From Transmitted Deprivation to Social Exclusion ─ Policy, Poverty and Parenting

In 1972 British Secretary of State for Social Services, Sir Keith Joseph, delivered an address on "cycles of depredation," a speech that helped prompt a research program under the auspices of the Department of Health and Social Security--Social Science Research Council Working Party on Transmitted Deprivation. In 2006, Prime Minister Tony Blair delivered a speech promising a new governmental approach to "social exclusion." Welshman (public health, Lancaster U., UK) finds the content of the two speeches, as well as that of the research program, to be strikingly similar in their approaches to the idea of intergenerational continuities of poverty. He examines the background to these events, addressing themes concerning the relationship between ideology, social science, and public policy as they relate to debates about policy, poverty, and parenting. Distributed in the US by ISBS. Annotation ©2008 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)