About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline
LOG IN
LOG IN

3 Critical Soc. Pol'y 4 (1983)

handle is hein.journals/critsplcy3 and id is 1 raw text is: NOTES ON THIS ISSUE The first article Medicine, racism & immigration control, by Paul Gordon describes the ways in which medical examinations and controls have played an important part in immigration control in Britain. The controls are shown to be a way of disguising the racism of immigration policy behind a medical facade. Medical techniques (such as X-rays) used to control immigration where no question of health is involved are examined, and attention is focussed on the often neglected racist content of social policy. Women, health and the sexual division of labour, by Lesley Doyal analyses the history of the women's health movement in Britain. Three strands are described; the movement of women as consumers of sexist medicine, the struggle of women as health service workers and, more recent to emerge, the movement to construct a feminist epi- demiology. It is argued that these three strands of the movement now need to learn from each other and that further progress should also take account of the wider move- ment for a socialist health policy. The third article, Home ownership andsocialism in Britain, by Norman Ginsburg, is also a contribution to the analysis of radical and socialist social policy strategy. It con- siders in detail what should be the elements of a socialist housing strategy. The paper argues there is little connection between housing tenure and militancy or the growth of socialist consciousness. Divisions within the working class economically and politically exist within each tenure. Home ownership is not a bulwark against Bolshe- vism. Nonetheless the conclusion is drawn that a socialist strategy in Britain should seek to gradually erode the favoured position of owner occupation by the development of decent 'socially owned' housing within a transformed public sector. Understanding mental health services, by Mark Burton, offers an explanation, through a review of the work of Wolfensberger and Scull, of both why services for the mentally disordered and handicapped are so bad (the policy of incarceration) and the problems in attempting to improve these services. Whilst the objective of 'normali- sation' is supported, the danger is examined that this policy becomes, within capital- ism, a damaging process of decarceration whereby people are-dumped into hostile 'communities'. The limits of this policy include those created by the fragility of communities within capitalism, the undervaluing of a handicapped person's worth in the terms shaped by capitalist social relations and even the social construction within capitalism of what constitutes disability. Struggles in the welfare state contains contributions on two very different themes, Walsall and decentralisation is contributed by a former Walsall council officer. She argues that the decentralisation experiment in Walsall was far more than being a Labour election gimic and was a genuine exercise in socialist education and agitation. Chile: ten years after, is a timely reassessment of life in Chile a decade after the coup based upon eye-witness reports. Commentary on social policy contains analyses of two recent pieces of legislation. Steve Pilling argues that despite the government's presentation of the 1982 Mental Health (Amendment) Act as a piece of liberalising reform it does little to improve the rights of detained patients and still adopts the loosely defined criterion for detention of 'mental disorder'. Any reforms with cost implications have clearly been avoided. Nigel Johnson and Peggy Khan see four major influences of the 1982 Employment Act on industrial conflict. An ideological influence, as unions and union practices are blamed for economic malaise, a reduction in official strikes sanctioned by officials, a reluctance to take proscribed actions, and the interruption of 'illegal' strike action. 4

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Short-term subscription options include 24 hours, 48 hours, or 1 week to HeinOnline.

Purchase Access

Contact us for annual subscription options:

Contact Us

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

Log In

profiles profiles most