The Victorian Ethical Foundations of Social Work in England--Continuity and Contradiction

Correspondence to Bill Forsythe, Dean of Academic Partnerships, 261, Northcote House, University of Exeter, Exeter EX4 4QJ, UK. E-mail: W.J.Forsythe{at}exeter.ac.uk Summary In this article we argue that during the Victorian era certainethical foundations of best practice were identified and werecentral to the work of particular individuals. We also arguethat there was a strongly discriminatory moralistic basis tosocial policy and mainstream charitable intervention that militatedagainst these ethical foundations. We suggest that this contradictionis replicated in New Labour's ‘Third Way’ and thatwe need to heed the tradition of social inclusion espoused bysome of the Victorian practitioners discussed if we genuinelymean to put into practice the ideas of social worth and communityespoused by New Labour rather than return to the Victorian distinctionbetween the ‘respectable’ or ‘deserving’poor and the ‘pauper’.     

Victorian values and the fertility decline: the case of Scotland

The author examines the final phase of the demographic transition in Scotland during the late nineteenth century. Particular attention is given to explanations developed by Joseph Banks concerning the fertility decline in England and Wales. Banks's analysis is reevaluated by applying it to data for Scotland. No clear pattern of fertility by occupation is found. It is suggested instead that both family size limitation and emphasis on higher education were results of value reorientations.     

The Individual's Health Is the Health of Society

Recently, a fact characterizing a fundamentally new phenomenon for Russia—net depopulation—has been repeated again and again in the mass media (and not only in the mass media). In the last quarter of the past year, our mortality rate was 11.3 per thousand, and the birth rate was only 11.2, i.e., there was a "negative growth." The phenomenon is serious enough in itself and has many aspects, from demographic to economic. It is natural that it should attract attention. However, the inclination to link it directly only with actions of the moment (or with the lack of action), to explain it by the liberalization of prices, etc., is annoying. The problem is much more long-term and complicated. The issue is not so much that the birth rate is declining (this is a worldwide tendency, and the birth rate in Russia is still much higher than in most European countries) as that the mortality rate is rising (this contradicts the same trends, forewarning us of trouble). The ultimate question is one of the stability of this negative process, of the potential, the reserve of health present in society as a whole and in each individual.