Suchergebnisse

I develop "personalized social policy" as a speculative exercise to examine the possibility that policy makers and service providers, making decisions under conditions of uncertainty, could use genetic information to divide clients into "treatment groups" receiving differential service goods to better meet individual needs or achieve efficiency. Using real and hypothetical examples from genetics and social services, I show how personalized social policy might work and discuss its implications for the practical organization and theoretical justification of social policy. The analysis suggests that behavior genetics could dramatically impact social policy, not by sowing fatalism about change, but by offering specific, practical tools that would reorganize the institutional and professional composition of social services delivery and bolster functionalist rationales for social welfare. Policy analysts should focus on specific ways genetic information might affect policy decisions to prepare proactive responses should the prospect of personalized social policy become a reality.

In contrast to the audience in most of the world, New Yorkers experienced the events of 9/11 as more than symbolic images. Indeed, the experiential and practical foundations of New Yorkers' cultural existences were transformed in the wake of 9/11, at least temporarily. The weeks following the crisis were spent coming to terms with what happened; making meaning in practical, interpersonal, and historico-political terms; and interpreting and manipulating a new flood of experiences and practices made possible by the newly problematic order of daily life. This article documents the significant, though now largely forgotten, shifts in the cultural experience of living in New York City to trace the eventual construction of "normalcy" and its attendant hegemonic and political meanings.