Social Welfare: Politics and Public Policy, Seventh Edition, emphasizes the current political aspects of policymaking and major social welfare programs, including public assistance, Social Security, disability, health insurance, and much more. The author also focuses on policies that affect issues as racism, sexism, gay rights, and immigration. In addition, a wealth of updated instructor and student supplements give this text its celebrated advantage as a leader in the social welfare policy textbook market. This book stands out from others because it does more than describe the major social welfare policies and programs. The book also tackles the conflict and controversies surrounding these programs. Social policy is not presented as solutions to social problems. Social policy is portrayed as public conflict over the nature and causes of social welfare problems, over what, if anything, should be done about them, over who should do it, and over who should decide about it.

About the Author

Diana DiNitto is Cullen Trust Centennial Professor of Alcohol Studies and Education and Distinguished Teaching Professor at the University of Texas at Austin where she teaches courses in social welfare policy, alcohol and drug problems, research, and pedagogy. She has a MSW degree and a Ph.D. in government from Florida State University. She has worked in a detoxification center, halfway house, and outpatient chemical dependency treatment program. She is also coauthor of Chemical Dependency: A Systems Approach, 4th ed. (Allyn & Bacon, Fall 2011) and Social Work: Issues and Opportunities in a Challenging Profession, 3rd ed. (Lyceum Books, 2008). Her research in on substance abuse, violence against women, and social welfare policy. Dr. DiNitto has served on the boards of the Council and Social Work Education, the Association of Medical Education and Research on Substance Abuse, and the Texas Research Society on Alcoholism. She currently chairs the NASW Press Book Committee. She has been a visiting professor at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and the University of Sydney (Australia). Recently she gave the Robert J. O’Leary Memorial Lecture at Ohio State University entitled “Ending America’s Ambivalence in the War on Drugs” and presented invited testimony on drug policy to the United States Sentencing Commission.