Tagged: personal responsibility

Class & Stratification / Political & Economic Sociology / Sociology of Organizations & Work

"Deserving" and "Undeserving" Welfare

Over a decade since the 1996 welfare reform bill, welfare is in the news again.  The latest controversy is over laws that seek to limit what welfare recipients can spend money on.  This comes shortly after state legislatures passed laws to require drug testing of welfare recipients.  These new laws are not a direct attack on what remains of anti-poverty programs in America.  Instead, these initiatives allow for both a deserving and an undeserving poor.  A moral evaluation of the...

Gender & Sexuality / Sociology of Culture

Childcare and Work: The Privilege of Choice

“If you don’t believe that childcare is work, then try telling your parents or whoever took care of you that raising you was not work.  I don’t imagine that would go over well.”  I say this in my social problems class as a counterpoint to the assertion that welfare-recipients are lazy and immoral.  Most recently the sentiment was employed to defend wealthy “stay-at-home mom,” and wife of presidential candidate, Ann Romney.  The sentiment that childcare is work is fairly uncontested...

Political & Economic Sociology / Science & Technology / Social Movements / Social Change / Social Psychology & Lifecourse / Sociology of Culture / Sociology of Law, Crime and Deviance / Sociology of Organizations & Work

Comparing the role of government in self-control problems from behavioural and neoclassical economic perspectives

This post has moved to http://williampaulbell.wordpress.com/2009/09/12/comparing-the-role-of-government-in-self-control-problems-from-behavioural-and-neoclassical-economic-perspectives/ <About>  <Portfolio>  <Academia>  <LinkedIn>  <Twitter>  <Blog> Member of the World Economics Association – promoting ethics, openness, diversity of thought and democracy within the economics profession

Science & Technology / Social Psychology & Lifecourse

Weighing the blame for illness: biology versus personal responsibility

By Dena T. Smith Part of MSNBC’s lineup includes an hour-long daytime show hosted by the physician, Dr. Nancy. In a segment of her show on Monday, August 31st, she hosted a panel to address the “war on fat people.” Panel members discussed topics such as the etiology of obesity and how the obese are treated in the US. Articles of a similar nature have appeared elsewhere, including the one below, which was featured in a recent edition of Newsweek....