Social Policy and Policymaking by the Branches of Government and the Public-at-Large
Social Policy and Policymaking by the Branches of Government and the Public-at-Large

Author: Theodore J. Stein

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 2001-03-08

Total Pages: 536

ISBN-13: 9780231529181

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An essential resource for students of social policy and social welfare as well as for social welfare practitioners and other human services professionals, this text examines the policymaking activity of the different branches of the American government and of the public-at-large as well as the interactions between the branches of government and the general public in the formation and implementation of social policy. In addition to examining the role of the legislative and executive branches of government, Theodore J. Stein covers the often-overlooked role of the judiciary in policymaking. He addresses the ways social welfare practitioners should interpret (1) conflicting judicial rulings in cases where courts of equal jurisdiction rule differently on the same matter and (2) judicial rulings that signal significant changes in the law. The book looks at politics, practice, and implementation and provides a historical background of social policy and social work practice plus a wealth of descriptive and analytic information concerning policymaking processes, specific social policies, and the effect of social policy on social programs.

The Globalization of Childhood
The Globalization of Childhood

Author: Robyn Linde

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2016-06-24

Total Pages: 329

ISBN-13: 0190631562

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How does an idea that forms in the minds of a few activists in one part of the world become a global norm that nearly all states obey? How do human rights ideas spread? In this book, Robyn Linde tracks the diffusion of a single human rights norm: the abolition of the death penalty for child offenders under the age of 18. The norm against the penalty diffused internationally through law--specifically, criminal law addressing child offenders, usually those convicted of murder or rape. Through detailed case studies and a qualitative, comparative approach to national law and practice, Linde argues that children played an important--though little known--role in the process of state consolidation and the building of international order. This occured through the promotion of children as international rights holders and was the outcome of almost two centuries of activism. Through an innovative synthesis of prevailing theories of power and socialization, Linde shows that the growth of state control over children was part of a larger political process by which the liberal state (both paternal and democratic) became the only model of acceptable and legitimate statehood and through which newly minted international institutions would find purpose. The book offers insight into the origins, spread, and adoption of human rights norms and law by elucidating the roles and contributions of principled actors and norm entrepreneurs at different stages of diffusion, and by identifying a previously unexplored pattern of change whereby resistant states were brought into compliance with the now global norm against the child death penalty. From the institutions and legacy of colonialism to the development and promotion of the global child--a collection of related, still changing norms of child welfare and protection--Linde demonstrates how a specifically Western conception of childhood and ideas about children shaped the current international system.

Children and Youth During the Gilded Age and Progressive Era
Children and Youth During the Gilded Age and Progressive Era

Author: James Marten

Publisher: NYU Press

Published: 2014-09-26

Total Pages: 310

ISBN-13: 1479894141

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In the decades after the Civil War, urbanization, industrialization, and immigration marked the start of the Gilded Age, a period of rapid economic growth but also social upheaval. Reformers responded to the social and economic chaos with a “search for order,” as famously described by historian Robert Wiebe. Most reformers agreed that one of the nation’s top priorities should be its children and youth, who, they believed, suffered more from the disorder plaguing the rapidly growing nation than any other group. Children and Youth during the Gilded Age and Progressive Era explores both nineteenth century conditions that led Progressives to their search for order and some of the solutions applied to children and youth in the context of that search. Edited by renowned scholar of children’s history James Marten, the collection of eleven essays offers case studies relevant to educational reform, child labor laws, underage marriage, and recreation for children, among others. Including important primary documents produced by children themselves, the essays in this volume foreground the role that youth played in exerting agency over their own lives and in contesting the policies that sought to protect and control them.

The New Deal and American Youth
The New Deal and American Youth

Author: Richard A. Reiman

Publisher: University of Georgia Press

Published: 2010-06-01

Total Pages: 264

ISBN-13: 0820336963

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When President Franklin Roosevelt formed the National Youth Administration (NYA) in June 1935, he declared that it would address "the most pressing and immediate needs" of American young people. In this book Richard A. Reiman explores the various, and sometimes conflicting, ways in which the NYA planners and administrators defined those needs and attempted to answer them. As Reiman notes, the NYA was established to assist the millions of youth who, during the Depression years, were out of school, out of work, and ineligible for the New Deal's own Civilian Conservation Corps. Contrary to popular belief, he argues, New Dealers did not envision the NYA primarily as a "junior WPA," a trigger for civil rights reform, or a springboard for the careers of liberal administrators. Rather, its designers saw it as a reform agency that would advance and protect democracy by countering totalitarian appeals to young people and by equalizing educational opportunities for rich and poor. Woven into the successive drafts establishing the NYA, these twin purposes united the programs of planners as disparate as Aubrey W. Williams, Mary McLeod Bethune, John Studebaker, Eleanor Roosevelt, Charles Taussig, and FDR himself. Like their separate agendas, Reiman shows, the planners' shared concerns for democratic values were the products of thinking that had arisen during the Progressive Era - a time when an awareness of the social effects of child development first occurred. During the 1930s, fears of fascism and totalitarianism added fuel to these concerns and shaped much of the nature of the NYA's prewar appeal. Based on a wide range of sources, including NYA-related documents at the National Archives and at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, The New Deal and American Youth is the first full-length study of this important agency. By showing how the NYA served as an instrument for realizing so many New Deal ambitions, it offers rich insights into both the NYA and the New Deal.

The Family in America [2 volumes]
The Family in America [2 volumes]

Author: Joseph M. Hawes

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 2002-05-22

Total Pages: 1108

ISBN-13: 1576077039

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An incisive, multidisciplinary look at the American family over the past 200 years, written by respected scholars and researchers. Family in America offers two powerful antidotes to popular misconceptions about American family life: historical perspective and scientific objectivity. When we look back at our early history, we discover that the idealized 1950s family—characterized by a rising birthrate, a stable divorce rate, and a declining age of marriage—was a historical aberration, out of line with long-term historical trends. Working mothers, we learn, are not a 20th century invention; most families throughout American history have needed more than one breadwinner. In the exciting new scholarship described here, readers will learn precisely what is new in American family life and what is not, and acquire the perspective they need to appreciate both the genuine improvements and the losses that come with change.