Thursday 5th January 2022

Families and social policy 17

Do now
Family that earn less to support common life would give them
benefits that ensures that there stable. But also family that
earn less would get taxed less.

Social policies are the policies relating to health, social

services, welfare benefits and education. There made by the
government.
They are based on laws, for examples the law states who is
entitled to welfare benefits
Most social policies affect families, some laws are aimed at
families eg marriage, divorce, abortion laws, child protections
laws
Other are not necessarily aimed at families but impact on them
like compulsory education means parents can go to work,
taxation laws dictate how much money is taken from families,
care in the community - meaning that care of the elderly is
done at home.
Page number 236-237
Functionalist see society as built on harmony and consensus
and free from major conflict. But see the state as acting in the
i tests of society as a whole and its social policies as being for
the good of all. Functionalist see policies as helping families to
perform rules more effectivitly and make life better for their
members.
Its something that Ronald fletcher argues as introduction of
health, education and housing policies in the year since the
industrial revolution has gradually led to the development of a
welfare state that supported families to perform functional
more effectively.
The existence of national health service means that with the
help of doctors, nurses, hospitals and medicines, the family
today is better able to take care of its members when they are
sick.

However, the functionslist views has been criticised on two

main counts:
-its assume with all member of the family benefit equally from
social policies, whereas feminist for example argue that
policies often benefit men at the expense of women.
-it assumes that there is a march of process with social
policies steadily making family life greater, but Marxists for
example argue that policies can turn the clock back and
reverse progress previously made like cutting welfare benefits
for poor families.
Donzelot: policing the family
Jacques donzelot has given different perspective on
relationship between family and state policy from that of
functionalists, which instead of consensus the views of the
policy as benefiting the family, it shows conflict views of
society and sees the policy as form of state power and control
over families.
Donzelt uses michel focault belief of surveillance being
observing and monitoring. Foucault sees power not to be held
by government or state, but as diffused throughout society
and found within all relationships. This mean foucault sees
professionals such as doctors and social workers as
exercising power over their clients by using their expert
knowledge to make them ‘cases’ to be dealth with.