Social Policy

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Giddens

Four practical benefits of sociology:

An understanding of the world

Heightened awareness of the needs of individuals

Assessment of what works - evidence based policy.

Increase personal knowledge of ourselves to others.

E.G. Amnesty International aims to bring about reform of existing policies. when sociologists do research, they often reveal unintended consequences of social policies. This can be patterned differences for different social groups.

Social Policy = Government trying to help

Social Policies = well-being of citizens e.g. pensions, unemployment benefit, education, health.

Ideas for policy created by government, political parties and pressure groups.

Social policy depends on which political party is in power i.e. Conservatives or Labour.

Generally done by government agencies.

Also done by Charities (Joseph Rowntree Foundation) and University Departments.

Quantitative Statistical Data - to find social trends e.g. unemployment rates, population growth, inequality.

Qualitative Date - This is taken to get insights into causes of social problems & how to deal with them e.g. poverty and crime.

Social policy is useful as it gives policy makers insight how to deal with social problems.

Empirical evidence gathered by Townsend (1979) and Mack and Lansley (1985) showed that poverty was a hidden problem.

Sociologists reckoned they worked out why some social groups were vulnerable to poverty.

Social Democrats = inadequate welfare system.

New Right = reliance on an over generous welfare system.

These theories and empirical data guided social policy. Sociology and social policy has a close connect - Frank Field (1989, 1996) wrote about the underclass as a group denied citizenship rights, between 1997-98 he was a social policy maker for Labour government.

Giddens work on the Third way influenced the Labour Government.

Charles Murray and his work on the underclass, which was effective on the New Right Consevative Governments of the 1980's - Thatcher and Raegan.

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