This thesis is an empirical and theoretical exploration of social quality, a social policy framework that represents both a political project and a social scientific framework. Ultimately, social quality aims at a social-theoretically sound and measurable construct, and therefore different aspects of the structure-agency problematic are at the heart of this study. The methodological implications of the political and social scientific theorising are explored through the two-tiered approach advocated in the social quality literature, with a particular focus on ethnicity. This entailed interviews with individuals in a community setting and analysing secondary data on social quality proxy indicators. The findings from the subjective profiling and indicator measures confirm the need to clarify the approach to relationality both in terms of the theorising and the methodology of the social quality construct. Furthermore, an understanding of the structural effects of socio-cultural differences that are relevant to social quality clearly requires an approach that transcends the t\vo-tiered focus. Instead of subjective profiling through individual interviews, it is argued, social quality needs to develop an evaluation methodology that facilitates an analysis of the meso level actors and processesú that form the relational nexus of social quality theory.

No description available.

This research study is concerned with the concept of social inclusion, its significance, its origins, its definition and its history. It looks particularly at its development in the United Kingdom since the election of a Labour Government in 1997 and, in that context, the implementation of a Social Inclusion Strategy by a County Council referred to throughout as ‘Someshire’. It offers as an example of reflective inquiry an evaluation of aspects of the implementation of the Strategy led by the Council’s Education Department and some comments on the Council’s own, previous, evaluation of the whole Strategy. Through this study, it engages with a range of stakeholders including schools, County Council Officers and representatives of parents and school governors in an attempt to discover what has gone well and why. It concludes with a set of recommendations for action by a range of parties who, in their different policy contexts, might wish to promote social inclusion. Finally, this study has been written by a senior Local Education Authority Officer. This results in the emergence of two voices within it. In Chapter 1 there can be perceived the voice of the traditional researcher, attempting what Schon describes as the ‘technical rationality’ of traditional research. In Chapters 2, 4 and, to some extent, 5 the voice changes to that of the ‘reflective practitioner’ with its reliance on the ability to intuit, know-in-action, an ability derived from over thirty years working in education, principally as an educational manager.

Dans de nombreux états providences, les systèmes de santé subissent de nos jours d’importantes transformations en réponse aux pressions budgétaires et caractérisées par le rôle croissant du marché et des mesures de rationalisation. C’est dans ce contexte que la France et l’Allemagne ont mis en place des programmes de Disease Management (DM) dans le but de fournir des soins plus structurés et de paiement à la performance (P4P) pour inciter financièrement les fournisseurs à répondre à certains objectifs.Ces réformes, qui reflètent le rôle croissant de l’État dans les deux systèmes d’assurance maladie, se sont inspirées des modèles anglo-saxons mais se concrétisent de manière distincte en fonction des caractéristiques des systèmes des deux pays. En Allemagne, DM et P4P se sont basés sur la concurrence croissante entre les caisses d’assurance maladies et entre les hôpitaux tandis qu’en France, ces réformes ont reflété un changement du rôle de l’assurance maladie « de payeur à acteur ».Le positionnement de la profession médicale vis-à-vis de ces nouveaux instruments de gouvernance, qui sont de nature hiérarchique et qui imposent une logique comptable, est une question clef en France et en Allemagne. Dans les deux pays, les processus de négociations ont été lié à un écart grandissant entre les représentants des médecins et leurs membres, et ce malgré les différences dans la manière dont les médecins sont traditionnellement intégrés dans la régulation des systèmes de santé respectifs. / Health systems in many welfare states are undergoing important transformations, triggered by increasing budgetary pressures and characterized by the growing role of market and rationalization measures. In this context, France and Germany have introduced disease management (DM) programs to deliver more structured patient care and pay-for-performance (P4P) measures to provide financial incentives for providers meeting certain objectives.These reforms, which reflect the increasing role of the State in both statutory health insurance systems, were inspired by Anglo-Saxon models but translated in distinct ways, owing to differences in the two countries’ systems. In Germany, DM and P4P were based on increasing competition between sickness funds and between hospitals, while in France these reforms reflected a shift by its central insurance system “from payer to player”.The positioning of the medical profession vis-a-vis these new instruments of governance, which are hierarchical in nature and impose stronger public accountability, was a key issue in both France and Germany. The negotiation processes were accompanied by a growing disconnect between physician representatives and their memberships in both countries, despite significant differences in the way physicians are traditionally integrated into health system regulation.

Ce travail vise à la construction d'un modèle d'intervention sociale qui prend comme base conceptuelle des éléments de la théorie des systèmes sociaux développée par Niklas Luhmann. La prédominance d'une différenciation sociale fonctionnelle, caractéristique d'une société moderne, suppose un monde hétérarchique et acentrique qui oblige à abandonner les principes structurels hiérarchiques des sociétés précédentes. À cet égard, l'intervention sociale ne peut être conçue que si elle s'éloigne du modèle hiérarchique associé au contrôle social, pour ainsi aller vers des stratégies de coordination qui conduisent les systèmes vers une autorégulation. Dans ce contexte, nous proposons une intervention sociale systémique caractérisée par sa contextualité et sa réflexivité, mais aussi par son improbabilité et optionnalité, compte tenu de la clôture opérationnelle qui caractérise les systèmes sociaux. Dans ce sens, l'intervention sociale est présentée comme une offre communicationnelle qui, pour avoir lieu, doit d'abord irriter l'autoréférence des systèmes vers lesquels elle dirige sa stratégie pour ainsi être sélectionnée par ces systèmes. Ainsi, elle permettra d'établir des relations intersystémiques, fondées sur l'hétérarchie, au moyen des couplages structurels. À partir de ces caractéristiques, le cycle de l'intervention se constitue comme un processus réflexif caractérisé par sa récursivité. Il comporte les phases de l'intervention où les systèmes participants convergent dans la définition de la stratégie. Ce travail propose finalement d'observer un programme social chilien, le programme Puente [Pont], afin d'observer s'il est possible d'y identifier des éléments d'une intervention sociale systémique. / The present research aims to the construction of a social intervention model considering, as a conceptual background, a number of elements from the theory of social systems developed by Niklas Luhmann. The predominance of a functional social differentiation, typical of modern societies, supposes an acentric and heterarchical world that compels to abandon the hierarchical structural principles of the former societies. To this regard, social intervention can only be conceived if it keeps away from the hierarchical model associated with social control, in order to favor coordination strategies that lead systems toward self-regulation. Consequently, we propose a systemic social intervention characterized by its context and reflexivity, and also by its improbability and optionality, in view of the operational closure that characterizes social systems. To this end, social intervention is presented as a communicational offer which, in order to occur, must at first irritate the autoreference of the systems to which it aims its strategy, in order to thus be selected by those systems. This will allow establishing intersystem relationships through structural couplings based on heterarchy. Stemming from these characteristics, the cycle of intervention is constituted as a reflexive process marked by its recursivity. It includes the intervention stages where the participating systems converge in the definition of its strategy. Finally, this research proposes to observe a Chilean social program, in order to examine if some elements of a systemic social intervention can be identified.