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Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Social policy'
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1
Scobie, Willow. "Disciplining the workshy?, social policy constructs the policy subject." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 2000. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk2/ftp03/MQ57685.pdf.
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Scobie, Willow Carleton University Dissertation Sociology and Anthropology. "Disciplining the workshay? Social policy constructs the policy subject." Ottawa, 2000.
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Bidelman, Bernard M. "Social services and twentieth century social welfare policy." Virtual Press, 1988. http://liblink.bsu.edu/uhtbin/catkey/536301.
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In 1962 Congress enacted legislation which made social services an important instrument of public welfare reform. The law represented the culmination of a half-century effort on the part of public welfare officials to secure recognition for public social services as a distinctive yet integral feature of progressive social welfare policy in the United States. This dissertation traces the evolution of this effort from its origins in the Progressive period to the passage of the Public Welfare Amendments of 1962.The Progressive ideal of social welfare focused on building an institution of public welfare which would satisfy the economic, social, and psychological needs of all citizens. Public welfare officials viewed social services as playing a key role in the realization of this goal. The paper examines how social services became a means of protecting and expanding the functions of public welfare.The history of public social services has been marked by controversy. Throughout most of the twentieth century, the institution of public welfare has been subjected to periodic assaults by the taxpaying public. The stigma associated with welfare has caused many professional social workers to oppose the idea of incorporating social services into public welfare. The response of public welfare officials to these sources of conflict is a major topic which the paper explores.The context for and the ramifications of the dispute between professional social workers and public welfare officials over the propriety of public social services are discussed in the first three chapters of the paper. The last three chapters recount the political strategies used by public welfare officials to gain acceptance of their plan for integrating social services with public welfare policy.Department of Sociology
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Manoochehri, J. "Social policy and housing : reflections of social values." Thesis, University College London (University of London), 2010. http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/19217/.
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This thesis set out to find the correlation between social values and standards in social housing in two major milestones in the developments in state-provided housing. The new spirit of optimism after the Second World War was developed by the latter part of the 1960s into the influential Parker Morris report. Having been commissioned by a Conservative Government in 1959 it was made obligatory for social housing in 1967 by the Labour Party in government. The post-war years that heralded the inception of the welfare state in Britain and are often referred to as the Consensus years, are investigated here and found to be centered on a social democratic agenda. In contrast with the above period, the post-1979 years became identified with their embrace of a liberal agenda, formulated by neo-liberal thinkers and politicians. This period which has the hallmarks of what has been referred to as a neo-liberal consensus was identified by the state efforts to reverse the social democratic agenda of the post-war years. Substantial social policy changes can be identified in the two contrasting periods, manifested particularly in the adoption of the universalist approach to social policy in the former with the selectivist approach in the latter period. This thesis investigates the factors that led to changes in standards in social housing in the two periods by searching for correlations between policy changes from universalism to selectivism and the dominant social values of the time. A number of housing estates were selected and the space and environmental standards in them were compared to verify the changes in standards. The political Party manifestos, policy documents, committee papers and recommendations were analysed to find indications of the state’s ideological stance at the given periods. The policy statements and social and housing policies were also analysed to find the correlation between the string of factors that lead from the state to the final built artefact in the form of social values, social policies, housing policies and social housing standards. In order to verify the findings of the research, semi-structured informal interviews were conducted with prominent actors in provision of social housing. In addition two housing estates were studied in detail as case studies of each period. The research found that the periods of ascendancy of social democratic ideology in the state, and social values based on the significance of the collective society and the equality of all citizens led to higher space standards in social housing, while the periods of ascendancy of neo-liberal ideology in the state, and social values based on the significance of individual action based on dominance of market relations led to a drop in social housing standards. A significant finding of this research was the importance of individual actors involved in the provision of social housing and their role in interpreting regulations in favour (or against) promoting higher or lower standards.
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Thompson, Brigid Susan. "Social Work: Policy and Practice." Thesis, University of Canterbury. Sociology, 2001. http://hdl.handle.net/10092/922.
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This thesis explores the connection between policy creation and social work practices that are related to this policy. The main aim of the thesis is to fill a gap that exists in the research in relation to the connection between particular policies concerning the care and protection of children and the social work practices related to these. Primarily, I am interested in the experiences of social workers in community groups and the issues and problems they face in trying to integrate these policies into their everyday practice. The thesis presents four case studies that highlight the interactive relationship that exists between policy and practice. These case studies have been developed from the interviews I conducted with care and protection community workers in Christchurch in 1999. The first two case studies - the development of the Children, Young Persons and Their Families Act (1989), and the process of devolution that occurred through the 1980s and 1990s - look at particular policy developments that have impacted on care and protection social work, and explore the way that policy creation and implementation is contingent on the specific time and place in which it is developed. The second two case studies - Family Group Conferences and Strengthening Families - focus on two quite different forms of social work practice and provide an insight into the way that policy is implemented and used by practitioners at ground level. These four case studies form the basis of an argument around the idea that policy and practice are dynamic and interactive processes that will inform and change one another. Rather than seeing policy as something that is created by bureaucrats in the state and applied by practitioners at the ground level, I argue that the policy process is more complex than this. The case studies provide practical examples of this idea, and explore the complexities of policy development and the relationship between policies, policy actors and specific community social work practices - an area about which there has been little research.
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Hewitt, Martin. "Social policy and human nature." Thesis, University of Essex, 1998. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.242258.
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Griggs, E. "Justice, discretion and social policy." Thesis, University of York, 1985. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.356833.
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Brennan, Mark Emmanuel. "Social policy and operations management." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2020. https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/129047.
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Thesis: Ph. D. in Policy, Operations, and Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Urban Studies and Planning, September, 2020Cataloged from student-submitted PDF of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references.
This dissertation strengthens planning and policy analysis by using concepts from operations management to examine production and distribution of goods and services for disadvantaged groups. Building on the introduction, chapter two tells a cautionary tale, investigating how scholars and decision makers used operations management methods to consider operations in planning and policy analysis in the 1970s in ways that further marginalized already vulnerable residents. The tools and concepts of operations management, however, if sufficiently framed by concerns about equity and advocacy, are powerful instruments in solving production and distribution problems with social consequences. Chapter three explores how these concepts can be used to descriptively identify disparities in access to goods and services by socio-economic status, examining the distribution of irrigation equipment in Senegal. The core question is about the allocation of risk and inventory across levels of a supply chain that extends far into Senegal's farming regions. Chapter four identifies how these concepts can be used to causally explain disparities, tracing policies and plans that aggregative or ameliorate them. It focuses on the main program that subsidizes affordable housing construction in the United States, a durable necessity that is unevenly available and exposed to environment risks across space. The core question is about patterns over space and time in building affordable housing stocks, relative to where and when disasters occur. Chapter five shows how these concepts can be used to prescriptively remedy disparities. It investigates quality risks in the US international food assistance supply chain in Eastern Africa. The core question is about what levers can be pulled in supply chain design to improve food aid quality. Chapter six concludes.
by Mark Emmanuel Brennan.
Ph. D. in Policy, Operations, and Management
Ph.D.inPolicy,Operations,andManagement Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Urban Studies and Planning
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Paris, Chris. "Social theory and housing policy." Phd thesis, Canberra, ACT : The Australian National University, 1986. http://hdl.handle.net/1885/130120.
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Fung, Yin-king Helina. "Government training policy of social workers." Click to view the E-thesis via HKUTO, 1989. http://sunzi.lib.hku.hk/hkuto/record/B31975823.
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Gasson, Ruth, and n/a. "Liberalism, communitarianism, fairness and social policy." University of Otago. Faculty of Education, 1998. http://adt.otago.ac.nz./public/adt-NZDU20070528.122329.
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Communitarianism is an internationally contentious anti-liberal theory which is becoming increasingly popular in political philosophy. It commonly is employed to motivate and legitimate �identity politics� - a politics which is used to defend the rights of disadvantaged aboriginal minorities to maintain their traditional ways.
Recently �identity politics� has been exploited in mainstream poltical/educational academic literature in New Zealand, especially in literature that deals with Maori issues. This is significant because in the recent history of New Zealand, liberal political theory has been dominant.
Notions of rights and of fairness are fundamental to communitarianism and to liberalism, but communitarians and liberals hold very different ideas about what these notions involve. My PhD thesis compares their ideas and relates them to New Zealand. It views certain social and political issues in New Zealand, by way of liberal and then communitarian theories. It examines how liberalism and communitarianism have been, and can be, used to support and to legitimate particular policies and practices in terms of �fairness� and �justice�.
My work considers the explanatory and the practical application of communitarianism and liberalism with respect to their conceptions of human nature, political ideals, rights and rationality. It defends liberalism against the communities the protections they �need� in order to flourish. With respect to New Zealand it recognises that Maori have been treated unjustly by the crown, but argues that much of the injustice happened, not because of liberalism, but because liberal values were not upheld.
The thesis concludes that liberalism is better equipped than communitarianism to describe Maori and Pakeha relations, and to formulate a framework for positive and constructive trans-cultural policies that will respect both Maori and Pakeha cultures.
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Fung, Yin-king Helina, and 馮嬿琼. "Government training policy of social workers." Thesis, The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong), 1989. http://hub.hku.hk/bib/B31975823.
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Paradesi, Sharon M. (Sharon Myrtle) 1986. "PASM : a Policy Aware Social Miner." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/79238.
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Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2013.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 67-69).
The Policy Aware Social Miner (PASM) project focuses on creating awareness of how seemingly harmless social data might reveal sensitive information about a person, which could be potentially abused. It seeks to define good practices around social data mining. PASM allows people to create policies governing the use of their personal information on social networks. Using linked data, PASM semantically enhances the usage restrictions to ensure that potentially sensitive information is identified and appropriate policies are enforced. PASM also enables people to provide refutations for other information about them that is found on the Web. PASM encourages consumers of social information on the Web to use the mined data appropriately by enforcing data policies before returning the search results. PASM provides a solution to the following issue of privacy in social data mining - although people know that searches for data about them are possible, they have no way to either control the data that is put on the Web by others or indicate how they would like to restrict use of their own data. In a user study conducted to measure the performance of PASM in identifying sensitive posts as compared to the study participants, PASM obtained an F-Measure of 84% and an accuracy of 80%. Interestingly, PASM demonstrated a higher recall than precision, a property that was valued by the study participants as all but one participant indicated that they would prefer receiving false positives rather than false negatives.
by Sharon Myrtle Paradesi.
S.M.
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Holtzhausen, Marguerite. "Swartland social development policy and strategy." Thesis, Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/10019.1/97399.
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ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The research question answered by this study is what policy and strategy would give the necessary direction to Swartland Municipality’s (SM’s) social development programmes to maximise its impact on the social well-being of the community? The motivation for the study is the need to prioritise social development projects in order to improve effectiveness and efficiency in this field. The methodology used was a qualitative study by means of a conceptual analysis of the term social development, a literature study of international, national and local legislation and policies as well as group interviews with internal and external stakeholders.
Social development was defined for the purposes of this study as the process of strengthening the relationships/ partnerships and linkages between people, resources and/or systems within the scope of poverty reduction, expansion of employment opportunities and social integration, with the goal to achieve well-being for individuals, groups and/or communities. Furthermore a literature study explored relevant legislation and policy documents to give clarity on the municipality’s role of social development. Main findings were that the SA Constitution as supreme law, clearly states the municipal objective is to promote social development and states four functions that relate to social development namely child facilities, basic infrastructure, public amenities and sports facilities. Furthermore social development functions in all municipal departments need to co-ordinate to maximise social development resources. Lastly the municipality’s social development programmes must be supplementary and supportive to the work of the Department of Social Development.
Furthermore, engagements were held with internal and external stakeholders of Swartland Municipality and the strategic direction was determined by means of a vision, mission and strategic focus areas. The vision identified is: We build and create sustainable social development partnerships with all our people for strengthening the social fabric of the Swartland community. The social development mission is: We initiate, build and promote social development opportunities with the focus on sustainability, which specifically refers to financial viability in the long term, forming partnerships with the community and service providers, not harming the environment and operating within legal powers and functions.
Five strategic focus areas flowing from the vision and mission were identified. To promote collaboration and co-ordination is the pivotal focus area. Social development has to be co-ordinated by means of a social development forum represented of all sectors (government, NGO, faith-based, business, agriculture). The other focus areas were: promoting child development/establishing child facilities, lobbying for the vulnerable, facilitating access to the economy and promoting youth development. The impact of service delivery according to the five focus areas must be measured in totality by means of the Human Development Index and reflected in the integrated development plan.
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Argue, Gregory H. "Policy in the face of crisis, social democratic policy in Saskatchewan." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 2000. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk2/ftp03/NQ49479.pdf.
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Pierce, Howard Wilson. "Understanding the Role of Federal Procurement Policy in Federal Social Policy." ScholarWorks, 2017. https://scholarworks.waldenu.edu/dissertations/4245.
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Human sex trafficking is a significant issue in the modern world. The International Labor Organization has estimated that 4.5 million people are the victims of forced commercial sexual exploitation worldwide. The United States' laws on human sex trafficking can be found in 22 U.S.C. -§7104 Prevention of Trafficking, and promulgate the strategy of prevention of trafficking, protection of trafficking victims, and punishment of traffickers. Under the terms of 22 U.S.C. -§7104, federal contractors can be penalized if any of their employees or subcontractor employees engage in a commercial sex act. The reliance on the private sector to curb sex trafficking through federal contracts is a nuance, and there is a gap in the literature regarding the Congressional rationale for creating a federal contract policy that places federal contractors in the position of being liable for the off-duty activities of their employees. This research question focused on understanding this shift in usage of federal contract policy to influence individual behavior expressed in this Act. A content analysis of documents was performed which relied on official U.S. government documentation, including transcripts of Congressional hearings. The findings indicate that the legislation was a tactical response to a pair of scandals involving U.S. personnel overseas, combined with a belief in money as a motivating force, international political factors, and moral certainty among elected officials that the Federal Government had to 'do something.' Positive social change was addressed in the process of this study by providing greater insight into the legislative thought process regarding federal procurement related statutes, and by providing future reformers with additional information regarding effective legislative strategies.
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Baej, Khalifa Ali. "Social structure, health orientation and health behavior." PDXScholar, 1985. https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/open_access_etds/3426.
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An attempt has been made to examine the relationship between social structure and medical factors in a framework which links cosmopolitanism to health orientation and behavior. Specifically, this study has attempted to investigate the variations in health knowledge, beliefs, attitudes and behavior among individuals whose social structure varies in terms of cosmopolitanism.
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Gwaindepi, Abel. "The developmental state, social policy and social compacts: a comparative policy analysis of the South African case." Thesis, Rhodes University, 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1013278.
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The history of economic thought is ‘flooded’ with neo-classical accounts despite the fact that neoclassical economics did not occupy history alone. This has caused the discourses on ‘lost alternatives’ to be relegated as the deterministic ‘straight line’ neo-classical historical discourses are elevated. Globally hegemonic neo-classical discourse aided this phenomenon as it served to subordinate any counterhegemonic local discursive processes towards alternatives. This study is premised on the theme of non-neoclassical ‘lost alternatives’ using the post-apartheid South Africa as a case study. Emerging from the apartheid regime, the impetus towards non-neoclassical redistributive policies was strong in South Africa but this did not gain traction as the ANC’s ‘growth through redistribution’ was replaced by globally hegemonic discourse which favoured ‘redistribution through growth’. This thesis postulates the idea of two waves of ‘internal’ discursive formations; capturing the transition to democracy up to 1996 as the first wave and the period from 2005 to about 2009 as the second wave. The developmental state paradigm (DSP) emerged as the central heterodox paradigm with ideas such as industrial policy, welfare, and social dialogue/compacts being main elements. The DSP was expressly chosen in the early 1990s, the first period of strong internal discursive formation, but faded as neo-classical policies, epitomised through GEAR, dominated the policy space. The DSP discourse gained vitality in the second wave of internal discursive formation (2005-2009) and it was associated with the subsequent Zuma’s administration. The study illustrates that the DSP has failed to be fully developed into a practical framework but remained only at rhetorical level with the phrase ‘developmental state’ inserted into government policy documents and documents of ANC as a ruling party. The thesis further illustrates that the DSP fared well ideologically because of its inclination to the ideology of ‘developmentalism’ tended to trump any socialist inclined policies such as a generous welfare regime. The thesis rebuts the notion of the DSP in South Africa which has only been amorphously developed with the phrase ‘developmental state’ becoming a mere buzzword. The thesis argues that the DSP in the 21st century is much more complex and the growing ‘tertiarisation’ of the economy makes the Social Democratic Paradigm SDP’s capability centric approach much more relevant for South Africa. The study goes further to argue that a (SDP) is much more suitable alternative for addressing South African colonial/apartheid legacies and consolidation of democracy.
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Grenier, Paola Marie. "Role and significance of social entrepreneurship in UK social policy." Thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London), 2008. http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/2181/.
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This thesis examines the role and significance of the idea and practice of 'social entrepreneurship' within UK social policy between 1980 and 2006. Social entrepreneurship came to policy prominence in 1997 with the election of New Labour. It promoted the role of individual social entrepreneurs as bringing about social innovation, and it held out the promise of contributing to social policy by revitalising poor communities, professionalising the voluntary sector, and reforming welfare. This study problematises the concept of 'social entrepreneurship', challenges its claim- bearing nature, and presents a more critical and in-depth analysis than is found in the existing research and practitioner literatures. It does this by adopting a social constructionist perspective to analyse the development, representation and enactment of social entrepreneurship as discourse and practice, drawing on a wide range of data from interviews, policy and organisational documents, academic texts, websites, and the media. The findings show that social entrepreneurship has neither given rise to the wide ranging innovations claimed nor resulted in coherent or systematic policy interventions. Rather, the idea of social entrepreneurship framed a convenient discourse within which to emphasise policy priorities centred on further incorporating a market orientation to addressing social needs, thereby extending the 'enterprise culture'. In contrast, the practice of social entrepreneurship took place primarily at the community level, involving the labelling and support of several thousand 'social entrepreneurs' who carried out small-scale social initiatives. The study identified four roles that social entrepreneurship plays in UK social policy, arising from the tensions between the market orientation of social entrepreneurship as an idea and its community oriented practice: celebrating the achievements of individuals; renegotiating welfare responsibilities through the 'active welfare subject'; creating a channel through which business can engage with community; and enabling government policy to respond to the particularism of the local.
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Vaganay, Arnaud. "Evidence-based policy or policy-based evidence? : the effect of policy commitment on government-sponsored evaluation in Britain (1997-2010)." Thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London), 2014. http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/1040/.
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In most mature welfare states, policy evaluations are sponsored by the very organisations that designed and implemented the intervention in the first place. Research in the area of clinical trials has consistently shown that this type of arrangement creates a moral hazard and may lead to overestimates of the effect of the treatment. Yet, no one so far has investigated whether social interventions were subject to such ‘confirmation bias’. The objective of this study was twofold. Firstly, it assessed the scientific credibility of a sample of government-sponsored pilot evaluations. Three common research prescriptions were considered: (a) the proportionality of timescales, (b) the representativeness of pilot sites; and (c) the completeness of outcome reporting. Secondly, it examined whether the known commitment of the government to a reform was associated with less credible evaluations. These questions were answered using a ‘meta-research’ methodology, which departs from the traditional interviews and surveys of agents that have dominated the literature so far. I developed the new PILOT dataset for that specific purpose. PILOT includes data systematically collected from over 230 pilot and experimental evaluations spanning 13 years of government-commissioned research in the UK (1997-2010) and four government departments (Department for Work and Pensions, Department for Education, Home Office and Ministry of Justice). PILOT was instrumental in (a) modeling pilot duration using event history analysis; (b) modeling pilot site selection using logistic regression; and (c) the systematic selection of six evaluation reports for qualitative content analysis. A total of 17 interviews with policy researchers were also conducted to inform the case study and the overall research design. The results show little overt evidence of crude bias or ‘bad’ design. On average, government-sponsored pilots (a) were based on timescales that were proportional to the scope of the research; (b) were not primarily designed with the aim of warranting representativeness; and (c) were rather comprehensively analysed in evaluation reports. In addition, the results indicate that the known commitment of the government to a reform had no significant effect on the selection of pilot sites and on the reporting of outcomes. However, it was associated with significantly shorter pilots. In conclusion, there is some evidence that the known commitment of a government to a reform is associated with less credible evaluations; however this effect is only tangible in the earlier stages of the research cycle. In this respect, sponsorship bias would appear to be more limited than in the context of industry-sponsored clinical trials. Policy recommendations are provided, as this project was severely hindered by important ‘black box’ issues and by the poor quality of evaluation reports.
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Puentes, German. "Unravelling the policy-making process : the case of Chilean poverty-alleviation policy." Thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London), 2009. http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/1048/.
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The thesis investigates the policy-making process underpinning the poverty-alleviation programmes created in Chile during the 1990s and the first part of the 2000s. Three programmes developed by the governing Concertacion Alliance during this period are selected. The un-researched characteristic of this subject in Chile is the main reason for choosing this topic. The thesis maps and explains the policy-making process of the three programmes, by identifying main events, actors and mechanisms behind the unfolding of events. Data is obtained from 32 interviews applied to key process actors to obtain their narratives of the processes. The Multiple Streams Model of the policy-making process is employed as theoretical framework. Results highlight that the processes occur in a highly closed fashion inside government. The main actors involved are the President and his ministers who are able to command the events that lead to the creation of a new programme. The political stream plays a fundamental role in the process as the pro-equity approach of the governing coalition creates a window of opportunity for the introduction of poverty-alleviation programmes. The problems stream is also important, thanks to the availability of poverty statistics that are produced every two years by the Concertacion Alliance governments. However, the processes differ from the Multiple Streams Model as no independent policy stream was found to exist. Instead, solutions are created by governments in a punctuated manner and during a short timeframe to accomplish political deadlines, when the government considers that the problem deserves to be addressed. The absence of a policy stream is explained by the policy monopoly that the government enjoys in the poverty arena, where no policy contestants exist. In particular, Chilean social policy experts constitute a small and non-articulated group of individuals usually excluded from the policymaking process, enabling the government to ignore them.
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Weinreich, Heidi Marie. "Burnout among National Association of Social Workers Healthcare Social Workers." ScholarWorks, 2015. https://scholarworks.waldenu.edu/dissertations/611.
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Burnout is a common occurrence for many healthcare social workers, though little academic literature addresses the impacts of the organizational environment on burnout among healthcare social workers. The purpose of this correlational study was to evaluate what organizational factors predict burnout in the healthcare environment while considering sociodemographic and organizational factors. An adaptation of Maslach's multidimensional theory of burnout served as the framework for this study. Surveys were distributed to members of the National Association of Social Workers who are employed in healthcare environments, resulting in a sample size of 237 useable responses. A multiple linear regression statistical analysis indicated that workload, reward, values, and level of care predicted emotional exhaustion, and therefore the potential for burnout (p < .001). Findings were consistent with the theoretical framework employed. Policy implications include the need for healthcare environments to develop standard operating procedures to address organizational barriers for social workers that contribute to social workers burnout. Implications for social change include an identified need to address burnout through healthcare organizations, professional associations, and academia using education, intervention, and policy.
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Quinn, Orlaigh. "How effective are social policy state agencies on the government's policy agenda?" Thesis, Queen's University Belfast, 2006. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.437539.
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Crowther, C. P. "The 'underclass' debate : the police policy process and the social construction of order." Thesis, University of Sheffield, 1997. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.265163.
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Brass, Kate. "Social exclusion : contested meanings, policy and experience." Thesis, University of Ballarat, 2009. http://researchonline.federation.edu.au/vital/access/HandleResolver/1959.17/32069.
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"This thesis takes a critical inquiry approach to the concept of social exclusion, which has become a prevalent feature of the contemporary social policy lexicon ... [the] study takes an innovative methodological approach in that it explores and makes visible the diverse and contradictory meanings that practitioners and community members hold for social exclusion, and gives those meanings equal stature with the views of academic researchers and policy makers, as they are represented in the scholarly research literature and associated policy documents."Doctor of Philosophy
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Armstrong, Kenneth A. "Governing social inclusion : Europeanization through policy coordination." Thesis, University of Glasgow, 2010. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/3109/.
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Spash, Clive L. "Policy analysis: Empiricism, social construction and realism." Österreichische Gesellschaft für Politikwissenschaft (ÖGPW), 2014. http://epub.wu.ac.at/5783/1/Spash_2014_OZP_Policy%2Danalysis.pdf.
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In a recent article Ulrich Brand has discussed how best to perform policy analysis. I reflect upon the paper as an interdisciplinary researcher experienced in public policy problems and their analysis with a particular interest in the relationship between social, economic and environmental problems. At the centre of the paper is the contrast between two existing methodologies prevalent in political science and related disciplines. One is the rationalist approach, which takes on the character of a natural science, that believes in a fully knowable objective reality which can be observed by an independent investigator. The other is a strong social constructivist position called interpretative policy analysis (IPA), where knowledge and meaning become so intertwined as to make independence of the observer from the observed impossible and all knowledge highly subjective. Brand then offers his model as a way forward, but one that he closely associates with the latter. My contention is that policy analysis, and any way forward, needs to provide more of a transformative combination of elements from both approaches. Indeed I believe this is actually what Brand is doing.
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Han, Jun. "Social marketisation and policy change in China." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2017. https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:3cb46b9e-b2ec-448c-9170-9c261f4b3a73.
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What kinds of social organisations (SOs) are more likely to succeed in promoting policy change? How and why can some SOs promote policy change in China? This thesis argues that the emerging tendency of social marketisation - social entrepreneurship and government purchase of services from SOs - can empower social organisations to facilitate policy change from the government. Based on three survey databases, this research shows that when social organisations become social enterprises or obtained government contracts for purchasing services, their likelihoods of success in promoting policy change increased and their influence on government policy making improved, after controlling for other resource and institutional factors. This research subsequently draws upon two in-depth case studies on Nonprofit Incubator (NPI) and China Foundation Centre (CFC) to demonstrate how social organisations can use entrepreneurial and marketised strategies to promote the emergence and spread of five new government policies in China. The underlying mechanism of their successes is the formation of social organisation chains (SOCs), which consist of infrastructure, financial, support, and operational organisations. The formation of SOCs created positive social change. Positive social change facilitated policy change. This study further applies the perspective of SOCs to examine how the three local states (Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen) re-regulate the social organisation sector, and reveals a wider applicability of SOCs at the city level. Finally, this thesis has discussed the relations between social marketisation and other significant theoretical and practical issues. The contribution of this thesis is that it finds a positive relationship between social marketisation and policy change in China, and reveals the process and the underlying mechanism.
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Lowe, Allyson M. "Social policy negotiation in the European Union /." The Ohio State University, 2002. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1486462067843427.
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Jamal, Mayeda. "Creation of social exclusion in policy and practice." Doctoral thesis, Stockholm : Economic Research Institute, Stockholm School of Economics (EFI), 2009. http://www2.hhs.se/efi/summary/800.htm.
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Deiters, Maximilian. "Policy receptiveness as a determinant of policy effectiveness:German child care and women’s transition to first birth." Thesis, Stockholms universitet, Sociologiska institutionen, 2017. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:su:diva-152788.
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Current micro-level studies on the effect of formal child care on fertility behavior cannot establish an indisputable positive link. Especially in Germany’s policy context however, such a link is crucial to en-hance the legitimacy of the more recent but long overdue policy turnaround towards the dual-earner model. The results of this paper illustrate the reliance of policy success on an alignment of preferences presupposed by the implemented policy and preferences prevalent within the exposed population. Preferences central to driving policy success are distinguished by women’s receptiveness to such policy in terms of policy applicability and acceptability. The approach is empirically tested by means of Event-History analysis of German women’s first-birth transition based on the German Pairfam panel data set. The results indicate that if formal child care options are provided to 1) women who desire to reconcile family and career, or are provided to 2) women who are open to give their child into formal care, the provision of child care is a significant factor in stimulating women’s transition to first birth. On the contrary, women with career- or family-foci and women averse to formal care are not stimulated by the provision of formal care options. From the results I conclude that a continued expansion of formal child care will aid in overcoming lowest-low fertility by providing child care to those who are receptive to it and promoting a timelier motherhood image to women who are still averse to it.
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Corrie, Elizabeth M. "Social development and social policy in Guinea : health and education 1958-1984." Thesis, University of Nottingham, 1988. http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/13702/.
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Guinea, a former French colony, experienced an abrupt severing of relationships with the colonial power when President Sékou Touré rejected De Gaulle’s offer of becoming part of a French commonwealth of nations and opted for total independence instead. France withdrew all support, trade and personnel within a matter of days, and Sékou Touré attempted to develop this new nation along strongly independent and ideological lines. He made a verbal commitment to social development and evolved an ambitious programme to develop the health and education services. This thesis uses dependency theory as a tool of analysis to ascertain whether independent, autonomous development indeed took place, particularly in the fields of health and education, once the break with the metropolis was made. The period under review, 1958 - 1984, was the period of Sékou Touré’s presidency. The four criteria used to assess the measure of development achieved are: a) The successful rejection of Western models of development. b) Equal development and an equal distribution of resources between the regions. c) No urban/rural imbalance. d) Services available for all rather than limited to an elite. In the light of these criteria, Guinea was indeed able to experience some measure of independent, autonomous development, more particularly in education. The health sector had been less developed as only 2.1% of the national budget was devoted to it in 1981, compared to 17.6% spent on education in 1980. The inequalities in the health service were particularly noticeable in the urban/rural imbalance, Conakry in particular enjoying a larger share of available resources, but this was not the case in education where no such imbalance appeared to exist. The area of Labé emerged as the least developed area of the country but the discrepancies in provision were not too marked. Guinea also achieved much in the promotion of women and the eradication of elites, especially among the different ethnic groups. With the death of President Sékou Touré in 1984, Guinea's experimenting with a revolutionary form of development came to an end. The nation's future, now in the hands of the military, is uncertain.
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Richards, Benjamin. "National identity and social cohesion : theory and evidence for British social policy." Thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London), 2013. http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/910/.
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Arguments that a national identity could create a sense of social unity, solidarity and cohesion in a national group have a long tradition in social and political theory. J. S. Mill, for instance, argued that “the boundaries of governments should coincide in the main with those of nationalities” because a state with several nationalities is one in which members are “artificially tied together” (2001, 288). In Britain in the 2000s these arguments resurfaced in public and political discourse through a distancing from multiculturalism, which was increasingly seen as divisive, and a new emphasis on national unity and social cohesion through the promotion of British identity. There is, however, a lack of empirical research in Britain on what the relationship between national identity and social cohesion might actually be, and the strength of the relationship as compared with other issues that might also be important for social cohesion. This mixed-methods thesis attempts to address the research gap both through analysis of the Citizenship Survey covering England and Wales, and through semi-structured interviews with respondents of Black-African and Black-Caribbean ethnicity in an area of London. I argue first that the type of national identity in question is of crucial importance; a distinction between constitutional patriotism, civic national identity, and ethnic national identity is helpful, and evidence suggests the latter form may in fact be detrimental to some aspects of social cohesion. Second, I argue that social cohesion might be better broken up into two separate concepts – one referring to a commitment to certain of the state’s institutions (termed ‘institutional cohesion’), and the other to associational types of behaviour (termed ‘associational cohesion’) – since the correlates of each of the two concepts are rather different and their separation would resolve many of the confusions in academic and public discussions of social cohesion. Third, I find evidence to suggest that British identity may be of more relevance for the associational type of cohesion than the institutional type, but overall both British and English identity are of marginal relevance for social cohesion as compared to education, deprivation, and perceptions of discrimination. This suggests that attempts to use British identity as a tool to create unity and cohesion in the context of increasing diversity may not work or even be counterproductive; issues of inequality and discrimination may be much more important to address. Fourth, I reflect on the extent to which issues of unity and cohesion at the level of the nation-state are still relevant in the context of identity politics on the one hand, and processes of globalisation on the other. I argue that nation-states, for the time being, remain important sites of redistribution and reference points for perceptions of equality; to the extent that these issues are important for social cohesion, nation-states are therefore important too.
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Taylor, Helen. "Rawls' 'difference principle' : a test for social justice in contemporary social policy." Thesis, Cardiff University, 2017. http://orca.cf.ac.uk/100700/.
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This thesis addresses a number of topics which are not normally combined: John Rawls, homelessness, and social policy. The research is a piece of applied philosophy which seeks to address claims about a disconnection between philosophical frameworks and tangible political problems. It argues that there is a role for philosophers, and philosophical frameworks, within the policy-making process. By applying philosophy to policy we can create normative accounts of the development and impact of legislation. The philosophical framework used within this research is John Rawls’ conception of justice as fairness. The work outlines the liberal principle of legitimacy and argues that Rawls’ concept of reasonableness can, and should, be used to justify the intervention of policy in individuals’ lives. The concept of reasonableness can be used as a regulatory mechanism in order to test whether social policy meets a standard of social justice. The metric used for this standard is whether the worst off in society have the capacity to create and pursue a conception of the good, a central capability of citizens as effective agents. Through modifying or emphasising certain Rawlsian concepts, the research develops the Difference Principle as a regulatory test to be applied to social policy. The final part of the research provides this initial application. The Housing (Wales) Act is used as a case study to assess whether the test as developed is able to create normative interpretations of specific pieces of legislation. It identifies a particular legal tool – the Pereira Test – as problematic on a normative account. The application of the Difference Principle demonstrates that this particular legal tool undermines individuals’ ability to safeguard their fundamental interests, and their capacity to create and pursue a conception of the good.
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PANARO, Angelo Vito. "Dictatorships and social policy : the logic of social spending in authoritarian regimes." Doctoral thesis, Scuola Normale Superiore, 2021. http://hdl.handle.net/11384/105968.
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Kelly, Jon Edward. "Social policy in Ontario : the politics of accommodation." Thesis, University of Edinburgh, 1985. http://hdl.handle.net/1842/24035.
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Button, David B. "Canadian Forces families : social impacts of accommodation policy." Thesis, University of British Columbia, 1988. http://hdl.handle.net/2429/27849.
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Since World War II the Canadian military community has evolved to meet the needs of a permanent military force and has changed from the preserve of the single male to include women and families. Thus the Department of National Defence (DND) has become concerned with the welfare of military families as an integral part of military preparedness.
A variety of accommodation policies were formulated and programs established to satisfy the needs of these families who worked and lived in such a unique environment. These policies and programs have emphasised housing and related infrastructure, and included both physical and social services. They have, in part, enabled DND to relieve many family related problems despite the disruptive lifestyle.
However, as a result of evolutionary changes in the Canadian Forces, the lifestyle of Canadians and the general economic situation, concern has arisen that current DND policies relating to housing and service provision may no longer be appropriate or effective.
This thesis looks at the lifestyle and unique difficulties of military families in order to evaluate the social impacts on the families resulting from accommodation policy. Although the general question of whether DND should even be in the business of creating and maintaining its own communities is complex and requires the consideration of many factors, this thesis limits itself to the social impacts of accommodation policies. Since it is generally perceived that social concerns have received limited consideration in the past, this thesis develops a framework to consider and include such concerns. This is done through: secondary research of analogous civilian communities and other military communities; primary data from recent DND family studies; informal interviews with families and decision-makers in the military community; and, the personal experience of the author as a member of the military community.
There are four main findings. First, a framework based on Lichfield's Planning Balance Sheet methodology is a suitable and appropriate tool for assisting decision-makers in making informed choices. Second, the creation of a Non-Public Housing Society responding to DND but operated at arms-length, is seen as a viable housing policy alternative which deserves further study. Third, the social impacts on military families resulting from the municipalization of physical services are not significant. And fourth,.; social services when provided internally appear more successful.
The unique lifestyle of military families is linked to operational effectiveness and military preparedness through the work/family environment. The importance of social planning on this interface is emphasized to encourage decision-makers to explicitly incorporate social planning into the decision-making process. The Planning Balance Sheet methodology is suggested as an appropriate one for this purpose.Applied Science, Faculty of
Community and Regional Planning (SCARP), School of
Graduate
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Kastner, Andrea Frances. "Lifelong education and social policy : ideals and realities." Thesis, University of British Columbia, 1988. http://hdl.handle.net/2429/28080.
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Many claims have been made about the potential of Lifelong Education, when implemented as a social policy, to bring about a more just society. However, the assumptions underlying these and similar claims have seldom been critically scrutinized. For this reason, there is in the literature a concern that the concept of the "learning society" simply means lifelong schooling and is the rhetoric of social control. In this view, the potential of Lifelong Education as a transformative force for the development of a participator}' democracy and a more equitable distribution of resources remains a Utopian vision.
In this work, an analysis of the assumptions, it was expected, would bring to light the ideological position embedded in Lifelong Education as a social policy tool.
This research therefore, offers a systematic critical analysis of the expected outcomes of Lifelong Education policies. This required the development of a theoretical framework which built upon: 1.) Paulston's model of social change; 2.) Rawls' and others' concepts of justice and equality; and 3.) perspectives on the role of education in society outlined by Aronowitz and Giroux. This framework was employed to analyze 1.) selected publications of UNESCO on Lifelong Education, 2.) Canadian Association for Adult Education and Canadian Commission for UNESCO documents, and 3.) contemporary Canadian federal and provincial education policies. The findings of this analysis were compared with various models of social policy.
Five principle findings emerged from the study. First, the literature, for the most part, reflects a view of society characterized by homogeneit3' and consensus. The model of social change is evolutional, and avoids the structural conflict perspectives. Second, a number of assumptions are made concerning some elements of a theory of justice, but no unified comprehensive theory of justice supports the literature's claims. Third, adopted in the literature is an ideal view of the role of Lifelong Education as a means of producing change in society. The absence of a critical perspective leaves Lifelong Education in the role of reproducing inequalities in society, vulnerable to application as a mechanism of manipulation rather than emancipation. Fourth, the social policy models implied by the literature are not models which are significantly redistributive in their aims. Finally, projected normative outcomes such as "the good society", "improved quality of life", and "a more just society" lack precise definition thereby leaving unexpressed the ideological position on which they are premised. This deprives the field the means of evaluating these policies.
It is argued that if the role of educators in the development of democratic active participation of citizens in the collective formation of public policy is to be taken seriously, the ideological position of Lifelong Education must be more carefully defined and developed so that citizens can reflect on its principles, compare them with alternate ideological positions, and make their choices from this more informed position.Education, Faculty of
Educational Studies (EDST), Department of
Graduate
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Rogers, David Shaun. "Internal Social Media Policy in the Finance Industry." Thesis, Walden University, 2018. http://pqdtopen.proquest.com/#viewpdf?dispub=10749173.
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Business leaders may see social media as a distraction for their workers; however, blocking access could lead to a reduction in productivity. Using social media technologies with knowledge workers could achieve cost reductions for payroll of 30% to 35%. The purpose of this multiple case study was to explore how business leaders used a social media policy to support employee productivity. The conceptual framework for this study was social exchange theory, which supports the notion that dyad and small group interactions make up most interactions, and such interactions enhance employees’ productivity. The research question was to explore how finance industry leaders are using a social media policy to enhance productivity. The target population for this study was leaders from financial companies in Charlotte, North Carolina, who have experience in using social media policies to increase employee productivity. Data collection included semistructured interviews with 9 technology leaders and company documents at two companies related to the research phenomenon. Yin’s 5-step data analysis approach resulted in 3 themes: employee productivity, communication, and open company culture. Business leaders should consider using a social media policy to engage employees to support productivity, enhance communication both externally and internally, and enrich company culture in a way that is visible to employees. Employee engagement in a social media platform to connect and communicate with people could lead to a happier workplace and encourage employees to volunteer more frequently for social good.
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Pearse, Janet. "Ontario works : mothering and neo-liberal social policy." Thesis, McGill University, 2000. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=31039.
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In 1995 the Government of Ontario introduced reforms that significantly changed the way welfare was delivered in the province. Welfare rates were cut and benefits became conditional on recipients participating in a workfare programme called Ontario Works. These reforms ignore women's responsibility for child care. Single mothers and their children will be the group most affected by these changes. Single mothers are interviewed about how these changes have affected them, with particular attention to their experiences with the Ontario Works programme and its impact on their ability to care for their children.
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Doherty, Robert Anthony. "New Labour : governmentality, social exclusion and education policy." Thesis, University of Glasgow, 2011. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/2667/.
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This thesis critically explores the broad relationship between New Labour’s adoption of social exclusion as a policy concept and the outworking of this commitment within instances of policy directed at compulsory education. It presents and deploys Foucault’s idea of governmentality as a perspective from which to undertake critical policy analysis. It considers approaches to policy analysis and posits a layered model that looks to explicate levels and forms of power within the policy system; including a concern to integrate the place and function of policy texts. An account of the main dimensions of New Labour’s Third Way politics is developed, together with a broad account of New Labour’s attempts to govern compulsory education. Critical Discourse Analysis is applied to interpret and explain two texts posited as capturing a particular historical moment in New Labour’s adoption and commitment to a recognisable conceptualisation of social exclusion. A governmentality perspective is employed to analyse policy around social exclusion within the Third Way politics of New Labour following 1997. This analysis has a particular focus on how this social exclusion dimension was accommodated within the broader schematic of Third Way governmentality and how it interacted with and emerged within policy around compulsory education in the early years of New Labour. The analysis concludes that the social exclusion dimension of New Labour’s policy ambitions was present, but sublimated within the conflicted policy climate of compulsory education arising from New Labour’s distinctive governmentality.
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Gunn, Robert. "Young people's participation in social services policy making." Thesis, University of Leicester, 2002. http://hdl.handle.net/2381/4374.
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Young people are recognised as citizens with rights and competence to participate in decision making. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Children Act 1989 identifies their right to participate in social services decision making. Much of the published information on their participation has focused on involvement as individuals in case planning rather than as stakeholders in strategic policy making. This research examines how a particular organisation – social services – has responded to the participation rights of young people who are looked after. The thesis provides a critical review of current practice. It uncovers the extent of young people's participation in social services policy making and explores the perceptions of key stakeholder groups involved in the process. A national survey was used to elicit quantitative and qualitative information from a representative sample of social services departments. Semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders in the policy process provided data from three diverse case study sites. Overall, data confirmed that stakeholders did not recognise young people's right to participate. Social services were unclear about the basis of their relationship with young people in the policy process; this confusion undermined young people's ability to influence policy decisions. Findings also showed that the power of managers in departments constrained the ability of young people to shape policy. Consumerism, rather than rights, was the underlying principle which defined participation as service-led rather than user-led. In light of these findings, which emphasise the dissonance between the theory of participation and its practice, a number of recommendations are made at national and organisational level to improve the quality of young people's participation.
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Cook, Anne Patricia. "Social policy and the colonial economy in Guyana." Thesis, University of Surrey, 1985. http://epubs.surrey.ac.uk/2080/.
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Callender, Claire. "Gender and social policy : women's redundancy and unemployment." Thesis, Cardiff University, 1988. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.293017.
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Majidi, Ghani. "Fiscal policy and social security reform in Iran." Thesis, University of Essex, 2008. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.446044.
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Abuelgasim, Ammar. "Automating user privacy policy recommendations in social media." Master's thesis, University of Cape Town, 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/20969.
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Most Social Media Platforms (SMPs) implement privacy policies that enable users to protect their sensitive information against privacy violations. However, observations indicate that users find these privacy policies cumbersome and difficult to configure. Consequently, various approaches have been proposed to assist users with privacy policy configuration. These approaches are however, limited to either protecting only profile attributes, or only protecting user-generated content. This is problematic, because both profile attributes and user-generated content can contain sensitive information. Therefore, protecting one without the other, can still result in privacy violations. A further drawback of existing approaches is that most require considerable user input which is time consuming and inefficient in terms of privacy policy configuration. In order to address these problems, we propose an automated privacy policy recommender system. The system relies on the expertise of existing social media users, as well as the user's privacy policy history in order to provide him/her with personalized privacy policy suggestions for both profile attributes, and user-generated content. Results from our prototype implementation indicate that the proposed recommender system provides accurate privacy policy suggestions, with minimum user input.
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Mink, Tarin L. "Using Service Learning to Teach Social Welfare Policy." The Ohio State University, 2009. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1243281610.
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Henshaw, Thomas. "Agricultural Social Infrastructure: People, Policy, and Community Development." The Ohio State University, 2015. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1448376064.
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Petersen, Alan R. "Alcohol, social policy and the state in Australia." Thesis, Petersen, Alan R. (1987) Alcohol, social policy and the state in Australia. PhD thesis, Murdoch University, 1987. https://researchrepository.murdoch.edu.au/id/eprint/51301/.
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This thesis examines policy and policy-making in the area of alcohol abuse and drink-driving in Australia. It aims to challenge dominant ideologies about alcohol abuse and to show how these ideologies inform and constrain social action. The thesis develops a specific theoretical analysis to account for approaches to policy-making by the state and to show, in particular, how these have become manifest in the development of a policy on drinking and driving in the state of Victoria. The most general and distinguishing feature of policy development in the alcohol area, it is contended, is the influence of medical ideology which sees social problems as arising from within the individual and also, most recently, in a philosophy which defines problems as the outcome of faulty life-styles. The major part of the thesis is concerned with showing how the focus on alcohol abuse is bound-up with 'individualization', and especially 'medicalization', of the problem of road traffic accidents and how this process has served to divert attention from an examination of the structural changes needed to overcome this problem. In conclusion, the thesis maps an alternative plan of action on alcohol-related problems. This plan will assist policy-makers. social workers and others working with the victims of alcohol abuse to exploit the 'contradictions' emerging within the late capitalist state.
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Bolesworth, Karen, and Susan Tufts. "Social welfare policy and the crisis of hunger." CSUSB ScholarWorks, 2001. https://scholarworks.lib.csusb.edu/etd-project/1891.
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The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 has lead to reduced welfare assistance to the needy. This thesis analyzes how families have become increasingly homeless and hungry during the welfare reform years.