ABSTRACT

This book shows that it is not only at the end of the twentieth century that issues at the heart of social policy have provided the sites upon, and through, which struggles for authority and power have been fought out. Given this, the chapters in this book are concerned to explore the ways in which particular issues or social groups come to be defined as a ‘social problem’. The first four chapters focus on the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, arguing that, in the context of the profound social, political, economic and cultural changes which occurred at this time, it is possible to trace a series of defining moments in the construction of a specific group and/or issue as a social problem which needed to be addressed by ‘the nation’. Chapters 5 and 6 are more concerned with the twentieth century, but address similar themes in relation to different topics. In so doing, all the chapters allow us to:

■ Indicate that processes of social construction are not confined to the late twentieth century and that the construction of particular groups of people and particular issues as social problems has a long history.