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No description available.

Little is known about how frontline professionals’ perceptions of identity and interprofessional working (IPW) impacts on their ability to work collaboratively. This study contributes to a better understanding of the role of professional identity in collaborative working through an exploration of the views of four professional groups; early years professionals, health visitors, police officers and social workers, who come together within the framework of the team around the child (TAC). The research adopted a mixed-methods design using a questionnaire (n=124) and semi-structured interviews (n=36). The questionnaires were analysed by comparing the mean ratings professionals gave to their own professional characteristics and the other three professions and the interviews were analysed using an interpretative phenomenological approach to gain more insight into professionals’ perceptions of their identity and experiences of working together. The findings revealed that the professionals had a good understanding of their differing status within collaborative working and sought to maintain their professional identity rather than adopting an interprofessional persona. Working together was not viewed as a joint enterprise and professionals questioned whether it was necessary to develop interprofessional relationships to work effectively. Despite stating that they generally worked well together professionals were quite critical of each other’s practice and blamed each other when things went wrong. Issues were raised about the efficacy of the TAC model in terms of the lead role, the quality of information sharing and discussion, and the fear of discord between professionals. The study highlights that professionals are not as committed to IPW as policy makers and organisations assume. There needs to be more awareness at all levels of the impact of professional identity, intergroup theory and a supportive environment on IPW. The mindset that dismisses the importance of professional relationships must be changed to enhance the development of trust between professionals. A reconfiguration of services with more opportunities for contact between professionals would support this. It is recommended that the TAC model is restructured with independent leadership, clear guidelines of professional responsibility and improved organisational support. Realistic group conflict theory could be used as a framework to help professionals acknowledge and manage conflict between them. Further research is recommended to develop a wider understanding of professionals’ perceptions of professional identity and IPW.

Following the end of the Second World War, the late 1940s witnessed a dramatic and rapid transformation in working-class living conditions enacted via the Welfare State, and largely experienced through an enormous expansion in public housing. Ernesettle is a product of this boom. One of seven new estates constructed as part of Plymouth’s programme of reconstruction, it follows a conceptual blueprint laid out in The Plan for Plymouth, a document compiled in 1943 by town planner Patrick Abercrombie and city engineer James Paton-Watson. Designed after a ‘neighbourhood’ model, the Plymouth Plan estates were to provide for life from cradle to grave, incorporating schools, workplaces, clinics, churches, pubs, and shops as well as housing and green space. The progressive social programme propounded by post-war neighbourhood designers strove towards social homogeneity, a strategy that sought to reconcile interests across the class and political spectrum. This thesis examines the results of those ambitions, using oral history accounts of Ernesettle to consider if and how council housing of the 1940s and 50s affected the material and social circumstances of its residents. By focusing on residents’ narratives of daily life between 1950 and 1980, I document a high point in council estate history comprising: a neighbourhood culture of mutual support and lively street life; a domestic culture, closely bound to the nuclear family and the home as a site of consumption; an associational culture of clubs, sports, the church, the pub, and social club; and a working culture of full male employment, collective representation, and increasing employment opportunities for women. The function of the neighbourhood in a process of drawing working-class populations into the mid 20th century cultural mainstream, and its subsequent association with their post-1980s expulsion to the social margins, provides a recurrent research theme underpinning my discussion of Ernesettle life as I explore how changes over time corresponded with the status of residents and their sense of place in society at large.

Social policy has been transformed in Mexico during the last two decades. Social insurance programmes on which welfare provision was based throughout the twentieth century have been retrenched and new social assistance programmes have been introduced and expanded. This thesis aims to reveal the redistributive potential of these social policy reforms. The research maps the changes in the welfare policy architecture and estimates their vertical and horizontal redistributive effects. The study identifies the winners and losers of the reform process, the specific changes in the structure of the architecture that benefited different population groups and characterises the welfare model that emerged from the reform process. The research consists on the hypothetical simulation of the effects of changes in the tax/benefit system. The thesis adapts the ‘model families’ method to estimate and compare the effects of taxes and benefits at the household level before and after the reforms. Findings highlight that the productivist/residual logics adopted in the design of the reforms neglects the welfare of families who do not qualify for social assistance, and results in minimal benefit levels insufficient to raise families above poverty lines. The reforms have reproduced the tax/benefit system’s fragmentation and the unequal levels of protection offered by the state, which block the formation of redistributive coalitions. The outcome is a system of low redistributive potential to reduce high levels of poverty and inequality. The thesis represents an original contribution at the empirical level, because it provides a comprehensive assessment of recent reforms in terms of the population segments favoured by them; at the methodological level, since it applies the micro-simulation logic to the study of social policy in the country; and at the theoretical level, because it characterises the welfare model that has emerged from the reform process.

Rich people in Thailand are enjoying higher shares in income transfer than their poor counterparts. This strange phenomenon implies the malfunction of the Thai social security system. Studies on the relationship between social security development and social, economic and political factors are also very limited. These evident constraints are the rationales for this study. A comparative study was chosen because the justification of social security problems would be more objectively valid if r000esearch findings were compared with external criteria. In addition, comparative analysis would clearly pinpoint possible factors that influenced social security development in Thailand. Like many comparative studies, this investigation did not expect only to identify possible influential factors, but it also intended to learn how the modern social security system could be established in a more developed country. However, the findings would be more adaptable if they were transferred from a country that was economically and culturally close to Thailand. By these reasons, Australia, instead of other Western countries, was more appropriate to be the case for comparison. After reviewing theoretical and empirical literature, the research methodology was designed. Basically, the study applied both qualitative and quantitative methods in analysing data gathered from Thailand and Australia. Comparative evidence shows many problems in social security provisions in Thailand. Relatively narrow coverage, low quality and quantity of benefits and services, higher financial burdens borne by people, and marginal welfare rights are the important indications of the severity of the problems. Many factors are responsible for the existence of these problems. The problematic system of social security was partly the legacy of historical development. The effects of historical roots are intensified by many contemporary factors. Undesirable social values, volatile economic growth, late industrialisation and the defeat of socialism are the four major factors that account for the undeveloped social security system. The influences of the four major factors are supported by another four less crucial ones. These supporting factors comprise the elite�s agenda, workers� power, weak non-governmental organisations and population growth. The findings in both Thailand and Australia similarly indicate that religious institutions and colonial influence do not produce significant effects upon social security development. The comparative findings provide valuable guidelines for the suggestions of system development. Several findings help extend existing theoretical explanations of social security development as well. The study recommends comprehensive operational strategies for the improvement of Thai social security. The study made its final suggestion on the importance of applied research based on Western knowledge and experiences for the improvement of Thai social security.

No abstract available. / Thesis (M.A.)--University of Durban-Westville, 2002

The South African economy is faced with the existence of a sophisticated industrial economy alongside an informal sector that is not properly regulated. As a result of poor and delayed compliance from the taxpaying population, a need arose to educate our society on their social responsibility to pay their taxes. This study is aimed at identifying the impact of tax education on tax compliance. The study endeavours to bridge the tax gap and engender a tax culture, by balancing the education and enforcement functions. / Thesis (M.Com.)-University of Kwazulu-Natal, 2004.

This thesis examines the relationship of ideology to policy-making on two levels: on the theoretical level, it advances a distinction between philosophical, commentative and participant ideology; on the policy level, it takes as its major case study the reforms initiated by New Labour in the Departments of Social Security, Health and Education and Employment between 1997 and 2001. The thesis pays particular attention to the deployment of morphological analysis as a means to interpret and decode New Labour's policy practices and thereby opens up new areas for research on the role of ideas in politics. It also delineates the conceptual formulae for the core concepts of New Labour's ideology, stressing conceptual interconnections and contributing to interpretative and normative political theory. Using these to frame the analysis, it presents an account of New Labour's conceptual patterns easily accessible to political philosophers. Finally, the thesis counters the dominant modes of analysing ideology in social policy and shows the strong similarities between the morphological conception of ideology and standard forms of institutional and social policy analysis. New Labour is shown to create the following patterns: Individuals have rights to the conditions of freedom as self-development, which generate duties sanctionable by legal and direct socioeconomic penalties on others. Where rights do not apply, individuals have personal responsibilities that are presented as supererogatory expectations. The conditions of freedom are to be distributed equally in a manner consistent with progress and social justice for all members of a community who, relating to each other ultimately on the basis of enlightened self-interest, are interdependent and working together across the spheres of a social conception of civil society, a strongly representative and government-dominated conception of democracy and a capitalist market conceived of as a common good. By so doing, each enjoys the freedom of self-development.

No description available.