Family Welfare Policy Research Articles

The Family Mouvement and the UNAF-the Changes of French Family Policy and its implication for the development of Family Welfare Policy in Korea

The Family Mouvement and the UNAF-the Changes of French Family Policy and its implication for the development of Family Welfare Policy in Korea

The over‐representation of indigenous children in the Australian child welfare system

Similar to other wealthy countries with colonised indigenous populations, Australia's indigenous children, those of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander descent, are seriously over‐represented in the child welfare system. The specific dimensions of this problem warrant detailed examination. It is useful to consider factors such as rates of entry to care, length of stay and the nature of services provided in order to understand the problem more fully. This article uses child protection, out‐of‐home care and juvenile justice administrative data to examine the levels of disproportionality at key decision points in the child welfare system. The data show that child welfare interventions are persistently more intrusive for indigenous children, and that levels of disproportionality have not improved over time. More comprehensive child and family welfare policies are needed to address indigenous disadvantage. Despite calls by indigenous community agencies for more input to decision‐making, their participation in the Australian child welfare system remains marginal.

Maternal Societies in France: Private Charity Before the Welfare State

Although some historians have argued that women's charitable organizations did more to shape family welfare policies in decentralized states than "strong states," the influence of the Society for Maternal Charity in late-eighteenth- and early-nineteenth-century France suggests that scholars must reassess this weak state/strong state dichotomy. Maternal societies played a key role in shaping the language and policies of maternalism and provided a future model for the provision of family social welfare services in France. These female-run charitable organizations offered power and prestige to the women staffing them and a voice in national debates concerning the social claims of poor mothers and their children.

The Purest Democrat: Fetal Citizenship and Subjectivity in the Construction of Democracy in Poland

The Purest Democrat: Fetal Citizenship and Subjectivity in the Construction of Democracy in Poland

Reentry Reconsidered: A New Look at an Old Question

Reflecting unprecedented prison expansion, the scale of prisoner reentry has reached new heights. Although the movement of individuals from prison to community is not new, a focus on the phenomenon of reentry at this time sheds light on the consequences of America's shifting sentencing policies, the changes in parole supervision, and the concentrated impact of removal and return of prisoners on disadvantaged communities. The profile of the current reentry cohort shows that prisoners are less prepared for reintegration and less connected to community-based social structures. Linkages between prisoner reentry and the related social policy domains of health policy, family and child welfare policy, workforce participation, civic participation, and racial disparities are examined to show the potential for more systematic reintegration policies. The article concludes with discussion of the implications of a reentry perspective for the development of new strategies for prisoner reintegration.

How children turn out and how psychology turns them out.

Does authentic personhood exist independently, or is it necessarily tied to contingent cultural arrangements and historical change? This review essay considers 5 recent books in history, psychology, and law that address this question. They also treat development, gender, subjectivity, therapeutic expertise, family welfare policy, and how and why children turn out as they do. These important topics in the history of modern American psychology are equally central to scholarship on childhood and the cultural history of personhood. The books under review (in order of consideration) are the following: J. J. Brumberg, The Body Project: An Intimate History of American Girls; H. Cravens, Before Head Start: The Iowa Station and America's Children; K. W. Jones, Taming the Troublesome Child: American Families, Child Guidance, and the Limits of Psychiatric Authority; J. R. Harris, The Nurture Assumption: Why Children Turn Out the Way They Do; and E. Bartholet, Nobody's Children: Abuse and Neglect, Foster Drift, and the Adoption Alternative.

Biographical Constructions of a Working Woman

As social scientist, welfare state reformer and diplomat, Alva Myrdal made an important contribution to changing conceptions of modern womanhood. With her husband Gunnar, she drew up blueprints for a woman-friendly welfare state that continue to be of relevance to contemporary debates about women's dual roles in the public and private spheres. She was herself a working wife and mother of three children with a home publicly hailed for its efficient modernity. In retrospect, her domestic performance as wife and mother, as well as her public writings on women and family welfare policy, have been subject to critical re-evaluation, a debate to which biographical material presented by each of her three children contributed. This article reflects on the situated nature of biographical writings about women and discusses the different constructions' of Alva Myrdal presented in these family narratives. From within Alva Myrdal's own feminist perspective, the author attempts to show the extent to which judgements about the contribution of women continue to be framed by conceptions of the duality of their place in the public and private domains.

Low-Income Single Fathers in an African American Community and the Requirements of Welfare Reform

This study examines the impact of state welfare reform policies on the paternal involvement of low-income single fathers. Life history interviews were conducted with 40 African American fathers participating in a community-based parenting program in Chicago. Men's rightful claims to fatherhood were constructed through voluntary involvement with their children and enforced paternity establishment. Welfare policies gave precedence to child support and providing and dismissed fathers' in-kind caregiving. Policy requirements reflected limited understanding of related caregiving and providing aspects of fatherhood as they vary across race and class. Family welfare policies that prioritize finances over care may curtail paternal involvement altogether; they may also adversely affect the well-being of poor children, who could benefit from the potential commitment of their fathers.

家族福祉政策研究の展開と現代的課題

This article reviews developments in research on family welfare policy since the 1970s. Research on family welfare policy in the Japanese family sociology was insufficient until the early 1980s.Recently, there has been progress in family welfare policy research. A family welfare policy model based on the individual is suggested, and theoretical research focusing on the individual is growing, thus an individual-oriented approach' is becoming important. However, the family welfare policy, the support to meet the needs of daily life, may not disregard the family group. Therefore, a ' family group-oriented approach' is also necessary in this field.With the change of family, support programs for elderly care and child care are developing. Regarding the socialization of child and elderly care, theoretical consideration of social, economic, cultural and ideological views is needed.To establish the Japanese welfare system, an investigation into family and society in Japan is essential, and thus theoretical contribution from family sociology is required.

The Ecological Crisis of Latin America

The peoples and natural environments of Latin America and the Caribbean have suffered form centuries of exploitation at the hands of imperialist powers and their local client ruling classes. With the internationalization of the productive circuit of capital, however, ecological destruction and human poverty and misery have become more profound, and popular movements concerned with what Marx called the material of capitalist and for the reproduction of are growing stronger. Throughout Latin America, organizations and movements of environmentalists, urban and rural women, indigenous peoples, workers, health officials, peasants, and others are engaged in struggles with capital and the state over the ecological, human, and communal conditions of production (O'Connor, 1988; 1991).' Before production can take place, capital must gain favorable access to a sufficient quantity and quality of labor-power (its human conditions), land and natural resources (its ecological conditions), and infrastructure (its communal conditions). Because these conditions are not produced as commodities in accordance with the law of value, the state must attempt to make them available to capital via (1) family, education, health, housing, and other human welfare policies, (2) natural-resource and other environmental policies, and (3) communication, transportation, zoning, and other public service policies, respectively. In short, the state regulates the exploitation of the conditions of production by capital. Capital and the state rarely have a free hand, however, in their attempts to appropriate and restructure the production conditions according to the rules of the market, that is, exchange value. As previously stated, these conditions are also means for the reproduction of human beings and their communities (and life itself) according to cultural norms and social values, that is, use value. Hence, we find growing resistance

Racial Differences in Family Living Arrangements and Economic Well-Being: An Analysis of Recent Trends

Among both races, recently, there has been a shift away from traditional living arrangements. Changes have been more significant among blacks and, thus, racial differences are now greater than at the time of the Moynihan report (1965). The economic consequences are described by analyzing trends in per capita income for types offamilies. Income has risen in all types of families but the improvements are greater in husband-wife families. Among both races, the gap which separates the economic well-being of those in husband-wifefamilies from those in families headed by a woman has widened. A declining proportion of children and adults live in families with the greatest per capita income and an increasing fraction live in families with the lowest income. Changes in living arrangements are related to family welfare policies.

Guides to Family and Child Welfare Policy

Abstract The statement published below has been received from the Child Welfare Advisory Council of New South Wales. It has been submitted with the permission of the Minister for Child Welfare and Social Welfare in that State, the Honourable J. L. Waddy.

Family Law and Welfare Policies: The Case for "Dual Systems"

Family Law and Welfare Policies: The Case for "Dual Systems"

Family Law and Welfare Policies: The Case for Dual Systems

Family Law and Welfare Policies: The Case for Dual Systems