Description
As a social worker, often you need to use your policy advocacy skills to ensure that your clients are receiving the services that they need. Although you may tend to think of policy advocacy skills as separate from your clinical social work skills, they are very similar.
Think of the skills that you would use in working with a client such as Jake Levy. How could you apply these skills to policy advocacy? How will you use these skills to identify the policy and social problems that are impacting these families?
In this week’s Discussion, you will continue to follow the Levy, Bradley, Petrakis, and Cortez families to start the process of policy advocacy.
In this Discussion, select one of the four integrated videos and identify the problems experienced by the client(s).
Post your responses to the following: (Use subheadings and 1 additional APA peer reviewed reference and be detailed in response.) (Jake Levy is client. Use sub-heading, be detailed in response and use 1 additional APA reference)
- Who is defining the problem?
- What values are reflected in this definition of the problem?
- What is being omitted in this definition?
- What other problems do you see that are not being acknowledged?
Reference
Jansson, B. S. (2018). Becoming an effective policy advocate: From policy practice to social justice. (8th ed.). Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole Cengage Learning Series.
- Chapter 7, “Analyzing Problems in the First Step of Policy Analysis” (pp. 204-243)
Laureate Education. (Producer). (2013). Levy (Episode 7 of 42) [Video file]. In Sessions. Retrieved from https://class.waldenu.edu
****************************************************************************************
Identification of a Social Problem
As an astute social worker and professional policy advocate, you must be adept at identifying social problems that exist in your community or in an agency or organization with which you are acquainted.
In this assignment, identifying and describing a current social problem.
Address the following items within your group discussion:
- Describe a current social problem. How might this problem be incongruent with social work values/ethics?
- How/when has this problem been identified historically, and what were the actions taken to address this concern?
- How have the groups affected by this concern changed over time?
Reference
Jansson, B. S. (2018). Becoming an effective policy advocate: From policy practice to social justice. (8th ed.). Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole Cengage Learning Series.
- Chapter 7, “Analyzing Problems in the First Step of Policy Analysis” (pp. 204-243)
Midgley, J., & Livemore, M. M.(Eds). (2008). Te handbook of social policy (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Chapter 14, “Critical Social Policy” (pp. 215-235) (PDF)
Critical
Social Pol icy
Demetrius 5. /atridis
.”I
1lf’
ore and more in the new millennium, critical social policy is reflected
~in the discourse of social science-and in social policy and social
work as well. More and more of the professional literature on social welfare
theory and social work practice of interventions for planned change explores
the impact of critical social policy in the context of social justice, equality,
human rights, and empowerment in advanced global capitalism. More and
more critical social policy is discussed in the context of global, national, and
local issues. Recent global developments in advanced capitalism necessitated
critical social policy approaches in a wider range of central areas including
critical social work (Leonard, 2001), social work curricula (Allan, Pease, &
Briskman, 2003 ), public policy (Woodside-Jiron, 2004), , social welfare
(Clarke & Islam, 2004; Leonard, 1997), poverty (MacGregor, 2005), theory
and practice (Mooney, Scott, & Williams, 2006; Wahab, 2005), socioeco
nomic justice and equality (Dybicz, 2004 ), globalization (El-Ojeili & Hayden,
2007), clinical social work and therapy (Dow & McDonald, 2003; Sands &
Soloman, 2001), education (Healy & Leonard, 2000), diversity and inclusion
(Brown, 2001; Hugman, 2001), housing and urban affairs (Martin, 2004),
health and mental health (Mubarak, 2003), global development (Browne,
2002; Haacke, 2005), epistemology (Dow & McDonald, 2003; Fook, 1999;
Gladstone, 2001), oppression and power (Baines, 2000; Mullaly, 2001;
Profitt, 2000), and work-family issues (Martin, 2004).
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Evol11.1tio111 of Critical Social Policy
The term critical is used in philosophy and social science literature to denote the
analysis of capitalist change and the mntating forms of domination that accom
pany it. It is also associated with New Left, feminist, and antidiscriminatory
215
216
TIIE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF SOCIAL POLICY
policy analysis in the context of contradictions between the progressive
rhetoric of egalitarianism and the reality of racial and class discrimination.
Critical social policy traditions have drawn inspiration from many theorists,
including Marx, Kant, Hegel, Weber, the Frankfurt school, Foucault,
Habermas, Derrida, Freire, and Giroux (Kincheloe & McLaren, 1994).
Critical theory typically refers to theoretical traditions developed last
century by rhe Frankfurt Institute of Social Research at the University of
Frankurt in Germany (the Frankfurt school). Believing that injustice and
subjugation shaped the world, its leaders-Theodor Adorno, Erich Fromm,
Max Horkheimer, Leo Lowenthal, and Herbert Marcuse-focused 011 rein
terpreting the forms of domination and oppression associated with Nazism,
Fascism, and the changing nature of capitalism.
Critical social policy is fundamentally based on postmodern social
science inquiries about social structures and the state in advanced capitalist
societies. Their dominant statist, corporatist, and neoliberal institutions
of capitalist societies serve primarily the profit interests of the oppressive
classes (composed primarily of rich white males), which legislate for and
control racial and ethnic groups, the poor, women, the powerless, and cul
tual minorities. In this view, state welfare represents typically ruling class,
race, and gender interests (Forestei; 1993; Foucault, 1972; Gough &
Thomas, 1993; Leonard, 1997; Piven & Cloward, 1996). Critical perspec
tives, especially the liberating work of Marcuse, provided the philosophical
·voice of the New Left regarding political emancipation (Gibson, 1986;
Marcuse, 1996; Wexler, 1991). Advocacy for liberation, emancipation, and
the empowerment of underrepresented people in advanced capitalism is a
central ideological theme and principle of the critical social policy approach
(Popkewitz, 1990; Roberts, 1990).
In the United States, Britain, and Western Europe, critical social policy is
associated with activism against socioeconomic oppression through restruc
turing the social economy and with social justice and reformist community
approaches to social reconstructiori. It is also concerned with human rights;
social care; racial, age, ethnjc, and gender equality; and social diversity’ and
inclusion. Inherent contradictions and oppressive elements in statist, admin
istrative welfare associated with Fabian and Titmussian policies are typical
foci of critical analysis.
Critical social policy did not evolve suddenly and does not operate in a
vacuum. Rather, it developed in three related contextual frames related to
public policy controversies: first, critical theory as social inquiry; second,
social policy as a discipline and practice in its own right; and, third, global
ization and the transformation of the social economy after World War II.
The combination of all three provided the context of public policy contro
versies and discourse. The controversies include the unprecedented expan
sion and transformation of capitalist modes following World War II, the
globalization of the economy, the.support for free market ideology, and the
inextricable link between economic logic and social policy goals in advanced
I,
I
14. Critical Social Policy
capitalist countries. The discourse has accelerated the role of critical social
policy and enhanced its practice.
A Mode of Critical Theory
Critical social policy’s unified dialectical critique of society and its
discourse for human emancipation associated with postpositivism and
postmodernism emerged as a result of multiple historical developments.
They include the frustration of some of the movement’s leaders with the
American social science establishment and its a priori, traditional belief that
empiricism and positivism can describe and accurately measure any dimen
sion of human behavior (Kellner, 1990). Frustration was also fueled by the
forms of domination emerging from post-Enlightenment culture nurtured
by advanced capitalism (Billings, 1992).
Frustration with positivism opened the road to dialectical inquiries on
the social construction of experience and to postpositivist and postmodern
critical approaches. This disillusion with capitalist culture helped to iden
tify critical theory with concerns about power relations, the state in a free
market, and class structures. Together these concerns paved the way to the
conviction that a reconstruction of social sciences, and the understanding of
power relations in society, could eventually lead to a more egalitarian and
democratic social order.
In this context, critical theory downgrades positivist, technicist, value
neutral, and rational views of reality as old views of knowledge, characterizing
them as “dated,” “raw empiricism,” “mindless quantification,” “antihuman
ism,” “legitimation of the status quo,” and ”pretentiousness” (Turner, 1985).
Notably, it rejects the positivist notions that science and scientific methods
can acqnire knowledge of human social reality by empirical knowledge
alone (that is, only by sensory experience). It also rejects the idea that objec
tive reality is separate from the observer and can be understood through
objective observation independently of the observer (Ammassari, 1992;
Greenwood, 1995; Tyson, 1992). It denies that social science, including pol
icy science, can be scientific in the same way as physics or mathematics
(Adler, 1964; Kolb, 1964). It does not accept that ethical concerns are
meaningless in the context of scientific inquiry or that setting goals is non
rational and arbitrary because goals concern only ethics and philosophy
(Turne1; 1992) or that social science inquiry can only select means to an
end, not goals.
·Under strong criticism by several social science schools of thought
(Kuhn, 1962), positivism has now dissolved into a plurality of approaches.
At the same time, new postpositivist perspectives (Nagel, 1961) have
emerged, including critical social science and, in turn, critical social policy.
Postpositivism favors new perspectives based on the notion that all knowl
edge is constructed and consists of what individuals create and express.
217
218
THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF SOCIAL POLICY
This view is known as constructivism. Notably, postpositivists argue that,
in the real world, the choice of goals is more important than the choice
of rational technical means to achieve them. They claim that scientific
methodology is not and cannot be valne free and objective because opting
for scientism, rationalism, and empiricism to the exclusion of other per
spectives is itself a value orientation and an oxymoron (Eckstein, 1968;
Lerner & Lasswell, 1951; Raymond, 1968). They believe that empiricism
and rational technical models cannot resolve social issues of choice among
conflicting but desirable social goals, offering no direction in interventions
for social change. People, they contend, create knowledge from the interac
tion between their existing knowledge or beliefs and the new ideas or situ
atiolls they encounter.
Critical theory relies heavily on several postpositive and postmodern
schools of thought. For example, critical theorists are inspired by phenom
enology in that they link knowledge to action and to the subjective mean
ings of the problem to the actors, suggesting that knowledge is constructed
in a social context rather than having an independent existence. The notion
that a given whole is problematic (not given) and that people create knowl
edge from the interaction between experience and their existing knowledge
or beliefs and the assumption that there are a set of social structures that
are unobservable but which generate observable social phenomena reflects
structuralism (Habermas, 1970, 1971, 1973, 1974; White, 1988).
Social Policy Planning
Critical social policy as an advocacy mode of social policy planning is
associated with developments regarding the nature and role of social plan
ning in contemporary capitalist societies. In advanced capitalism, there are
different contexts of social policy discourse. Howevei; two contexts are cru
cial. These are economic rationality and advocacy for underrepresented
groups. That is, social policy planning includes two fundamental strategic
modes of intervention for social change or for maintaining the status quo.
One is its economic-rational mode (technical rationality), and the other is
its social justice-political mode. In its ecoriomic-rational mode, social pol
icy planning seeks to identify issues of policy choice, to construct a search
of options, to gather data relevant to the choice among options, to set
up criteria for choice, and to recomn1end cl1oices. Technical rationality is
based mainly on asocial, ahistorical, and value-neutral technicist and empir
ical approaches. In its social justice-political mode, social policy planning
seeks to identify issue frames in the policy discourse and to specify the
forum in which the discourse occurs. In other words, it seeks to identify and
analyze the political power game of interests and domination that is at stake
in any given policy issue or controversy and to explore the social justice,
ethical, and value structures that underlie the controversy.
14. Critical Social Policy
Distributive socioeconomic justice and political power favoring empow
erment of the disadvantaged, racial and gender equality, emancipation, self
determiuation, and advocacy for the powerless are at the epicenter of the
critical social policy mode. Rather than focusing on economic technical
rationality, critical social policy analyzes .political power dominations in
policy issues and explores their social justice structures. Hence, it rejects
utilitarian models of social justice (maximization of aggregate utility based
on satisfaction of individual demands), market justice models (proclaiming.
markets as just distributive systems), and libertarian models (opposing
redistribution of goods and services). Instead, critical social policy incorpo
rates Rawls’s justice as fairness 111odel: a social contract model requiring the
fair redistributions of income, wealth, and power and favoring the poor and
powerless (latridis, 1994 ).
Committed to the justice as fairness model and, therefore, to redistribu
tion, critical social policy rejects society’s gender oppression and inequality.
Dubois and Duelli-Klein (1983) provide insights that transcend patriarchal
and traditional societal gender roles. In this context, critical social policy
practice is associated with social justice reform struggles, community radi
calism, and antidiscriminatory movements for just and equal relations
(Fenby, 1991; Forester, 1993; Leonard, 1997; Piven & Cloward, 1996;
Rossiter, 1996; Tyson, 1992). The social justice-political mode is based
mainly on advocacy, distributive social justice, racial and gender equality,
and democratic self-determination for individuals, groups, and communi
ties. Empowerment, emancipation, and liberation are central themes of
these modes. Between the two poles (technical rationality and social jnstice)
are several other modes of social policy planning, which constitute combi
nations of technological logic and social justice-political goals.
Critical social policy is best understood, and more accurately represented,
in the context of the social justice and political mode of social policy plan
ning. In this mode, it is concerned with botb the social justice tbat underlies
public policy controversies in capitalism and the historical social transfor
mation of social economy. Planners .enter into the policy arena as value
committed and value-critical actors, se
Purchase answer to see full
attachment
Social Pol icy
Demetrius 5. /atridis
.”I
1lf’
ore and more in the new millennium, critical social policy is reflected
~in the discourse of social science-and in social policy and social
work as well. More and more of the professional literature on social welfare
theory and social work practice of interventions for planned change explores
the impact of critical social policy in the context of social justice, equality,
human rights, and empowerment in advanced global capitalism. More and
more critical social policy is discussed in the context of global, national, and
local issues. Recent global developments in advanced capitalism necessitated
critical social policy approaches in a wider range of central areas including
critical social work (Leonard, 2001), social work curricula (Allan, Pease, &
Briskman, 2003 ), public policy (Woodside-Jiron, 2004), , social welfare
(Clarke & Islam, 2004; Leonard, 1997), poverty (MacGregor, 2005), theory
and practice (Mooney, Scott, & Williams, 2006; Wahab, 2005), socioeco
nomic justice and equality (Dybicz, 2004 ), globalization (El-Ojeili & Hayden,
2007), clinical social work and therapy (Dow & McDonald, 2003; Sands &
Soloman, 2001), education (Healy & Leonard, 2000), diversity and inclusion
(Brown, 2001; Hugman, 2001), housing and urban affairs (Martin, 2004),
health and mental health (Mubarak, 2003), global development (Browne,
2002; Haacke, 2005), epistemology (Dow & McDonald, 2003; Fook, 1999;
Gladstone, 2001), oppression and power (Baines, 2000; Mullaly, 2001;
Profitt, 2000), and work-family issues (Martin, 2004).
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Evol11.1tio111 of Critical Social Policy
The term critical is used in philosophy and social science literature to denote the
analysis of capitalist change and the mntating forms of domination that accom
pany it. It is also associated with New Left, feminist, and antidiscriminatory
215
216
TIIE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF SOCIAL POLICY
policy analysis in the context of contradictions between the progressive
rhetoric of egalitarianism and the reality of racial and class discrimination.
Critical social policy traditions have drawn inspiration from many theorists,
including Marx, Kant, Hegel, Weber, the Frankfurt school, Foucault,
Habermas, Derrida, Freire, and Giroux (Kincheloe & McLaren, 1994).
Critical theory typically refers to theoretical traditions developed last
century by rhe Frankfurt Institute of Social Research at the University of
Frankurt in Germany (the Frankfurt school). Believing that injustice and
subjugation shaped the world, its leaders-Theodor Adorno, Erich Fromm,
Max Horkheimer, Leo Lowenthal, and Herbert Marcuse-focused 011 rein
terpreting the forms of domination and oppression associated with Nazism,
Fascism, and the changing nature of capitalism.
Critical social policy is fundamentally based on postmodern social
science inquiries about social structures and the state in advanced capitalist
societies. Their dominant statist, corporatist, and neoliberal institutions
of capitalist societies serve primarily the profit interests of the oppressive
classes (composed primarily of rich white males), which legislate for and
control racial and ethnic groups, the poor, women, the powerless, and cul
tual minorities. In this view, state welfare represents typically ruling class,
race, and gender interests (Forestei; 1993; Foucault, 1972; Gough &
Thomas, 1993; Leonard, 1997; Piven & Cloward, 1996). Critical perspec
tives, especially the liberating work of Marcuse, provided the philosophical
·voice of the New Left regarding political emancipation (Gibson, 1986;
Marcuse, 1996; Wexler, 1991). Advocacy for liberation, emancipation, and
the empowerment of underrepresented people in advanced capitalism is a
central ideological theme and principle of the critical social policy approach
(Popkewitz, 1990; Roberts, 1990).
In the United States, Britain, and Western Europe, critical social policy is
associated with activism against socioeconomic oppression through restruc
turing the social economy and with social justice and reformist community
approaches to social reconstructiori. It is also concerned with human rights;
social care; racial, age, ethnjc, and gender equality; and social diversity’ and
inclusion. Inherent contradictions and oppressive elements in statist, admin
istrative welfare associated with Fabian and Titmussian policies are typical
foci of critical analysis.
Critical social policy did not evolve suddenly and does not operate in a
vacuum. Rather, it developed in three related contextual frames related to
public policy controversies: first, critical theory as social inquiry; second,
social policy as a discipline and practice in its own right; and, third, global
ization and the transformation of the social economy after World War II.
The combination of all three provided the context of public policy contro
versies and discourse. The controversies include the unprecedented expan
sion and transformation of capitalist modes following World War II, the
globalization of the economy, the.support for free market ideology, and the
inextricable link between economic logic and social policy goals in advanced
I,
I
14. Critical Social Policy
capitalist countries. The discourse has accelerated the role of critical social
policy and enhanced its practice.
A Mode of Critical Theory
Critical social policy’s unified dialectical critique of society and its
discourse for human emancipation associated with postpositivism and
postmodernism emerged as a result of multiple historical developments.
They include the frustration of some of the movement’s leaders with the
American social science establishment and its a priori, traditional belief that
empiricism and positivism can describe and accurately measure any dimen
sion of human behavior (Kellner, 1990). Frustration was also fueled by the
forms of domination emerging from post-Enlightenment culture nurtured
by advanced capitalism (Billings, 1992).
Frustration with positivism opened the road to dialectical inquiries on
the social construction of experience and to postpositivist and postmodern
critical approaches. This disillusion with capitalist culture helped to iden
tify critical theory with concerns about power relations, the state in a free
market, and class structures. Together these concerns paved the way to the
conviction that a reconstruction of social sciences, and the understanding of
power relations in society, could eventually lead to a more egalitarian and
democratic social order.
In this context, critical theory downgrades positivist, technicist, value
neutral, and rational views of reality as old views of knowledge, characterizing
them as “dated,” “raw empiricism,” “mindless quantification,” “antihuman
ism,” “legitimation of the status quo,” and ”pretentiousness” (Turner, 1985).
Notably, it rejects the positivist notions that science and scientific methods
can acqnire knowledge of human social reality by empirical knowledge
alone (that is, only by sensory experience). It also rejects the idea that objec
tive reality is separate from the observer and can be understood through
objective observation independently of the observer (Ammassari, 1992;
Greenwood, 1995; Tyson, 1992). It denies that social science, including pol
icy science, can be scientific in the same way as physics or mathematics
(Adler, 1964; Kolb, 1964). It does not accept that ethical concerns are
meaningless in the context of scientific inquiry or that setting goals is non
rational and arbitrary because goals concern only ethics and philosophy
(Turne1; 1992) or that social science inquiry can only select means to an
end, not goals.
·Under strong criticism by several social science schools of thought
(Kuhn, 1962), positivism has now dissolved into a plurality of approaches.
At the same time, new postpositivist perspectives (Nagel, 1961) have
emerged, including critical social science and, in turn, critical social policy.
Postpositivism favors new perspectives based on the notion that all knowl
edge is constructed and consists of what individuals create and express.
217
218
THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF SOCIAL POLICY
This view is known as constructivism. Notably, postpositivists argue that,
in the real world, the choice of goals is more important than the choice
of rational technical means to achieve them. They claim that scientific
methodology is not and cannot be valne free and objective because opting
for scientism, rationalism, and empiricism to the exclusion of other per
spectives is itself a value orientation and an oxymoron (Eckstein, 1968;
Lerner & Lasswell, 1951; Raymond, 1968). They believe that empiricism
and rational technical models cannot resolve social issues of choice among
conflicting but desirable social goals, offering no direction in interventions
for social change. People, they contend, create knowledge from the interac
tion between their existing knowledge or beliefs and the new ideas or situ
atiolls they encounter.
Critical theory relies heavily on several postpositive and postmodern
schools of thought. For example, critical theorists are inspired by phenom
enology in that they link knowledge to action and to the subjective mean
ings of the problem to the actors, suggesting that knowledge is constructed
in a social context rather than having an independent existence. The notion
that a given whole is problematic (not given) and that people create knowl
edge from the interaction between experience and their existing knowledge
or beliefs and the assumption that there are a set of social structures that
are unobservable but which generate observable social phenomena reflects
structuralism (Habermas, 1970, 1971, 1973, 1974; White, 1988).
Social Policy Planning
Critical social policy as an advocacy mode of social policy planning is
associated with developments regarding the nature and role of social plan
ning in contemporary capitalist societies. In advanced capitalism, there are
different contexts of social policy discourse. Howevei; two contexts are cru
cial. These are economic rationality and advocacy for underrepresented
groups. That is, social policy planning includes two fundamental strategic
modes of intervention for social change or for maintaining the status quo.
One is its economic-rational mode (technical rationality), and the other is
its social justice-political mode. In its ecoriomic-rational mode, social pol
icy planning seeks to identify issues of policy choice, to construct a search
of options, to gather data relevant to the choice among options, to set
up criteria for choice, and to recomn1end cl1oices. Technical rationality is
based mainly on asocial, ahistorical, and value-neutral technicist and empir
ical approaches. In its social justice-political mode, social policy planning
seeks to identify issue frames in the policy discourse and to specify the
forum in which the discourse occurs. In other words, it seeks to identify and
analyze the political power game of interests and domination that is at stake
in any given policy issue or controversy and to explore the social justice,
ethical, and value structures that underlie the controversy.
14. Critical Social Policy
Distributive socioeconomic justice and political power favoring empow
erment of the disadvantaged, racial and gender equality, emancipation, self
determiuation, and advocacy for the powerless are at the epicenter of the
critical social policy mode. Rather than focusing on economic technical
rationality, critical social policy analyzes .political power dominations in
policy issues and explores their social justice structures. Hence, it rejects
utilitarian models of social justice (maximization of aggregate utility based
on satisfaction of individual demands), market justice models (proclaiming.
markets as just distributive systems), and libertarian models (opposing
redistribution of goods and services). Instead, critical social policy incorpo
rates Rawls’s justice as fairness 111odel: a social contract model requiring the
fair redistributions of income, wealth, and power and favoring the poor and
powerless (latridis, 1994 ).
Committed to the justice as fairness model and, therefore, to redistribu
tion, critical social policy rejects society’s gender oppression and inequality.
Dubois and Duelli-Klein (1983) provide insights that transcend patriarchal
and traditional societal gender roles. In this context, critical social policy
practice is associated with social justice reform struggles, community radi
calism, and antidiscriminatory movements for just and equal relations
(Fenby, 1991; Forester, 1993; Leonard, 1997; Piven & Cloward, 1996;
Rossiter, 1996; Tyson, 1992). The social justice-political mode is based
mainly on advocacy, distributive social justice, racial and gender equality,
and democratic self-determination for individuals, groups, and communi
ties. Empowerment, emancipation, and liberation are central themes of
these modes. Between the two poles (technical rationality and social jnstice)
are several other modes of social policy planning, which constitute combi
nations of technological logic and social justice-political goals.
Critical social policy is best understood, and more accurately represented,
in the context of the social justice and political mode of social policy plan
ning. In this mode, it is concerned with botb the social justice tbat underlies
public policy controversies in capitalism and the historical social transfor
mation of social economy. Planners .enter into the policy arena as value
committed and value-critical actors, se
Purchase answer to see full
attachment
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