ABSTRACT
This chapter indicates the profound neglect of events, theories and approaches emerging from the greater part of the world for almost the whole of the period since the Second World War. It elaborates the concept of 'underdevelopment' and its relevance to the examination of social welfare, social policy, and distribution of social resources and patterns of social change. The chapter focuses on beginnings of a case for the incorporation of such concepts and approaches into the study and analysis of welfare in the West. Another indication is the extent to which Third World material is included in university and polytechnic social administration courses. There is a rejection by many in the Third World of Western approaches to the problems of development – which justify continuing exploitation by locating the causes of underdevelopment in the cultures of the Third World itself. Townsend, P. summarised a number of deficiencies of conventional approaches to the analysis of development in the Third World.
