SOCIAL POLICY Flashcards
1
Q
Ronald Fletcher (The creation of the NHS 1948, functionalist)
A
- Society is built on harmony and consensus, and states act in the interests of society as a whole and its social policies are meant to bring the highest amount of utility.
- Policies help the family to perform their functions. Fletcher argues that introduction of health, education, and housing policies in the years since the industrial revolution has gradually led to the development of a welfare state that supports the family in performing its functions more effectively, as the industrial revolution originally gave birth to new forms of policy.
- For example, the creation of the NHS in 1948 (Clement Attlee’s Labour government, Annum Bevan), meant that there were now professionals who could take care of vulnerable members within society regardless of their economic position which helped to create a healthier society.
2
Q
Eval (Marxists)
A
- Argues that the functionalist view assumes that these policies provide evidence of a ‘march of progress’, but in actuality they don’t as although these policies do steadily make family life better and better, the government has the ability to ‘turn back the clock’ and reverse the progress made,
- e.g. in 2021 when they reversed the extra money given on universal credit in 2020 and effectively pushed 800,000 people into poverty.
3
Q
Donzelot (Child Maintenance Service 1993)
A
- Offers a different perspective on the relationship between the family and state policies from that of functionalists; rather than a consensus view of policy as benefitting the family, Donzelot has a conflict view of society, whereby he sees policy as a form of state power and control over families.
- He applies Michael Foucault’s idea of surveillance to the family, stating that social workers, health visitors and doctors use their knowledge to control and change families, also known as the ‘policing of families’.
- He also argues that this surveillance is targeted specifically at lower classed families as they are more likely to be seen as ‘problem’ families, such as the Child Maintenance Service 1993 (Margret Thatcher, Conservative government), which gave ‘primary responsibility’ to parents for securing the welfare of their children, and supported children by collecting maintenance and paying funds obtained from the absent parent to the person with care of the child.
- Since lone-parent families are seen as less economically stable, and having a higher reliance on welfare, this can also be perceived as ‘policing’ the poor. This, however, is perceived as a good thing by Donzelot
4
Q
Eval (Feminists)
A
- Argues that Donzelot fails to identify who exactly benefits from such policies of surveillance, and that men could be the main beneficiaries of the policies.
5
Q
Drew (Divorce Reform Act 1969)
A
- Uses the concept of ‘gender regimes’ to describe how social policies in different countries can either encourage or discourage gender equality in the family or work.
- She identifies two gender regimes following different types of family policies:
- familistic gender regimes (where policies are based on a traditional gender divisions between the man and woman, like in Greece where there is little state welfare or publicly funded childcare, meaning woman have to rely heavily on support from their extended kin)
- individualistic gender regimes (where policies are based on the belief that husbands and wives should be treated the same, like in Sweden where policies treat husbands and wives as equally responsible for bread winning, through things like their state provision of childcare, which gives woman less dependency on men and more opportunity to work).
- The divorce reform act of 1969 (Harold Wilson’s Labour government) is an example of an individualistic gender regime; it allowed greater equality on the grounds of divorce, people could now end marriages if the marriage has ‘irretrievably broken down’, and neither partner had to prove ‘fault’.
- Either partner could end a divorce, and the grounds now expanded beyond having to provide reasons like ‘adultery’ or ‘abuse’.
6
Q
Eval (Brenda Almond, New Right)
A
- These feminist policies which give woman increased freedom and aid in easier divorce undermine the conventional nuclear family
- which infringes on the balance needed between men and woman in order to properly raise and socialise a child.
7
Q
Charles Murray (New Deal for Lone Parents 1998)
A
- Murray was critical of welfare policy as it provides ‘over-generous’ welfare benefits, which has proven to help undermine the conventional nuclear family and encourage deviant and dysfunctional family types that harm society. These benefits offer ‘perverse’ incentives, which rewards anti-social behaviour and irresponsibility, harming the state and creating a ‘dependency culture’.
- Murray believed these anti-social behaviours included:
- fathers abandoning their children as they see that the state can provide for them instead, young girls to become pregnant and unmarried as they’re aware they can obtain a council house, and that young boys who grow up without male role models/ an authority figure shall be led to commit crimes.
- He would’ve criticised the New Deal for Lone Parents 1998 (Tony Blair’s New Labour government), which was aimed at all lone parents on income support, and was a voluntary program that aimed to help lone parents get jobs/ increase their hours of work, either directly or by increasing their employability.
- This, however, encouraged parents to form lone parent families, which again threatens the conventional nuclear family and encourages anti-social behaviour.
8
Q
Eval (Pam Abbott and Claire Wallace, Feminist)-
A
- Argued that that New Right is sexist, and not only that but in modern society families can’t just simply rely on male income.
- They also argued that cutting benefits would simply drive many poor families into even greater poverty, and make them even less self-reliant, rather than encouraging these ‘strong families’.
