Comparing European welfare regimes at local, national and international levels, ''Welfare and Culture in Europe'' stresses the need for a concept of culture to be incorporated into welfare studies. The book analyzes the theoretical issues behind the emergence of the concept of culture in welfare during a time of crisis and change in Europe. Part 2 concerns administrative arrangements for welfare provision and how practitioners and users respond to them. Chapters highlight how different key social concepts - such as the nature of citizenship, the role of the family and the public/private dichotomy - shape the provision and use of welfare services. The final part develops possible directions for future policy research and presents alternative methodological bases for empirical work. It includes a major quantitative study of the ways in which welfare states reflect and reproduce patterns of social values, and a description of a new technique of biographical analysis of welfare users. ''Welfare and Culture in Europe'' proposes a redirection of social policy in welfare, moving away from the limitaions of the traditional, universal, bureaucratic politics of distribution to a ''post-modern'' participatory and innovative politics of recognition.
Introduction - the problematization of welfare as culture, Richard Freeman et al. Part 1 Welfare, culture and social change: education, welfare and nationhood in Europe, Walter Lorenz; Sweden - the traumatic dismantling of welfare in a model welfare culture, Martin Peterson; globalization and the subjectivity of professional social workers, Steven Trevillion; money, care and consumption - families in the mixed economy of social care, John Baldock and Clare Ungerson. Part 2 Welfare, culture and practice: public and private relations of welfare in East and West Germany, Annette King and Prue Chamberlayne; getting help and having rights - parents' experiences of child welfare in England and France, Rachel Hetherington; anxiety and child protection work in two national systems, Andrew Cooper; economic and cultural dimensions of the dualism of poverty in Italy, Antonella Spano. Part 3 Welfare, culture and social theory: questions of criticism -Habermas and Foucault on civil society and the welfare state, Samantha Ashenden; psychosocial characteristics of welfare, Mike Rustin; European families of nations and value patterns, Michael Hornsby-Smith and Michael Proctor; biography and social polocy, Prue Chamberlayne; conclusion - welfare, culture and policy in Europe, Andrew Cooper.
