The Social Construction of Social Policy: Methodologies, Racism, Citizenship and the Environment (Explorations in Sociology, 44)

This volume draws together an impressive series of papers that explore enduring and new problems in the construction and analysis of British social policy. Critical but accessible, the various chapters cover methodological issues and the nature of competing claims about social policy 'knowledge', racism and health services, citizenship and access to housing and other amenities, and the importance of the environment as an emerging area for social policy debate. Front Matter....Pages i-xi Introduction....Pages 1-13 Front Matter....Pages 15-15 ‘Probably, Minister ...’: the ‘Strong Programme’ Approach to the Relationship between Research and Policy....Pages 17-33 How (and How Not) to Design Research to Inform Policy-making....Pages 34-53 Front Matter....Pages 55-55 Naming Difference: Race-thinking, Common Sense and Sociology....Pages 57-67 Consanguinity and Related Demons: Science and Racism in the Debate on Consanguinity and Birth Outcome....Pages 68-87 Representations of Asians’ Mental Health in British Psychiatry....Pages 88-105 Front Matter....Pages 107-107 Difference in the City: Locating Marginal Use of Public Space....Pages 109-125 No Key — No Door? Young People’s Access to Housing....Pages 126-147 ‘Island Homes for Island People’: Competition, Conflict and Racism in the Battle over Public Housing on the Isle of Dogs....Pages 148-168 Front Matter....Pages 169-169 Contracting Knowledge: Commissioned Research and the Sociology of the Environment....Pages 171-192 Us and Them: The Construction and Maintenance of Divisions in a Planning Dispute....Pages 193-209 Inter-organisational Negotiations in Political Decision-making: Brussels’ EC Bureaucrats and the Environment....Pages 210-223 Back Matter....Pages 224-230 "This volume draws together an impressive series of papers that explore enduring and new problems in the construction and analysis of social policy. Critical but accessible, the various chapters cover: methodological issues and the nature of competing claims about social policy 'knowledge'; racism and health services; citizenship and access to housing and other amenities; and the importance of the environment as an emerging area for social policy debate." "This collection appears at a time when it is widely recognised that whichever political party is in power in the late 1990s, the familiar model of the 'classic' British welfare state is increasingly distant. Domestic issues and local contexts are linked to broader global changes and different chapters engage in theoretical debate and empirical analysis in ways which make this a strong contribution to work defining the 'new social policy'. The editors describe the agenda of this new social policy and introduce the collection, identifying the key themes of the volume as 'citizenship', 'exclusion' and 'difference'."--BOOK JACKET