Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Introduction
- Part I Setting the scene
- Part II One standard of success: external moral criteria
- 7 Promoting effciency
- 8 Reducing poverty
- 9 Promoting equality
- 10 Promoting integration
- 11 Promoting stability
- 12 Promoting autonomy
- Part III Another standard of success: internal institutional criteria
- Appendix tables
- References
- Index
10 - Promoting integration
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 September 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Introduction
- Part I Setting the scene
- Part II One standard of success: external moral criteria
- 7 Promoting effciency
- 8 Reducing poverty
- 9 Promoting equality
- 10 Promoting integration
- 11 Promoting stability
- 12 Promoting autonomy
- Part III Another standard of success: internal institutional criteria
- Appendix tables
- References
- Index
Summary
Social integration, too, has the many facets already discussed in chapter 2. Some commentators see it primarily as a matter of psychological attachment: as ‘belonging’ or some such, as the opposite of feeling ‘alienated’. Others think of it more in terms of social networks and ‘caring communities’. Yet others think of it primarily in terms of ‘normative integration’ – of people internalizing the values and codes of conduct of their larger community.
Many of these concerns can be captured only very imperfectly in the panel data available to us. There are no indicators of ‘civic participation’, ‘group joining’ or ‘voluntary memberships’ common across all the panel surveys; there are no measures of residential mobility; and so on. While the measures we concoct of those other aspects of social integration will necessarily have to be indirect and imperfect, it is surprising how many good indirect measures of social integration can be concocted out of this very differently oriented data set. And of course, specifically economic aspects of integration – which is a central aspect of integrationist concerns – are captured very well indeed in these data.
Promoting integration into households
The family is conventionally characterized as the building-block of society. Conservative politicians concerned to promote social integration are therefore concerned, first and foremost, to promote strong and stable family ties. They are anxious that people accept the responsibilities attending to the extended family: grown children caring for their parents and siblings, as much as for their own offspring.
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- Chapter
- Information
- The Real Worlds of Welfare Capitalism , pp. 187 - 196Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1999