Social Policy Flashcards

1
Q

what is social policy?

A
  • plans or actions set out by the government with a specific aim
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2
Q

what are the two types of social policy?

A
  • direct: compulsory education, exam changes
  • indirect: benefits, family policies
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3
Q

Left Wing: labour

A
  • believe in equality for all
  • family diversity
  • change
  • modernising
  • social services,
  • welfare support
  • reform to help disadvantaged people
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4
Q

Right Wing: conservatives

A
  • believe in working hard
  • looking after yourself
  • capitalism
  • free market
  • nuclear family
  • traditional values
  • low taxes
  • not changing too much
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5
Q

Nazi Germany Family Policy:

A
  • the Mother’s Cross policy:
  • rewards were offered to mothers with the most children
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6
Q

Back to Basics Campaign (1990’s):

A
  • introduced by conservative government
  • aims:
  • herald the virtues of traditional family views
  • impact:
  • demonise lone-parent families
  • increase social stigma attached to lone-parent families
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7
Q

Child Support Act (1991):

A
  • introduced by conservative government
  • aims:
  • force absent fathers to pay for maintenance of their children
  • impact:
  • reducing welfare payments to lone mothers
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8
Q

Family Law Act (1996):

A
  • aims:
  • prevents couples from divorcing unless they have been married for a year
  • decrease divorce
  • impact:
  • support the institution of marriage
  • increase empty shell marriages
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9
Q

Supporting Families Document (1998):

A
  • aims:
  • suggested ways provided better service and support for parents
  • emphasis on all families
  • not to intervene in family life
  • not to pressure people into preferred family type
  • not to force married couples to stay together
  • impact:
  • supporting family diversity
  • increase family diversity
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10
Q

New Deal (2001):

A
  • introduced by labour government
  • aims:
  • help people find paid employment
  • impact:
  • aimed at matri-focal lone-parent families
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11
Q

Sure Start Programme:

A
  • aims:
  • provide health and support services for low-income families with young children

-impact:
- early start
- free nursery
- supporting family diversity

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12
Q

Civil Partnerships:

A
  • introduced by the new labour government
  • aims:
  • new legal
  • impact:
  • reduced social stigma
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13
Q

Functionalism: Fletcher (1996)

A
  • help families perform their functions more effectively
  • argues that the introduction of health, education and housing policies led to a welfare state that supports the family
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14
Q

Evaluation of Functionalism:

A
  • feminists argue that policies often benefit men at the expense of women
  • marxists argue that some policies turn the clock backwards
  • also assumed that some policies made family life better
    e.g ‘march of progress’
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15
Q

The New Right:

A
  • criticism: many welfare policies undermine the family’s self-reliance by providing generous benefits
  • Murray (1984) benefits ‘preserve incentives’ regarding irresponsible behaviour
    -favour cutting welfare spending
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16
Q

Evaluation of the New Right:

A
  • feminists believe in the New Right views are an attempt to justify the patriarchal nuclear family = opposes women
  • nuclear family is ‘not’ natural but socially constructed
17
Q

New Labour:

A
  • political perspective
  • more accepting of family diversity
  • introduced civil partnership act
  • introduced legislation to allow cohabiting couples to adopt
    -some policies can improve family life
18
Q

Feminism: Land (1978)

A
  • policies often assume the patriarchal family to be the norm
  • policies act as a self-fulfilling prophecy, actually helping to reproduce this family
19
Q

Marxism:

A
  • social institutions including policies serve the interests of capitalism
  • policies of the families often result form the need of capitalism
20
Q

The Coalition Government (2010-15):

A
  • conservative party division between what
    Richard Hayton (2010) calls:
  • modernists: more diverse, willing to accept and reflect this in their policies
  • traditionalist: favour a New Right view and reject diversity as morally wrong
21
Q

Communist Romania:

A
  • former gov 1980’s falling living standards decline
  • introduced a series of policies to try and drive up the birth rate
22
Q

Functionalism:

A
  • see society as built on harmony and consensus and free from major conflicts
  • Ronald Fletcher: 1966
  • assumes there is a march of progress
  • all members benefit from social policies
23
Q

Donzelot: policing the family

A
  • Jacques Donzelot (1977) offers a different perspective
  • had a conflict view of society
  • sees policies as a form of state power and control over family
24
Q

Donzelot uses Michael Foucault’s (1976):

A
  • concept of surveillance
    _foucalt’s sees power as a diffused spread throughout society and found within relationships
25
Q

social policies that effect families & households in the uk?

A
  • divorce act (1969 5yrs & 19841 year for divorce) : only ended unless it was irretrievably broken & neither could prove ‘fault’
  • civil partnership (2003 & 2004)
26
Q

changes to income support for lone parents since 2014:

A
  • Job Seekers Allowance = out of work benefit for those who aren’t working
27
Q

Rachel Condry (2007):

A
  • the state may seek to control & regulate family life by imposing
    compulsory parenting orders through courts
28
Q

The New Right: Brenda Almond (2006):

A
  • argues that laws making a divorce easier to undermines the idea of marriage as a life long commitment
  • civil partnership introduction makes heterosexual couples less superior to their domestic set up
  • the laws discriminate against conventional families
29
Q

Lone Parents Welfare Policy & the dependency culture:

A
  • Charles Murray (1984-90) criticises welfare policy for undermining traditional nuclear families and encourages dysfunctional family types
  • negative impact on boys and lead to a life of crime and lack of role-models
30
Q

encourages dependency culture and a lack of self/reliance:

A
  • the successful socialisation of the young
  • the maintainable of the work ethic among men
31
Q

New Right Solutions:

A
  • place tighter policy restrictions on who is eligible for benefits
32
Q

Criticism of the New Right:

A
  • Pam Abbcott and Clair Wallace (1992) argue that cutting benefits would simply drive many poor families into even greater poverty and make men even less self-reliant
33
Q

Gender Regimes:

A
  • Eileen Drew (1995) uses the concept of ‘gender regimes’ to describe how social policies in different countries can either encourage or discourage gender equality in the families and at work = European countries encourage more individualistic regimes
34
Q

Two Types of GR:

A
  • familistic gender regimes:
    policies are based on traditional gender division
  • Greece’s little state welfare on public ally funded childcare
  • traditional division of labour
  • individualistic regimes:
  • where policies are based on the belief that husbands and wives should be treated the same
  • Sweden, husband and wives are equally responsible for both breadwinning and domestic tasks