Welfare and Welfare to Work in the United States

Summary

Despite social work's historic ambivalence toward income support programs, the policy changes introduced by the TANF welfare to work program demand the profession's attention. Although social workers are not directly responsible for the administration or implementation of the program, many serve TANF clients whose lives have been affected by these changes. Tracing social work's historic but reluctant involvement with income support, this paper urges the profession to respond to the challenges posed by the TANF program in a more systematic way and to contribute more effectively to the wider task of poverty eradication.     

Reply to davis

The basic premise of this article is that the revival and increasing acceptance of the concept of cultural pluralism (and its contemporary variant, multiculturalism) in popular and academic discourses today should be investigated as a problem in the sociology of knowledge. In this context, this article discusses briefly how cultural pluralism is used in popular and academic discourses today. Then, it identifies the normative structure of, and the domain assumptions underpinning, the concept. The article constructs an argument that the concept lacks conceptual precision and analytical rigor; that its ontological claims for race and ethnicity cannot be justified; and that it is epistemologically incoherent, as shown by its internal contradictions. The article concludes that the ideological implications of the concept should be investigated and that discourses on cultural pluralism, generally, would benefit by resurrecting Milton Gordon's concept of the eth - class.