Deserving and Entitled: Social Constructions and Public
Policy. Edited by Anne L. Schneider and Helen M. Ingram. Albany:
State University of New York Press, 2005. 416p. $89.50 cloth, $29.95
paper.
Anne Schneider and Helen Ingram have assembled 11 essays by scholars
who examine how Americans' understandings of social groups shape both
the process and substantive outcomes of policymaking. Explaining how such
meanings are made and what they imply proves to be a challenge for the
contributors to this edited volume. Because the central concepts here are
rather amorphous—group entitlement and deservingness—much room
remains for argument about how much of either quality the target groups
enjoy. The stated purpose of the book, “to explain, examine, and
criticize the social construction of deservedness and entitlement in
public policy,” is useful and ambitious (p. 2). Though rich in
descriptive content on topics such as Revolutionary War pensions, policies
toward Japanese-Americans, housing discrimination law, welfare, and
microenterprise development, most of the essays raise many more questions
than they answer regarding how socially constructed meanings come to be,
how they matter for policy development, and the conditions under which
such understandings significantly matter. Examining how public policies
enhance or hinder the development of full citizenship is the central
question running through these thought-provoking chapters.