The Welfare State and Social Work: Pursuing Social Justice

The Welfare State and Social Work: The Hesitant Pursuit of Social Justice critically assesses the historical, sociopolitical, and economic factors that have influenced social work policy and practice in the United States. By viewing social welfare and social work in light of principles of social justice, this book offers a fresh perspective of their interplay and how this interaction affects policy practice.

• Conceptualizes social justice as it operates, or fails to operate, under a specific system-the liberal democracy familiar to citizens of the United States
• Examines how administrative centralization and political and economic power affect social policies, how these policies are conditioned by the paths embedded in the histories of previous decisions, and how a selective ideology justifies them
• Offers a critical commentary following the coverage of historical periods
• Systematically compares outcomes in the United States with those in other liberal democracies that have different welfare regimes, and evaluates proposals for reforming welfare in a global context