Suchergebnisse

Intro -- Contents -- Acknowledgements -- List of Abbreviations -- Part 1. The Context of Change -- Preface to Part 1 -- 1. The Professional Project in the Context of Change -- 2. Modernity, Social Work and the Welfare State -- 3. Challenging Social Work: The Economics of Change -- 4. Challenging Social Work: The Politics of Change -- 5. Challenging Social Work: The Ideas of Change -- 6. Re-constructing Practitioners -- 7. Re-constructing Service Users -- Part 2. Options for Social Work -- Preface to Part 2 -- 8. Entrepreneurial Social Work -- 9. Evidence-Based Practice -- 10. Critical Practice -- 11. Global Social Work -- 12. Thinking Our Way Forward -- Bibliography -- Index.

Children's poverty has long been a central concern for policy makers and policy researchers. The body of extant research conducted and the range of programmatic interventions undertaken by successive governments in this and other countries is extraordinary. Nevertheless, children remain in poverty. Clearly there are many reasons for this, not least of which is the maintenance and intensification of market capitalism with its attendant blatant inequalities. Even so, the moral, political, social and economic imperatives for developing workable responses to children's poverty remain. This paper argues that we, in Australia, should adopt an approach increasingly taken in the UK. Drawing on, among other things, the new sociology of childhood, this approach begins not with the expertise of adult researchers and policy makers, but with that of children. In doing so, the case is made for why children's perceptions and experiences of poverty are key concerns for policy. The paper outlines in theoretical terms why children's voices matter. Invoking the new sociology of childhood and the sociology of identity, a conceptual framework for understanding why policy scholars and makers should carefully attend to the voices of their subjects is sketched – in this case, the subjects are children. Finally, some methodological implications of this for undertaking policy research informed by this approach are outlined.

This article draws out one of the core reasons why children should be conceived as active agents in research, particularly policy‐related research. The main thesis is that policy inevitably projects and, to an extent, constitutes the subject identities of its intended objects — in this case, that of 'children'. Drawing on several bodies of theory — the 'new' sociology of childhood, identity theory, 'governmentality' and theories of discourse — the article shows why not incorporating children's voices is a problem for social policy, and suggests that the impact of their exclusion has the potential to render policy both inappropriate and non‐responsive.

The welfare state regime operative in Australia is highly dependent on the non‐profit human services sector. The sector, as an organisational field, has had a series of characteristics applied to it, which assume its superiority over government in many aspects of service delivery. Nevertheless, knowledge about the internal functioning of non‐profits is poor. This article presents an initial exploration into one aspect of internal functioning, internal monitoring and control, suggesting that internal mechanisms for control are weak. As welfare state regimes in Europe and North America are restructured, different models of service financing and delivery are being imported into Australia. This article begins to sketch the organisational conditions onto which developing models are being applied, providing an initial base for informed commentary and evaluation.

Recent developments in the environment surrounding the nonprofit human services sector in Australia have been viewed with some concern, especially given the role of the sector within the Australian welfare state. This paper reviews these developments, noting that some are less visible than others, and that the process of change is more widespread than often perceived. By explicitly employing a theoretical framework derived from organisational theory the paper argues that the contemporary experience of the sector, characterised as the existing institutional order of the field, is set to undergo substantial revision as it is incorporated within an emerging new institutional order of the market and the state as market.

AbstractInternationally, nonprofit organizations are being held to account for how they spend public funds. This issue of accountability has emerged as a theme in nonprofit‐state relationships. Exploring the state side of that relationship in Australia, the author suggests that significant constraints hinder the ability of state funding bodies to manage accountability processes for grant funds. The interviews summarized and reported here were conducted before the full impact of a contract regime was felt. The issues identified permit reflection on the possible mediating impact of different political systems on accountability processes, and on the limitations of principal‐agent frameworks in building accountability processes and state‐nonprofit relations.