This article explores the implications of expanding content in undergraduate Social Policy. Although the problem of curriculum content is not unique to Social Policy, particular features exacerbate the issue. These include the relationship of the subject to other disciplines, and to wider political and social issues. Dominance of content is argued to limit the aims of teaching, squeezing out skills development. It also restricts the methods employed. Content dominance also contributes to the development of a deficit model of students. The article is based on data drawn from semi-structured interviews with 46 lecturers working in universities across the UK.

The provision and financing of long-term care (LTC) in Spain has only recently become a policy concern. However, welfare policy reforms show the need to anticipate the effects of a transition from the traditional ‘family-based’ model of care (78 per cent of Spanish elders who are disabled are treated by their own families) to a modern ‘community-based’ model. This paper examines the current models of providing and funding long-term care in Spain and on the basis of the empirical evidence evaluates the prospects for the future organisation and funding of the system.

The concept of ‘underclass’ evokes a multiplicity of attitudes and beliefs about its meaning, existence, causation and, therefore, its resolution. This paper draws upon the philosophy of the social sciences to explicate the contending philosophical perspectives on the ‘underclass's’ causation and resolution by reference to a taxonomy of methodologies, so enabling the articulation of each methodology's analytical strengths and weaknesses when used to investigate the ‘underclass’. The conclusion drawn is that policy analysts must be critically reflective before they seek to describe, explain, understand, judge and address ‘underclass’-related problems and issues by drawing upon any theories and methods grounded in anyone of these contending methodological families.

The nature of welfare regimes has been an ongoing debate within the comparative social policy literature since the publication of Esping-Andersen's ‘Three Worlds of Welfare’ (1990). This article draws upon recent developments within this debate, most notably Kasza's assertions about the ‘illusory nature’ of welfare regimes, to highlight the health care discrepancy. It argues that health care provision has been a notable omission from the wider regimes literature and one which, if included in the form of a health care decommodification typology, can give credence to Kasza's perspective by highlighting the diverse internal arrangements of welfare states and welfare state regimes.

In the 1970s and early 1980s, discussions of social justice in the social science literature focused largely on social class. The implicit assumption of much of the literature was that a more just society would be achieved through the reduction of inequalities in the distribution of economic and social resources. Since then, there has been a growing focus on plural aspects of social justice. Many writers now distinguish between distributive, cultural and associational aspects of social justice. However, the different implications of these facets of social justice for different groups, and potential tensions between them, have rarely been adequately recognised. Given New Labour's focus on social justice, and its belief that attaining greater social justice is compatible with achieving greater efficiency in the public sector, there is a need to examine more closely the understandings of social justice underpinning a range of policy initiatives.

Social justice is a policy aim of the UK Labour government. This paper considers the applicability of the concept to disability, seeking to establish principles for conceptualising social justice and disability and considering the nature of the challenges for public policy and society posed by this conceptualisation. The paper considers how disability is implicated in two types of claims about the source of social injustice: those concerned with socially constructed differences between people; and those arising from material inequalities. Appropriate values underpinning alternative conceptions of social justice are discussed and tensions in policymaking considered.

Mainstreaming equality involves integrating equality considerations from the outset into how an organization operates, its policies and practices. Whether this works to the advantage of disabled people depends critically on the quality of understanding of equality issues for different groups. This paper begins by clarifying goals for social justice, social inclusion and equality and then considers the salience of disabled people as a social category. It briefly reviews different equality strategies, before focusing on mainstreaming and its potential to promote cultural change and socially just distribution. An analytical framework to support mainstreaming is outlined. The paper concludes by stressing the importance of disabled people's involvement with mainstreaming equality if outcomes are to promote social justice.

Since it came to power in 1997 the Labour Government has conceived of low levels labour market participation by disabled people as not just an economic concern but also an indicator of social exclusion or social injustice. This article presents some evidence about inequalities between disabled and non-disabled people in the labour market; reviews the evidence on discrimination in employment and discusses the potential of anti-discrimination legislation as a tool to reduce social injustice; discusses sources of social justice in the benefits system; and considers whether people in receipt of Incapacity Benefits should be expected to seek work. It concludes that rights and responsibilities are unjustly distributed between government and disabled people.

Direct payments have been heralded by the disability movement as an important means to achieving independent living and hence greater social justice for disabled people through enhanced recognition as well as financial redistribution. Drawing on data from the ESRC funded project Disabled People and Direct Payments: A UK Comparative Perspective, this paper presents an analysis of policy and official statistics on use of direct payments across the UK. It is argued that the potential of direct payments has only partly been realised as a result of very low and uneven uptake within and between different parts of the UK. This is accounted for in part by resistance from some Labour-controlled local authorities, which regard direct payments as a threat to public sector jobs. In addition, access to direct payments has been uneven across impairment groups. However, from a very low base there has been a rapid expansion in the use of direct payments over the past three years. The extent to which direct payments are able to facilitate the ultimate goal of independent living for disabled people requires careful monitoring.

Genetic developments are viewed with distrust by the disability rights community. But the argument that genetic screening promotes social injustice is not straightforward. Disabled people are affected by both the problems of impairment and the problems of disability. Preventing impairment should be a priority as well as preventing disability. Questions of social justice arise if biomedical approaches are prioritized at the cost of structural changes in society. They also arise when disabled people do not have access to genetic medicine. On a global scale, the priorities for impairment prevention are basic healthcare, not high technology medicine.

On the surface, the wheelchair appears a simple machine: its function seemingly apparent and its workings relatively uncomplicated. Yet, despite this apparent simplicity, the wheelchair is a complex artefact imbued with a myriad of social as well as technical relations that act simultaneously to exclude and include, confine and liberate, shape and be shaped. The wheelchair's inextricable links to injury and illness have certainly shaped its definition as a medical device. Such a definition has labelled the occupier as passive or ill and shaped a wider understanding of the machine as a prison. Wheelchair users, however, perceive the machine as a means to independence: it enables rather than disables. We present evidence here to suggest that this is not a recent phenomenon as we show how wheelchair access has been on the political agenda for disabled people for most of the twentieth century. The paper also examines the role of the wheelchair in the development of this movement, and we suggest that, as the design of the wheelchair improved, so the demand for better access increased. The final section of the paper looks at how poorly the state and its agents understood the issue of access.

1 Key texts A basic introduction to political philosophy, covering social justice and related issues well is: Kymlicka, W. (2002), Contemporary political philosophy: an introduction, 2nd edition, Oxford: Oxford University Press.