Social Work Practice and Social Welfare Policy in the United States

Features

• The first new social work history written in over twenty years.
• Identifies major challenges facing the social work profession.
• Explores the development of social work practice theory and techniques, as well as the more traditional focus on social welfare policy.
• Uses archival data.
• Discusses social welfare policy and social work practice from the usual "top down" perspective of elites (policymakers, administrators, academics), but adds the "bottom up" perspective of service recipients and social work practitioners.

About the Author(s)

Philip R. Popple, PhD, MSW, Professor, School of Social Work, University of Texas at Arlington.

Reviews

"Dr. Popple's compelling history moves gracefully from tightly-focused stories to sweeping overviews. Readers will be drawn in by his brief micro-histories of poor Americans encountering the welfare state in different eras and places. His overviews make the big story he has to tell understandable to students and general readers alike. Based on an impressive synthesis of secondary and primary sources, this book is not merely an institutional history of social welfare apparatuses. Popple's history ranges from big changes in political economy to the experiences of individual Americans in need." - Gabriel Loiacono, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of History, University of Wisconsin Oshkosh

"Most history texts in social work focus exclusively on either social policy or social work practice, rarely both. Even rarer are textbooks with a deep appreciation for the interconnection between policy and practice and an impressive familiarity with the historical literature in social welfare and social work written by both social historians and social work academics. Philip Popple's Social Work Practice and Social Welfare Policy in the United States does all of this, making a significant contribution to social work education and to our understanding the value of historical analysis." - Robert Fisher, PhD, Professor, School of Social Work, University of Connecticut

"Social Work Practice and Social Welfare Policy in the United States is a graceful and knowledgeable rendering of social context, societal responses to emergent problems, pre-social work activities that address social and economic issues, proto-social work formulations, and social work's growth as a profession that is intimately linked with the social welfare system's evolution and devolution. The book is a pleasure to read." - Barbara Levy Simon, PhD, Professor, Columbia University School of Social Work

"In recent decades, historians have written on the history of welfare policies in the US, but scholars of social work focused on scientific research have paid little attention to this history. Popple (social work, Univ. of Texas, Arlington) argues that social work is based more on values (and some myths) than on science, and that students should study the history of the profession's practice alongside US social welfare history. Popple does just that in this chronological survey, which extends from Colonial America to the present. He dedicates to each period two chapters, one on welfare policy and one one the social work profession's response to it...The author provides important historical context for social work practice." -CHOICE