? Some contributors find that poverty in the prenatal or early childhood years appears to be particularly detrimental to cognitive development and physical health. Others offer evidence that lower income has a stronger negative effect during adolescence than in childhood or adulthood. Based on their findings, the editors and contributors to Consequences of Growing Up Poor recommend more sharply focused child welfare policies targeted to specific eras and conditions of poor children's lives. They also weigh the relative need for income supplements, child care subsidies, and home interventions. Consequences of Growing Up Poor describes the extent and causes of hardships for poor children, defines the interaction between income and family, and offers solutions to improve young lives. JEANNE BROOKS-GUNN is Virginia and Leonard Marx Professor of Child Development at Teachers College, Columbia University. She is also director of the Center for Young Children and Families, and co-directs the Adolescent Study Program at Teachers College.
Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309171342
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 267
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Book Description
Reform of welfare is one of the nation's most contentious issues, with debate often driven more by politics than by facts and careful analysis. Evaluating Welfare Reform in an Era of Transition identifies the key policy questions for measuring whether our changing social welfare programs are working, reviews the available studies and research, and recommends the most effective ways to answer those questions. This book discusses the development of welfare policy, including the landmark 1996 federal law that devolved most of the responsibility for welfare policies and their implementation to the states. A thorough analysis of the available research leads to the identification of gaps in what is currently known about the effects of welfare reform. Evaluating Welfare Reform in an Era of Transition specifies what-and why-we need to know about the response of individual states to the federal overhaul of welfare and the effects of the many changes in the nation's welfare laws, policies, and practices. With a clear approach to a variety of issues, Evaluating Welfare Reform in an Era of Transition will be important to policy makers, welfare administrators, researchers, journalists, and advocates on all sides of the issue.
Author: Stephen Haymes
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317627393
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 835
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Book Description
In the United States, the causes and even the meanings of poverty are disconnected from the causes and meanings of global poverty. The Routledge Handbook of Poverty in the United States provides an authoritative overview of the relationship of poverty with the rise of neoliberal capitalism in the context of globalization. Reorienting its national economy towards a global logic, US domestic policies have promoted a market-based strategy of economic development and growth as the obvious solution to alleviating poverty, affecting approaches to the problem discursively, politically, economically, culturally and experientially. However, the handbook explores how rather than alleviating poverty, it has instead exacerbated poverty and pre-existing inequalities – privatizing the services of social welfare and educational institutions, transforming the state from a benevolent to a punitive state, and criminalizing poor women, racial and ethnic minorities, and immigrants. Key issues examined by the international selection of leading scholars in this volume include: income distribution, employment, health, hunger, housing and urbanization. With parts focusing on the lived experience of the poor, social justice and human rights frameworks – as opposed to welfare rights models – and the role of helping professions such as social work, health and education, this comprehensive handbook is a vital reference for anyone working with those in poverty, whether directly or at a macro level.
Author: Sharon Hays
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 9780195176018
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 308
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Book Description
This text explores the impact of recent welfare reform on motherhood, marriage, and work in women's lives. It also focuses on what welfare reform reveals about work and family life, and its impact on us all.
Author: Kevin J. Corcoran
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0199329648
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 1513
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Book Description
In the first and second editions of the Social Workers' Desk Reference, the changes that were occurring in social work practice, education, and research were highlighted and focused upon. This third edition continues in the same tradition and continues to respond to the changes occurring in society and how they are impacting the education, research, and practice of social work as a whole.
Author: Latrice S Rollins
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000264785
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 193
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Book Description
Engaging and Working with African American Fathers: Strategies and Lessons Learned challenges traditional and historic practices and policies that have systematically excluded fathers and contributed to social and health disparities among this population. With chapters written primarily by African American women – drawing on years of research, interviews, and practical experience with this demographic – each section explores current evidence on engagement approaches, descriptions of agencies/programs addressing specific issues fathers face, and case studies documenting typical clients and approaches to addressing their diverse needs. Offering an expansive overview of issues affecting African American fathers, the book explores such important topics as public, child and mental health, education, parenting, employment, and public initiatives among others. Engaging and Working with African American Fathers is a key resource for social work, public health, education students, researchers, practitioners, policymakers, and members of communities who are challenged by meeting the diverse needs of African American fathers.
Author: Jeanne Brooks-Gunn
Publisher: Russell Sage Foundation
ISBN: 1610440862
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 261
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Book Description
Perhaps the most alarming phenomenon in American cities has been the transformation of many neighborhoods into isolated ghettos where poverty is the norm and violent crime, drug use, out-of-wedlock births, and soaring school dropout rates are rampant. Public concern over these destitute areas has focused on their most vulnerable inhabitants—children and adolescents. How profoundly does neighborhood poverty endanger their well-being and development? Is the influence of neighborhood more powerful than that of the family? Neighborhood Poverty approaches these questions with an insightful and wide-ranging investigation into the effect of community poverty on children's physical health, cognitive and verbal abilities, educational attainment, and social adjustment. This two-volume set offers the most current research and analysis from experts in the fields of child development, social psychology, sociology and economics. Drawing from national and city-based sources, Volume I reports the empirical evidence concerning the relationship between children and community. As the essays demonstrate, poverty entails a host of problems that affects the quality of educational, recreational, and child care services.Poor neighborhoods usually share other negative features—particularly racial segregation and a preponderance of single mother families—that may adversely affect children. Yet children are not equally susceptible to the pitfalls of deprived communities. Neighborhood has different effects depending on a child's age, race, and gender, while parenting techniques and a family's degree of community involvement also serve as mitigating factors. Volume II incorporates empirical data on neighborhood poverty into discussions of policy and program development. The contributors point to promising community initiatives and suggest methods to strengthen neighborhood-based service programs for children. Several essays analyze the conceptual and methodological issues surrounding the measurement of neighborhood characteristics. These essays focus on the need to expand scientific insight into urban poverty by drawing on broader pools of ethnographic, epidemiological, and quantitative data. Volume II explores the possibilities for a richer and more well-rounded understanding of neighborhood and poverty issues. To grasp the human cost of poverty, we must clearly understand how living in distressed neighborhoods impairs children's ability to function at every level. Neighborhood Poverty explores the multiple and complex paths between community, family, and childhood development. These two volumes provide and indispensable guide for social policy and demonstrate the power of interdisciplinary social science to probe complex social issues.
Author: Jeff GROGGER
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674037960
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 352
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Book Description
In Welfare Reform, Jeffrey Grogger and Lynn Karoly assemble evidence from numerous studies to assess how welfare reform has affected behavior. To broaden our understanding of this wide-ranging policy reform, the authors evaluate the evidence in relation to an economic model of behavior.
Author: Sanford F. Schram
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
ISBN: 0472025511
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 391
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Book Description
It's hard to imagine discussing welfare policy without discussing race, yet all too often this uncomfortable factor is avoided or simply ignored. Sometimes the relationship between welfare and race is treated as so self-evident as to need no further attention; equally often, race in the context of welfare is glossed over, lest it raise hard questions about racism in American society as a whole. Either way, ducking the issue misrepresents the facts and misleads the public and policy-makers alike. Many scholars have addressed specific aspects of this subject, but until now there has been no single integrated overview. Race and the Politics of Welfare Reform is designed to fill this need and provide a forum for a range of voices and perspectives that reaffirm the key role race has played--and continues to play--in our approach to poverty. The essays collected here offer a systematic, step-by-step approach to the issue. Part 1 traces the evolution of welfare from the 1930s to the sweeping Clinton-era reforms, providing a historical context within which to consider today's attitudes and strategies. Part 2 looks at media representation and public perception, observing, for instance, that although blacks accounted for only about one-third of America's poor from 1967 to 1992, they featured in nearly two-thirds of news stories on poverty, a bias inevitably reflected in public attitudes. Part 3 discusses public discourse, asking questions like "Whose voices get heard and why?" and "What does 'race' mean to different constituencies?" For although "old-fashioned" racism has been replaced by euphemism, many of the same underlying prejudices still drive welfare debates--and indeed are all the more pernicious for being unspoken. Part 4 examines policy choices and implementation, showing how even the best-intentioned reform often simply displaces institutional inequities to the individual level--bias exercised case by case but no less discriminatory in effect. Part 5 explores the effects of welfare reform and the implications of transferring policy-making to the states, where local politics and increasing use of referendum balloting introduce new, often unpredictable concerns. Finally, Frances Fox Piven's concluding commentary, "Why Welfare Is Racist," offers a provocative response to the views expressed in the pages that have gone before--intended not as a "last word" but rather as the opening argument in an ongoing, necessary, and newly envisioned national debate. Sanford Schram is Visiting Professor of Social Work and Social Research, Bryn Mawr Graduate School of Social Work and Social Research. Joe Soss teaches in the Department of Government at the Graduate school of Public Affairs, American University, Washington, D.C. Richard Fording is Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science, University of Kentucky.
