A Critical Analysis of Approaches to the Concept of Social Identity in Social Policy

Abstract

This article seeks both to highlight a current imbalance in approaches to social identity in social policy and to make suggestions as to how this might be redressed in future work employing the concept. The concept of identity and specifically social identity is increasingly employed in the discipline of social policy as a theoretical device with which to bridge the individual/social divide. The argument presented here suggests that the concept is, however, unevenly deployed in policy analysis and therefore lacks the impact it might otherwise have had. The predominant focus of current analysis lies on policy change precipitated by groups of `new' active welfare constituents organized around differentiated and fragmented social identities, whereas the identities of welfare professionals also involved in the policy making process have disappeared from analytical view. The current emphasis on the discursive context of policy formulation perpetuates an unacknowledged misconception concerning the asociality of those involved in policy making, whereby their principal role is perceived as the maintenance of the status quo in terms of social policy responses to welfare constituents' needs. Redressing this false dichotomy between those developing and those using welfare services might be avoided by further exploring the concept of relational identity.