Social Policy

Question 1

what is social policy?

Answer 1

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

Question 2

what are the two types of social policy?

Answer 2

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

Question 3

Left Wing: labour

Answer 3

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

Question 4

Right Wing: conservatives

Answer 4

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

Question 5

Nazi Germany Family Policy:

Answer 5

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

Question 6

Back to Basics Campaign (1990’s):

Answer 6

• 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

Question 7

Child Support Act (1991):

Answer 7

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

Question 8

Family Law Act (1996):

Answer 8

• 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

Question 9

Supporting Families Document (1998):

Answer 9

• 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

Question 10

New Deal (2001):

Answer 10

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

Question 11

Sure Start Programme:

Answer 11

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

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

Question 12

Civil Partnerships:

Answer 12

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

Question 13

Functionalism: Fletcher (1996)

Answer 13

• 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

Question 14

Evaluation of Functionalism:

Answer 14

• 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’

Question 15

The New Right:

Answer 15

• 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

Question 16

Evaluation of the New Right:

Answer 16

• 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

Question 17

New Labour:

Answer 17

• 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

Question 18

Feminism: Land (1978)

Answer 18

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

Question 19

Marxism:

Answer 19

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

Question 20

The Coalition Government (2010-15):

Answer 20

• 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

Question 21

Communist Romania:

Answer 21

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

Question 22

Functionalism:

Answer 22

• 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

Question 23

Donzelot: policing the family

Answer 23

• 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

Question 24

Donzelot uses Michael Foucault’s (1976):

Answer 24

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

Question 25

social policies that effect families & households in the uk?

Answer 25

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

Question 26

changes to income support for lone parents since 2014:

Answer 26

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

Question 27

Rachel Condry (2007):

Answer 27

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

Question 28

The New Right: Brenda Almond (2006):

Answer 28

• 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

Question 29

Lone Parents Welfare Policy & the dependency culture:

Answer 29

• 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

Question 30

encourages dependency culture and a lack of self/reliance:

Answer 30

• the successful socialisation of the young
• the maintainable of the work ethic among men

Question 31

New Right Solutions:

Answer 31

• place tighter policy restrictions on who is eligible for benefits

Question 32

Criticism of the New Right:

Answer 32

• 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

Question 33

Gender Regimes:

Answer 33

• 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

Question 34

Two Types of GR:

Answer 34

• 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